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+ 6

Hey guys I’m trying to understand why programming jobs are expected to grow so much!

This might not be the place for this question but here goes. I noticed on the US government bureau of labor statistics programming jobs are expected to grow by like 25% (idk if it’s per year) over the next 6 years but robotics and aviation which I think are the future of construction, farming, and transportation(think self flying passenger drones) are barely growing? What do you guys think about this?

24th Jan 2020, 7:14 AM
Jacob McMichael
Jacob McMichael - avatar
27 Answers
+ 10
Then at some point the question will be how that free time will be distributed, and there's a big problem. Long time ago, there were prognoses that worktime would naturally go down with increasing automation, and everybody would have more free time. What really happened: worktime stayed about the same, and a lot of people had more freetime than they wanted while others did all the work - for less money than before, because jobs had become more valuable. There would have to be a very good reason to believe, that this will not just continue and get worse. Einsteins wise words about insanity and all that.
24th Jan 2020, 10:10 AM
HonFu
HonFu - avatar
+ 5
Societies will have to start to deal with unemployed people, though. At a point, they will be too many to just ignore them or explain away their number.
24th Jan 2020, 9:23 AM
HonFu
HonFu - avatar
+ 4
The foundation of automation is logic and problem solving. Programming is a task which requires both and is most likely to be involved in those fields that you mentioned (i.e. transport, robotics, construction, aviation, and even farming). Eventually, everything gets automated, and everything involves programming.
24th Jan 2020, 7:51 AM
Fermi
Fermi - avatar
+ 4
Because programmers are required to build the automated systems of the future. This would also spell the end of some 'low skilled' jobs. But everything is relative. Who knows, some decades in the future, programming may be a low skilled job.
24th Jan 2020, 11:29 AM
Sonic
Sonic - avatar
+ 3
It all comes down to supply and demand: Programming can be applied to every other industry - medical technology, agricultural technology, edu tech, digital arts, design tech, etc. The purpose of programming is to create efficiencies - this is a skill that can be applied to almost everything else, which creates a lot of demand (as almost every company wants to improve efficiency). The demand for programming skills has had exponential growth, and there is no end in sight as our society has become more dependent on technology for everything. It is also a skill that is relatively “new” as a profession, so there has been a skills/supply shortage since inception. Where there are some people who may be famers, whose parents, grandparents, great grandparents for many generations were farmers - the same is not true of programmers. Most people programming today are first generation programmers. This means we need more people who in another era may have gone into a different profession to instead take up programming.
25th Jan 2020, 5:13 AM
Luci Temple
Luci Temple - avatar
+ 3
It's got something to do with supply and demand as well.
30th Jan 2020, 4:08 AM
Sonic
Sonic - avatar
+ 2
As much as programming being the best field ever, but some people will not have the best motives/intrests in heart (black hats) Imagine the rise of cyber terrorism, people hacking aviation/transportation systems and controlling them the way they want, hijacking war drones meant for protection and being used to attack other nations then blames being laid on third parties, I would still preffer that this fields be runned by humans, people who have feelings. Example, the Panda driving system founded by george hotz (geohot) are you sure that the code running the system is 100%? Think guys Machines Dont Have FEELINGS!
24th Jan 2020, 9:43 AM
Alfred Juma
Alfred Juma - avatar
+ 2
I think automation and computers are becoming part and parcel of every field on life so yes, software will become a companion to them and the need for developers creating new software probably will also increase
25th Jan 2020, 7:00 PM
sharpdesigner
+ 2
İts very good
26th Jan 2020, 12:45 AM
Harun Yiğit
Harun Yiğit - avatar
+ 2
I say this is a valid question.
26th Jan 2020, 4:54 AM
Sonic
Sonic - avatar
+ 1
that is true. then we can just lay on the ground 😁
24th Jan 2020, 7:54 AM
Jacob McMichael
Jacob McMichael - avatar
