To wonder what will happen when there are no iobs

[rainandfire]

When technology does everything, driving, deliveries, retail ... what will people do then?

effectively forcing the driverless cars to continuously take evasive action making for very slow journeys

It doesn't have to make slow journeys. Electronics can react faster than humans.

We will all just sit about complaining when all the systems break down and have to get our fat behinds off the chair and do something ourselves.

manicmij

You're not wrong.

But we'll just get the back up robots to sort it out.

Back to the OP re jobs. You also have to remember all the lower skilled jobs that were off-shored, i.e. factories producing the mass market consumer goods, offshoring call centres, back office administration roles, etc, currently done in "low wage" countries.

As those countries grow economically, wages will increase and the time will come when it is simply more economical to move production, maybe even back to the UK.

The likes of banks and insurance firms are moving call centres back to the UK due to language problems and poor call handling.

Also, the cost of transporting which is historically low at the moment will start to rise when oil costs increase, which may weigh the balance more towards production closer to the end market.

Finally, as we've already seen in the fashion industry, the retailers are starting to bring some production back to the UK because they're finding the lead times to make more stock of popular items is too long as it can take months to make and transport more well selling stock to the UK by which time the seasons have changed, whereas if it was made in the UK, additional stock could reach the shelves within weeks, still in time to sell.

So, there is every likelihood that there'll be a move back towards bringing jobs back to the UK for a variety of reasons.

That's a very limited thinking. The population has grown enormously since the industrial revolution which effectively annihilated plenty of traditional jobs. All I see is creation of jobs which will require more education but that's also a move from only 5 or 6 decades ago when many people were barely literate when they left school and went to find manual jobs. And there are still plenty of manual jobs which are needed. I can't see a little robot cleaning my chimney or servicing my boiler any time soon.
I'm not ancient but I must have been about ten when our phone network was digitalised and we no longer required someone to connect us when we wanted to call my Grandma. These jobs are now firmly in the past and the children of those people found themselves other jobs.
The whole job market is changing. That's normal. Guess we progressed a bit from slaves, then peasants and workers but no robots will ever completely replace humans, at least not in the next few hundred years. AI is still in its nappies and is very much dependant on humans.

I speak to futurologists on a regular basis and sometimes this comes up, apparently the future work force, DC in primary now will be working in roles that haven't been created yet, therefore the theory being that there will be work but it will be very different roles, I imagine a lot of facilitating, programming etc Software sales will still be needed, implementation etc. Teaching will be different but still needed, researchers etc. Hospitality and travel will boom.

Nothing ever happens as quickly as the media suggests.

My concern is the theory that 75% of the work force will be students currently in University by 2025, I look around at my colleagues and worry for our jobs.

I might retrain into Cyber security, huge shortages in that sector currently.

Only if it's in use 24/7. That won't happen because it'll need charging for a few hours each day. ... At least with a regular taxi, it can be on the road 24/7 with a rota of drivers, so the vehicle "cost per mile driven" is far less as it's used far more.

I don't understand what differences you are assuming between a regular taxi and driverless one. Why would one be electric and not the other, if electric is the best engine option?

Let's imagine that there is a transition vehicle, which still has controls and a drivers seat, so it can be driven by a driver. But it also has the computers and sensors so it can act as a taxi with no driver in the car. So it's exactly the same car, regardless of whether it is being used as a "regular taxi" or a driverless one. Now tell me why it would be more expensive to not have a driver sitting in it?

Then you have all the down time, because it's impossible for it to have full use. If it's stationed in a village, it may only get a few journeys per day. To get better usage, it'll have to be "on call" to go to other villages, then you'd be complaining that it takes too long for it to arrive when it's already in use elsewhere, so you'd expect more than one for your village

whoa! Stop right there! One per village!? If the village currently has 100 private cars parked near its houses, I would expect virtually all of them to vanish, to be replaced by up to 100 driverless taxis. Presumably fewer than 100, because there's probably never a time that all 100 cars need to be in use at the same time, so some of the cost savings will come from reducing that number.

I think you imagining a completely different future to me. The driverless taxi makes the private car obsolete, I'm imagining a world in which 99% of households do not own a private car, because doing so is considerable more expensive than using taxis for every single journey.

The driverless taxi is not mainly a replacement for the "regular taxi", it's a replacement for the privately owned motor car. The elimination of "regular taxis" is just a minor side-effect.

otherwise drivers will just continue to break the law, drive dangerously and aggressively, effectively forcing the driverless cars to continuously take evasive action making for very slow journeys

I think quite the opposite may happen. Since every driverless can can record with 360 degree cameras everything that happens around it, and potentially report problem behaviour to police in real time together with video and computer evidence that would be enough to convict, everyone is going to have to be on their best behaviour around driverless cars.

everyone is going to have to be on their best behaviour around driverless cars.

