Hacker News Reader

Comment by fy20 | Hacker News Reader

Most of these customer facing jobs will be abandoned or optimised away in the next few decades.

Front desk work could be done away with mostly by electronic systems (most of the time when I "check in" it's just picking up a ready made room card as I checked in online). You could even centralise the "talking to a human" part in a call center operating a number of hotels, who delegate to staff on the premises (house keeping, maintenance, room service, etc). Of course luxury hotels will still have humans.

Fuel pump operator hasn't been a job in most Western countries for decades, as you just pump fuel yourself (and often even pay at the pump). Is "EV charger operator" a job?

View on HN

As far as I can see. These front desk jobs exist as theft/crime deterrent and to handle edge cases. Sure you could fully automate fuel stations but who is going to call the police when kids start spray painting the windows unless you have someone sitting at a desk watching cctv all day. And who is going to deal with customers who are trying to report something is wrong with a pump. These jobs have already been automated to the point that one person can handle a large store/hotel.

> but who is going to call the police when kids start spray painting the windows unless you have someone sitting at a desk watching cctv all day.

A neural network trained to classify spray-painting kids?

The deterrent effect is less because clerks are more effective than cameras at detecting crime, and more because people don't like committing crimes when there are other people nearby.

Obviously that's not an absolute statement, especially considering that armed robbery is a thing. But in general humans are better crime deterrents than security cameras or robots.

In a lot of cases, that's the sole reason for employing security guards, since the only thing they're actually allowed to do when they encounter crimes in progress is ring the police.

I can't wait until short window-washers start getting arrested.

There is a lot of 24h/24h fuel station here in France with no staff and it is working out.

Here in Finland even the full-service 24h stations have automated self-service and that might even be most used option.

I kinda feel some countries care a lot about full employment. How they can afford it is beyond me though.

If we can afford to keep people alive surely we can arrange for them to do something useful too. Unless we intend to condemn large numbers of people to chronic poverty we have to pay more than starvation wages even to those who do nothing.

It seems to me that the question to be answered is: how can we afford to not have full employment?

It's quite simple: they can afford it by having full employment.

Full employment means lots of good things: a population that's richer per-capita and spends more, less expenses on welfare, less poverty, less crime, less billionaires, etc.

> Sure you could fully automate fuel stations

Where are you from? I thought fuel stations in most Western countries were fully automated already. In Sweden there are loads with no people at all but even the ones with a store you just pay at the pump. You only go inside if you need to buy something else.

Very strange example to use and kind of invalidates your whole point.

Apparently, it's illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey. [0]

[0] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/74549/why-cant-you-pump-...

From NJ, wouldn't change it.

No need to get out of your car and deal with a dirty pump. You can also get out to go in the store while they fill your tank, or some smaller places you can buy stuff right from the attendant. Gas doesn't cost any extra because of it either. We used to have some of the cheapest gas in the country before a recent tax hike. Basically a free service, no tipping either.

One downside is that if it is busy you might have to wait, but the guys are usually pretty quick.

You pay for that service whether you realize it or not.

Apparently not?

The cost can come from the margin for the gas station, not the consumer

Gas stations are a notoriously low-margin business. Realistically costs get passed on to the consumer.

LOL. Who do you think you’re buying the gas from and who sets the price?

> Fuel pump operator hasn't been a job in most Western countries for decades, as you just pump fuel yourself

Nope. See Oregon and NJ, unless you don’t these American states to be part of these “Western countries”.

In general, don’t respond to examples of jobs that actually exist now with a hypothetical world where they don’t exist to state something about the current world.

> > Fuel pump operator hasn't been a job in most Western countries for decades, as you just pump fuel yourself

> Nope. See Oregon and NJ, unless you don’t these American states to be part of these “Western countries”.

Two states out of fifty. Maybe, in general, don’t respond to examples of jobs that hardly exist any more with a tiny and dwindling part of the world where they’re still just barely hanging on and pretend that has any relevance to the world economy.

(As for the US as a “Western country”... Well, sure, at least geographically.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com