I wonder if work marketplaces like UpWork and Fiverr will adapt quickly enough to this new situation, where many of their services, which in the past were done by humans, can now be done by software.
Their current marketplace interface seems inadequate for this. Instead of contacting a human and then wait for them to finish the work, buyers will want to get results right away.
Therefore they will have to change their platform to work like an app store. Where the sellers connect their services and buyers can use these services.
Announcements often get played repeatedly -- "Train 101 to Lisbon is now on track 5". Why do you want to torture station's workers with that?
Instead, make an effort to start a conversation with your fellow travelers, or graciously respond to such effort from them. Apologize if you already do.
Taken to its conclusion, doesn't this just mean we should outlaw all forms of mechanization in order to preserve human jobs as much as possible? Would this be better for a country than just allocating a portion of the economy's output and using it to provide social safety nets?
Since you mention it, there was some news a while back of some African countries not using construction machines to build roads on purpose, as means to foster more jobs.
Likewise in many countries, having someone at the gas station to fill in the tank is still a job, and most likely even with EV they would be the ones taking care of the charging.
At the beginning of the 20th century in the US, 3 in 4 workers were either laborers, farmers, miners, or household service workers. By the end of the century that number had fallen to 1 in 4.
Of course that wasn't a net loss, it was part a larger economic transformation that created more higher paying jobs.
This is the lump of labor fallacy.
It's not about "what jobs will be left", it's about the new jobs we'll invent with all the time we'll have on our hands.
There was never a fixed number of jobs, there's a fixed number of workers.
I didn't think you understand. We aren't about to automate all things humans can "currently" do. We are about to automate everything that separates us from a brick. What can possibly be left, and why would an unemployed person pay for whatever what is left?
The nature of the jobs change too though. Do you believe jobs will become more or less skilled/autonomous and connect people more or less with their fellow man? Some of us are pessimistic about those questions.
Where I see the benefit is in dialogue replacement. It takes a lot of time to call back an actor to the stage after they have finished the project. They might have moved onto another project or depending on how in demand they are they have a tight schedule and you're time with them is limited. Then on top of all that, some actors are just not very good at the process. So you have them in a room for a long time trying to get the right performance; sometimes which is difficult because that performance was done in some type of specific environment.
Having a tool at my fingertips where I can feed it some of the actor's previous lines and be able to belch out something to fill the gaps with set parameters and be able to move along in the project without all the logistics would be heaven.
It would however, kill an entire field of expertise. It would also devalue the actor as well. Though it's already happening. There are already programs on the market that replace voice actors all together and are being used in the video game space.
For the work I do, I can see the benefits it could bring. But I am also fully aware it probably will be heavily abused.
App Stores, the web, etc. How else does software as a service get sold? It’s not a new thing. Probably a lot of these things will just end up as features in existing systems.
Existing appstores like the ones on iOS and Android mostly target casual use cases, mobile devices and on-device software. Not "buy once" experiences for work via software as a service. They also do not offer a unified experience. Two "text-to-speach" apps could have completely different user interfaces.
The web does not have good discovery and reputation management and also does not provide a unified interface. That is why market places like Booking.com, Amazon, Spotify etc have become so big.
Their current marketplace interface seems inadequate for this. Instead of contacting a human and then wait for them to finish the work, buyers will want to get results right away.
Therefore they will have to change their platform to work like an app store. Where the sellers connect their services and buyers can use these services.