The Last Human Job is on Steemit
When machines first started being used to replace human workers back in the 1800's - it caused a lot of panic among workers who imagined that these machines would take their jobs away. Their fears were justified to some extent because many of those jobs no longer exist for humans and many of them no longer even exist at all.
Adapting to Technology
But as one door closes - another one opens and in the case of machinery, and automation - even though many jobs were lost on the production line - more jobs were created to build , repair, and maintain these newfangled machines. This required a new skill set however , so it's not like the factory workers were able to simply transition over to the new machine repair jobs. New people had to be hired,training had to happen and people with special skills were employed to keep everything running smoothly. In the end - you had a more efficient factory with cheaper labor - this lead to the industrial revolution and many were left behind if they didn't have the skills or training to keep up.
Working bots are the new norm
We are now in the information age and we have seen a lot of changes come and go. Machines have evolved and factories are now packed with armies of robots pumping out products by the thousands. Behind all of it is intelligent software that uses a myriad of inputs to decide how much to produce , when to produce and what to produce. Artificial intelligence is being leveraged to maximize profits and cut down on production costs. This generation of workers is used to seeing robotic employees and don't see them as the threat that our previous generation viewed it as.
Even though people are used to seeing work done by robots - I think a lot of people don't realize how much our planet is actually being operated by software. The advent of artificial intelligence brings to us a world of new opportunities as we are able to use this powerful tool to gather and analyze data to provide real world solutions. But what does this mean for human jobs?
Smarter Robots
Just based on the existing projects right now, we can see AI and automation taking over many jobs once considered to be for humans only. Fast food restaurants now have self check out kiosks where you don't have to interact with a human to order food. Retails stored all now have self checkouts too - those jobs are being replaced. But it's not just the menial labor that we are seeing displaced. High level jobs that require human thinking and analytics are now being turned over to the machine.
An example of this would be an artificial intelligence program that compares millions of medical records and finds patterns to help diagnose problems and predict what diseases we might get or what treatments have been most successful. Another example is how Amazon and Google use AI to predict what products that we might want to purchase. The stock market uses complicated AI software to predict market movements and to keep the stock market from bottle necking. In Japan they are using robotic nurses to tend to elderly people and disperse medications. There are many areas where we are seeing AI take over jobs that were once considered some thing only a human can do. In the last decade alone we have seen this pattern exploding as AI is being developed for agriculture, law firms, manufacturing, financial markets, healthcare, insurance and the list continues to grow.
I have commented many times in the past about how we are losing many jobs to artificial intelligence. I predict that ALL jobs will be replace by AI / robots/ automation. I feel like this is simply inevitable. Developers will continue making smarter software and companies will continue looking for ways to save on labor and production costs - the two will converge one day when we realize there are no human jobs left. Almost anything you can think of can be done by a robot now with the right software. All of this is say one thing. When all the jobs have been taken and and everyone is on Universal Basic Income - there is going to be one final job left for humans. Content creation.
The Last Human Job
Content creation will be last vestige of mankind - our final contribution to the universe. The ability to take what is inside the human mind and translate that into sounds, words, and images that are not the result of artificial intelligence.
Oh sure - computers will be able to write music, stories, and create content - but those created by humans will be at a premium - because it will be considered rare in a world that were all things are done by algorithms and automation.
The ability to put words down on paper to spin a compelling story or perspective will be a currency among humans starving for real personal interaction in an increasingly disconnected world. Good content will be highly sought after.
Platforms like Steemit are revolutionary in their own right and no one even realizes it yet -but Steemit my be the last employer of humans on the planet. OK - that might be a bit of an over-reach -but the point is the same. Platforms like Steemit that encourage and reward quality content is laying the groundwork for the last job of the future. This means that we will still deal with issues of poor content getting great reviews and great content getting buried - but somewhere in all of it - people will find their niche and gravitate towards their preferences. We may see many authors come and go and there is a good chance that the mainstream media will still exist in some form and try to use their own platforms to curate public opinion as they do now- but independent creators will still have a wide audience and I think people will end up rejecting the mainstream media in lieu of something more organic and heartfelt. Regardless of how it transpires - I still contend that content creation will be the very last job left for humans. I think people will still be able to work if they choose to - but it will only be to occupy their time as Universal Income will cover all basic needs except boredom.
