What They Don't Want You To See. Boston Dynamics and AI.
Digital Engine
Our new robot overlords are coming. We can hope they will be benevolent, but as long as they are controlled by people, some will not be.
Meanwhile 'there is a shortage of workers' but we've got zillions of people out of work. This does not compute. There is something very wrong here. I have all kinds of ideas about what could be the problem, but if I think about it, none of them make much sense. I see homeless encampments short distances away from places offering employment. Could it be that once people become adults their trajectory becomes very hard to change, and if the job they had disappears they just can't adapt to a new one?
4 comments:
In the United States, federal and state minimum wage laws have wiped out entry-level job opportunities for at least two generations. Nobody is going to pay your teenager $15 an hour to bag groceries or fetch a broom. That's why you see self-checkouts in every supermarket and self-serve kiosks in every McDonald's restaurant. If you want an entry-level job, you need to be worth at least $15 an hour, or whatever the local minimum wage is.
Keep in mind, the purpose of a company is to make money, not to "provide jobs". When a company can no longer make money on a particular product or service, that product or service stops being offered. There's a lot of that going on in the US.
Many years ago, I bought a new laser printer. I thought I was choosing between the US-made printer (HP) and the Japan-made printer (Brother). Turns out they were both made in China.
I offered to paint my landlords railing here here in Mexico “no, I’ll be reported for hiring illegal aliens”
Well, get a local, “ hard to do do with zero unemployment”. . It’s true, everybody seems to be busy , even the cripples begging at the intersections.
Nice not having tents on the sidewalks, civilized🙂
Chris--From 1981 to 1990 I worked for a company whose mission was (paraphrased - it's been a long time ago) to provide quality products in a timely manner while providing challenging work for employees. They did provide challenging work, partly by insisting that each employee be a triple-threat person: technically competent, managerially astute, and enthusiastic sales person. Challenge was also assured by the attitude that, "You are an engineer/scientist. You can do anything."
OTOH: A friend who worked in the media was so stiff-necked in insisting that she replace her lost position with a similar position that she was forced to retired in her mid-50s. Tragic obstinance.
Cop Car
Cop Car -- I agree that there are some companies that place a high priority on employee success; Southwest Airlines, for example. However, it's built in to their business model and is assumed to be the basis for profitable operations. IMO: If conditions change, and the profit goes away, so does the company. I think this has been a huge factor in manufacturing, which is hugely portable, perhaps not so much in services.
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