Career That Can’t be Replaced by Technology

tbeltrans said:
I heard of Pick years ago. As I recall, it was a high level language and I never had any contact with it. My programming initially was very processor-specific since it was assembler. Then, C started to take hold, followed by C++. These have been my primary tools, along with scripting languages such as bash scripting, Python, and the like. Those are used to quickly whip something together, though more serious programming is being done with Python. Then there are al the web-based languages and toolkits, but those are more the realm of people doing high level GUI work.

I have been very fortunate that in the early days of Linux, when it was at release 0.99 and distributed on a large stack of 5 1/4" floppies (25 or 30 as I recall), I was introduced to it more as an outside work hobby thing. Later on, Linux began taking over where VxWorks had been the premier embedded toolkit for vendor demo boards. These days, any of these boards has Linux as the centerpiece of their Board Support Package (BSP). Linux is found everywhere, from smart phones to TVs, to servers and desktop computers, hobby boards, etc. Anybody with a solid knowledge of Linux internals and drivers, and the ability to port Linux to custom hardware, will probably have a pretty solid career for some time to come.

Another fortunate aspect of my career is that I have worked for a number of startups where you have to "wear a lot of engineering hats". In larger companies, a person can still become pigeon-holed, which just begs for workplace obsolescence and early forced retirement. I learned C early on because we were using it in the startups long before it made its way into larger companies. When larger companies started to recognize its usefulness for pretty much any engineering project, I was already well down that path with the experience. I went back to college a bit later in my career and learned C++ and Objected-Oriented design and application in a hardware environment. So I was well positioned when that came to the fore in engineering environments.

A lot of this stuff is a matter of luck - being in the right place at the right time. We rarely know ahead of time what direction these things will take in the future. somehow, I seemed to always be well positioned, and it wasn't because I had some sort of crystal ball. I was simply interested in what was going on around me.

Also I never considered a job a "right" that I am entitled to. I always saw myself and the skills I have as being a marketable product so that it is up to me to remain useful to those who might employ me. I never understand demanding a higher wage without bringing more to the table than I did at a lower wage. The way I see it, if I am hiring somebody to do work for me (i.e. hiring the services of a plumber, mechanic, electrician, going out to eat, etc.) as many of us, especially homeowners and car owners will do from time to time, we demand quality service for our dollars paid. We will do our due diligence when deciding who to hire or what restaurant to go to, and as evidenced even in these forums, will be upset if we don't get the service we paid for. I never understood why many people don't look at themselves in the same way in terms of what we bring to our employees. That attitude has really helped me stay employed because it isn't about me when I am "on the clock", but instead about what I do in return for the dollars paid to me. To me, many people have it all backwards, putting what they want over what they are being paid to provide their employer. I would think anybody here who owns or has owned their own business and has employees will readily see what I am talking about.

Tony
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Interesting. Programming/scripting languages I learned, used (to some greater or lesser extent) and later forgot would include FORTRAN, GOTRAN, Basic, 1410 Autocoder, 360/370 BAL, APL, PL-1, Cobol, C/C++, HTML/DHTML, Javascript, Cold Fusion, T-SQL, etc. I never messed with MAD, ADA, Algol, Python, PHP or Perl. I don't think a robot could do that and produce useful, creative output over its lifespan, at least not in the forseable future. As others have said, so far robots can only do what they are programmed to learn and/or do. Someone will have to program them. The thing that will separate us from the bots will be creative endeavor.
 

I wrote a Basic interpreter on one job that was used by field service people on laptops to write quick Basic programs to run tests and diagnose problems. The interpreter had commands specific to that purpose in addition to the various Basic programming language features. I used a recursive descent parser. It was a fun project, and was probably the highest level thing I wrote. I did it in C, as C++ was not around yet at the time.

My wife and I met at a vo-tech programming school back around 1980. All we did in that program (13 months of night school) was learn programming languages. We used Hollerith punch cards and the languages were all mainframe stuff such as COBOL, FORTRAN, and IBM 360 BAL. On graduating, I got a job in a shop that did the accounting package for the Minnesota Twins and several companies. I hated the atmosphere, and have never liked the business world. The politics were just plain silly to me. Also, in that world of mainframes, you never got near the actual hardware. It was as if those people were some sort of "gods" and the programmers sat at terminals far removed and were of a lower class of folk. Nope, tat just wasn't for me. I quit after several months of that and went back to being a technician. Finally, the opportunity came along to get into the world of the micro-computer where you are always in the hardware. There, the environment was more like a computer club where people were actually interested in what they were doing, and the work was always interesting. That environment has always been much more enjoyable and the pay much better too.

