Are jobs obsolete?

Devilsbane

Are jobs obsolete? - CNN.com
Interesting article that I came across today. Makes you think a little bit.

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RobertKaucher

Have you read The Singularity is Near?

rsutton

The basic premise of what that article is saying is true. We have lots of stuff, and it is not distributed properly. He brings up some valid points, but it's fairly one-sided. Since when is housing and food a basic human right? Last I checked if I don't pay my mortgage I don't get to keep my house. The idea presented is that we should not have corporations and instead produce things/food/art/services on our own merit. That's fine, except I enjoy my large TV, who is going to be able to produce these on their own? And what ungodly fee will they want for it? Mass production has it's ups and downs but it is here to stay.

zaxbysauce

rsutton wrote: »

The basic premise of what that article is saying is true. We have lots of stuff, and it is not distributed properly. He brings up some valid points, but it's fairly one-sided. Since when is housing and food a basic human right? Last I checked if I don't pay my mortgage I don't get to keep my house. The idea presented is that we should not have corporations and instead produce things/food/art/services on our own merit. That's fine, except I enjoy my large TV, who is going to be able to produce these on their own? And what ungodly fee will they want for it? Mass production has it's ups and downs but it is here to stay.

You misread or misunderstood what he was trying to say. He was saying we START this process by making housing and food (two things which he contends we have an excess of) basic human rights. Everyone/every family in America receives a house and enough food to live comfortably. Then we WORK by creating the things that make us happy in life. Its not a bad concept, though some of it is a bit far down the road technology wise.

Turgon

rsutton wrote: »

Since when is housing and food a basic human right? Last I checked if I don't pay my mortgage I don't get to keep my house.

Humans need a dwelling even if it is temporary i.e nomadic, and certainly something to eat or they die. I would say that is a basic human imperative and something society at large to seek to provide for everyone. Notice I said imperative as oppose to rights. We are too hung up on rights. They tend to be drawn up by people who don't often have our essential needs at heart

In the Soviet Union everyone had a place to stay and food on the table. A job too. No big screen TV's though (they were not around back then), but if they had been you would get one if you knew the right people

When the Soviet Union collapsed everyone that lived in a dwelling became a homeowner in law. Not a bad deal really.

zaxbysauce

Turgon wrote: »

In the Soviet Union everyone had a place to stay and food on the table. A job too. No big screen TV's though (they were not around back then), but if they had been you would get one if you knew the right people When the Soviet Union collapsed everyone that lived in a dwelling became a homeowner in law. Not a bad deal really.

The Soviet Union (and communism/socialism in general) has/had that big problem of power corrupting. The most efficient form of government has always been and will always be a benevolent absolute monarchy. However, since absolute power corrupts absolutely it will never come about. The Soviet Union was too top heavy, too corrupt, and too focused on a arms race with America it KNEW it couldn't even support much less win to survive.

rsutton

I agree that housing and food should be a basic human right. Too many people that have worked hard to acquire an excess of both would probably disagree. The problem has less to do with structure, and more to do with attitudes and people in general. People will always find a way to step on his or her fellow man for their own benefit.

Plantwiz

The US has the richest 'poor' people in the world.

Though, I'm not certain the conversations in this thread reflect what I thought I read in that article.

From the article:

Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.

I see many people around me living above their means and now crying that they are going to lose their home. While I want to be sympathetic, just how is it my problem that they decided they could afford two vehicles and a house worth more than I could ever imagine paying for cars and a house? I seem to recall in the dark ages of High School law that once you are 18 (and in some cases 17) and sign a contract...you are liable if you fail to uphold your end of the contract (likewise, so is the other party).

We cut out television years ago (so no cable, no satelite). No extra phones, just a land line. No subscriptions to clubs. So right there, that is a minimum $300 savings a month.

So, there is no issue with my neighbor having a big TV, fancy vehicles and a bigger home...I don't see why "I" need to pay for him to be bailed out if he cannot live up to his contractual agreements.

