Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

What jobs are you talking about? That's the question. Those jobs you claim have come instead, where are they? The computer revolution is decades old now.

You must be able to point to some jobs that actually provide more, just claiming it will create more while the reality is that it doesn't unless we are talking wallmart jobs isn't an argument thats more a religious belief.

There are around 3-4 million software developers in the US. 18million worldwide. Those and some other areas of STEM jobs are providing some of us with a future and rising income. But for most other people they are on the wrong side of that divide.



What jobs are you talking about? That's the question. Those jobs you claim have come instead, where are they? The computer revolution is decades old now.

So you were not old enough to be part of that discussion.

But what jobs am I talking about?

Back then, the counter argument was computers will create jobs for those who have to design them and those who have to maintain them. That was the best they could muster. Very little was said about computer networking back then.

But today, we have developers, system and network admins, operations people. And that's just those that are directly involved in managing computers.

So don't panic. Robots, autonomous vehicles will create more jobs than they'll kill. Humans will be needed to build and maintain then. In many instances, they will need to be networked. Humans will be needed to set up and maintain such network of robots and fleets of autonomous vehicles.

The future is bright. Embrace it!


I am 42 so I've been around and you aren't answering the question which is telling.

There are 18 million developers world wide, a little more than 3million in the US.

Between 1998-2004 the us lost 4 million jobs to china, in the same period china lost 15 million jobs to the robots.

Outsourcing is just the step before automation.

I am not panicking as I am one of those who benefit mostly from this, I am just painfully aware of some of the consequences. And you haven't provided a single example of new jobs for those without education which is the base of this discussion.


Let me have a go:

When I was at university google had 8 employees :) ... who would have imagined then jobs like SEO/SEM Consultant, blogger, online life-coach, android indie game designer, stay-at-home person selling junk on ebay, etc, etc.

For self driving cars... how about:

- Guide (jump into the self-driving van, and I (human) will give you a personal and engaging tour of the region, parks, people, wines .... we'll do a few stops at designated restaurants and souvenir stores (where I'll get a few dollars per visitor).

- Self-driven drug / alcohol / party stuff / shopping / pet / kids / delivery

- Artist (drawing random patterns on the dusty planes with programmed cars?)

- Game host (where you offer 50 cars to some players who do some kind of AR laser tag activity while driven ... all the while trying to figure out the patterns they are driving in to win)

- Real-life marketing consultant (sell pay-per-detour, is paying for the detour worth it? Only if they used keyword X last, week and you have the right store front design, blah, blah, blah).

- Scheduling Assistant (Human helper to call your rides)

- Mobile Mechanic (fast response team to fix those helpless cars stopped on the road because a leaf covered the LIDAR)

Will the number of jobs add up? It's anybody's guess. I think the transition is going to hurt badly. But it will reach a new equilibrium eventually.


You don't have to guess the numbers wont add up. Google and Facebook have way less people than other companies their revenue taking into consideration.

What is happening these days is an increase of capital rather than labour heavy companies. The number of new companies is falling in all of europe and the size of the large companies is falling net.

Most of those things are on the verge to be automated too.

So you are not even remotely showing anything.


When you say "Google and Facebook", you are talking about their employees. But how many new companies / jobs have been created using their ecosystem (How much additional sales and jobs are created with those platforms?). That number is a lot harder to establish.

Do you have any estimates or references about _that_ number?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: