The Jobs that won't be here in 2030?

[El Presidente]

We had a long lunch on Friday and sometime during that period (the lack of clarity tells me it was later in the afternoon), there was a vibrant discussion as to the the type of jobs that will disappear by 2030 and exactly what will be replacing them. 

One lawyer among us said that there was no need for robots. He made the cheery observation that half the world will be employed (in one way or another) by a dozen companies (aka Amazon) on minimum wage while societies fortunates live in a sci fi  "esq" parallel universe working out ways how to rig elections or getting rid of them altogether 

https://www.careeraddict.com/disappearing-jobs

What replaces these jobs? Who will be the big winners?

 

 

[luckme10]

I think financial advisors will be gone by 2030. Robo Advisors should be able to handle most of their services.

[prodigy]

No more fast food, waiter, bartender type jobs. They mess up way more often than they get it right. Now they want 2x as much to do the same job a robot can do??

I call your $15/hr minimum wage and raise you 2 robots that can do your job better.

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[gweilgi]

Cigar merchants...

Unusually for me, I am not that doom and gloom about many of those jobs.  They will have to change, definitely, and dramatically so.  

But for instance, travel agents are still around a couple of decades after their imminent demise was prophesied.  There are enough people who have more complicated travel/holiday needs than a simple package tour or booking a flight from A to B, and the internet is far from the perfect tool.  I am currently planning a trip to Europe, and ALL the travel websites are failing me: either they do not cover all the airlines or they are incapable of dealing with a return flight that does not start from the destination of the outbound flight, stuff like that.  

Financial advice is similar: if all you need is a simple insurance or decide which super fund to sign up to, robo-advice is fine ... but the moment matters become more complicated and we throw tax, children, various forms of investment and different income streams into the mix, we still need human experts.  

Taxi drivers -- yes, self-driving cars will come (once they sort out the trivial problem that they currently are rather prone to crash) and GPS systems are pretty accurate these days, but it still takes a cabbie to figure out the best and quickest route which has little to do with speed limits or distance.  

Big winners ... that's tricky.  The one growth area that will be pretty certain, IMO, will be human guides to help us navigate the brave new world of these automated services and sort out the inevitable problems that arise.  Human lives and affairs are messy, complicated, frequently illogical -- we do insist on doing stuff that does not neatly fit into web forms/masks and algorithms.  

[PigFish]

Tobacconist... but head shops are getting more and more popular. And likely more profitable!

I suppose I have dated myself by calling them 'head' shops... -the Pig

[El Presidente]

21 minutes ago, gweilgi said:

Cigar merchants...

 

Absolutely! 

I will be flogging ShooAway 

[zeedubbya]

Car Salesman. We are training our replacements now in online services designed to make our job “easier”, iPad signing to make the Finance Process “easier” and changing pay plans from commissions to hourly. A lot of the old school guys think it will be received the same way the music industry received synthesizers and drum machines....but I don’t believe this. This is the beginning of the end.

And to add a little levity to the situation:

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[OZCUBAN]

Apparently 40% of the jobs that exist now won’t be around in 2030. They're even talking about robot lawyers!  ?

[JohnS]

5 hours ago, OZCUBAN said:

Apparently 40% of the jobs that exist now won’t be around in 2030. They're even talking about robot lawyers!  ?

What??? @dicko is irreplaceable! 

[BrightonCorgi]

Desktop Support Engineers.  Computers don't require as much support as they did and the need for this kind of IT staff will diminish over time.  

[dicko]

What??? [mention=5585]dicko[/mention] is irreplaceable! 

Indeed!!! In any event A.I. robots would be too smart to do the job they might decide to go Skynet on my charming clients

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[Jfeath74]

I work in middle management for one of the larger parcel companies. Automated “smart” distribution centers are already being rolled out, as we (and others) explore the possibility of driverless vehicles and drone deliveries. In my position I hear executive chatter of streamlined efficiencies with lower operating costs, while the tuned in operators start to question job security. Interested to see what the future holds across industries. 

[dominattorney]

12 hours ago, OZCUBAN said:

Apparently 40% of the jobs that exist now won’t be around in 2030. They're even talking about robot lawyers!  ?

You wish, people.  Perhaps robots can replace some of the paper-pushers, but there's no way you can replace a litigator with a robot.  I dare you to try. 

[benfica_77]

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-jobs-in-america-2014-4

The top 10 most common jobs are the following.....