+ 1
Jacob McMichael Perhaps, but as long as our fingers will be busy, I reckon things should be fine. :D
24th Jan 2020, 7:56 AM
Fermi
Fermi - avatar
+ 1
A.I will be the death/end of us
24th Jan 2020, 8:20 AM
Alfred Juma
Alfred Juma - avatar
+ 1
A.I wont help abit, laziness will be high, i mean, machines will be doing almost everything for us, cook, clean, shop to some point, they will even have to study for us and do the coding for us... The oncoming generations will be born in a world controlled by machines, "Hey bruh, life is easy man, i gat a robot that does all my chores man, all i havr to do is sit down and relax bruh, this is awesome!" Really? Is it? Will it be? Think of the rate of unemployment! Think of machines doing all the human work, being born into a prison! I mean agh! I just hate AI 🤪🤪
24th Jan 2020, 9:38 AM
Alfred Juma
Alfred Juma - avatar
+ 1
Jacob McMichael, I'm not talking about people where you can see why they dropped out of the system (like drugs, alcohol etc). Even in a country like Germany that's supposed to be doing well, millions of people have been 'between jobs' for years, or have to do two jobs because the pay is bad, or have to get social benefits although they work etc. Companies can afford to be picky (too old, too young, too female (will have babies soon cliché), not qualified enough, too qualified) because there's more people than reasonably paid jobs. If there are just a few unemployed, you can simply claim they don't want to work and ignore the part of the body who want but can't. However, if automation is thought to the end, this number will increase to a point where it's too large to make excuses. There will be not enough buttons to push and too many people without a purpose.
24th Jan 2020, 9:56 AM
HonFu
HonFu - avatar
+ 1
Jacob McMichael, that's another one of the favorite tricks being pulled by those who profit from things *not* changing. It is summarized as the trickle-down effect. Which is not really happening, or not to a sufficient degree, since even in rich countries there are plenty people who work all their lives and end up with nothing. However, I will now stop discussing it here, since this is starting to look quite offtopic for this forum, and if one really wanted to know more about how 'trickle down' and 'more free time for everyone' have been working so far, there's always the rest of the internet to consult. ;-)
24th Jan 2020, 10:45 AM
HonFu
HonFu - avatar
+ 1
i was just looking up the workweek over time and it definately has gone down on average from 70 hours to 60 from 1830-1890 then to 50 after WW1 and hit ~40 after civilrights movement. technology was making major advances during these years too. so i think we will have our coveted 30hr workweek on avg pretty soon.
24th Jan 2020, 10:49 AM
Jacob McMichael
Jacob McMichael - avatar
+ 1
Because everything is based on program that why programming jobs increasing.
25th Jan 2020, 11:50 AM
Abhishek nirwan
Abhishek nirwan - avatar
+ 1
Fast: digitalisation is a fact, and progrmming is needed to automate digital processes and configure Human-Computer interfaces
26th Jan 2020, 12:44 AM
Sergio
Sergio - avatar
+ 1
It's all about profit for private corporations. If it is a government job, it is tax payers money. Organization A hire 10,000 workers and has a structure that is manual. Lets say total cost of equipment, salary, basically cost of business is $1,000,000. Organization B hires 100 workers and has a structure that is technologically superior. Total cost of business including salary and salary is $100,000. Both churn the same output. Which organization is able to make the same product for less money? Both cases above are hypothetical but it should explain the reasons why. It is a simple answer but I think it is the main driving force. Consumers benefit when Organization B is able to sell it's products at a cheaper price when her competitor is Organization A. I think it gets a little complicated though when consumers also tend to have jobs and they lose their jobs. A simple answer and question quickly becomes more complicated when more variables are taken into account. The "Tragedy of the commons," the rich becoming richer, socialism, political ideals and what works and what does not based on how other countries do things can get scrutinized. It's all very interesting for philosophical argument and discourse. In the real world, it has little impact. "Game theory" offers some light into this.
26th Jan 2020, 8:24 PM
Jeffrey Koh
Jeffrey Koh - avatar