Bringing up the point of jobs...

the article points out:

Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves. They made shoes, plucked chickens, or created value in some way for other people, who then traded or paid for those goods and services. By the late Middle Ages, most of Europe was thriving under this arrangement.

It wasn't long ago (or seems in my lifetime anyway) that we made many of our own things. Clothing was sewn or mended. Food was grown (gardens of vegetables and herbs) Food was preserved (not processed

(so canned/jarred at home rather than store bought). Animals were hunted and eaten (fish, ducks, geese, deer).

Obviously, in larger cities, space is precious. However, time was invested in growing food, preserving food, and selling/trading for other food items or services needed. TVs, iPads, phones were not used and/or needed. Books were borrowed from the Library, not bought along with a fancy coffee from a bookstore.

The dream jobs maybe going obsolete, but I don't believe work and jobs will ever fade completely. Someone will need to have something done and will pay or trade a service to another who can do the work better. But, we'll all work for smaller companies or ourselves rather than fat cat corprations where numbers matter over people (and that applies to both the big executive down to the janitor who thinks no one will see him/her steal the unused furnature so he/she can sell it elsewhere to make a little money on the side.

It is easy to pick on the big guys, but the little guys (and there are more of them in a company) can really hurt the company by not being mindful of productivity and expenses.

Many parts to this topic...

zaxbysauce

Plantwiz wrote: »

It wasn't long ago (or seems in my lifetime anyway) that we made many of our own things. Clothing was sewn or mended. Food was grown (gardens of vegetables and herbs) Food was preserved (not processed (so canned/jarred at home rather than store bought). Animals were hunted and eaten (fish, ducks, geese, deer).

Obviously, in larger cities, space is precious. However, time was invested in growing food, preserving food, and selling/trading for other food items or services needed. TVs, iPads, phones were not used and/or needed. Books were borrowed from the Library, not bought along with a fancy coffee from a bookstore.

Good lord how old are you?

Zartanasaurus

Technology is disruptive. Think of all the people that were put out of a job once we were able to generate electricity.

RobertKaucher

Plantwiz wrote: »

It wasn't long ago (or seems in my lifetime anyway) that we made many of our own things. Clothing was sewn or mended. Food was grown (gardens of vegetables and herbs) Food was preserved (not processed (so canned/jarred at home rather than store bought). Animals were hunted and eaten (fish, ducks, geese, deer).

Obviously, in larger cities, space is precious. However, time was invested in growing food, preserving food, and selling/trading for other food items or services needed. TVs, iPads, phones were not used and/or needed. Books were borrowed from the Library, not bought along with a fancy coffee from a bookstore.

And it took 6 hours to make the evening meal, news papers published just 2 or 3 miles away took weeks to reach their destination and the average life span for men was about 30 years. Most humans who worked did hard manual labor that was focused primarily on their own survival.

Plantwiz wrote: »

The dream jobs maybe going obsolete, but I don't believe work and jobs will ever fade completely. Someone will need to have something done and will pay or trade a service to another who can do the work better.

Assuming "people" will be doing the work.

In 1846 we believe there was not a single garment in our country sewed by machinery; in that year the first American patent of a sewing machine was issued. At the ppresent moment thousands are wearing clothes which have been stitched by iron fingers, with a delicacy rivaling that of a Cashmere maiden. - Scientific Americam, 1853

They were amazed at the rate of accelration of technology back then. Now look at things.

I have a white paper from that I cannot find a link for at the moment. But I recall that it estimated that in 2018 the cost of 1 GB of RAM will be $0.06 and that common computers will support memory configuration in petabyte range. It was an older document but its prediction for 2012 was perfectly in line with what we have today. You have to consider that the rate of change is increasing exponentially and that soon, 2020ish, most humans will have no need to work because things will be so automated that paying people to do nearly anything will be too much overhead. How long did it take us to go from dual core to quad and then it seemed like the jump to 8 and 12 happened at the same time! The question is what will society look like when in rich nations most people do not need to work or simply cannot work because it is cheaper for machines to do most jobs. Sys and net admin type jobs will be the first line casualties. In 10 years they will be nearly extinct as we know them today.

