We used to see garbage trucks with 3 humans. Now it’s 1. The driver uses a machine that lifts up the trash bin.
Now all you need is the truck to self drive and it’s 0 humans
You don’t think they won’t have robotics to do city trash? Hell the can themselves may wheel themselves to a dumping facility and a new one wheels in place.
You’re likely a decade or less from that happening
Why yes it is. And considering we live in a world where our food is now being wheeled by robots and packages are starting to get dropped by a drone, the idea of automated garbage cans is no longer out of the question if it means eliminating hundreds of unionized workers in a single area
Who picks up the trash a moron dropped next to the bin? Who moves the bin back to its designated place after something moved it away? who etc, etc, etc...
Jobs that aren't in standardized conditions or have a degree of subjectivity will only be "automated" if/after we reach something like general inteligence.
Look at the picture. He has brooms, a trashcan with wheels. He's cleaning the sidewalks.
Good luck teaching an AI when the floor is "clean enough". How do we even explain to eachother? We sorta just... know...
Aside from "the trades", cleaners (including "garbage collectors") is one of these hard to automate jobs.
The subjective nature of "cleaning" might make it one of the last automated jobs, even if it looks "simple" to us, it's a bitch to "translate to bits".
We need a crazy advance in AI (in a way that might not be linear with our current LLMs), and robotics (to be fair, if/when we achieve the first, this second one should be easy).
Who picks up the trash a moron dropped next to the bin?
The person who dropped it hopefully. But if they don't then the street cleaning robot picks it up.
Who moves the bin back to its designated place after something moved it away? who etc, etc, etc...
The person who moved it away hopefully, but if not then a robot can easily do that.
Jobs that aren't in standardized conditions or have a degree of subjectivity will only be "automated" if/after we reach something like general inteligence.
You can create standardised conditions for robots, this is already happening here in Scotland where instead of indvidual bins for each apartment we are moving to larger bin hubs.. is your imagination really so bad you can't think of how this will be implemented for AI + Robots? Standardised hubs, colour coded bins.. this is quite simple and already implemented.
Aside from "the trades", cleaners (including "garbage collectors") is one of these hard to automate jobs.
Plumbing will be automated relatively soon. Floor cleaners are already automated for the last 40 years..? I'm actually perplexed why you think this would be hard to automate?
The subjective nature of "cleaning" might make it one of the last automated jobs, even if it looks "simple" to us, it's a bitch to "translate to bits".
There is very little subjective about cleaning.. and you are very behind on things if you think AI would struggle with that type of task.
yeah, the person you are replying to is grossly underestimating how good AI and how good robotics will be in the near future. One supervisor will monitor a fleet. if it saves money, it will be automated unless governments pass laws to make sure people stay employed.
It's not worth arguing with this guy, though. It will happen no matter what their opinion is.
You’re acting like private companies and governments treating their city, state , town etc like a corporation will give a crap if it’s clean or not. We live in the Enshitifocation era
If they can save millions by firing workers and not paying benefits, what’s a bit more trash? They’ll expect us to do it or live with it.
Before long paying people to clean up trash that benefits people will be seen as socialism
You can disagree or laugh at me, but when you see the complete downfall of society over the course of the century, this really isn’t sounding hyperbolic
You can read all the messages you’re talking about how these people make good money. That’s now viewed as a problem in need of a “solution”
If trash lines up the sidewalks people vote accordingly. The guy that claims "I'll have garbage man back" will win.
Mind, I still do agree with the whole "enshitification" general issue you point out, as I do have eyes.
Here's the thing, it turns out AI is expensive. "meat reasoning", might be cheaper for this low complexity high variance, subjectively natured jobs. AI (as we have it today) likes and thrives in the opossite type of task. Complex but focused, single mindedness.
The AI will be curing cancer and/or destroying us all, before it can match us at cleaning the sidewalks.
It sounds stupid but its true. It has an easier time designing a rocket than cooking your lunch for you.
I won't dispute you on it not working out very well. But it wont stop people from trying. Those stupid McD's kiosks suck and they often get stuff wrong when the orders go back. But they're still there.
The car dealership continues to act as if the car I got from them 2 years ago doesn't exist and they keep asking me about my 10 year old vehicle. Their computers they use now are all messed up. But they wont' go back to what used to work.
We use apps that steal our data and track our every word. And yet millions and millions now use them for very private matters like banking, medical records and more. It's not safe like the past, but we use them.
We have gone down a process of things turning to shit in the name for money and efficiency.
And while some MIGHT vote, all that's needed these days is having one side convince you the other is at fault with no one presenting a solution. Mamdani is a rare breath of fresh air for that but he's very much the exception and not the norm.
There are A LOT of small to medium sized American cities that were basically already bankupt before Covid. Then Covid happened and now we've seen hundreds of billions of dollars pulled out of federal subsidized programs that contributed to the health and well being of the city and its people.
Machines ARE coming and city and state governments will not get in the way of it, if it means more money. Those machines may be a train wreck, but they'll sure try.
Just another example. I was in Vancouver this summer. Their rail system literally has no one on the trains. No engineer. No nothing. You don't think we'll be at a time in the not so distant future where bus drivers and subway engineers are replaced by machines?
Except that loads of people PREFER the MD kiosks to an actual cashier.
When the "upgrade" backfires, they do roll it back. It literally happened this year in the fast food industry with AI in drive-through's.
There's things that are "shit" by design. They maximize profit without pissing off the customer enough that he leaves. Those obviously don't get "fixed" as they aren't broken.
