Most Government Workers Could Be Replaced By Robots, New Study Finds

[GURPS]

Most Government Workers Could Be Replaced By Robots, New Study Finds


A study by a British think tank, Reform, says that 90% of British civil service workers have jobs so pointless, they could easily be replaced by robots, saving the government around $8 billion per year.

The study, published this week, says that robots are “more efficient” at collecting data, processing paperwork, and doing the routine tasks that now fall to low-level government employees. Even nurses and doctors, who are government employees in the UK, could be relieved of some duties by mechanical assistants.

There are “few complex roles” in civil service, it seems, that require a human being to handle.

“Twenty percent of public-sector workers hold strategic, ‘cognitive’ roles,” Reform’s press release on the study says. “They will use data analytics to identify patterns—improving decision-making and allocating workers most efficiently.

“The NHS, for example, can focus on the highest risk patients, reducing unnecessary hospital admissions. UK police and other emergency services are already using data to predict areas of greatest risk from burglary and fire.”

From the Jargon File [hackers dictionary]

droid: n.
[from android, SF terminology for a humanoid robot of essentially biological (as opposed to mechanical/electronic) construction] A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following characteristics: (a) naive trust in the wisdom of the parent organization or ‘the system’; (b) a blind-faith propensity to believe obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or computers!); (c) a rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or unable to look beyond the ‘letter of the law’ in exceptional situations; (d) a paralyzing fear of official reprimand or worse if Procedures are not followed No Matter What; and (e) no interest in doing anything above or beyond the call of a very narrowly-interpreted duty, or in particular in fixing that which is broken; an “It's not my job, man” attitude.

Typical droid positions include supermarket checkout assistant and bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level government employees. The implication is that the rules and official procedures constitute software that the droid is executing; problems arise when the software has not been properly debugged. The term droid mentality is also used to describe the mindset behind this behavior. Compare suit, marketroid; see -oid.

In England there is equivalent mainstream slang; a ‘jobsworth’ is an obstructive, rule-following bureaucrat, often of the uniformed or suited variety. Named for the habit of denying a reasonable request by sucking his teeth and saying “Oh no, guv, sorry I can't help you: that's more than my job's worth”.

Drone: n
Ignorant sales or customer service personnel in computer or electronics superstores. Characterized by a lack of even superficial knowledge about the products they sell, yet possessed of the conviction that they are more competent than their hacker customers. Usage: “That video board probably sucks, it was recommended by a drone at Fry's” In the year 2000, their natural habitats include Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and CompUSA.

 

[Kev_Russell]

Most government workers are already robots.

 

[Larry Gude]

So, they 'save' $8 billion and then what? Is that all going to be returned to tax payers who then can hire these folks to do....what? Is Britain's economy dying to have some more workers to compete with their cheaper immigrants, depressing wages even further??

A few less chairs for a few more people in the economic game of musical chairs.

 

[tommyjo]

GURPS...and zerohedge...a match made in stupidity.

Here's the part good ole GURPS fails to mention in his boring "cut and paste to obfuscate stories" life....

MOST jobs are at risk to be replaced by robots within 10 years or so...not just govt jobs. MOST jobs, period.

The Bank of England believes that machines might take over 80 million American and 15 million British jobs over the next 10 to 20 years, CNN Money reports, or 50% of the workforce in each of the two countries.

“These machines are different,” the bank’s chief economist Andy Haldane said. “Unlike in the past, they have the potential to substitute for human brains as well as hands.”

According to the bank, administrative, clerical and production workers might be the first to be replaced by robots in the coming years. That’s not to say unemployment will suddenly rise. Humans will “adapt their skills to the tasks where they continue to have a comparative advantage over machines.”

A recent Oxford University study quoted by Yahoo says that the jobs at risk of being replaced by robots include loan officers, receptionists, paralegals, salespeople, drivers, security guards, fast food cooks, bartenders.

http://bgr.com/2015/11/16/robots-replacing-human-jobs/

This is not new news...unless of course you are as uninformed or suffer from ADD or read things like zerohedge...this article I sourced is from last fall and has been a source of concern for years now...