Oh, I forgot about Perl. That is another language that I treated more as a scripting language to whip something together for proof of concept or to do some menial type tasks. I have done some JAVA. It is used in the Android environment.

Tony
 
ronaldj said:
they cannot write books or poems or tell stories.
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Yes, they do. As AI improves, so will this aspect of what they can do. Actually, it isn't a robot, but instead just a desktop computer that can do this with appropriate software. Hobbyists have been toying with writing these applications for some time, but researchers have also gotten involved because these things are an obvious application for AI.

Tony
 
tbeltrans said:
Yes, they do. As AI improves, so will this aspect of what they can do. Actually, it isn't a robot, but instead just a desktop computer that can do this with appropriate software. Hobbyists have been toying with writing these applications for some time, but researchers have also gotten involved because these things are an obvious application for AI.

Tony
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well thanks for busting my bubble
 
ronaldj said:
well thanks for busting my bubble
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There is a lot of research going on and I suppose not everybody is aware of it. Just wait for quantum computing to become more visible to the general population. There you will start to see real incursions into practical uses for AI.

Tony
 
tbeltrans said:
Yes, they do. As AI improves, so will this aspect of what they can do. Actually, it isn't a robot, but instead just a desktop computer that can do this with appropriate software. Hobbyists have been toying with writing these applications for some time, but researchers have also gotten involved because these things are an obvious application for AI.

Tony
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One of these days, somebody's going to attach a gun to a drone and with AI, program it to murder somebody.

People have made autonomous paintball guns or sentry guns. You can find videos on YouTube. It wouldn't take much more engineering to build one that could kill people -- just beef it up a little, build it out of steel instead of plastic, use a real gun instead of a paintball gun...
 
Irwin said:
One of these days, somebody's going to attach a gun to a drone and with AI, program it to murder somebody.

People have made autonomous paintball guns or sentry guns. You can find videos on YouTube. It wouldn't take much more engineering to build one that could kill people -- just beef it up a little, build it out of steel instead of plastic, use a real gun instead of a paintball gun...
Click to expand...

Seems like this could get the job done. Crude, but definitely capable of killing. :(

 
tbeltrans said:
I heard of Pick years ago. As I recall, it was a high level language and I never had any contact with it. My programming initially was very processor-specific since it was assembler. Then, C started to take hold, followed by C++. These have been my primary tools, along with scripting languages such as bash scripting, Python, and the like. Those are used to quickly whip something together, though more serious programming is being done with Python. Then there are al the web-based languages and toolkits, but those are more the realm of people doing high level GUI work.

I have been very fortunate that in the early days of Linux, when it was at release 0.99 and distributed on a large stack of 5 1/4" floppies (25 or 30 as I recall), I was introduced to it more as an outside work hobby thing. Later on, Linux began taking over where VxWorks had been the premier embedded toolkit for vendor demo boards. These days, any of these boards has Linux as the centerpiece of their Board Support Package (BSP). Linux is found everywhere, from smart phones to TVs, to servers and desktop computers, hobby boards, etc. Anybody with a solid knowledge of Linux internals and drivers, and the ability to port Linux to custom hardware, will probably have a pretty solid career for some time to come.

Another fortunate aspect of my career is that I have worked for a number of startups where you have to "wear a lot of engineering hats". In larger companies, a person can still become pigeon-holed, which just begs for workplace obsolescence and early forced retirement. I learned C early on because we were using it in the startups long before it made its way into larger companies. When larger companies started to recognize its usefulness for pretty much any engineering project, I was already well down that path with the experience. I went back to college a bit later in my career and learned C++ and Objected-Oriented design and application in a hardware environment. So I was well positioned when that came to the fore in engineering environments.

A lot of this stuff is a matter of luck - being in the right place at the right time. We rarely know ahead of time what direction these things will take in the future. Somehow, I seemed to always be well positioned, and it wasn't because I had some sort of crystal ball. I was simply interested in what was going on around me.

