12 machines that want your job

Companies and Government think real people should all be ROBOTS also.  Do not, I repeat, do not THINK FOR YOURSELF.  Do as the companies and GOVERNMENT tell you to do!!!

WAKE UP AMERICA-THE KARDASHIANS WILL NOT SAVE YOU!!!

The auther needs to do a little more homework and be a little less sensationalistic. Chief example is the comment about drones taking away pilot jobs. The fact is that drones require 25% MORE personnel to deploy and operate than a traditional combat aircraft, including the pilots that remotely fly the vehicles.

Smart phone apps are written by an army of software developers. New opportunities for young innovators that pay far more than minimum wage,

The "million" robots being acquired by Foxconn require many thousands of workers to assemble , install and maintain.

I have never been to a self checkout that didnt have one or more cashiers overseeing it because of the inevitable problems reading bar codes or to insure that every item was scanned. Personally I find the traditional checkout much faster.

A better article would be to talk about the evolving role of man\machine interfaces and how many new industries are being created that balance out the work being replaced. I would rather program a machine for $70k a year than snap one together for minimum wage.

When I was an engineering student in the mid 1960's, I was in a class groups that was taken on a "field trip" downtown to Columbia to view the IBM 610 (??) or 5900 (??). I remember one of the programmers telling us that one day computers would be "portable machines weighing no more than ten pounds". We were all pretty skeptical as we looked upon that tube laden, heavy artifact barely able to do square roots, sines and cosines in less than five minutes.

A few years later I and many of my classmates had a cult following for a weekly sci-fi TV program that we loved (and now more than ever) that depicted the future of the computer. Little did we know then that what Gene Roddenberry predicted in 1966 would become a must have and addiction in our homes, offices and while travelling from one destination to another.

The 1950's and 1960's were the decades known as "the beginning" and as artificial intelligence becomes a reality today, many will suffer loss of employment if they fail to keep up with technology. Remember, all machines, need talented, intelligent, cellular, carbon based life forms for their maintenance and well-being.

How a few things work

1. A toaster make in the good old USA, the work would want $20.00 an hour, full medical, and a retirement plan. The toaster would cost $40 to $50. It would set on the self on sold, because the same worker would buy the $10 on made in china.
2. A person sues a company for injuries because they were to lazy to read the instructions. A jury awards a large settlement because insurance companies have deep pockets.  YES they do, your pockets, every dollar in an insurance company funds came out of your pocket.
3. WE want lots of pay, and cheep products, so yes JOBS will be taken over by machines, and will go overseas, because we the people are causing it.

I think technology is great; however, we have to be careful of totally relying on machines so much that we become useless and start being dumbed down for lack of using our brain on simple tasks.  We also have to remember that people are making these machines and people are not perfect and mistakes can and will happen and computers shut down and malfunction everyday.  GPS devices still can't get directions right all the time or malfunction and have you making turns onto roads that aren't there sometimes, and now they are actually talking about having to hire less truck drivers to drive long distances because they are gonna let a computer do it!  As soon as there are malfunctions and cars and trucks start crashing and running people off the road, then those same people who were all for it, will be the main ones trying to sue the companies making the devices.  I do not want to drive along a freeway or streets with cars that are totally relying on a machine to see me, turn in front of me or anything else around me without the ability for a human to take over if necessary.