Of course, GURPS can only apply the potential AI revolution to govt workers...not cabbies, truck drivers, bank tellers, food servers, check out clerks, factory workers....all those average jobs held by average folks that people like GURPS think a President can magically create by tweeting...

 

[GURPS]

GURPS...and zerohedge...a match made in stupidity.

Here's the part good ole GURPS fails to mention in his boring "cut and paste to obfuscate stories" life....

ToJAM

do you not understand NOT Copying the entire story ..... a link is provided so anyone can READ THE REST OF THE ####'N ARTICLE

Of course, GURPS can only apply the potential AI revolution to govt workers...
.... not cabbies, truck drivers, bank tellers, food servers, check out clerks, factory workers....

damn you are a miserable #### ....

I am not applying ANYTHING ....
the ARTICLE is about Gov. workers, if you have something to a ADD IT, that is the point of a Forum

all those average jobs held by average folks that people like GURPS think a President can magically create by tweeting...

I have no Idea What this is supposed mean, I haven't said anything about Trump tweeting up jobs

 

[Larry Gude]

This is the story, people;

The Bank of England believes that machines might take over 80 million American and 15 million British jobs over the next 10 to 20 years, CNN Money reports, or 50% of the workforce in each of the two countries.

$8 billion isn't jack #### compared to what's coming. And coming FAST. We have to start dealing with providing income for people to NOT work, to just consume. We can either direct this in productive ways, paying people to do things to generally improve society, senior care, education, cleaning up dumps, abandoned buildings, etc, or just react and do it piecemeal and wish, like Social Security, we'd made small changes earlier rather than sticking our heads in the sand.

80 million American's replaced by robots is something along the lines of $4 trillion a year, paychecks, gone. More than we spend on health care right now.

 

[SamSpade]

Those of us old enough to remember ---

As so many sitcoms and cartoons and prime time shows of the 60's ran the same basic story line - (I mean, didn't EVERY show somewhere deal with a "surprise birthday party" that went bad?) -

Was the constant drumbeat of how computers and machines would take all of our jobs.
Movies about computers and machines taking over the world (even decades before The Terminator).
Stories about someone losing their job and replaced by a machine.
Machine testimony in court. Music, art, poetry - created by machine.
On and on.

It's only news because people forgot all that.

 

[GURPS]

What Happened to Black Smiths, Buggy Whip Makers, Elevator Operators

 

[Wishbone]

What Happened to Black Smiths, Buggy Whip Makers, Elevator Operators

When can we expect robotics to replace the Leftist Rioters?

I'm sure the ED-209 could break windows, assault people and start fires more efficiently.

 

[Larry Gude]

What Happened to Black Smiths, Buggy Whip Makers, Elevator Operators

Please, by all means, try and compare an economy entering into the industrial age and the explosion of demand for more and more and better and better workers to a mature economy whose primary profit center is to use less and less and cheaper and cheaper labor. China is losing jobs to Indonesia because they're cheaper. Carrier's $60k jobs can be done in Mexico for $5k.

Add in computers, robotics, endless streams of MBS's flooding into the market trying to justify their existence by reducing costs to the bare minimum while prices hold and profits climb.

Go ahead. I use the musical chairs example because it's simple and accurate. Where are the new chairs to come from when the entire economy is about seeing to it that there aren't any. Talk to me about what a boss made in relation to his people, managing them, 100 years ago, vs. now where he can make his career by getting rid of them.

Where do the jobs come from? Agricultural gets more and more productive and needs less and less people. Shelter? Most people who work with tools are immigrants. How long before a shovel or hammer is automated? Clothing? The world's cheapest labor makes garments 10 times better than 100 years ago, 100 times more efficiently.

Tell me. Where do the jobs come from when EVERY innovation is about cutting costs, cutting labor, getting more for less.

