Lots of supermarkets are starting to replace humans with self-checkouts and things like this will probably become standard in fast food.
So how is a teenager supposed to fund his pot habit in 2020?
Dog poop scooping? Personal couriers? Game testing? Something we haven't thought of because the relevant industry doesn't exist yet?
Economies aren't static. You can always find something useful to do.
Today I've seen adults in their 30's and 40's jump out of the IT industry to start their own business scooping dog poop out of back yards and making enough money to live on. Same thing with cleaning swimming pools. There are lots of services they could provide.
It's a little disappointing that despite immense advances in technology and production, and increased efficiency, all we're achieving is having people toil the same amount as before, but doing something else.
Most people seem to be choosing to spend productivity gains on "more stuff" rather than "more time". And that is certainly their prerogative. :) I mean, with so many people working so productively for so many hours, there is a lot of cool stuff available nowadays.
On a different note, I am curious to see how economy and society will shape up once most low entry barrier jobs are automated.
That doesn't mean there aren't downsides, though.
Sure you could automate that kid, but while trying not to be sappy, that's another face you get to see during the day amidst a traditional day filled with computers, iPads, and now according to this -- machines making our food.
When I want to socialise with people, I'll go to a bar, my friend's house, a coffee shop, etc. If I want a burger, I want to get issued with that burger ASAP, without having to deal with someone who you may consider to be a nice person, but I may consider to be a douche-bag.
If that well-paid smiling person didn't have to work at the burger place, she might have something more interesting to talk about when we meet in a proper social environment.
Sometimes I can go a few days to a week where me and my friends are all busy doing things, I buy all my stuff from the self checkout or via amazon and don't really interact with anyone.
Then when on friday night I go out to a busy party it feels like a shock.
Don't get me wrong, I think some work certainly could be automated, but at the same time, we need to consider the human cost of automating that work. A glib response of "learn how to write specs" or referring to people that do some tasks as "fucking idiots" does very little to advance the conversation.
I'm saying if someone can't do intellectual work, get them to do something that uses other skills. But let's make that something useful, rather than something we could automate away.
So anyone who can't do intellectual work is fucking idiot?
You didn't specify, do you think it is a morally white area? or a morally black area?
Better yet let's move away from colors. Do you think sex trade is immoral?
I'm genuinely curious because it wasn't obvious form reading your comment - and I'm not sure I have strong feelings one way other the other and so it would seem to me to be the epitome of a "gray area"
Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=1DNVzphAHD0C&lpg=PA24&#...
Learn how to maintain/fix robots.
When I was at school we would sometimes turn up over an hour late or just skip the day altogether. Was a culture shock when I started my first job and got a roasting for being 5 mins late.
Plenty of jobs don't have the two rules you mention.
That trend is only going to continue. Think about scaling a new website today, I can go from idea to scalable infrastructure without ever leaving my chair or breaking the bank. Imagine how 3D printing, and other new technologies are going to enable a new generation of people to do cool things.
None of this stuff is out of the grasp of teenagers either. I would not be surprised if you start seeing more and more stories about teenagers building new things, and making a few bucks while they're at it. They've always had the creativity, and drive. But now they have the capability.
Look at youtube, i've been watching videos made by teenagers that look better then most movies made in the 1980's. SLR's, and super high quality video, plus cheap computers & applications are enabling amateurs to do near professional quality stuff.
It would probably makes more sense to outsource building a site to someone from low-cost country that have gained experience than to a local teenager. The same sense probably operate on arduino development and 3d design by teens.
And teen entrepreneurship didn't scale for web-develpoment or mobile apps, no reason to think it would scale this time.
In other words, if you expect your life to continue as it has always done, it won't.
Cleaning lawns, walking their dog (scales wonderfully, as you can walk with more than one dog at a time), buying their groceries for them (easily worth it, as you would only buy exactly what was on the list and not 'hey this is cheap') and it scales reasonably.
That list is by no means exhaustive, btw. Just of the top of my head.
None of these can be done by robots anytime soon, none of these require a high school education.
Yes I have some idea of how though this is -- my granddad started working as unskilled labor at age 14, and he raised both him and my grandmother from homeless near orphans to living in a (small) house with a car and in the process raising two kids to have families of their own.
Cleaning lawns often requires average intelligence. If I have to tell the person common sense things and basically supervise the work (people with this intelligence often don't adapt well to change, the kind of change required for each customer) and will tend to be slower and require tasks to be broken down for them. You don't want to have someone completely break down when you send them to the store and the brand you specify isn't available.
From people I've seen, they're already barely functioning in jobs. As the job market gets tighter, many of these people have been pushed out. Some have had advocates able to argue them on to disability, but others haven't.
You could do this. I could do this. But you're overestimating the capacity of 10% of Americans, perhaps as much as 15-20% of Americans.