Does tech have a correlation with poverty and homelessness, because advanced equipment and machinery have been taking human jobs in recent years?

Hello Dion,

This is a really good question and I can tell from your detailed question that you have thought about this issue. Like you many people are also trying to grapple with this question given how rapidly technology and automation is changing every aspect of human lives.

It is clear that automation is going to eliminate many jobs, so if you have one of those jobs then you would have to deal with job losses and economic hardship. I believe governments, nonprofits and companies have a moral obligation to help those people with retraining and minimum income type of program to ensure that automation doesn't exacerbate the problem of poverty and income equality in the society.

On the positive site, automation will also create new type of jobs for instance people who build robots and automation systems that will take over those jobs that are currently being performed by people. The question is as a whole will the society gain more jobs overall meaning (new jobs created as a result of automation - job lost <span style="color: rgb(93, 103, 106);">created as a result of automation</span>) > 0 . I don't think we know the answers to that question yet. However, if we use the example of industrial revelation at the beginning of 18th century, it too eliminated many of the pre-industrial ear jobs, but it also created new type of jobs leading to increased consumption and higher standard of living. So, it is also possible that automation may have the similar impact, but is not certain. I wish I knew the definitive answer to this question, but you should read the <span style="color: rgb(93, 103, 106);">McKinsey report that I shared below:</span>

McKinsey which is a big consulting company that does research and consulting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/one-third-of-us-workers-could-be-jobless-by-2030-due-to-automation.html

Hope this helps. Please don't hesitate to reply if you have still have questions.

Thanks,

Vin

While advancements in tech - especially robotics - have found a place in manufacturing, there are many tech opportunities which will not be replaced in the forseeable future. A few which come to mind immediately are Business Analysts, System Administrators, HVAC technicians and Surveyors. Each of these roles have a common thread which is the need to work directly with others to meet a goal. This often involves LISTENING carefully to what a person is saying, hearing what they are NOT saying and taking the proper next steps. Here's some details on the positions mentioned:

Business Analysts are individuals who work with others in an organization to understand their business processes and then help make those processes more efficient. This might involve automating the process by having someone with the proper technical knowledge write a program or maybe fixing information on a report or screen to best support what the user needs. <span style="color: rgb(93, 103, 106);">(These improved efficiencies often results in large cost savings to the organization.) </span>

System Administrators are people who manage and maintain computer systems. One good example are Salesforce Administrators - which are in high demand now. Salesforce Administrators are responsible for the manual setup/configuration/maintenance of Salesforce platform in an organization.

Similarly, there are - and always will be - certain industries which require manual labor. HVAC technicians and site surveyors are two areas which is in dire need of interest from young people as the average age of current workers in each field is 55 years old and above.

While that is true, there are many jobs that are not coupled with advanced equipment and machinery. Software enterprise companies like Salesforce are funding computer programming and such skills in public schools. There are other soft skills that robots and machines cannot replace. The human skills There are numerous resources to learn technology skills online that will help with equipping yourself with the necessary traits. Read this https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/08/06/7-job-skills-of-the-future-that-ais-and-robots-cant-do-better-than-humans/40f603706c2e

Automation is not a new in our human history. We've gone through several industrial revolutions from automobiles, electricity, and digital computing to our current one which is connected devices. Technology is also not the only factor that directly increases poverty and homelessness—government also plays a role in minimizing the social impact whether through tax laws or legislation that anticipate the needs of the general population. John Oliver had a recent segment on Last Week Tonight that concisely talks about the issue and the impact on the future of jobs https://www.vulture.com/2019/03/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-robots-automation-jobs.html

As humans, we are in control of our experience of AI and our resilience to respond to each advance as we have done every time.

This is probably the best question I have seen here!

My answer to this is- No!

I personally do not think there is a correlation between an advanced tech (AI) and homelessness/poverty.

Unfortunately, if anything that you can utilize properly, falls in the hands of a greedy person, there are always negative consequences. I believe that personal greed of a few individuals lead to the poverty and other bad situations in the current world.

Coming back to your question, think about from the other perspective. How many high-paying jobs will an Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology generate to make the world a more beautiful place.

It all depends on how we humans manage our resources and scientific capabilities that we possess.