Nov 28, 2018
Which jobs do you expect to see gone in 50 years?
Which jobs do you think will become obsolete, automated or unnecessary in society 50 years from now? Could be finance or non-finance related.
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Comments (24)
cdnbig5, have you checked out these or run a search:
I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.
Probably the mundane stuff will be gone.
I think it will reach a point where being creative with how you solve problems is where all the jobs lies.
A lot of companies now provide the software framework for you to build things. It's figuring how to piece things together that is the value add
Of course and sales. Sales will likely be the hardest one to automate
All of them. We'll start a race to make killbots and then have a Terminator scenario. Also the AIs will win.
The way I see it:
20 years: Service/Transporation/Agriculture/Low-level white collar jobs (bookkeepers for example). Cashiers most likely won't be a thing in 20 years.
50-100 years: Middle-class white-collar work like tax preparers, financial advisors, underwriters, etc. Auditors might even see their end around this time as well. Low-mid level blue collar work might have their work automated around this time as well.
100-150 years: Most of the corporate world such as finance, non-litigation law, consulting, etc. The oil industry will also disappear completely around this time. Non-technical roles in tech will also most likely see their end around this time such as product managers. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, etc most likely would go around this time as well.
200+ years: Any form of engineering (electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil, etc.). Programming and tech jobs (software engineers, data science). Many other jobs will still be around for a while such as litigation lawyers, soldiers, psychologists/therapists, correctional officers, any creative related jobs (painters, musicians, etc), politicians, and most of the entertainment industry (can you even automate a comedian?) Entrepreneurship and investing will become a huge at this point since many jobs no longer exist.
Guess my numbers were so far off it warranted a MS lmao
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Your timeline is way too long, but the oil industry won't disappear. Oil will vanish for energy purposes but oil is used in so many different things that it will never fully go away.
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When would you estimate that IB, law, tech, engineering, etc will disappear? I don't think IB, consulting or law are going to disappear in 50 years nor do I think engineering and tech will be gone in 100.
Also, won't the Earth eventually run out of oil?
Less than 50 years. IB is not really all that difficult. The majority of the worflow is simple grunt work. There will still be people doing the strategy, but the pitch deck building and excel modeling will go away.
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IB won't disappear in 50 years which was the question of the OP. An analyst's day will be cut down by automation but that's about it. Automation won't be replacing relationship-driven businesses like IB, law or consulting in 50 years. And IB isn't exactly the hardest career to automate.
People don't realize in the AI and machine learning area of research, we're effectively at square one.
Do you have any idea how complex and difficult it is to replicate jobs like programmers or electrical engineers? AI won't even be touching those types of careers in my lifetime, my kids lifetime and maybe even my grandkids lifetime.
You don't seem to understand that IB is transactional work. Sure there is relationship aspects surrounding the acquisition of contracts. But the vast majority of the work hours are centered around transactional and relatively easily automated tasks. 10 years ago traders were saying their jobs were fine becuase no one could possibly trust an algorithim to trade stocks and bonds.
Considering I am building an AI company now, yes I do know what is required. You talk about engineering, let's take a look at that industry in the context of real estate. Autodesk is currently building a platform that takes a building skin design then using AI systems it builds optimal internal structuring to meet a set of assumptions and requirements. You don't know what you are talking about, you want to think you do to assign your own personal value.
Another note, there are AI platforms that automate webscripting using computer vision that can watch someone draw on a whiteboard and then the AI system can write out the underlying code.
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Not the guy you were responding to originally but since you seem to know a lot about the subject I hope I could ask you a couple questions.
1) When do you think finance will become automated that picking finance as a career option is no longer viable? Will this happen around the same time as stuff like law, consulting and PE?
2) When do you believe highly technical jobs such as engineering and tech will be mostly automated?
3) Will some jobs ever be realistically fully automated? Stuff like soldiers, police officers, prison guards, therapists, politicians, litigation lawyers, and a few others dont seem like it would be viable to ever automate them (unless were thinking like 500 years in the future).
I would say the vast majority of workflow for skilled white-collar labor will be automated within the next 30 years. Now this doesn't mean there still won't be people working in these positions. It just means much of their workflow will be automated.
Engineering and tech will likely succumb around the same time. What people often don't realize is the vast majority of people working in these fields are just doing grunt level work. Those are the positions that will go first for many reasons but monetary isn't actually the highest. Output consistency is the primary reason. When you read code from 50 different people you will get differences that can cause code conflict, can trigger loops, etc. By eliminating these and using automated systems the code will be uniform and therefore easier to update and correct if needed.
Blue-collar jobs have the highest likelihood of never being fully automated someone still needs to fix the robots at somepoint it is just impractical to have ever more sophisticated robots to just fix other robots. That and creative jobs.
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To add-on to the list of jobs that will never be "fully" automated. Along with creative and blue-collar work, there are many others.
-Federal agents (secret service, FBI, CIA, etc), anything related to police work (I don't think a SWAT guy has to worry about his job being automated), prison guards, infantry roles, etc
-Teachers & University professors most likely won't ever be automated unless we completely change our school systems.
-Clergical work won't ever be automated. Sadly this means I don't think we'll ever see a robotic Pope.
-Politicians won't be automated because I don't see humans ever electing a robot into any form of government. The same thing with judges, I doubt we'll see software doing the job of a judge.
-Therapists and psychological work, while there are some ways of somewhat automating this line of work, it won't ever be fully automated. Nobody wants to seek help for their mental issues only to talk to a robot.
-Professional sports (self-explanatory)
-Entertainment will be mostly untouched. Actors, musicians, comedians, Youtubers, Twitch streamers, etc
-Construction and construction management related occupations
-Executive level roles in businesses will remain. C-level execs, VPs, and other high-level personnel at large companies won't be phased out by technology.
-Last but not least, entrepreneurs.
Construction is currently being automated. I don't think any job will ever be fully automated until we hit AGI. But the problem is the required training that needs to go into any carrer path. Will you start learning how to be a nurse to only have an AI system remove the need for 80% of the workforce?
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When do you think engineering or tech are going to be automated? Should I avoid pursuing finance and instead opt for something STEM-related to be safer from automation?
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Definitely think the low level FIRE jobs will go right away. The market is already pushing the worst down and out.
For residential real estate, zillow and redfin are gutting the worst agents, for financial advising, cost free index funds are gaining relevance, etc.
EDIT: Also I think grocery store cashiers are about to be a thing of the past, my local grocery store just converted 3 of its lanes into 12 self service checkouts.
Zillow isn't doing shit for the worst agents, the worst agents by the numbers weren't doing anyhting either. The mode transactions for real estate agents is 0, that was the case before Zillow as well.
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They're compressing fees at the bottom of the market and their "we buy houses" model is going terribly well.
I think that most junior positions in Finance will be gone within 20 years.
I doubt that
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