railroads and vehicles used in commercial and military loading and shipping warehouses and docks, the agricultural industry and even in hospitals where self driving carts will drive down hallways to deliver supplies that humans once did. These workers are used to an income and they like to eat, as did employees before them who worked in offices, stores, retail, customer service, law offices and for newspapers, bookstores, the printing industry, video stores and camera stores whose livelihoods have been eliminated in the last 10 years. Clerks and cashier positions are now undergoing transition to computer assisted self service; manufacturing jobs in Asia are also being altered by new computer technologies.
A combination of advanced technology, the decline of unions, the outsourcing of US manufacturing since the late 1970s and clerical, administrative 'back office' support positions in finance, insurance and customer service in the 2000s, as well as the ongoing importation of low wage H1-B visa workers, will be an enormous change that we are not prepared for. Just what exactly people will do to support themselves is a complex, vast issue that few are grappling with beyond global research think tanks.
The transportation sector alone will undergo major layoffs in the next 10 years, at least 20% unemployment. That's in addition to the huge number of employed in widespread fields in blue and white collar occupations who will be affected by irreversible technological unemployment from AI, robotics and 3D printing. In one field, writing, robotic software is rapidly increasing the amount of articles written in the finance sector and even for the AP, the venerable Associated Press news organization.
During the next 20, years the US will experience 50% unemployment, according to Oxford Martin's 2013 report and the analyses of other leading academic and policy institutions. The highest level of unemployment the US ever experienced was during the great Depression of the 1930s when it reached 25%, one in four people out of work. Other sources state that unemployment then was 50% in many rural areas especially among blacks and poor whites. The suicide rate at that time was also severely underreported.
Technology always brings improvements and efficiency, but in a time when the world population is 7 billion people and our leadership is continuing to provide few solutions there will be many hardships and challenges until and if we manage to develop a society based on a sharing economy, worker owned cooperatives, a green technology industry and a healthy environment. Self driving vehicles are an exciting achievement, but better fasten the seat beats, because the ride into the (near) future is going to be a bumpy one.
SEE: CGP Grey's 2014 video, 'Humans Need Not Apply'-
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