Here is that doc I mentioned:
http://www.archivebuilders.com/whitepapers/22045p.pdf

hiddenknight821

RobertKaucher wrote: »

The question is what will society look like when in rich nations most people do not need to work or simply cannot work because it is cheaper for machines to do most jobs. Sys and net admin type jobs will be the first line casualties. In 10 years they will be nearly extinct as we know them today.

Okay. The thought of this is pretty depressing. Are you trying to create a panic?

SteveLord

rsutton wrote: »

I agree that housing and food should be a basic human right. Too many people that have worked hard to acquire an excess of both would probably disagree. The problem has less to do with structure, and more to do with attitudes and people in general. People will always find a way to step on his or her fellow man for their own benefit.

People will always find a way to steal from or demand what his fellow man has too.

RobertKaucher

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

Okay. The thought of this is pretty depressing. Are you trying to create a panic?

We already have the technology for graders, bulldozers, tractors, etc to drive themselves. It's not used due to legal concerns but the second someone moves forward with it, that will become completely common place. My company builds that tech. The way it will work is a guy with an Android phone or iPhone will open an app that communicates on WiFi with the device network and he will programs the grader or dozer and they will go to work. I cannot go into details but this is not speculation, this is real.

In a decade I can see a similar situation where a single person loads a something similar to a CAD file for a specific phase of a building and the required machines do their jobs with minimal human interaction.

The same thing will happen with systems work. A single admin will be able to deploy and manage entire datacenters using something like System Center. What will it be like when these things are so cheap that backups are no longer needed? You just have a decade of snapshots over a massively distributed SAN that is no longer measured even in petabytes and costs no more than, and likely much less than, the typical SAN today. Or when routers are so smart they can configure themselves? The only thing I know is that society will change drastically over the next 2 decades.

the_Grinch

Prepare now I suppose. I've been lucky, a lot of schools in my state have been offering combo business and technology degrees. Learn the business end and continue with the technology end, seems like a one two punch. My main fear with it is that it will force you to become a manager. Perhaps in the future that would be an end goal, but at this point I'm looking to be a grunt for at least another 10 years.

NJIT: Information Systems: MS in Business and Information Systems (MSBIS)

Read the interview, it is insightful to say the least!

RobertKaucher

the_Grinch wrote: »

Prepare now I suppose. I've been lucky, a lot of schools in my state have been offering combo business and technology degrees. Learn the business end and continue with the technology end, seems like a one two punch. My main fear with it is that it will force you to become a manager. Perhaps in the future that would be an end goal, but at this point I'm looking to be a grunt for at least another 10 years.

NJIT: Information Systems: MS in Business and Information Systems (MSBIS)

Read the interview, it is insightful to say the least!

But my point is who wil you be managing? If the required work force is reduced by 1/2 due to advances in technology the need for management will be reduced as well. I was discussing this topic the other day with a coworker and he made the same error. He believed that people will still be needed to manage the business process because computerized systems are very poor at doing load analysis. For example building a manufacturing schedule and estimating material requirements. But the reasson they are bad at this is because of the human element of uncertainty. Holidays, fiscal periods, time off requests, injuries - none of that matters when your workforce is almost totally automated and the plant works 24 hrs a day, no breaks except for planned maintenance and unexpected repairs are fixed in just a few hours.

I just don't think any of us is prepared for what our world is going to look like in a decade as the rate of change will be as if 30 years had passed when we were born.

Turgon

RobertKaucher wrote: »

But my point is who wil you be managing? If the required work force is reduced by 1/2 due to advances in technology the need for management will be reduced as well. I was discussing this topic the other day with a coworker and he made the same error. He believed that people will still be needed to manage the business process because computerized systems are very poor at doing load analysis. For example building a manufacturing schedule and estimating material requirements. But the reasson they are bad at this is because of the human element of uncertainty. Holidays, fiscal periods, time off requests, injuries - none of that matters when your workforce is almost totally automated and the plant works 24 hrs a day, no breaks except for planned maintenance and unexpected repairs are fixed in just a few hours.

