Your Job is Doomed

It is high time we sat down and had "the talk." Ok, here it goes, I won't sugar coat it or tap dance around it any longer. Your job is doomed.

There, I finally said it.  I know it is a hard pill to swallow, and you may be tempted to dismiss me as an alarmist, but hear me out--virtually every non-technical career from taxi driver, to salesperson, to factory worker, to plumber is at high risk of near-term automation. This is true whether you live in the US, Europe, or even, believe it or not, China which is fast becoming a leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

If your job isn't based on personal touch, think personal grooming, massage therapy or surgery, or if it doesn't require creativity, think musician or author, or isn't technical, think engineer or doctor, then your days at work are numbered. And unless you are on the brink of a comfortable retirement, you should be worried.

By mid century we will be looking at, conservatively, 40% unemployment, though some futurists predict it will be more like 70%. The repercussions and paths forward I will discuss.  But we won't need to wait 30 years to feel the full effects. 

Within the next 3-4 years, as we see certain key technologies hit a critical point of market readiness, we will start to see a paradigmatic shift in our economy and social structures that will necessitate some very hard decisions-ones that can either make America a paradise of equality and liberation from drudgery, or a hell-scape of grinding poverty and oppression.

Now, I'm not talking about creating human-like robots that will take your place. That would be inefficient, expensive, and an exercise in pure narcissism--though it will probably come in time, especially with the need for increasingly more sophisticated military drones, and companions for our aging population. Just procreate, however, if you really want more people. 

No, I'm talking about software, networks, and robots that can do very specific, often extremely complex tasks more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently than you. They don't need rest or a living wage. Of course, this is something you have seen already. As hand tools gave way in factories to pneumatic tools, which then gave way to autonomous robots, jobs and wages stagnated while businesses continue to take in record profits.
But now, through growing sophistication of AI and the Internet of Things (IOT), machines and software are increasingly matrixed with other intelligent devices, soon to turn factories into huge, semi autonomous, self repairing machines, construction sites into enormous printers, and highways into accident free, traffic jam free networks of autonomous vehicles.

How would I know? I work at Symantec in Silicon Valley in network and cloud security, a  field heavily dominated by data science and machine learning, and I see advances daily. I watch as potentially new malware attacks are quickly identified by AI using heuristic techniques. I see mountains of data being analyzed and correlated by software in the blink of an eye that would take technical analysts days to calculate, even with the help of computers. And even as I drive to work through the streets of Mountain View I pass test cars with no drivers.  

These advances were achieved only through slow, incremental progress. But  today we are at a technological and economic tipping point. The infrastructure is in place for a very quick, revolutionary shift in the way our software, devices, and ultimately economy operate. 

Factories are highly automated already and ready for increasingly sophisticated software. Software itself has moved to the cloud to take advantage of greater processing power and centralized command and control over multiple functions. Cars and trucks are computerized and can be retrofitted to be semi-autonomous and new cars (note Tesla) will start to be autonomous within 2-3 years. The only element missing is increasingly intelligent software, which is nearing a point where it can possibly enhance itself--to evolve.

So what are our options?

As AI, automation and technology advance we will have three choices. One, we can refuse to change the way we perceive the economy and notion of work and see us in the 99% drift into unemployed irrelevance, grinding poverty, starvation and homelessness, while the 1% retreats to private armed enclaves of opulence and abundance. 

Two, we can take the path that Trump cryptically espouses--where we retreat into a less technological age circa 1955 where heavy industry, mining and small business dominate. However, as you know, we can never truly go back. Our economy couldn't survive the competition of more advanced economies, and our environment couldn't survive the inevitable ruin from newly resuscitated smokestacks, oil spills, and heavy metal poisoning of our dwindling supplies of drinking water from mining runoff.

I propose we choose a third way even though it may be anathema to those who see the world in black and white between makers and takers--the idea of guaranteed basic income, perhaps financed through fractional ownership of the automated tools and software that our society has developed. We would have an unemployed populace, yes, but one where people are fed, housed, and cared for medically and can ostensibly spend time pursuing their passions and focusing on self improvement. 

If you are rich and think you don't have to worry--we don't have an Elysium orbiting earth that you can escape to. Do you really want a society dominated by poor (but often well educated), desperate people pounding on your gates, no matter how well guarded they may be, and calling for your head? Or are you hoping the rest of us will die off or kill each other? Guess which option we will choose if you don't take action now and think about a guaranteed basic income, and a guaranteed future for everyone.

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