Automation

[Goodspeed]

I did RPA stuff in HR at Amazon. Even there, is was cases where there was more work than people so RPA was freeing up for other work. I don't think everyone will be able to transition so easily, but ask coal miners if the human race can adapt on an individual basis. I've already seen some of the things AI will be doing in the future at Google Maps and it blows my mind... and none of will put people out of a job. We have been evolving for millennia and I see "automation" no different than the rest of the leaps forward in mechanics.

True enough, automation will help a lot of people and not every implementation of it will cause someone to get fired and equal one less job.  On the subject of coal miners & coding - I definitely believe in adapting yourself to changing economic realities (I've had to do it myself), but on the flipside - we already know how many people are living paycheck to paycheck with stagnant wages and increasing debt in this country (we can argue the genesis and personal responsibility around this, but for the sake of this conversation we just have this as a given).  The cost of re-training can be steep and while we've had some employer-funded pilot programs, on a large enough scale I'm not sure that model will be vastly expanded given the drive for profits - maybe tax benefits will come into effect here as part of...some swirling pot of whatever the hell happens to our tax code.

I'm still laughing over the fact that Twitter is censoring people for telling laid-off journalists to learn to code as journalists did to coal miners.  I think it's awesome that some workers are ahead of the curve on this but I worry that the inefficiencies in and just general decrepitude of our education system will fail a lot of people as AI takes hold.  Education in America has been overdue for a total overhaul though, so maybe automation will help kick that off.