It's quite optimistic. But it does show that automation is happening and is happening everywhere.
On the broader subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI), I recommend these two long articles that sums up the situation : http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html
I personnally think that there is going to be a qualitative step needed for technology to replace some workers that's just not going to happen anytime. But as we can't know for sure, it's a really scary subject.
I'll take 1.7%. I wonder what will happen with labor unions and the government as we have more and more things replaced by automation. Whatever it is, I'm sure it won't be a pretty or easy road.
Re the video and their analogy of the horse/human: If it were "horses" making the technology that would eventually rid them of their jobs, do you think they may have found a way to make the emerging sectors, more conducive to horse workers? I think so. It's not an apt comparison.
I get what you're saying and it is true, there will likely be a smoother transition because we either resist the idea of giving up all control or because we feel the need to keep working. There will still be humans involved in automated jobs. However, their role and skill level will most likely be completely different from the current workers. Nicholas Carr makes the argument in The Glass Cage that wherever automation occurs, jobs that require the worker to perform actions are replaced with monitoring jobs. For example, the Dutch IRS was in the news this week because they will fire 5k of their 20k low-skilled employees. Their (data entry) jobs can now be automated. At the same time, they're hiring about 500 highly educated workers to monitor and analyse the system. Even if we make the transition more conducive to human workers, it will likely only benefit high-skilled workers. To give you another example, Scania has a project running here where they want to link multiple trucks to each other, in such a way that only the first truck is driven by a truck driver. The others simply follow what the first truck does, Simon Says-style. If the average truck platoon has 4 trucks, that means that 3 truck drivers out of 4 are now out of a job, and the one who still has a job probably doesn't have to do much driving because that's partially automated, too. What to do then for the thousands of workers that have driver jobs? For a lot of automation there is just not much you can do to make it better for human workers that isn't a waste of money.
I don't know how web devs fit in with "computer network architects" exactly, but oh well. I'm surprised graphic designers have such a low chance of being automated. I suppose in the current world, automating what I do would be nearly impossible. Most of what I do is hold the clients' hands, negotiate, provide insight, figure out how to solve problems (beautifully), etc. I should really start tracking my time more narrowly, but I would say that actual design/dev work is far less than 50% of my job. A machine can't build trust and get a client to truly feel like "this person gets me, understands my business and goals, and is on my side." However, when a majority of the jobs are automated, how will the role of creatives in marketing / advertising have changed? If AI is making more and more business or purchasing decisions (or at least doing far more analyzing and projecting), the prettiness or user experience or usability of a website or app, the cleanliness of the logo, or the wittiness of an ad is going to play a far smaller role. If a technology like Google Glass become the norm, will we have adblockers on real life? Even if there is no real life adblocker, we have already learned to tune out the 300+ advertisements we see on television, online, and plastered on the side of the road each and every day. It'll only be easier when messages and notifications and interesting insights about the world around you are being streamed straight to your eye socket and covering up the world we currently see. Logos, branding, and restaurant signs will not be used as a sign of reputation and recognizability - your Google+ / Google Maps / Yelp reviews will speak more for you. Flyers, brochures, business cards will become useless when that information automatically pops up on your eyeball when you get close to a location, have shown general interest in the topic the flyer is advertising, or blink twice when meeting a new person. Even standalone websites will keep fading and be replaced by your "online presence." In fact, I sell more "online presence" packages than I sell "websites" today. No one needs a blog - they need a medium profile which auto posts to their twitter which autoposts to their facebook which which is linked to their yelp. There will still need to be people to build and maintain the Google of the future, but even that will be automated somewhat. Google crowdsources or has the business fill in almost all of their stuff on maps currently. Their self-driving cars will take photos and scrap data automatically. They just have to keep the UI up to date, databases chugging along, and algorithms working. I don't know how much of that type of stuff can be automated, but it is probably far more than is currently. It's an exciting time to live.Graphic Designers have a
8.2%
chance of being automated.
Information Security Analysts, Web Developers and Computer Network Architects have a
20.6%
chance of being automated.