Is your job safe?

[Cloud]

Here's a great tool which predicts the likelihood of a job being done by a machine.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/20...e-by-a-machine

[Rik]

Well, unless you own the company, then the answer is a simple 'no' to that statement.

But, now I shall go and have a look at that link!

[gwpriester]

Since I'm almost totally retired, my job may very well be done by a machine. which is why I have a health care directive.

[Rik]

My job appears to be safe!
The robots haven't even heard of it, yet.

[Acorn]

I only have a chance that my job is done by a robot if I design it how to.
Acorn

[Gamerprinter]

I'm primarily an artist, so automatic replacement is unlikely. Even though there are some software applications out there that generate maps for games, I don't fear replacement, especially with all the professional map commissions I get for both video game and tabletop roleplaying game publishers. My maps are more art than science.

[Cloud]

It would seem that anything remotely creative or something involving an emotional role such as therapists is fairly safe. Though I was surprised to see that the lawyers are quite safe (damn) Also surprising that middle school teachers are less safe than secondary school teachers.

[jon404]

@ gamerprinter -- after looking at my son's Grand Theft Auto 5, I think you're safe! From robotic replacement, anyway.
Offshoring is another story, since those guys in Bangalore and Hyderabad can pick up -- sort of -- where we are at culturally. Would suggest that you check out making game simulations for the Departmant of Defense. The F-35 fighter jet program alone will run to 1 TRILLION dollars... and within the artwork parts of that budget will be ... probably already are ... lots of high-paying war-fighting simulations and training scenarios. Likely made by contractors and sub-contractors to Lockheed Martin. And, for defense stuff, you'll never have to worry about anything even vaguely sensitive being offshored...

[Gamerprinter]

In addition to US publishers, I do a lot of work for overseas publishers too, though mostly in Britain, companies like EN Publishing. Though some of my maps are exclusively digital productions, a good chunk of my work is half hand-drawn as an overlay over digital work. So I'm not worried. I'm over 50 years old, so I'll be dead before I'm replaced, more than likely.

[Egg Bramhill]

In the 1970's when automation was first taking place, TV programmes were predicting that by 2000 we'd all be working 20hr weeks (HoHo!) Of course the total opposite has been true, from a then average 40hr week more & more people are now working 60/70 hr weeks whilst the unemployed sector of societies have been expanding and becoming a "drain" on the economic structure of a country.

Now we have globalisation, whereby traditional manufacturing countries are in decline whilst third world countries are in the ascendancy. Unfortunately this globalisation is dependant on a low paid work force, so as countries move out of poverty economics, they are destroying the one factor that gives them the edge and manufacturing moves elsewhere!

Imagine a future were all work is now undertaken by machines, of which isn't far from the truth. Then how are all those humans replaced by robots going to earn money to purchase products & services produced by those robots?

There's going to be very little that can't be undertaken by a computer in the future, but I find some of the conclusions of this tool strange. The most obvious one, "Does your job require you to squeeze into small spaces?" Looking at an airline pilot, this scores a high 60%. There's so much technology already crammed into a cockpit that the absence of two people would leave a cavernous space to further fill the cockpit.

What is a far more important question here would be "Would you accept the replacement of the Pilot by a Robot?" and the answer in most cases would be "No" but in reality computers are routinely landing planes.