Contemporary Issues in Computer Science
Disappearing Jobs?
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, technology has been displacing human workers. Until now, however, it has also created new jobs and our collective standard of living has been steadily increasing.
But today there is concern that something very different is happening.
Read the following three articles:
·
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/smart-machines-create-world-without-051025381--finance.html
·
http://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-nightmarish-future-american-jobs-and-incomes-here
Now we want you to think about more examples, both of jobs that that will be the first to go and those that seem likely to be the last to go. Follow these links to see videos from the tv show How It’s Made:
http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/how-its-made
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjHsPBHX1NNbIqTy4eXVTig/videos
1.
Watch at least four of the videos
that you’ll find there. What ones did
you watch?
2.
Choose at least two of the videos
that you’ve watched. For each video
you’ve chosen, write a couple paragraphs that answer the following questions:
a.
What is being made?
b.
Try (as best you can) to estimate
the, "ratio of human input", in dollars of pay per dollars of price.
Briefly defend your calculation.
c.
Which (if any) tasks do you see
being replaced by machines? How far in
the future? Why?
d.
Are there some tasks that you think
will be very hard to get done other than by people? Why?
3.
Summarize your results from question
2:
a.
What properties do the jobs you’ve
listed in part c share? Write one short
paragraph.
b.
What properties do the jobs you’ve
listed in part d share? Write one short paragraph.