I just don't think any of us is prepared for what our world is going to look like in a decade as the rate of change will be as if 30 years had passed when we were born.

A lot in this. I recall on an IT forum about 10 years ago a guy saying that we are the steel workers of the 21st Century. Go to a precision steel works these days, you wont see too many people. We dont make nuts and screws anymore..

hiddenknight821

phoeneous wrote: »

I completely disagree. My job cannot be done by a machine.

I knew I wasn't the only crazy one here.

If the technology were to change drastically in 20 years from today, then I would expect someone to alleviate the global warming issue by 50%. For example, I expect all of our gas-powered cars to be replaced with environment-friendly cars, but I doubt this is gonna happen. Laws and policies will probably slow things down anyway.

RobertKaucher

phoeneous wrote: »

I completely disagree. My job cannot be done by a machine.

And you are right. It cannot be done by a machine now. But in a decade most, if not all, aspects of your job will be done by machines.

One thing I am certain of, when a person says that her job can be automated, she is certainly correct. When she says her job could never be automated, she is certainly wrong.

Michael2

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Technology is disruptive. Think of all the people that were put out of a job once we were able to generate electricity.

For my two cents, I'd like to say that I agree with this quote. Technology is disruptive. I'd also like to say that the one field that will never go out of style is security. People can build machines that can replace ten strong men, but something's still got to be done to secure it (in case of malfunction, breakdown, etc.) I think the demand for security will outlast that of engineering because eventually robots will be smart enough to build things themselves and there will be no more need for human manufacturers. Hooray for information security!

Ahriakin

I think it's a very simplistic and not just short-sighted but outright blind article. Honestly it read like an well-written essay from a child imho.

No resource (housing, food, land...) is a right - this isn't a political statement as way too much gets politicised here in the states I'm talking purely about the way of the world, even amoeba have to fight for their place in it. The only things anyone can claim to have a right to are the things they earn, and simply breathing and consuming doesn't equal earning imho. Now I don't just mean earn from a std. job, whether you work for something indirectly or some other action or personal trait leads to you gaining that resource it has to be born of your own efforts and skills. The only reason there are folks who don't need to work to eat or have a roof over their heads is it's done on the backs of those that do. While there are those that fully deserve the help when they are down on their luck abuse is the nature of the beast (it's in us all). So it's not that the world at large is ready technologically for us all to simply work for luxuries (and the definition of luxury is of course subjective) but that in the richer societies we are still willing to put up with that abuse to make sure we do not hurt those that do actually need and deserve the helping hand. But as long as our population explosion and available resources maintain that inversely proportional rate our room to do so diminishes. So while our means to handle certain areas of work without human intervention are increasing it's lagging behind our diminishing overall means to support the world human population.

Just my $.02

Devilsbane

I've enjoyed sitting back and reading some of the things you guys are talking about. Sounds like we are all on the same page, see both sides and don't know exactly where we stand. Being that we all work with technology, it is us that are going to be impacted first/the most with advancements. Will certainly be interesting to see what changes in the next 10-20 years.

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Have you read The Singularity is Near?

Never heard of it.

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I have a white paper from that I cannot find a link for at the moment. But I recall that it estimated that in 2018 the cost of 1 GB of RAM will be $0.06 and that common computers will support memory configuration in petabyte range. It was an older document but its prediction for 2012 was perfectly in line with what we have today. You have to consider that the rate of change is increasing exponentially and that soon, 2020ish, most humans will have no need to work because things will be so automated that paying people to do nearly anything will be too much overhead. How long did it take us to go from dual core to quad and then it seemed like the jump to 8 and 12 happened at the same time! The question is what will society look like when in rich nations most people do not need to work or simply cannot work because it is cheaper for machines to do most jobs. Sys and net admin type jobs will be the first line casualties. In 10 years they will be nearly extinct as we know them today.

