AI threats to employment

[Fade and Die]

Notably, despite huge automation, unemployment in human society is generally low throughout history with only small localised spasms of difference (e.g. Great Depression). AI won’t make inevitable mass long term unemployment any more than the internet, the computer, mass electricity, or the Industrial or Agricultural Revolutions (all far greater changes) did. If you’re in the wrong specialism then you’ll suffer in the same way as typewriter repair shops and Blockbuster video, but with useful abstraction skills (critical thinking, ability to self-research and self-teach new skills) anyone will be just fine.

I think manufacturing and distribution will be hit hard by AI, a lot of unskilled or minimal skilled workers will be surplus to requirements, (Price Waterhouse think up to 30% of all jobs are at risk) Governments will have to massively raise the taxes on these companies to offset the drop in income tax, and also to pay for the Universal Basic Income.

 

[Voyager EMH]

The raising of income tax to compensate for a rise in unemployment does not tend to happen.
In the early 1980s unemployment rose to over 3 million or over 10% of working population.
Interest rates were put up to and above 15% to combat inflation, influx of North Sea Oil revenue created a very strong £ making our exports expensive reducing profitability of manufacturing.
Despite a massive rise in welfare payments and fewer people paying income tax, no huge rises in income tax occurred.
There were increases in tax on spending - eg VAT. Rates increased and more and more things became subject to VAT.
Low-paid and unemployed tend to pay far greater proportions of their income in this tax than the better off.
Really it is not the tax-impact that matters as much as increase or decrease in living standards.
In the 1980s there were decreases for the least well off while there was an economic boom for the more well off.
Something similar to this occurred in more recent years. Gap between lower and upper levels of standard of living widened.

I don't think AI use will account for very much tax/spending policy changes by any government. Too many other other factors at play that will be more influential.

 

[Bunkermagnet]

I think manufacturing and distribution will be hit hard by AI, a lot of unskilled or minimal skilled workers will be surplus to requirements, (Price Waterhouse think up to 30% of all jobs are at risk) Governments will have to massively raise the taxes on these companies to offset the drop in income tax, and also to pay for the Universal Basic Income.

Whilst I'm not sure manufacturing will be hit as hard (as robotics is already employed by the large manufacturers), its the computer based/office jobs, low end and more entry jobs that will go. New graduates are going to find next to nothing. If you take Jack Dorsey's cull of a posisble 60% of his workforce and expand that out, thats a huge amount of people now looing for employment.
As far as implications on tax etc, I think it will impact massively and lets not forget tax payers here are the ones paying pensioners their pension and we have already crossed the point of more pensioners than tax payers.

 

[Hobbit]

Whilst I'm not sure manufacturing will be hit as hard (as robotics is already employed by the large manufacturers), its the computer based/office jobs, low end and more entry jobs that will go. New graduates are going to find next to nothing. If you take Jack Dorsey's cull of a posisble 60% of his workforce and expand that out, thats a huge amount of people now looing for employment.
As far as implications on tax etc, I think it will impact massively and lets not forget tax payers here are the ones paying pensioners their pension and we have already crossed the point of more pensioners than tax payers.

A quick check shows that almost 75% of pensioners pay income tax, with over 10% of those in the higher tax band. Maybe the media, fed by certain parties, are looking to paint a picture that will make freezing pensions more palatable…

 

[Bunkermagnet]

A quick check shows that almost 75% of pensioners pay income tax, with over 10% of those in the higher tax band. Maybe the media, fed by certain parties, are looking to paint a picture that will make freezing pensions more palatable…

Whenever it's talked about numbers of tax payers vs pensioners, I always get the impression it's more number people over pension age and those under being their guides. I can remember it being the "can thats kicked down the road" even as far back as the early 80's.

 

[Hobbit]

Whenever it's talked about numbers of tax payers vs pensioners, I always get the impression it's more number people over pension age and those under being their guides. I can remember it being the "can thats kicked down the road" even as far back as the early 80's.

There are 32 million people in work, paying income tax. There are 12 million pensioners of which almost 8 million are paying income tax.

The message often put out is that there are more pensioners than workers. It’s inaccurate, which begs the question why is that message trotted out…

A better question might be just what is the U.K. spending the overall tax revenue on, and what should its priorities be? Should the U.K. spend tens of billions on various projects when pensioners, in the main, get less than half of the minimum wage.

