Many occupations have disappeared due to automation, advanced machinery and computers.  Manufacturing jobs have decreased in number and salary.  Clerical jobs have dwindled as technology has streamlined office processes.   Clean forms of energy have hurt mining and related industries.  Robotics, computer automation and engineering advances will surely put an end to even more jobs such as bon-bon dippers, check writers, finger cobblers, clock hand inspectors, and globe mounters.

Some fear that technology will eventually replace every job and make human labor obsolete.  But consider that technological advances have been pushing people out of job since long before the Industrial Revolution.  This is nothing new.  While technology killed some jobs, those same technological advances created other new jobs.  And while computers and robots can do a great many things, they are also many other things they simply cannot do… and will likely never be able to do. Continue reading →

The world’s most sophisticated computers can out-think most humans today.  They have more memory, greater instant access to information and don’t need anything except electricity (and maybe an Internet connection) to keep going 24 hours a day.  Even the average laptop is able to perform many tasks that once required human involvement.  And, as robotics are infused into more machinery and engineering, the work once done by humans to make things is also being increasingly replaced by computerized machines.  Robots don’t need sleep, hydration, nutrition or oxygen to breath.  Robots don’t take vacations, don’t go on maternity leave, don’t need coffee breaks (or coffee, for that matter), or want fringe benefits like increasingly expensive health insurance.  Robots don’t have bad days, sick kids or aging parents.  Computers and robots have a shorter life span, but can be depreciated and written off on taxes, along with other equipment.  In short, technological innovations are increasingly making some jobs obsolete. Continue reading →