Reading articles like this I'm often reminded of Amara's Law:<p>"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."<p>In terms of overestimation in the short term, it seems to me that although we are trending towards automative technologies, 11 years seems like far too short a span for those technologies to have "displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers."<p>Meanwhile, in the long term, the time frame these technologies actually need to have fully permeated, we don't know what types of jobs or how many will be brought about by their existence.
> Throughout history, technology has been a job creator—not a job destroyer<p>This is one argument that I have always really disagreed with. Technology doesn't inherently create jobs. Rather it makes people able to be more productive and efficient. I think that will longer stand the test of time.<p>Hopefully someday soon we will go beyond this need for everybody to have jobs so that they can pay for food and rent. Instead we will be able to do human things. Do projects, cool hacks, make art and music, explore the universe. Why spend all our time compensating for scarcity when robotics can do it for us?<p>That however is going to be a long transition. Especially one for the people in the US, who have such a heavy burdened work culture (i.e. if you aren't working you aren't valuable to society). Also shameless plug here for basic/guaranteed annual income.
You could pretty much eliminate all mcdonalds staff already with a vending machine that has a conveyor belt that runs under a heating element(like they do at quiznos), and sprays some condiments on a bun. All you'd need then is someone to replenish the vending machine.<p>So artificial intelligence isn't even necessary.
Considering cars are made by robots I always wondered why a big company like McDonalds couldn't do similar when making its cheeseburgers. Never researched it until now but looks like there is a machine capable: <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaurant-minimum-wage-crushing-burger-flipping-robot" rel="nofollow">http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaura...</a>
We're always hearing "there will be new kinds of jobs", but never what those jobs will be , how many they could be in number or any relevant detail to that claim.<p>Why is that ?have we no sense of imagination ? Or is it that the claim is just an easy comforting truism(that preservers the current order) and nothing but ?