When we look back at handcrafted items - they hold a special value because we know that people don't make things like that anymore We hold it up as something special and rare. I see the same thing happening with people. Very little things will be produced by humans on a mass scale - so any little thing made my hand or created out of the mind will be held in high regards. Will you be one of them? Are you going to be one of last creators of content to satisfy the hoards of entertainment seeking minds looking for a distraction? A movie maker? A musician? An artist? Photographer? Art will be our savior in the future when there is no other calling for humans and all manual labor and intellectual labor are overtaken by AI. What do you think about the future of content creation?
Do you think we will place a premium on human created content or will the masses be happy with some machine spitting out art based on algorithms? Do you plan to keep creating now and original content? Will Steemit eventually become the largest media company on the planet?
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I always upvote comments to my blog posts
You bring up completely valid points.
The thing people miss is the fact that robots were used the past 30 years to knock out jobs. It took decades for it to happen and it is still a slow process. The reason for this is dexterity is a difficult thing to create in a robot.
But you know what is not difficult? Software that automates tasks. This is the real game changer because it is entering all those middle class, white collar jobs. Accounting, legal, financial, and real estate are all industries already seeing disruption. This will only continue.
It is amazing that people still debate this point. The speed at which things are progressing is unparalleled. There is absolutely no way people will be able to keep up.
Great post.
I agree completely .. I also believe that most people don't realize that right now we are on the cusp of a new age ..we recently experienced the information age... we have now entered into the age of Artificial Intelligence. It is quietly in the background making decisions for us and solving complicated problems with insurance companies, stock market and healthcare.
Meanwhile - its being released to the public in the form of Software Development Kits (SDKs) that allow amatures to tinker around with the power of A.I and using open source software to share it with the rest of the world... it is coming upon faster than we realize and the big wigs who are creating these thing don't even know how the A.I is solving the problems - it's too complex for them to figure out ..they don't even know how their own machines work!!
I like this perspective... pretty crazy to think about
Gave you a big upvote because you deserve more for your efforts here.
Thank you very much - that is extremely kind of you to say. It's a subject I'm always happy to talk about so it my enthusiasm probably came through.. robots, the future, Ai , sci fi - all things I love talking about - when I get the chance - most of my write up are about investing in real estate or crypto..in addition ti my weekly contest... so its fun to deviate once in a while and write about some of my chaos theories..such as content creation being the last human job
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Change happens, for some reason as of late there seem to be a lot of post similar to yours about jobs and loss of them to automation, we adapt and we make new jobs. I enjoyed reading it.
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Lots of votes made possible due to the kindness of abh12345 and his Steemit Curation Leagues
I didn't realize there were so many other posts about it though it doesn't surprise me. However - I was really hoping for the gist of this blog post to come off more as a commentary on what humans will still be doing. I'm not arguing for or against job loss to robots- that part I think is inevitable -so I 'm looking further into the future and asking " what will be left for humans to do when there IS nothing to do?" I'm not even saying that humans will continue creating content ( a sad thought) - just that when all the jobs are gone - the very last job left is going to be content creation - for however long that lasts. It seems like humans would always have a story to tell ... but if the AI overtakes the world and enslaves all of humanity - we may not even be permitted to document anything....crazy to think about what the deep future might hold...
I am not sure that there will ever be a time of no jobs, if there ever is, then it will usher in a new age of exploration. Whether that be in the form of mind expansion, underwater explorations, space exploration, or inner earth exploration. Man/Woman are not made to do just nothing, there will always be something to drive us along down the evolutionary path whether we want to travel it of not.
I can get on board with that - but I see not so much as a job , but of like you said - exploratory - informative, entertaining - assuming that AI hasn't strapped up to a gurney and plugged us into the matrix - I think humans actually WILL continue to explore the universe and expand out .. but I think it will be for leisure more so than necessity - but of course there could be a massive EMP and suddenly billions of humans are dependent on the earth again - but have forgotten how to do everything have no google to look it up!
Can you think of a job that won't be able to be performed by a robot/AI?