Here is that doc I mentioned:
http://www.archivebuilders.com/whitepapers/22045p.pdf

I was going to ask if you found this. Sounds like a good read, I'll check it out.

phoeneous wrote: »

I completely disagree. My job cannot be done by a machine.

Eventually it could be. Lets assume the Microsoft created an error free product that could either configure itself or could be done with a few clicks. If nothing ever breaks, what will you be doing?

NetworkingStudent

Plantwiz wrote: »

The US has the richest 'poor' people in the world.

Though, I'm not certain the conversations in this thread reflect what I thought I read in that article.

From the article:

I see many people around me living above their means and now crying that they are going to lose their home. While I want to be sympathetic, just how is it my problem that they decided they could afford two vehicles and a house worth more than I could ever imagine paying for cars and a house? I seem to recall in the dark ages of High School law that once you are 18 (and in some cases 17) and sign a contract...you are liable if you fail to uphold your end of the contract (likewise, so is the other party).

We cut out television years ago (so no cable, no satelite). No extra phones, just a land line. No subscriptions to clubs. So right there, that is a minimum $300 savings a month.

So, there is no issue with my neighbor having a big TV, fancy vehicles and a bigger home...I don't see why "I" need to pay for him to be bailed out if he cannot live up to his contractual agreements.

Bringing up the point of jobs...

the article points out:

It wasn't long ago (or seems in my lifetime anyway) that we made many of our own things. Clothing was sewn or mended. Food was grown (gardens of vegetables and herbs) Food was preserved (not processed (so canned/jarred at home rather than store bought). Animals were hunted and eaten (fish, ducks, geese, deer).

Obviously, in larger cities, space is precious. However, time was invested in growing food, preserving food, and selling/trading for other food items or services needed. TVs, iPads, phones were not used and/or needed. Books were borrowed from the Library, not bought along with a fancy coffee from a bookstore.

The dream jobs maybe going obsolete, but I don't believe work and jobs will ever fade completely. Someone will need to have something done and will pay or trade a service to another who can do the work better. But, we'll all work for smaller companies or ourselves rather than fat cat corprations where numbers matter over people (and that applies to both the big executive down to the janitor who thinks no one will see him/her steal the unused furnature so he/she can sell it elsewhere to make a little money on the side.

It is easy to pick on the big guys, but the little guys (and there are more of them in a company) can really hurt the company by not being mindful of productivity and expenses.

Many parts to this topic...

+1Agreed

There is always someone willing to do your job faster, better, and for less. This holds especially true in this economy. No, you won’t always find your dream job, but you can find a job. To be successful in life you need to adapt, overcome, and get things done. Another saying is…lead , follow, or get out of the way.
Technology will always change, and you either learn it, or fall to the way side. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s true. With every new technology come new problems associated with that technology. Also, there will always be users that want to do things the “old” way.

My biggest beef with all this is that when I was in school I told students I could get them a temp or temp to hire job at my work.......... It’s a manufacturing job(printing), but a lot of them didn’t want to do the work. A lot of these students were unemployed . I wonder how bad they needed a job….?

RobertKaucher

Devilsbane wrote: »

Eventually it could be. Lets assume the Microsoft created an error free product that could either configure itself or could be done with a few clicks. If nothing ever breaks, what will you be doing?

Let's look at this from a systems side. What do systems admins do? Here are some common jobs:

* They deploy physical servers and desktops
* They configure said systems
* They install applications
* They apply updates and test
* They back the data up.

All of this work could already be almost completely automated provided the hardware was affordable.

It's already to the point were the difference between a 1 TB drive and a 2 TB drive is around 11 bucks. In just a few years a 1 TB drive will be like a 160 GB drive today. Backups will not be done anymore because we will be able to keep "shadow copies" of data for years accross distributed SANs. 1 guy can manage backups for hundreds of server systems easily.

Look at what MS is doing right now with Windows automated deployment. Combined with VDI desktop administration can also be reduced. The same admin dealing with backing up 100s of servers will be able to admin 100s of virtual desktops. If a user gets a virus their system is automatically restored to a known good state using a snapshot or a new virtual image is used. You can already install 10s of systems all at once.

