49 minutes ago, theguru said:

Generally speaking I know change leads to new jobs.  In this case you only need so many "robot repairmen" and then eventually the robots will be designing/building/repairing themselves so I am not as optimistic here. 

Possibly, but I think we're a long way off from anything resembling that.

5 minutes ago, DanvilleFan said:

Possibly, but I think we're a long way off from anything resembling that.

That is where we disagree, it will be here before we know it. 

18 hours ago, bugatti said:

While population is increasing, population growth has been on a downward trend for sometime. People like citing laziness or handouts as reason people are not applying for jobs - and granted that might be some of it (probably no more than any other time, however) - but the reality is we do not have the bodies entering the workforce and those numbers definitely are not trending the right way.

We saw a massive increase in deaths and retirements during COVID and during that time doubled-down on challenging immigration policy. Mid 2010s we had over 1M new immigrants. About 250,000 in 2021. Estimates show we should be at about 2M more immigrants than we have, which makes up a large part of the skilled workforce.   

I just listened to a news report where Border Patrol says we are currently at almost 9,000 apprehensions a day for illegal border crossings and for the last week 18,000 gotaways.  That rough math says 3,285,000 apprehensions a year and 936,000 gotaways for a total of roughly 4.2 million a year.  Just for fun, over 4 years that would be about 17 million new people in America and over 8 years 35 million new people in America. 

Then remember this thread from 4 years ago:

Dark times bug, you can write it down. 

3 hours ago, theguru said:

That is where we disagree, it will be here before we know it. 

In that scenario, the entire world economy would collapse because few people would have jobs and wouldn't be spending money.  This will be disruptive but not to that degree.  I also think that tech overpromises and rarely overdelivers.  By the way some were talking two decades ago, we'd have seen affordable electric cars hit the market and everyone would be using them.  Heck, some were even thinking of flying vehicles by this time.

30 minutes ago, DanvilleFan said:

In that scenario, the entire world economy would collapse because few people would have jobs and wouldn't be spending money.  This will be disruptive but not to that degree.  I also think that tech overpromises and rarely overdelivers.  By the way some were talking two decades ago, we'd have seen affordable electric cars hit the market and everyone would be using them.  Heck, some were even thinking of flying vehicles by this time.

All those things are coming, it is just a matter of when. 

4 hours ago, theguru said:

I just listened to a news report where Border Patrol says we are currently at almost 9,000 apprehensions a day for illegal border crossings and for the last week 18,000 gotaways.  That rough math says 3,285,000 apprehensions a year and 936,000 gotaways for a total of roughly 4.2 million a year.  Just for fun, over 4 years that would be about 17 million new people in America and over 8 years 35 million new people in America. 

Then remember this thread from 4 years ago:

Dark times bug, you can write it down. 

Do not conflate border immigration issues with what I am talking about. That is its own animal that has been a problem for decades. I'm referencing general (legal) immigration from people across the globe which has taken a drastic hit.

I'm there with you on the dark times, but we could also stand some automation. There is a massive worker shortage and the numbers do not support it improving anytime soon. Would have been nice when all I heard about was a trucker shortage if some autonomous trucks were delivering goods. I also remain hopeful that we, as humans, remain resilient and will continue to be more creative and properly adjust. To what degree, who knows? Hopefully we have not outsmarted ourselves.

7 minutes ago, bugatti said:

Do not conflate border immigration issues with what I am talking about. That is its own animal that has been a problem for decades. I'm referencing general (legal) immigration from people across the globe which has taken a drastic hit.

I'm there with you on the dark times, but we could also stand some automation. There is a massive worker shortage and the numbers do not support it improving anytime soon. Would have been nice when all I heard about was a trucker shortage if some autonomous trucks were delivering goods. I also remain hopeful that we, as humans, remain resilient and will continue to be more creative and properly adjust. To what degree, who knows? Hopefully we have not outsmarted ourselves.

I think the two are related because at the end of the day it is one number, our total population.  And for every counted gotaway I assume there is at least one more meaning those numbers are low and then many of the people coming into this country are young and they are going to have a lot of babies.  We are looking at a catastrophic change.  I do agree it has been a problem for decades because I experienced it first hand but it is out of control now. 

Moving forward with you, as far as being creative, I just don't see it and no one is able to say here is where/what the new jobs will be, they just say we always find a way.

On 5/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, DanvilleFan said:

I think AI/automation will replace some work and this time it's going to be white collar workers that bear the brunt of that just like how blue collar workers bore the brunt of automation in prior decades.  However, I also think it opens up other jobs potentially as other massive economic changes have done ever since the Industrial Revolution.

I don't see it as humans getting permanently replaced, just shifted.

I read an article saying that up to 300 million jobs could be replaced worldwide by AI.   46% of tasks done by administrative jobs and 44% of tasks done in the legal profession could be replaced.  Only 6% in construction and 4% in maintenance.  
 

The early numbers support what you are saying.