SOC150 - Techonology and Jobs

This is a teachback assignment for a class at UAT. It is a tongue-in-cheek look at how technology affects jobs from a Luddite point of view.

One point I did not bring up (because it did not fit with the theme of the video) is how technology creates jobs. It is logical that for every job eliminated by technology, another is created (possibly more than 1). If this weren't the case, unemployment would continue to rise to the point where no one could afford the products made by machines because they wouldn't have work. This may in fact be a limiting factor on automation in the production environments.

The assignment is due right now, so a lot of post-production work was not done. The idea is there, the original vision is not.

Many thanks to http://www.incompetech.com for the royalty free music clips (they are, in order, Feral Chase, Long Road Ahead B, and Dark Star). It was nice to have three pieces of music that were thematically different, but had the same feel.

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Education

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[herpiethelovebug]

All those jobs you list as not being replaceable by machines, can be replaced by machines. Interesting vid tho, hope you got a good grade.

[ppardee]

@herpiethelovebug Thanks. I guess that all depends on your definition of a machine and your definition of replace, as well as your optimism for the future of AI. If we include computers in the definition of machine, then machines could act as reasonable stand-ins for many of the jobs listed. However, most of them require judgement and creativity. Machines can only ever hope to mimic that. Also, someone has to teach the machines, so there has to be someone around with the specialized knowledge.

[MCP2012]

@ppardee Interesting vid. With all due respect, however, even in this answer (ur initial, partial concessions re "Herpie's" comment), u seem to underestimate the medium-to-long-run feasible capabilities of robots. See, e.g., the work of Hans Moravec (in particular, *Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind*, Oxford U. Pr., 1999) as well as J. Storrs Hall, *Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine* (2007). Best wishes always...

[herpiethelovebug]

@herpiethelovebug Whoops, cybernetics isn't the right word I was looking for there. What I meant was AI.

[herpiethelovebug]

@ppardee True, but its coming. I'm a tech nut, so I spend a fair amount of time searching out the level of technology. These machines (cybernetics) are on the horizon already, and given the exponential growth in these fields, should be among us within 10 to 20 years, even at the pace that economics creates (which is another discussion). If we said, who cares about money, just do it, it could be realized with in 5 years. Machines will teach machines eventually.