1. Retail Sales Person....Here in Canada we have seen big retails go bankrupt like Sears and Toys'R'us, we are moving to buying more and more online and brick and mortar is dying off slowly. 

2. Cashiers....we have already seen automation and touch screens are taking orders now 

3. Food prep people....demand will continue

4. Office Clerks .....there will be need for office clerks but less of them 

5. Nurses....demand will increase as people live longer

6. Waiters / Waitresses ....less needed in the future 

7.Customer Service Reps....machine learning will eventually take over look at the new google assistant it keeps getting better and better

8. Labourers.....there will be a need but become more efficient and automated 

9. Admin staff....machine learning taking over

10. Janitors ....robotics taking over

What this is leading to is that there will be less and less low-skilled jobs and installing a universal salary (or universal basic income) could be the only way to survive. What do you guys think?

 

[ayepatz]

The arts have suffered horribly over recent years.

If the current trend continues, there won’t be much left in a decade.

[Grateful13]

3 hours ago, dominattorney said:

You wish, people.  Perhaps robots can replace some of the paper-pushers, but there's no way you can replace a litigator with a robot.  I dare you to try

Robots will take over doc review/"E-Discovery" in the not too distant future. It's already started. True, these are largely brainless admin roles.  I do agree with your general assessment though, I can't see robots displacing many good law jobs, only a few bad ones  

 

[dominattorney]

34 minutes ago, Grateful13 said:

Robots will take over doc review/"E-Discovery" in the not too distant future. It's already started. True, these are largely brainless admin roles.  I do agree with your general assessment though, I can't see robots displacing many good law jobs, only a few bad ones  

 

Too bad most lawyers went to school  precisely in search of those bad jobs. 

[El Presidente]

4 hours ago, benfica_77 said:

 

What this is leading to is that there will be less and less low-skilled jobs and installing a universal salary (or universal basic income) could be the only way to survive. What do you guys think?

 

In any country this scenario is only one general election away. 

Democracy will bite hard in the end. 

 

[westg]

17 hours ago, OZCUBAN said:

Apparently 40% of the jobs that exist now won’t be around in 2030. They're even talking about robot lawyers!  ?

I will take one now...550 an hr and 500 per letter....and I have to correct everything ....repeatedly

[OZCUBAN]

7 hours ago, dominattorney said:

You wish, people.  Perhaps robots can replace some of the paper-pushers, but there's no way you can replace a litigator with a robot.  I dare you to try. 

Only going by what I have read by 2030 the world will be a significantly different place 

in lots of ways and in a  lots of jobs trades we know today will simply not exist 

[gweilgi]

9 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Desktop Support Engineers.  Computers don't require as much support as they did and the need for this kind of IT staff will diminish over time.  

Not sure about that.

The problem is, always was, and I suspect always will be the fallible butterfingered moron in front of the keyboard (I include myself in here).  As long as there are people operating all those computers, there will be a need for other humans to sort out the 10,001 ways we manage to bollix up the systems.  

This, I believe, is also the opportunity for many other professions to survive, at least in part.  Sure, legal document review can be automated ... but it still needs humans to put it all together, to review all this stuff, to edit it for actual usefulness, to weed out the mistakes.  Computers are not intelligent, however sophisticated the programming.  

[IanMcLean68]

Glad I'm a software developer. I think you are still going to need us guys around in 2030. They tried the 4th generation language thing once before, to try and remove us from the equation and that turned out a right mess and we have moved back to using development tools "closer to the metal". I think Ben and Steve will agree with me when I say, using todays trial-by-fire shopping cart test for 24:24, as is the case especially with most Web apps, that the process of developing working software is a long long way yet from automation.

Wasn't it Douglas Adams who said, the more you try to make a system foolproof, the universe will always keep coming out with bigger fools?

[boopdeep]

 

4 hours ago, gweilgi said:

This, I believe, is also the opportunity for many other professions to survive, at least in part.  Sure, legal document review can be automated ... but it still needs humans to put it all together, to review all this stuff, to edit it for actual usefulness, to weed out the mistakes.  Computers are not intelligent, however sophisticated the programming.  

While much of this is true, it's the sheer reduction in attorney numbers that will result.  Instead of a legion of associates doing doc-review, you'll only need a few more seasoned attorneys to set the review parameters and review the automated results.  legal jobs will be lost in mass. 

Our firm won some legal tech awards last year by developing "bots" to do U.S. immigration form work, and is now applying the AI to finance documents.  Again, while there will still be a need for oversight and review, the numbers will be significantly reduced.  

