Artificial Intelligence

marmott said:
It also creates an even lower class of jobs where the AI algos need to be fed with reliable data and only human can pre check this data.

Amazon does that through Amazon Mechanical Turk.

To a certain extent I would also consider content moderation from big social networks to be the same, content can be flagged by AI but only a human can make the final decision. And I would argue that it's better to work retail than these jobs:https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/...interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona.

Yeah I heard about this..basically clockwork orange level stuff.
 
It's coming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxTG7DmB_0

For a lot of people, car ownership will be unnecessary.  For others, it will be a luxury and driving will be on weekends.

Just think about the impact on car dealerships and mechanics. 

As autonomous cars are mostly run by underlying operating software, maintenance can be done via over-the-air updates. How much will still need to be physically repaired?

Newer car parts like LiDAR and processing units still need to be physically repaired. In this case, traditional technicians will have to acquire some transforming skills to be able to deal with these technologically advanced vehicles.

As services intervals are constantly being extended by the manufacturers, we believe in the world of autonomous vehicles, auto repair shops will also see majority of their customers less frequently.


How can independent repair shops survive?

Hybrid and electric vehicles will keep gaining the market share in the next few years, too, along with autonomous vehicles, which will force mechanical shops to upgrade.

With all of these upgrades, the question is, will these shops have the talent to do these kind of procedures? I think that?s something we should be thinking about. We need talent that has knowledge of how these systems work. In terms of the new technology getting embedded, if they work like a software company and hire engineers, and such, they might look into hiring more software engineers, which will help figure out how to figure out OTA updates. Having that mindset is helpful.

As the industry shifts from individual car ownership to fleet ownership, I would recommend indy repair shops start partnering with companies that operate fleets, be it autonomous or just a smaller fleet.
https://www.ratchetandwrench.com/articles/7092-autonomous-vehicles-and-the-future-of-auto-repair

Fewer accidents mean fewer body shops.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are one of the most anticipated technologies in the world. And although you might not have seen one on the roads yet, they are out there. Business Insider predicts two million self-driving cars on the road by the end of this year, and ten million by 2020.

The main benefits for consumers are obvious: fewer driving related accidents, injuries and deaths, shorter commutes, and freeing up time as drivers transition into passengers.

But what does this mean for auto repair shop owners?

Like it or not, a tidal wave of change is coming. And whether you find yourself riding on top of that wave or seeing it crash over your head will depend on how well prepared you are to meet it. For those looking ahead and getting ready for it now, AVs present a new beginning rather than the beginning of the end.
https://www.vehicleservicepros.com/...w-will-autonomous-vehicles-affect-shop-owners
 
Soylent Green Is People said:
Not exactly an AI story, but AI involved. JetBlue and DHS sharing photos. Pretty weird stuff IMHO. Not a fan.

https://boingboing.net/tag/mass-surveillance

Also not directly AI but AI impact and ripple effects:

Let?s say you want to sell your house. You could go the traditional route ? fix it up, stage it and endure looky-loos traipsing through your door until you get a good offer. Or you can now request an instant offer from a growing number of companies, known as iBuyers, and sell within a few days. Those companies then take on the work of preparing, listing and selling the house to someone else.

So far, tech companies including Zillow, Opendoor and Offerpad have dominated the iBuyer market. But there's a new entrant: the country?s largest real estate franchise, Keller Williams Realty.

?There?s a surprising number of people who value the convenience and simplicity, and they will give up portions of their equity in a home in order to have that convenience,? said Gayln Ziegler, director of operations at Keller Offers, a new division of Keller Williams. The company will launch its instant offer service in Dallas-Fort Worth next month and expand to six to eight cities by the end of the year.

The reason, Ziegler said, is pretty straightforward: ?We decided that we needed to.?
https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/23/economy/keller-williams-gets-home-flipping-business
 
We tend to think of people interaction by 'safe' from AI, but in many aspects, AI already has conquered it.  Complex sale relationships, maybe. Big maybe, IMHO.  Big Data analytics helped elect President Obama.  With Trump election, more factions basically weaponized it.  Facebook, Youtube, Google, they've been leveraging AI to sell you and sell you out for years.  Youtube's algorithms long ago figured out sending you down the rabbit hole kept you engaged and made you click more.  Which means more ads. Facebook, the same.  In many instances, the human operators of the system have an increasingly if almost impossible job attempting to determine why the automation is targeting the people it targets or selecting the content it selects.