A system does not need to be error free. It only needs to provide cheap and effective methods for recovering from errors. I'm not saying there will be exactly 0 sys admins in a decade. I am saying there will be far fewer and the ones who exist will be doing much more with much less and less and less skill and knowledge will be required.

Turgon

phoeneous wrote: »

The cost of having a machine do the physical part of my job is far too much. My job requires me to walk places, go up stairs, climb ladders, plug in cables, unbox equipment and rack it, talk to people, the list goes on and on and on. Look at telephony engineers (analog), those old farts are still around.

Just curious, what aspects of my job do you think can be done by machine? Build sql tables?

There isn't a whole bunch of money in that sort of work these days though is there. In the contracts I have worked there are vast datacentres with a single company providing some manpower in the DCs. The company charges a lot of money for the resource but pays the staff very little.

Devilsbane

RobertKaucher wrote: »

Let's look at this from a systems side. What do systems admins do? Here are some common jobs:

* They deploy physical servers and desktops
* They configure said systems
* They install applications
* They apply updates and test
* They back the data up.

Deploying machines and testing are about the only thing that couldn't be automated. A single non techy person could be responsible for delivering hardware. Really not too much training needed for that. Insert cord into socket. If it doesn't fit, try another.

Testing could be done by a few people in IT, or even move the burden to the users.

IT comes down to 3 resources: People, Process, and Infrastructure. When something breaks, one of these pieces is usually responsible. Processes are continually improved, usually with the goal of increasing automation and thus productivity. Infrastructure is upgraded to increase performance, or reduce cost. And of course it takes people to run all of this.

I'm not saying that companies will never need to have somebody in the kitchen. But with a growing tech savvy population and advancements in technology, IT departments could easily see their funding routed from payroll to other resources.

I think this is still years away, and the only thing saving us is that systems break frequently. And when they do, people are about all you can rely on.

RobertKaucher

phoeneous wrote: »

The cost of having a machine do the physical part of my job is far too much. My job requires me to walk places, go up stairs, climb ladders, plug in cables, unbox equipment and rack it, talk to people, the list goes on and on and on. Look at telephony engineers (analog), those old farts are still around.

Just curious, what aspects of my job do you think can be done by machine? Build sql tables?

And how many of them were around in 1970 vs how many now? Is that a job you would encourage your children to work into?

Do you get paid what you do because you know how to walk up steps and plug a purple plug into a socket of a matching color? What are you going to be plugging in when tablets are the norm and you just set it on your dock and load a virtual desktop over - not WiFi - but something more like a very fast 4G? What are you going to be racking when these systems are so cheap that it is common practice to wait for an entire rack to be 60% dead before the full rack of servers is just replaced? And this will have no impact on the data center because all the systems running will be virtualized. Dells already selling an entire virtualization solution as a full rack.

How many people had Internet in 2001 and how many have it on their phones just 10 years later? For the love of God, I live in Ohio where the Amish still drive horse drawn buggies. That does not mean the technology was not replaced by cars a long time ago. This is the Star Trek fallacy - you are imagining the world will be just like it is now but with faster computers. We should know by now that that is not how it works. Technology is designed to make people do less work - i.e. put them out of jobs.

If cloud based computing becomes so ubiquitous that the cost to most companies is minimal and 1 guy can do the job that it takes 10 right now, how long is your company going to keep you on the books because you have to talk to people? Once someone realizes that most of what you do can be done by someone else for $20 K the remainder of your job will be added to another's current workload and thank you for your service.

RobertKaucher

Devilsbane wrote: »

Deploying machines and testing are about the only thing that couldn't be automated. A single non techy person could be responsible for delivering hardware. Really not too much training needed for that. Insert cord into socket. If it doesn't fit, try another.

Testing could be done by a few people in IT, or even move the burden to the users.

IT comes down to 3 resources: People, Process, and Infrastructure. When something breaks, one of these pieces is usually responsible. Processes are continually improved, usually with the goal of increasing automation and thus productivity. Infrastructure is upgraded to increase performance, or reduce cost. And of course it takes people to run all of this.