 

[Slab]

Only while/ when you accept it will ai replace humans

 

[Depreston]

Learning a trade is the one. Both my lads went into construction. Never out of work.
Youngest said "if I'd gone to uni I'd be making frappucinos in Costa with £30k of debt now"
Has just bought his own house.

Yep i went to uni worked out for me tbf but id be tempted to tell my kids to do a apprenticeship in whatever path they take rather than go to uni

That said Uni was a great life experience lesson as well

 

[Fade and Die]

There are 32 million people in work, paying income tax. There are 12 million pensioners of which almost 8 million are paying income tax.

The message often put out is that there are more pensioners than workers. It’s inaccurate, which begs the question why is that message trotted out…

A better question might be just what is the U.K. spending the overall tax revenue on, and what should its priorities be? Should the U.K. spend tens of billions on various projects when pensioners, in the main, get less than half of the minimum wage.

Hey that is a great idea, let’s discuss that.

Yep i went to uni worked out for me tbf but id be tempted to tell my kids to do a apprenticeship in whatever path they take rather than go to uni

That said Uni was a great life experience lesson as well

I encouraged my youngest to go to Uni for the life experience, his last two years at school were wrecked by Covid so I wanted him to see a bit of the world. Realistically though there wasn’t many other options, the economy was still in shock and no one was recruiting kids from school.

I would like the government to move away from the idea of most kids getting higher education in Uni and encouraging more practical jobs, put real money into apprenticeships, at the moment we have 3 apprentices, it was very hard to find college places for them, 1 even had to defer a year to get a place. The colleges struggle all the time to get lecturers and are always wanting donations.

In the 80s the much maligned YTS scheme produced a constant stream of Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters, Bricklayers and plasterers. There were plenty of skills colleges and the trainees wages were covered for the first year so there was no risk to the companies. The company had to take us on if we passed our first year exams but they got lads who were serious about learning…I was taken on with 4 other lads, 3 of us made it and two dropped out. It really is not rocket science.

 

[The Squirrel]

I think manufacturing and distribution will be hit hard by AI, a lot of unskilled or minimal skilled workers will be surplus to requirements, (Price Waterhouse think up to 30% of all jobs are at risk) Governments will have to massively raise the taxes on these companies to offset the drop in income tax, and also to pay for the Universal Basic Income.

Manufacturing? How?
Computerisation and manufacturing automation have been around for many decades. Robots have been making car parts and cutting steel sheets for 30+ years now. Is there that much that's not automated already that could be cost-effectively automated?

I don't think people quite know what "AI" is. So far it's about turning a query output into normal reading scripted text (or computer code) rather than a path to a document or a list of links (like google gave you previously).
I'd be more worried if I was manipulating or knocking out low-level documents. A paralegal, hospital secretary or the like. It's the next step - much like the typing pool was vastly reduced by computerisation, it will reduce again.

 

[The Squirrel]

Yep i went to uni worked out for me tbf but id be tempted to tell my kids to do a apprenticeship in whatever path they take rather than go to uni

That said Uni was a great life experience lesson as well

I think it's sometimes very hard to quantify the value of a (good) University education or explain it to someone who hasn't been, particularly if that person does quite a straight-ahead job (not sure that's the right word but I mean one where training and execution consists of learning a fairly set group of solutions and skills: in situation X you need to do Y; here's how to use this bit of equipment or execute this task well, etc).

A few years ago I was involved in a software development project with 8 other people - all of us were working as individuals in a particular area and joined forces to create a bit of software that would be useful to us. None of us had any background in software/coding (we hired a very good programmer to do the heavy lifting with that). It was something new and innovative that nobody had done before - there wasn't any set answer to the complex multi-faceted problems we encountered - you had to figure things out entirely yourself; both the nature of the problem and then how to solve it. 4 of us had a Uni' education (none in particularly relevant subjects), 5 didn't. I absolutely would NOT say that the university-educated contingent were smarter than those that hadn't been to uni'. They were certainly every bit as clever. What I would say is it was extremely noticeable that those who had been to university were better at multi-faceted abstract problem solving, and identifying skills they needed to acquire then self-teaching themselves to solve them. I ended up teaching myself some mildly complex maths (I never did any more than GCSE at school) and the basics of a couple of programming languages (never done anything like that in my life before) and although I might have been able to do that anyway I am certain I couldn't have done that in the same way or with the same speed - or even identified the right things to learn as efficiently - if I'd only done school-level education. We (the university educated group) tended to get more out of the project (financially) too as we sort of ended up more plugged-in to how everything worked under the hood and so were better able to interpret the software's output as a result.