JIMHO, 2020 will be interesting.  Russia, China, the PACs, big Unions and many corporations are all going to be operating through ten layers of misdirection running shadow campaigns to swing stuff.  People will be worried about the President.  Get ready because it's coming to a school board election near you.  Charter schools, school vouchers, big bond proposals.  Water bond issue, redevelopment fights.  The list goes on.
 
Irvinecommuter...

As KW (and others) leap into this kind of business model, traditional agents are going to get pushed further into niche transactions, if not an "extinction level event" for low producing realtors. That's not a bad thing per-se given how many botched deals are handled by "onesie-twosie Market Expert" type agents. (sarc\off).

So far I've found that about a good 50% of FTHB N00b's attracted and closed with the Redfin model will stay with Redfin the next go round. Frankly I thought it would have been significantly higher, but the  move up buyers seem to want more of a concierge experience when buying than the bare bones Redfin approach. The niche, high touch Agents will get through this, with the rest of the business going to e-Buyer groups like Redfin, etc. A 50% reduction in buyer/seller traffic for some of the Coldwell Banker/ReMax brokerages is going to leave a great number of realtors seeking a career change, with the biggest push coming in 2021 IMHO

"May we live in interesting times" has never been truer.

My .02c
 
Soylent Green Is People said:
Irvinecommuter...

As KW (and others) leap into this kind of business model, traditional agents are going to get pushed further into niche transactions, if not an "extinction level event" for low producing realtors. That's not a bad thing per-se given how many botched deals are handled by "onesie-twosie Market Expert" type agents. (sarc\off).

So far I've found that about a good 50% of FTHB N00b's attracted and closed with the Redfin model will stay with Redfin the next go round. Frankly I thought it would have been significantly higher, but the  move up buyers seem to want more of a concierge experience when buying than the bare bones Redfin approach. The niche, high touch Agents will get through this, with the rest of the business going to e-Buyer groups like Redfin, etc. A 50% reduction in buyer/seller traffic for some of the Coldwell Banker/ReMax brokerages is going to leave a great number of realtors seeking a career change, with the biggest push coming in 2021 IMHO

"May we live in interesting times" has never been truer.

My .02c

It's not that different than many other service industries.  Travel agents were everywhere in the 1980s and 1990s but pretty much cater to niche customers (minorities, elderly, business, tours).  Same as to tax preparers...you will still need accountants for the heavy duty stuff but most people can do their own taxes, especially as the AI becomes "smarter" as time goes on.  My personal experience with turbotax is that the software is much more user-friendly and smarter than it was just a few years ago.

That's the thing about AI, it may not be great at first but the growth/refinement scale is incredible.  In the Tesla self-driving video, the guy stated that the software is continuously being updated, fine-tuned, and refined based upon data being provided to Tesla every second and all over the world...as an individual driver, you can only use your own experiences and history.  AI does not have that limitation.
 
A Google offshoot just got the FAA?s first go-ahead for drone deliveries.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday authorized Alphabet?s Wing Aviation to start delivering goods via drones later this year. Wing will start delivering commercial packages in unmanned aircraft in Blacksburg, Virginia. It partnered with the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership and Virginia Tech as a participant in the Transportation Department?s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program, an initiative to accelerate drone integration and help the department and the FAA devise rules surrounding drones.

The approval is an important one, given that this marks the first time the FAA has granted a so-called air-carrier certification for drone delivery of items such as food, medicine, and small consumer products. Wing plans to reach out to the local community before getting started in order to get a sense of its needs.

Amazon has for some time been working on drone package delivery via its Amazon Prime Air division, for which it has development centers in the US, UK, Austria, France, and Israel. And George Mason University this year said it would let students have some food and drinks be delivered via drones on the ground.
https://www.recode.net/2019/4/24/18514295/google-wing-aviation-alphabet-drone-faa
 
Amazon still thinks it will take time:
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/02/amazons-warehouse-robots-replace-human-workers-decade-jobs/

Are you worried your job is going to be taken by a robot? You needn't be if you work for Amazon, which has dismissed the idea of fully-automated warehouses becoming a reality any time soon. According to Amazon's director of robotics fulfilment, Scott Anderson, such technology in its current form is "very limited."

