Mr Robot

While this was the name of a critically acclaimed TV series, I'm not going to talk about that today.  Instead, this is the name of the people who will do most of the jobs that require little skill or independence.

We have already seen millions and millions of these jobs disappear and will continue to see more go.  In all honesty the jobs they take weren't good jobs except for the fact that they paid a decent wage in some cases.

We know the drudgery of working on assembly line was one of the iconic images of the past century and while providing jobs and product led to lots of related issues.

We are transitioning to a world where humans are going to have to exercise judgment and expertise while the brainless jobs are automated.  This has some great advantages which are concentrated in our tech centers, like Silicon valley while hurting our rust belt as well as people everywhere who don't have sufficient skills.

The absence of a typing pool eliminates lots of jobs that used to require an easily acquired skill but has eliminated a mind killing occupation.  Similarly assembly lines were people were treated like automatons have disappeared and are being done by actual automatons.

Its prevalent in many industries and is leading to certain difficult transitions as the new skills required are not possessed by many of the displaced.

New jobs which require humans to exhibit human qualities such as judgment will replace the jobs that are gone.  This is the future that was predicted in a lot of sci-fi and futurist predictions of course offset by the future in which the machines become dominant.  Let's hope we can avoid "The Matrix" or "The Terminator" type scenario and have robots that make everyone's life easier.

Now the people who will live in this new future need to be prepared for it, learning how to exercise judgment and analytical skills.  Others, may have to perform more menial tasks

Barring some apocalyptic style event that pushes humanity back into a dark age, the future is a wonderful place where Mr. Robot is there to make things easier and better.

Preventing it or reversing it is neither desireable nor possible and trying to will only provide other countries with opportunities to surpass us.