I'm not saying that companies will never need to have somebody in the kitchen. But with a growing tech savvy population and advancements in technology, IT departments could easily see their funding routed from payroll to other resources.

I think this is still years away, and the only thing saving us is that systems break frequently. And when they do, people are about all you can rely on.

Of course I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Here are just a couple of points to add.

Testing can be completely automated and in the software development world unit testing is already moving in that direction.

When things break it is expensive because people have to be called in to deal with it. But once the cost of just throwing things away is much less than having a person even look at it then procedures and infrastructure will be in place to make that happen. 7 servers out of your rack of 10 have failed? Replace the entire rack. It's too costly for a person to rack them individually because a dual 4 core server with 1/2 TB of RAM only costs $300. Same with routers or switches.

Deployment couldn't currently be totally automated. But using VDI and server provisioning technology 1 guy can handle hundreds of systems.

Turgon

phoeneous wrote: »

I think I miscommunicated my point, which is, the inevitable is bound to happen but until it does I'm trying to stay positive. In the end, arent all of us screwed anyways? Who in IT is even safe anymore?

I might as well kiss my experience and education bye bye and do something that a machine cant do like daycare manager, marriage counselor, divorce lawyer, florist, underwater basket weaver...

We are not all screwed. Move with the times, but that doesn't mean chasing technology, a mistake far too many people make. Keep up with trends, invest time in technical work that maintains your employability but crucially get your head out of certification books once in while. Look at the directions the industry is taking and head there in terms of jobs and roles that are in demand.

Turgon

Devilsbane wrote: »

Deploying machines and testing are about the only thing that couldn't be automated. A single non techy person could be responsible for delivering hardware. Really not too much training needed for that. Insert cord into socket. If it doesn't fit, try another.

Testing could be done by a few people in IT, or even move the burden to the users.

IT comes down to 3 resources: People, Process, and Infrastructure. When something breaks, one of these pieces is usually responsible. Processes are continually improved, usually with the goal of increasing automation and thus productivity. Infrastructure is upgraded to increase performance, or reduce cost. And of course it takes people to run all of this.

I'm not saying that companies will never need to have somebody in the kitchen. But with a growing tech savvy population and advancements in technology, IT departments could easily see their funding routed from payroll to other resources.

I think this is still years away, and the only thing saving us is that systems break frequently. And when they do, people are about all you can rely on.

Deploying machines...well I guess you need someone to install a box in a rack but with a lot of virtualisation on offer increasingly the racks are just sitting there floodwired waiting to be used. As the technology gets mature you can do more with less anyway. An on demand script can offer what a customer needs in terms of configuration and the technology is getting better.

Virtual data centres will be used more in the future and the vendors are right behind it. Attending a Vendor HQ recently I sat through the presentation of the latest DC provisioning offerings and I could just see the jobs disappearing with each slide..

Testing is increasingly scripted and automated. Of the 3 resources people, process and infrastructure I see process and infrastructure leveraged a lot to get the people headcount down, particularly in the technical areas. Making that happen has created a lot of managers who attend a lot of meetings. They will be trimmed in due course.

There will always be a need for some technical people, just not as many in the future. Lots of work in the outsourcing world though, they are busy enough.

Turgon

RobertKaucher wrote: »

When things break it is expensive because people have to be called in to deal with it. But once the cost of just throwing things away is much less than having a person even look at it then procedures and infrastructure will be in place to make that happen. 7 servers out of your rack of 10 have failed? Replace the entire rack. It's too costly for a person to rack them individually because a dual 4 core server with 1/2 TB of RAM only costs $300. Same with routers or switches.

Deployment couldn't currently be totally automated. But using VDI and server provisioning technology 1 guy can handle hundreds of systems.

I think we will see more repair by replacement. People stopped using NT debugger a while ago and just reimaged machines when there were faults. We will see this extended to hardware if you have the economies scale to operate like that. Large scale outsourcing and vendors can offer the massive provisioning you speak of.