Driving? Will be gone in 20 years, most likely sooner.
Amazon is creating a model where most retail won't be able to compete.
Paperwork? AI.
Making things? Sure. 1 new job to make a robot that replaces 10 or 20 jobs.
Buddy of mine just got a machine that handles un-rooted cuttings, the most vulnerable, pain in the ass thing to deal with in the ag business. It MUST have human hands and eyes as they're not nuts and bolts. They must be graded, carefully transplanted, lot of attention to detail and skill. His new wiz bang does 2,500 cuttings an hour. That's 3-4 people, gone due to cameras, AI and equipment fine enough to do the job faster, better.
Lawn care? Right now, not in a few years, right now, companies are not even trialing but putting into use GPS controlled mowers. So, illegals jobs are in trouble. Take that cutting machine and before you know it there WILL be machines that can do the decision making work and feel work of transplanting, mulching, edging, trimming.

So, where will the jobs come from?

We need consumers. Not workers.

 

[GURPS]

Please, by all means, try and compare an economy entering into the industrial age ....

technology advances replacing one group of workers for another ... automated machines will need techs to fix them, Engineers to program them

a machine may dig the hole, you always need a guy with a shovel to trim the hole up


Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters, HVAC will still be need ... we are not to the point of iRobot yet

We need consumers. Not workers.

Why ?


you still want to pay people to sit around and do nothing all day ....

 

[mAlice]

If you stopped at the subject line, "Most Government Workers Could be Replaced by Robots", that would make a great one liner.

So much truth. LOL

 

[Larry Gude]

you still want to pay people to sit around and do nothing all day ....

I wrote (you an check it)

We can either direct this in productive ways, paying people to do things to generally improve society, senior care, education, cleaning up dumps, abandoned buildings, etc, or just react and do it piecemeal and wish, like Social Security, we'd made small changes earlier rather than sticking our heads in the sand.

Could we chalk this up to problems with reading comprehension or simply refusing to face reality?

 

[PeoplesElbow]

I wouldn't be so sure of that, 97.7 has a line they play every once and a while "remember when they said computers would make our jobs easier?"

What they did was created a whole new category of jobs, yes they did eliminate some jobs. The low skill labor type jobs are the ones that will be eliminated, the question is what will those people do in the future? Will they be shipped off to district 13?

 

[Wishbone]

If you stopped at the subject line, "Most Government Workers Could be Replaced by Robots", that would make a great one liner.

So much truth. LOL

I was thinking "Houseplants" may be more appropriate.

 

[GURPS]

.... yes they did eliminate some jobs.

you no longer have legions of women tying letters .... one Secretary, MS Office, a Laser Printer and a Mail Merge JOB Later .... 2500 letters

 

[This_person]

Most Studies Could be Replaced by Common Sense and are Meaningless or Wrong






Just sayin'

 

[bilbur]

Eventually almost all our jobs will be replaced by robots. Not long ago I read an article that says some government officials are preparing for this inevitability by figuring out how people will support themselves in a world with no jobs. If you truly think about it there is no job that can't be done better by a robot or some other form of automation. It will start with the unskilled labor positions and expand from there. One article I read said surgeons would be one of the first skilled positions to be replaced. A robot could perform surgery with more accuracy and with fewer to no mistakes. Once they perfect artificial intelligence and quantum computing there is no limit to what they can do. Personally I say bring it on, artificial intelligence will increase our technology and knowledge of the world/universe exponentially. I just hope I am around to see it happen.

 

[SamSpade]

If you stopped at the subject line, "Most Government Workers Could be Replaced by Robots", that would make a great one liner.

So much truth. LOL

If my job is any indication - it would take at least one or two workers to rebuild or reprogram that robot just to deal with the constant changes, rewrites, policy changes, policy abandoned and replaced, exceptions, changes in format. Heck, an intelligent machine would probably off itself after a few years.

Self-driving cars would be easier.

 

[Kyle]

Heck, an intelligent machine would probably off itself after a few years.
.

That happens. A while back, with two malamutes and two huskies in the house, the Rumba rolled itself out the door one day and right into traffic. I'm pretty sure it was deliberate.