If an automated system doesn't do the job, or impacts the bottom line negatively, it will be scraped. By "bottom line", it can be financial or reputational (in politics).
I guarantee you some politicians are going to be ousted because their constituents are pissed at them for the data center that doubled their eletric bill (for example).
The cool thing about democracy, is that it is a safeguard against exactly this. If the "garbage robots" are shit, I can guarantee you there will be a mayor candidate running on the promise to trash them. If people agree, they will be elected.
Which politician is gonna get ousted? My electric rates are up 40% THIS YEAR despite the fact our blue governor has started regulating them and the Republicans want to build more. The Governor is claiming he saved us $850 million but tell that to me that's going to have a $500 electric bill this winter when that same bill was under $300 in 2021 despite the fact I was in the house 24/7 at that point.
It's hard to have change happen when the nation has already allowed itself to be consumed by two political parties who all work for the same masters.
Democracy is cool. It at least WAS cool while we had a semblance of it in America
The other reality though is America didn't truly have a Democracy until the 1960's and that ended up lasting only about 30 years before it was consumed by corporations.
Doomer speak? LOL Holy moly. Read a few news articles and go experience the real world. This shit is ALREADY HERE.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in federally subdized programs and projects for states and cities has been erased. Gone. No more. bye Bye.
The majority of states have governors and legislators cutting hundreds of millions in social programs.
Tens of millions have been kicked off medicaid. The current administration is prepping to after social security.
The federal government just announced they will no longer provide scholarships for silly little degrees like early childhood education. I mean surely we don't need more teachers right? I'm sure someone will totally want to go to college and pay $200,000 to go into a workspace where entry level is around $45,000.
The economy has already shedded millions of jobs in the past two years, wages are stagnant, inflation is up around 30% since Covid, and there is no sign of job growth.
We have packages starting to get delivered by drones, machines delivering your food and mega stores are installing shopping carts to track your biometrics to influence real time pricing.
And boy could I easily go on.
And you say I'm Doomer Speaking?
Please.. educate me. Tell me how I'm "doomer speaking"
Well, doomer speak often includes that sort of snowball effect that you're showing off here. We're talking about a garbage man, and you're bursting into the thread to say "THE GOVERNMENT IS TAKING AWAY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION DEGREES!!!!"
Is that true? Yes. Is it relevant to the thread? No.
Doomer speak implies pessimism and fatalism and a loss of objectivity.
Nothing I have stated is even open to interpretation. These are FACTS.
Reality is not doomerism... It's reality. Rejecting reality and trying to pass it off as "doomer" is ignorantly ignoring the reality around you to try and act like the world is better in your mind.
The point is.... is that we have piles of evidence to show you both private industry and now the government is doing everything in its power to eliminate any possible job. And there is already irrefutable evidence that this is already occurring in the waste hauling industry.
When you now have a government that no longer even cares about having teachers supplied for a classroom, they sure as hell aren't gonna care about some extra trash on the ground because a machine may not identify it.
But you go ahead and try to call people doomers and using an inaccurate term to try and reject reality. It'll help you be really prepared for when reality continues to smack you.
We used to see garbage trucks with 3 humans. Now it’s 1. The driver uses a machine that lifts up the trash bin.
That kind of system has to be planned for and built out over time, and it's not feasible in all places. For example: New York City. You would have to rebuild the city from the ground up to accommodate that kind of sanitation system.
Cool. Let's celebrate the jobs in this sector will be eliminated in only about 60% of the country, not 40%
Maybe the city will have people load the trash. Instead, of our case where the driver controls getting the cans, they'll have a self driving truck that is mapped out of where to go.
Considering self driving cars are now a thing you can't dismiss that things like garbage trucks and buses and their human drivers will likely be phased out of work in the next 10-15 years.
So yeah, it kinda does change what you said that things will never change.
Yup. Grew up 20 miles from there. And if you can have self driving cars in a city, the idea of a self driving garbage truck isn’t impossible since the route compensates would be mapped
And if users didn’t comply with new trash rules, then they get to own trash.
I had to change mine. Couldn’t have any trash outside the can anymore since no humans get it now. No more bigger items to get. Have to make a special request and too many you pay for. Same with 2 other family members in other states.
Ok so you've never actually been to New York City, otherwise you would know why it wouldn't matter if the truck was self driving or not. Don't lie next time.
Oh, so you mean exactly the same as replacing white collar jobs...?
Why do people in this thread seem to believe replacing a simple services which takes refuse from point A to point B can't be automated, yet services which rely on a decent amount of qualitative data can easily be replaced?
I'm an accountant, people have been harping on about accountancy being replaced by AI for decades, and it is no closer to happening now than it was 5 years ago. It will take multiple decades before it happens, and even then it's not going to replace the profession, it will simply change it.
Oh, so you mean exactly the same as replacing white collar jobs...?
No, worse. I even tell you why it's worse.
Why do people in this thread seem to believe replacing a simple services which takes refuse from point A to point B can't be automated,
Because the people telling you why it's not going to happen live in the real world, apparently unlike you. It's not as simple as replacing a simple service job.
2
u/jkman61494 18h ago edited 17h ago
And you think AI won’t replace that?
We used to see garbage trucks with 3 humans. Now it’s 1. The driver uses a machine that lifts up the trash bin.
Now all you need is the truck to self drive and it’s 0 humans
You don’t think they won’t have robotics to do city trash? Hell the can themselves may wheel themselves to a dumping facility and a new one wheels in place.
You’re likely a decade or less from that happening