Doesn't really apply to animals and children though does it? Nor to people with impaired faculties, such as disabled, blind, deaf, elderly, etc., who put themselves in harm's way accidentally and can't change their behaviour just because of the risk of being video'd!

to be replaced by up to 100 driverless taxis

The cost per journey would be extortionate to finance huge numbers of driver-less cars. Other posters on here seem to think that journeys may cost as little as half the price of a normal taxi. I think they're in for a rude awakening. If 100 households in a village currently pay a few thousand pounds per year for their cars, then "cost per journey" to "borrow" a driver-less one will also run into thousands per year for similar numbers of journeys if similar numbers of cars are required. If everyone uses them for the school run and commuting instead of cars/public transport, we'd need huge numbers of them for the rush hour, the vast majority of which would left idle for most of the other 20 hours of the day. We already have the same problem with buses and trains - never enough at rush hour, meaning jam-packed standing room only, but most are virtually empty for the rest of the day and sat in sidings/depots at night.

If everyone uses them for the school run and commuting instead of cars/public transport, we'd need huge numbers of them for the rush hour, the vast majority of which would left idle for most of the other 20 hours of the day

I have often thought that really cars just sit there unoccupied. I bet an algorithm can improve on it.

The driverless taxi makes the private car obsolete, I'm imagining a world in which 99% of households do not own a private car, because doing so is considerable more expensive than using taxis for every single journey

This fundamentally misunderstands human nature (in a capitalist society at least). Anyone with money will want a private car if only because it is more expensive and thereby shows their status and wealth. They won't be sharing the taxis with the plebs if they are cheap enough for the plebs to afford.

I have often thought that really cars just sit there unoccupied. I bet an algorithm can improve on it.

I think it's obvious that most cars spend most of their day parked up. But I think the same will happen with driverless, as huge numbers of people want to travel at the same time. You'd need massive social change to stagger work starting/finish times, school times, etc to spread peoples' journeys over the full day. And if you did that, there'd be no need for driverless cars as the congestion etc would be eliminated, which is the whole rationale for driverless in the first place.

You're all forgetting cost.Not only are robotics expensive,they breakdown so more expense.
And were no where near it happening.

Not all of us!

I think it's obvious that most cars spend most of their day parked up.

I feel the same way about kitchens. We all spend a great deal of time individually running about gathering (buying) food, travelling to the supermarket. We have this whole room dedicated to it at home. These devices. Sitting empty most of the time. Then we spend time and cook crappy food in it.

It seems like economies of scale would render the kitchen obsolete. Maybe a small refrigerator to hold a few ready meals and a small oven/microwave....in a little nook.

makeourfuture

As much as people don’t like cooking and a kitchen is a waisted space it’s causing a big problem. Homes in London and other large cities have less than 48hrs worth if food in them as everyone eats out most the time.

In the even of disaster, natural or otherwise that means food in the cities will run out quickly, starvation and civil unrest will follow. The Environment Agency and the councils actually have to make plans to pre select aid drop locations.

If everyone uses them for the school run and commuting instead of cars/public transport, we'd need huge numbers of them for the rush hour, the vast majority of which would left idle for most of the other 20 hours of the day

If I could drive myself to work, and then send my automated car off as a taxi to make money during the day that would be awsome.

If I could drive myself to work, and then send my automated car off as a taxi to make money during the day that would be awsome.

Yes, sounds good, but if everyone else did the same, there'd be huge numbers of driver-less cars sat around waiting for the odd day-time passenger, hence fierce competition, and lower charges to compete which wouldn't compensate for the far higher price you'd have to pay for the car.

I agree that if everyone used driverless taxis, they would be still be parked a lot of the time. That doesn't matter, as long as they are parked less than private cars now, there's still a saving, it's just smaller.

You lot are so clever! Really enjoyed this thread ...

If everyone uses them for the school run and commuting instead of cars/public transport, we'd need huge numbers of them for the rush hour, the vast majority of which would left idle for most of the other 20 hours of the day

Potentially there could be a very intelligent car pooling system, based on real time information of who wanted to go where at what time. So some people might still want to run their own self driving car, but others might just tap into a kind of Uber/blah blah car type network to find (and pay for) lifts in other self driving cars in real time? If you had enough people all using the same system it could be very efficient. Would mean fewer cars on the road overall. And plus if the cars all knew which other cars on the road were going where, they could each take different routes in order to ease congestion.

However it would seemingly rely on a critical mass of people opting in...so it would basically have to have good incentives and/or the alternative (private autonomous travel) heavily charged or taxed.

It would be amazing in big cities where rush hours are hellish. Frankly something has to be done because the roads and public transport systems in a lot of big cities now seem to be at breaking point at peak times, it makes life so miserable for commuters.

Well if my particular area of expertise were to be automated I would just sell other skills that I happen to have.

Frankly something has to be done because the roads and public transport systems in a lot of big cities now seem to be at breaking point at peak times, it makes life so miserable for commuters.

But due to technology, there may be a much lower necessity for people to travel to work, or travel to school. Far more could be done remotely meaning far less travel generally. By the time we've had the massive investment and research into driver-less cars and the surrounding infrastructure (which will take decades), the actual need for it may well have mostly disappeared!

Yeh disappearing jobs at the lower end of scale :-/ so the educated clever qualified people will still be ok.

My mother made me give up artistic pursuits to do a secretarial course. She saw that as a fail safe survival plan. Ha!