If you read this article, you might foresee more jobs disappearing before the next couple of decades expire. Customer service is the one sector of the workforce that many assume will never disappear because robots cannot do what people do (that assumption itself is so, so debatable). What happens when you can 3D print anything you need to quickly put a shoe together? So long, Nike. And every other company with simple products. Youve got a good ten, fifteen years left if youre lucky. We can 3D print cells, which means sooner or later we can 3D print food items a la Star Trek replicators. Not so futuristic anymore. Will food prices drop? Will grocery stores be able to afford staying open? --Walmart actually, since everyone else is going out of business soon anyway. Customer service? Customer service for whom? A generation that grew up learning to use Google? That learns to use ever more modern versions of Siri? Customer service being employed by whom? CEOs of companies that no longer exist because consumers can manufacture anything and everything from the comfort of their own homes? No, there wont be a need for customer service either, and that day is coming sooner than you think. What happens in a world that has no need for an economy driven by manufacturing and what happens when theres nothing left to buy, when there are no stores left open? What happens to those in power (and do those in power try to stop it or regulate these technologies out of existence when the implications become clear)? What do those who were once rich do when everyone has the same advantages? We already crowd-source ideas and innovations, and we already crowd-fund them as well--even communities have started to do this in order to better their own regions. Were closing in on the year when we can 3D print 100% of the parts needed to build another 3D printer, which is when the technology will inevitably become mainstream. Fun times coming.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 05:58:19 +0000
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