University isn't entirely about what you learn in your particular course - or even all that much about that (especially now all human information is a click away). It's about HOW you learn and HOW to think - how to teach yourself stuff, evaluate, think critically, scan, sort and prioritise info' at speed, identify wrong information, etc, etc. Not saying you can't absolutely do all of that without a degree, but it's giving you an enormous helping hand in practicing and getting good at it. I thought it was a brilliant experience and I'd absolutely strongly encourage my kids to do it if they turn out to be academically suited.

On hard data, a degree still does make you substantially better off ON AVERAGE than not having one even after netting off student loan payments. Absolutely no guarantees for any individual, you might end up as a CEO or might end up in Costa as mentioned above, but the stats are still better with one. Going if you don't want to go or aren't suited or are desperate to follow a certain career path where a degree isn't really relevant then going to uni is clearly stupid. Balanced against that though, advising someone who is capable and does want to go (but is perhaps wavering or worried) to not to go because you think they're likely to be better off financially if they don't go is, still, demonstrably the wrong advice.

Doubts about value of degrees and university expansion not backed by the evidence, David Willetts shows in new report | King's College London

Much of the public and media debate ignores the long-lasting benefits of higher education

www.kcl.ac.uk

Hope that didn't come across as too much of an academically elitist rant, but if it did; sorry; to balance it all out, I'm living proof that University does nothing at all to make you any good at golf

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Quick reminder of the wise words of Martin Lewis. You don't leave university needing to repay a debt. You pay a graduate tax and only if you end up earning more than a certain amount. It's an important distinction.

 

[Depreston]

Quick reminder of the wise words of Martin Lewis. You don't leave university needing to repay a debt. You pay a graduate tax and only if you end up earning more than a certain amount. It's an important distinction.

Have they changed the thresholds to start repaying ? If it’s still 25k that’s not far off a 40 hour a week minimum wage job these days

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Have they changed the thresholds to start repaying ? If it’s still 25k that’s not far off a 40 hour a week minimum wage job these days

Not sure. The repayments are not excessive though, certainly not enough to be putting people off. They are spread over such a long period, it's minimal.

 

[Hobbit]

Quick reminder of the wise words of Martin Lewis. You don't leave university needing to repay a debt. You pay a graduate tax and only if you end up earning more than a certain amount. It's an important distinction.

Scottish students don’t need student loans, if I remember correctly.

Back in the mid 70’s my dad had a decent job. I received a full education grant & a full maintenance grant. I think it’s very sad that the U.K. has gone backwards in that respect. Yet they rank second in NATO for defence spending = $84bn in 2024, and ranked 5th/6th in the world.

 

[SocketRocket]

Hey that is a great idea, let’s discuss that.


I encouraged my youngest to go to Uni for the life experience, his last two years at school were wrecked by Covid so I wanted him to see a bit of the world. Realistically though there wasn’t many other options, the economy was still in shock and no one was recruiting kids from school.

I would like the government to move away from the idea of most kids getting higher education in Uni and encouraging more practical jobs, put real money into apprenticeships, at the moment we have 3 apprentices, it was very hard to find college places for them, 1 even had to defer a year to get a place. The colleges struggle all the time to get lecturers and are always wanting donations.

In the 80s the much maligned YTS scheme produced a constant stream of Plumbers, Electricians, Carpenters, Bricklayers and plasterers. There were plenty of skills colleges and the trainees wages were covered for the first year so there was no risk to the companies. The company had to take us on if we passed our first year exams but they got lads who were serious about learning…I was taken on with 4 other lads, 3 of us made it and two dropped out. It really is not rocket science.

In Germany many go to University around 23 after doing an apprenticeship, they then graduate around 25 but as more experienced and desirable to employers due to having the practical skills of an apprenticeship and accademia of university.

 

[SocketRocket]

I think manufacturing and distribution will be hit hard by AI, a lot of unskilled or minimal skilled workers will be surplus to requirements, (Price Waterhouse think up to 30% of all jobs are at risk) Governments will have to massively raise the taxes on these companies to offset the drop in income tax, and also to pay for the Universal Basic Income.

It may be that Ai is more of a threat to the higher level skilled like: Technical Designers, Technical authors, Graphic designers, Software developers and so on. People with manual skills like Electricians, Heating engineers, Builders etc would be better protected from it.