It's the robots.

"Automation is going to cause unemployment and we need to prepare for it"
-Mark Cuban

"The most near-term impact from a technology standpoint is autonomous cars ... That is going to happen much faster than people realise and it's going to be a great convenience.
But there are many people whose jobs are to drive. In fact, I think it might be the single largest employer of people ... Driving in various forms. So we need to figure out new roles for what do those people do, but it will be very disruptive and very quick,"
- Elon Musk

According to Bill Gates, if a robot is going to do a human's job, it should also pay a person's income taxes:
"If a human worker does $50,000 of work in a factory, that income is taxed," "If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think we'd tax the robot at a similar level."


CNBC

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

If we taxed all the work that got done with the assistance of Bill Gates' code, he might not be retired yet.

If he had to pay end users for all the free debugging they've done of his products, he might just be "average" wealthy.

I'm not sure what "faster than people realise" means to Musk, but it may not be "practical" (thus, safe enough to be permitted) until ALL vehicles have some kind of smart technology in them. What I mean is a autonomous smart car can't depend solely own sensors; the cars around them (human-driven, including antiques, motorcycles, clunkers, etc...) all have some sort of transponder in order for all cars to communicate.

If were around these kinds of vehicles in city traffic, I'd wear an RF transponder on my head just for safety.

If we don't do something about no more factory jobs in the near future we'll have people in the streets.

Yeah, someone has to build and repair the robots, but that's a lot fewer people.

This is why we need a technocrat and not a Forrest Trump.

Oh, I don't know. Folks were saying that when the industrial revolution hit. Not a bad thing to give the situation some thought, but I think it is a bit premature to start predicting that we will all be unemployed in the near future. 

Now, as far as immigrants are concerned, I'd say that if this is to be our future, we would want to restrict immigration pretty tightly. Do we want more people sitting around unemployed than what we would already have?

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I :heart; Q

I think Elon is right about the pace of the tech, but it will probably deploy much more slowly than he thinks exactly because of the sort of pushback Joe described.
I used to really hate Gates because of the mess Microsoft made and how its dominance slowed down computing progress.

But that's mostly over now and I am very inspired by how he has decided to use his wealth, now I follow what he does and says closely.



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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

MS is doing a lot better without him...in terms of their products. Not sure if that's related to him or not. It certainly seems like the company has more vision.

one more (thanks, lawless)

"The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining."
- Stephen Hawking

A better article on the same theme from medium

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

New York Times, today, has a report from the Texas oil patch.  The famed Permian Basin, which has been producing oil for a century, and revived when fracking was introduced, is now producing more oil with far fewer workers, but lots more highly-skillled input from people with math/computer skills and lots of sensors and robotic controls to replace humans.  The cost of production has plummeted in just a few years.  

Unlike the industrial revolution, we are entering a time where mankind is merging with machine and where we can manipulate our very genetic code easily to control our own evolution. The transportation industry jobs will not come back, ever, once they are lost. They will not be replaced with something else either. Oh maybe a bit of it will be here and there, but nowhere near the scope of what is lost.

 

Oh as far as Microsoft goes, they and Apple have completely switched places in the industry. 

We will adapt just as we always have and some will suffer, but probably not like WWII.

Re: MS vs Apple. Apple does phones and solid general-use computers, MS does development frameworks, touchscreen desktops and a monster all-purpose OS. And then there is Google.

Edited: 02/20/2017 at 12:21 PM by SuperTeeBird

So if we degrade or dismantle the public education system, ignore soaring costs of post-secondary education, and watch low skilled jobs dwindle due to technology, the middle (trump country) is still in trouble no matter how many people you deport or deny entry.

Germany in particular has a very sophisticated technical training system, they are turning out some of the most highly skilled technical workers in the world, and it's free or close to it.

USA not so much.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

The obvious truth of this is the reason many conservative thinkers are toying with the idea of a universal basic income.

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Just wait til they become SELF AWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC - KV

Which could save money even now.

Rutger Hauer for president.

That would be cool.  He would be much better than President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

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If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC - KV

Not Sure.

Yes, this will eventually forced upon humanity whether or not we like it.

Not Sure?  Being the smartest man alive, he would be better, too! 

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If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC - KV