Also I never considered a job a "right" that I am entitled to. I always saw myself and the skills I have as being a marketable product so that it is up to me to remain useful to those who might employ me. I never understand demanding a higher wage without bringing more to the table than I did at a lower wage. The way I see it, if I am hiring somebody to do work for me (i.e. hiring the services of a plumber, mechanic, electrician, going out to eat, etc.) as many of us, especially homeowners and car owners will do from time to time, we demand quality service for our dollars paid. We will do our due diligence when deciding who to hire or what restaurant to go to, and as evidenced even in these forums, will be upset if we don't get the service we paid for. I never understood why many people don't look at themselves in the same way in terms of what we bring to our employers. That attitude has really helped me stay employed because it isn't about me when I am "on the clock", but instead about what I do in return for the dollars paid to me. To me, many people have it all backwards, putting what they want over what they are being paid to provide their employer. I would think anybody here who owns or has owned their own business and has employees will readily see what I am talking about.

Tony
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Where your skills and the world's needs intersect--paraphrased from What Color is Your Parachute--one of the best career books I ever found.
 
Irwin said:
One of these days, somebody's going to attach a gun to a drone and with AI, program it to murder somebody.

People have made autonomous paintball guns or sentry guns. You can find videos on YouTube. It wouldn't take much more engineering to build one that could kill people -- just beef it up a little, build it out of steel instead of plastic, use a real gun instead of a paintball gun...
Click to expand...
Yes, that is a definite possibility/probability. There are people whose sole purpose seems to be to find newer and better ways to kill people, and others whose sole purpose seems to be to find ways to fleece people out of what they work hard to earn. Unfortunately, we seem to need people to do the former since the country does, at times, need to protect itself. However, the latter needs to be eliminated from our society entirely.

Tony
 
automaton-dead_end_job-robot_worker-filing-tediousness-office-CC142231_low.jpg
 
I am looking forward to a lot of doctors being replaced by AI, can't happen too soon for me! I've had a few awesome doctors, but there is nothing more depressing than having a medical issue and getting a poor quality doctor. Problems I've had with the ignorance of doctors include:
Prescribed anti-depressants when the real problem was low thyroid
Sent for a pregnancy test when I got Lyme Disease
Given antibiotics for a sinus infection when I got measles
Prescribed antacids when apparently I have an increased need for B12
Had my throat (inside and out) inspected by a doctor when I had a blocked saliva gland (where did he think saliva comes from?!?)

It appears that lots of every type of job will go away in the next 20 or so years, including ones that seem like they would be safe. On one hand I wish I would live long enough to see how societies will adjust, but on the other hand I anticipate some societies won't adjust well or in a timely manner and I'd rather not be in that place at that time.

If a society has a government that is quick to respond to change, smart about it, and dedicated to the welfare of the people then perhaps our children/grandchildren will have the opportunity to get timely new education/skills to change to new jobs, while having a financial safety net. And maybe they will finally get shorter work weeks which would make more jobs available.

Already I hear more and more about "universal income" which will probably be a necessity for future generations.

I wonder how people will spend their time if they only work a few months a year. Those lucky future people, they will probably feel sorry about our lives.
 
More forever jobs that will never become obsolescent:

panhandlers
telemarketers
scam artists on PC's

electrical utility workers for winter storms-as we well know here in the dallas area after our blizzard
real estate salespeople
criminals

dentist
physicians
and the lady that demands all your information when you enter hospital
bartenders

FEMA workers- the hands on people that actually deleiver food,clothing...not the jake-leg bureaucratizes

These all require human interaction, always will
 
Don M. said:
Technology, automation, and robotics, etc., has substantially changed our need for human workplace activity in the past few decades, and that change will probably increase every year. At the pace things are changing, I find it hard to imagine what people will be doing for employment in another few decades..."service industry" type of activity can only support a fraction of the population.
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Gotta agree with Don M. I wonder what most of us will be doing hundreds of years from now to earn a living. Even the "service" industry is probably going to be obsolete. Who has to keep paying for a maid, when the Housekeeper 2700 does it for a tenth of the cost? The only think I figure humans can do , then, is "want". We want food. We want TV. We want thrills. We want homes. We want cars. . We want......,Maybe in the future, people will have to figure out new ways to 'want' things. Machines will be doing all the rest, we just have to figure out what we 'want'. People will all be "want-ologists."
 
