47% Of All Jobs Will Be Automated By 2034, And 'No Government Is Prepared' Says Economist

Almost half of all jobs could be automated by computers within two decades and "no government is prepared" for the tsunami of social change that will follow, according to the Economist.

The magazine's 2014 analysis of the impact of technology paints a pretty bleak picture of the future.

It says that while innovation (aka "the elixir of progress") has always resulted in job losses, usually economies have eventually been able to develop new roles for those workers to compensate, such as in the industrial revolution of the 19th century, or the food production revolution of the 20th century.

But the pace of change this time around appears to be unprecedented, its leader column claims. And the result is a huge amount of uncertainty for both developed and under-developed economies about where the next 'lost generation' is going to find work.

It quotes a 2013 Oxford Martin School study that estimates 47% of all jobs could be automated in the next 20 years:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/17/rise-of-the-machines-economist_n_4616931.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

A difficult proposition being faced for the future and with an increasing population around the world

I guess transhumanism will be the only way to adapt.

I hope I'm gone by then!

Joy Division wrote:I hope I'm gone by then!

I'll be in my forties.

I was literally about to ask if you were a small child until it struck me that it's 20-fucking-14 and I'm getting old ... still not old enough to be retired by the time the machines take our jeeerrrrbs ... bet they'll be built in Poland and Romania!

краљица од Хартс wrote:

Joy Division wrote:I hope I'm gone by then!

I'll be in my forties.

It is weird though is it not Tea?

What and how are humans going to adapt to this in the future. Yes you will need the IT techs and some jobs just cannot be replaced.

I think with your knowledge/abilities you will have a job in the future, people always need to plan/thing things through, make decisions etc, so you could be okay, but how will others adapt!

We just make more jobs. I think you will find that if we went from 1900 to now at least 47% of those jobs are automated (here or US apparently not in Europe/UK) but now there are jobs selling
more consumer goods.
As much as RW complain about poor people buying Iphones etc it does stimulate the economy and create more jobs. The biggest problem is we are stuck in a growth cycle that means we cant sustain our economies if they are not growing.

    50-100 years ago farms and factories employed more workers than needed, simply because labour costs were such a small part of overall production that they could afford to... As wages gradually increased at a faster rate than price returns, businesses had to look to mechanisation, then automation, and finally had to consider "working smarter, not simply harder !"

TODAY, you can find farms being run by a family unit, a couple of workers, seasonal casuals, and contractors where needed ~ a couple of dozen workers less than a century ago..

AND YET, at the same time the fast rising costs against slow increases in returns means that the farms and factories ALSO need to be bigger and more efficient at the same time :
A dairy farmer today needs to milk FIVES times as many cows as his father did, and TEN times as many as his grandfather;
A beekeeper who made a comfortable living off 400 hives during the 1950s would now require 700 hives to have a survival business ~ along with a bigger investment in the mechanisation side of things;
Cropping and grazing properties also need to be a lot bigger and better managed than they were a few decades ago..        


ON THE OTHER HAND, in today's more technical, hyped up and "X and Y gen'rs feeling so entitled" jobs market, we can find a lot of jobs that didn't even exist only 20-30 years ago...
CONSIDER some of these :    computer salesmen, computer tech's, copier servicemen, mobile phone salesmen, "(Finger) Nail artists", specialised industry lobbyists and spin doctors, various medical/technical/service jobs, dog walkers and car detailers..
WHO KNOWS what new jobs will available in another 20 years that haven't been thought of as yet ?

AND there will always be increased demand for health, service and OT/DT orders in a future world forever populated with ever-ageing communities..
AND ALSO, maybe a few people looking for income sources will be forced into "creating our own jobs" ?
WHAT future jobseekers will need to bring to the table is more flexibility in adapting to workplace changes ==> something that the current crop of underqualified and overpaid idiots-in-charge refuse to give much credence to !     

WHO KNOWS what new service and sales jobs will be created over the next few decades ?  
Today over 70% of people in "First world" economies are employed in the "tertiary level" jobs (sales, services, teaching..), and less than 10% in the ever-shrinking "primary industries" (farming, forestry, fisheries, mining and quarrying, oil, gas and energy..).   

Don't believe a word of it, heard exactly the same things when computers started.