I do think much of transactional/corporate legal work will be taken over by AI, but talented "deal makers" will still be required.  Law firms and lawyers will charge significant fees for these stars and overall revenues for the companies will not be substantially reduced.  But, less lawyers will be working. 

12 hours ago, dominattorney said:

You wish, people.  Perhaps robots can replace some of the paper-pushers, but there's no way you can replace a litigator with a robot.  I dare you to try. 

I agree, and I must, as I am primarily a litigator.  But, i think much of litigation is subject to automation and AI (e.g. discovery, which accounts for a substantial amount of litigation spend).  A good trial attorney, however, will be difficult to replace with a bot.  But, I have seen presentations by companies that are developing persuasion via AI and they tout their results through mock trials to real juries.  Apparently AI can predict human emotive responses quite remarkably.  Again, I think we are very far off from that, but never say never. 

Interestingly, I attended a health law conference in Vegas a few weeks back (HLTH), which showcased "disruptive" innovation in healthcare primarily through technology and innovation.  While it was not outwardly discussed (to my knowledge), I felt the undertone of the conference was to substantially reduce the need for the provider (physicians).  While most advances to date appear at the primary care level, specialist are not immune.  If a surgeon can now virtually perform a surgery anywhere in the world via robotics, that same surgeon can now more efficiently sit in a lab and perform significantly more surgeries worldwide without the burdens of conducting operating room procedures.  As such, again, there is a lesser need for numbers as a single surgeon can accomplish more.  Again, i think numbers will be reduced.  But, "good ones" will thrive. 

The point here is that regardless of how specialized the field, or the fact it is conducted by "professionals," technology, robots, and AI are going to change the landscape dramatically and already have.  To believe you are immune is playing with fire.  

[PapaDisco]

I agree that AI driven automation is inevitable, but not by 2030.  Not at least without accepting a huge step down in functionality.

Look at all the "home robots" that we've had now for years, and they're all worthless.  Dexterity is still sorely missing.  Discernment has yet to be invented.  And we still can't decide between centralized and decentralized computing (the fact that Siri and Alexa require a high speed internet connection makes them failures).  

That's not to say that we won't get early adoption . . . waaaaaay too early.  We've clearly accepted the pain of worthless computer interfaces (or had them jammed on us) because some fool in accounting managed to 'demonstrate' that they were cheap to the company (but expensive to all of us users).  There's part of hi tech that's adopted because it's good, and a much bigger part that's adopted because it's foisted upon us without our consent.  Think of every, simple automated call answering service and how much of your time it consumes, versus talking to a human.

Ultimately, robots will take the repetitive jobs, and it will be a disaster for the global economy for everyone except providers of capital.  Just look back in history to the economics of slavery; it's not routinely done, because the moral catastrophe outweighs everything else, but in fact slavery economies are disastrously poor.  A few concentrated wealthy owners do fine, but no-one else can compete and the average joe is forced into sharecropping servitude.  The American South was infamous for this, although it's the antebellum plantation that everyone remembers.  The fact is that it impoverish not just the slaves but all freemen as well.  Robots will be the new slaves, and those who own them will do well.

[dominattorney]

7 hours ago, boopdeep said:

 

While much of this is true, it's the sheer reduction in attorney numbers that will result.  Instead of a legion of associates doing doc-review, you'll only need a few more seasoned attorneys to set the review parameters and review the automated results.  legal jobs will be lost in mass. 

Our firm won some legal tech awards last year by developing "bots" to do U.S. immigration form work, and is now applying the AI to finance documents.  Again, while there will still be a need for oversight and review, the numbers will be significantly reduced.  

I do think much of transactional/corporate legal work will be taken over by AI, but talented "deal makers" will still be required.  Law firms and lawyers will charge significant fees for these stars and overall revenues for the companies will not be substantially reduced.  But, less lawyers will be working. 

. . . . ..   To believe you are immune is playing with fire.  

Immunity is a strong word, and I generally agree with the above sentiment.  I also don't mourn the loss of doc-review jobs, as it's really a soul sucking endeavor best left to the machines.  I think what people fail to account for is the fact that robots, while they may excel at complex computational tasks that escape all but the most uniquely gifted human brains, have a real hard time with more mundane human tasks, such as judging the distance between the chair and the door.  I don't think by 2030 technology will have solved the problems of making a robot appear to act human, no matter how well they can think.