I don't think robots/technology could replace what I did the last 16 years of my career. As a Disease Intervention Specialist, I interviewed patients with STDs to illicit their contacts, then followed up (usually with field visits) to make sure those contacts were tested and treated if necessary. Other facets of the job included venipuncture, reviewing hospital charts of congenital syphilis babies to make sure they were adequately treated, contacting doctors about patients they treated and advising them about proper treatment protocols when necessary. Each case had to be evaluated and assigned the proper diagnosis.
 
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SilentSoul said:
If robots can perform surgery what could stop them from performing car repairs? Something to chew on I suppose. :)
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When people think about mechanics they typically think about a car that needs some kind of repair. There is another kind that doesn't have the luxury of a warm garage in winter & diagnostic equipment to figure out what is needed.

A heavy equipment field mechanic is not seen but does what he does simply because he can.

One example of probably hundreds of unique problems to solve.

A Caterpillar D-9 high sprocket dozer is 4 miles back cutting a new road into the side of a mountain. The operator somehow snaps the locking device for both tracks. There is no equipment to haul that dozer back to a repair facility & there sure isn't technology made that can travel back to replace those tracks.
 
jerry old said:
More forever jobs that will never become obsolescent:

panhandlers
telemarketers
scam artists on PC's

electrical utility workers for winter storms-as we well know here in the dallas area after our blizzard
real estate salespeople
criminals

dentist
physicians
and the lady that demands all your information when you enter hospital
bartenders

FEMA workers- the hands on people that actually deleiver food,clothing...not the jake-leg bureaucratizes

These all require human interaction, always will
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There will probably be more panhandlers than ever as this job replacement thing gains momentum.

Telemarketers are already being replace by automated calling with a recording doing the song and dance.

I was a part of the development of the first Multiple Listing Service in my area. I was a member of a local computer club and a woman who was a realtor came up with the idea of building a database that the realtors in her office could use to access listings quickly. She started a project in the club and we did it just for fun. Back then, we had to write our own database software and I think we did it in Basic at the time. Anyway, that project grew and became commercialized by somebody who formed a company to write a professional package to handle that and it has continually evolved over time until I don't think anything but the original remains in the minds of those who were a part of it way back then around 1982 or so.

With that bit of history, I see no reason that the entire real estate process couldn't be done with software even to the point of showing homes virtually, since that is already commonly done today. So really what is left is canning the home sales process. Since this is well defined, it could be done. I think the main issue is gaining acceptance by the realtors' associations. Like the huge tax industry, I think these people would fight such a thing tooth and nail, but would eventually lose. Even with such a system in place, somebody has to populate and constantly update it with changing rules, new property listings, etc., but these don't have to be realtors.

Agreed there will always be scam artists.

Bar tending could be replaced by a type of vending machine. It could be done with today's technology, so whatever is holding that back may well prevent it from ever coming to fruition.

As for the rest of the list, I see varying degrees of replacement from none at all, to partial or at least computer/robot aid to humans.

Tony
 
Knight said:
When people think about mechanics they typically think about a car that needs some kind of repair. There is another kind that doesn't have the luxury of a warm garage in winter & diagnostic equipment to figure out what is needed.

A heavy equipment field mechanic is not seen but does what he does simply because he can.

One example of probably hundreds of unique problems to solve.

A Caterpillar D-9 high sprocket dozer is 4 miles back cutting a new road into the side of a mountain. The operator somehow snaps the locking device for both tracks. There is no equipment to haul that dozer back to a repair facility & there sure isn't technology made that can travel back to replace those tracks.
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Precisely.

People have been watching too many shows on assembly lines where robots and mechanized equipment puts cars together.

I have yet to hear of a robot that works on a vehicle when something is wrong.
 
Aunt Marg said:
Precisely.

People have been watching too many shows on assembly lines where robots and mechanized equipment puts cars together.

I have yet to hear of a robot that works on a vehicle when something is wrong.
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That time is coming. The way cars are designed will likely change to accommodate that technology, but we are already seeing diagnostics being done by the computers in cars, talking to computers outside the cars. I have a handheld device that I can plug in under the steering wheel of either of our vehicles and read out what exactly the engine warning light is telling us. I can elect to reset that event to turn off the engine check light. It only cost me about $100 a number of years ago. It has saved me much more than it cost me. It is useful to know whether a mechanic is being honest with me as well as not having to pay a garage to read that code for me.

Tony
 
My o/h has an engine diagnostic machine which is bluetoothed, so it shows up on his phone whatever the problem is with the engines on our cars , and also he can clear temporary faults or warning lights which show up on the dashboard using his phone
 

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