Bill Gates has used a speech this week, to warn that the labor market is about to change dramatically, and we aren’t ready for it.

Gates addressed the neoliberal economic think tank The American Enterprise Institute last week, and gave a stark pronouncement. In the next 20 years, many of our jobs will disappear, to be replaced by software automation software substitution (“bots” in tech slang).

Here’s what he said:

“Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses … it’s progressing. … Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. … 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.”

And Gates is not alone in his warnings, the red flags are all around us.

In January, the Economist ran a piece showing more than a dozen jobs where humans will be replaced by robots in the next 20 years. Among their number, telemarketers, accountants and retail workers.

Of course, Gates didn’t call for a rethink of how we do ‘economy’ and ‘work’ in light of these technological developments – which would actually be good news in a smarter economy. No. Instead, it he calls for tax cuts, wage cuts and a weakening of labor rights – so disincentives to hiring people, like having to treat them like humans rather than robots, are removed.

He says:

“When people say we should raise the minimum wage. I worry about what that does to job creation … potentially damping demand in the part of the labor spectrum that I’m most worried about.”

This is the best that neoliberalism can offer you and your family in the future – let us exploit you, or we have no use for you. It’s time to turn our backs on these leaders and their ideology, for they have certainly turned their backs on us.

Technology has already replaced humans big style in manufacturing, the humans are just there to feed the machinery their raw material. There are very few humans on a shop floor these days. I fail to see how management could be replaced though, unless computers are programmed to talk shite, and have endless meetings to make unfathomable decisions.
I was lucky in the respect that should all this automation go wrong, I was the man they called, so my skills are still very much in demand. Unfortunately, the renumeration for skilled people in industry has stagnated, so many engineers are leaving to do other things, like me.
One of our top management, financial type bodies (can't remember who) stated that one of the biggest things holding the UK back, is a lack of engineering skills, but the employers won't pay a decent wage........so fuck 'em

Sorry for going a bit off-topic folks.

If we are all replaced by software bots as Bill Gates says, who will pay taxes?
Certainly not the software bots. How will the State work?

Here is a thread I made in IL on Robots,

infiniteloveforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4541

chandrakavi wrote:
Govt will simply end and corporations will take over as they will be bigger than govt at that point by a large margin.

Apple is planning to have its iPhone batteries fully manufactured on automated production lines in 2014 to reduce its manpower demand. The move is expected to trigger other brand vendors to follow suit, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Apple has already automated its Mac Pro and iMac production lines. Other than materials and final assembly, manpower is not required for the rest of the manufacturing.

With rising minimum wages in China and the fact that younger-workers are unwilling to work in the manufacturing industry, labor shortages and high turnover rates are common in the industry, which has increased costs, the sources said.

China is currently still the top choice for setting up a manufacturing base for IT brand vendors, as Southeast Asia still have issues such as constant labor strikes and limited infrastructure, the sources said.

With automated production lines, Apple will be able to move manufacturing to wherever it likes; however, since most of its other component supply partners are still located in China, the US-based vendor is unlikely to make any significant moves in the short term, the sources added.