In a tour of Amazon's Balitmore warehouse for reporters on Tuesday, Anderson said that while the company is exploring a variety of automation technologies, there's a misperception that the company will be replacing human workers with robots in the near future. However, it is on the agenda, with Anderson giving a timeline of "at least 10 years" before warehouses become fully automated -- a measured approach at odds with the likes of Tesla, which recently scaled back its automation citing "overconfidence" in the technology, and noting that production benefits from having more humans at hand.

At present, the Amazon warehouses that use robots are mostly concerned with general merchandise such as homewares and bikes, but their functions are limited. Robots are unable to pick items from bins without damaging other items, or pick multiple items, in a way that makes them any more efficient than human workers.

Even Musk agreed a year ago when they were trying to get the Model 3 out that sometimes robots slowed things down:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/14/tesla-model-3-too-many-robots/

Tesla's affordable Model 3 has been trapped in development hell for what seems like ages now, and in an interview with CBS's Gayle King, CEO Elon Musk offered a little more insight into how the production process has fallen short. While escorting King through the company's Fremont, California-based factory, Musk conceded that Tesla might've had too many robots involved in its car production process and that the company would benefit from having more humans on the line. And when King opined out loud that in some cases, said robots probably slowed down production, Musk responded with a terse "yes, they did."

Humans are still useful. :)
 
irvinehomeowner said:
Humans are still useful. :)

Yes, but for how much longer? How many will still have jobs in 10 years?

Ex-Google China President Kai-Fu Lee: A.I. Will Obliterate Half Of All Jobs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKgE4pLuOls

I encourage everyone to watch the video. To highlight a few points

1) Lee dispels the common myth that robots (automation) will create more jobs. He says " that's what the roboticist would like you to think. So they don't have to answer to the jobs problem.

2) Lee believes white collar jobs are even more at risk than blue collar jobs.

3) Lee believes the job problem is happening within 10 years.

4) Watch the older CNBC reporter. His reaction and attitude is why this AI/Automation wave will wipe many people out. Just cannot grasp the concept.

For those who are not familiar with Kai-Fu Lee, he has an impeccable bio. He developed the world's first speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie Mellon. He later worked as an executive, first at Apple, then SGI, Microsoft, and Google. In 2005, Lee left Microsoft to take a position at Google. The search company agreed to compensation worth in excess of $10 million, including a $2.5 million cash 'signing bonus' and another $1.5 million cash payment after one year, a package referred to internally at Google as 'unprecedented'.


 
I think you need to divulge all the facts.

If you read this article, there were still humans involved and it can only do the highway portions of the drive.
https://www.fastcompany.com/4050036...less-trucks-actually-create-jobs-for-truckers

They also think it will actually create more jobs in the short term because there is a shortfall in long haul truckers due to the time away from home. But because this technology isn?t mature enough, the local city handoff will create more regional jobs so drivers can stay closer to home.
 
To be fair, there are jobs that Amazon can replace soon with robots:
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/13/amazon-automation-boxing-machines/

A few weeks ago, Amazon said it will be at least 10 years before the company is running fully-automated warehouses. But partial automation is already underway. According to Reuters, Amazon is considering installing two machines at dozens of warehouses that have the potential to replace at least 24 jobs at each location. If Amazon were to roll the machines out across its 55 US fulfillment centers for standard-sized inventory, that could lead to more than 1,300 job cuts.
 
It's still far away but this report predicts robots will replace 20m jobs by 2030:
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/robots-will-kill-20m-manufacturing-jobs-by-2030/

However, the article also says that it will boost the economy and replace these jobs:

Despite the job losses, robotization will ultimately boost productivity and economic growth, and create new jobs at a similar rate that it destroys old jobs, Oxford Economics noted. Millions of new jobs are expected to be created throughout all sectors of the global economy.

Worldwide, a 1% increase in the stock of robots per manufacturing employee leads to a 0.1% productivity boost in terms of output per worker and driving meaningful growth, the report found. Faster adoption of robots increases both short- and medium-term growth: A 30% rise in robot installations above the baseline forecasts for 2030 would lead to a 5.3% boost to global GDP that year, equivalent to nearly $5 trillion, Oxford Economics predicted.

So what kind of jobs will be created by automation?
 
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