It's true that a lot of jobs have been taken over by the machines. We shouldn't go to war against them yet though. Or maybe we should. Some they'll be able to sign up for Steemit accounts on their own and produce their own content. With AI, they'll be able to write original content. Hopefully it will be a while until the AI can master my combination of charm, wit, and sarcasm. :)
I'm not going to war with them just yet ( what am I a dummy? ) Just postulating about what might be left for us. I agree that AI will be fully capable of making music , art , and other original content ( heck.. it's already happening) but I think that's is why there is going to be a premium for something that is actually human. Just like hand crafted items today hold more value because of that. It may even be difficult to tell the difference between real content and computer generated content - so anything that can be verified as created by a human could possibly carry more value - It will be funny to se AI on Steemit - if it happens it might be Sophia who shows up here first.
That's good to stay on their good side. Maybe they'll give you a job assigning work details to the human captives when they take over. I'd laugh, but it's probably not too far-fetched. 0.0
I belive Robots with AI can produce more informative articles than an average human due to its capability of remembering, processing, and huge data source. But when it comes to art, human will have edge over AI at least for near future. But Robots and AI still has long way to go when It comes to emotional care giving like we human are capable of.
@reazuliqbal - I agree - still al ong way to go before they will be good at emotional care - although since we know that emotions and feelings are the results of checmical reactions- its only a matter of time before they decode the right mix to create genuine feelings - honestly - I rue the day the give emotions to robots! I would not want them watching this video and getting pissed off:
Me neither. Implementation of AI is fine for me as long as we are using it in mechanical purposes e.g. removing spam posts, sorting and summarizing millions of videos uploaded on YouTube etc. I can't stand human look-alike robots let alone giving them human like emotions.
This is a good post @jorlauski! I’m late to the game but wanted to stop by. I knew you were a good writer since we both enter those contests for freedomexists sometimes. Looks like you got the attention of our wonderful SOG Asher. A resteem from him is a compliment!
Will find time tonight to look at the meetup DTube. The days just fly back on here.
Thanks for reading it... I really appreciate the compliments. I have always enjoyed writing .. though I dont alway have time for it .. but Steemit has reinvigorated the writer inside me and helped give new purpose to my prose. Writing articles like this vs. my typical real estate articles is like reading a juicy novel vs reading the wall street journal ... both are enjoyable .. but sometimes a good diversion is fun and healthy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece!
Excellent work and much deserving of its place as original and manually created content on the Steem Blockchain.
Having recently produced a blog listing the top 200 commentators (by character count) and seeing so many robots and auto replies, I'm glad I found this post on my travels, and that you are discussing manually created content as being the last role we have to play in our increasingly AI ruling world.
It's an upvote, follow, and a resteem here!
Thank you - your words humble me. Maybe someday when they scrape the archives - this will come up as one of the future "predictions" about how things would be.
I would not bet against it, and I am really glad the extra eyes found your work interesting too :)
This is a good article. Sometimes, when I think how many are now making technology and machines, I get scared, and whether there will be any case for a person ???
I think the more automation we see - the more human contact will become important to us - is it stands - technology may be bringing together strangers , but it is also alienating people from their families... I think we will get to a point when people start to miss that human to human interaction - I think there will always be a case for humans
I absolutely agree with you! Perhaps the development of technology will lead to the fact. that the most valued human relations, no matter how paradoxical it may sound
This is a great post and i agree that steemit will be one of the big jobs later in the futute because machines are taking over human jobs. There is this new store idea called amazon go where people walk in with their amazon account and grab whatever they want in the store and when they walk out the items get purchased from your account. It gets interesting when you think how people will get paid. People will get paid for steemit but maybe there will also be otjer platforms like it. I think steemit will continue to grow and become the biggest job in yhe future
Thank you for the compliment @joordanzzz -I actually still think there will still be a market for experience guides too.... so perhaps someone that guides you through a jungle .. or on a water rafting trips.. mountain climbing , flying ( with those wing suits that make you into a flying squirrel) and such .... I think experiences will be in high demand - even thought they will all be able to be experienced virtually - humans will always have that urge to experience excitement face to face