What professions would be rendered obsolete by LAI?

[Pragmatic]

I'm an accountant by trade. It's fun work, but I have a feeling that its days are numbered in the THS universe. Any relatively competent LAI could do what I do, if we ignore the need for a little creativity. I can totally see any LAI having a little accounting in their training, so that every transaction a person does can be properly recorded in accountant-speak.

What else might go by the wayside? I can, for instance, see an LAI trained in "boilerplate" legalese. Given a sufficient database, and broad guidelines, almost all small-potatoes contracts could be written by a smart-but-dull computer program.

So what other professions would become highly-specialized but not widely-applicable? (Have to keep human ingenuity in there somewhere, right?)

[panton41]

Well there's the fact that someone has the actually write the program and database in question, so there will still be people with the old skills doing that. Not to mention while a computer could (and regularly does today) do that, it doesn't mean it can legally do it nor does it mean if it were challenged in court that a computer generated contract would be upheld. It might have all the right words, but it wasn't a human putting those words together, thus invalid.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

Well there's the fact that someone has the actually write the program and database in question, so there will still be people with the old skills doing that.

This doesn't appear to be the case in THS, AIs are developed from other AIs, for the most part.

Not to mention while a computer could (and regularly does today) do that, it doesn't mean it can legally do it nor does it mean if it were challenged in court that a computer generated contract would be upheld. It might have all the right words, but it wasn't a human putting those words together, thus invalid.

Also probably not true in most places, especially in the 5th wave.

[jacobmuller]

All the low-brain power, "low-skill"* labour could become robotic; fast-food chef, receptionist, manual labour, stores/ warehousing/ grocery shopping, farming. There would still be work in those areas but higher skilled or drop-out.

The way to get ahead today is to specialise - LAI will make your job easier, if you have a job.

Receptionist: will still be a people-person with diplomacy and computer ops skills - the LAI will field the easy calls and scheduling of meetings, etc. leaving Ugly Betty more time for extra complex quests.
Manual Labour: casual labour will still exist, a couple of hours here and there for people you know (contacts, patrons) but full-time employment at hard-labour, even driving vehicles, will be gone. Hobos will reappear; local Handy-Persons will gain a wider patronage.
Stores: LAI don't read labels wrong, don't play-games in forklifts, don't find a shelf-space to kip/ smoke/ canoodle/ stash/ thieve but someone will have the job of monitoring the system and they will. Or will that job be replaced by a SAI?

*"Low-skill" actually refers more to the rate of pay/ employer attitude for those skills/ careers than the amount of knowledge/ effort required.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Receptionist: will still be a people-person with diplomacy and computer ops skills

And while the McDonald's-equivalent of THS is probably fully automated, anywhere that genuinely cooks food on site will still need someone with a little creativity and a sense of taste.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Stores: LAI don't read labels wrong, don't play-games in forklifts, don't find a shelf-space to kip/ smoke/ canoodle/ stash/ thieve but someone will have the job of monitoring the system and they will. Or will that job be replaced by a SAI?

An SAI will likely be overkill - and too expensive. LAIs will be entirely sufficient for this task.

Although larger stores will likely have a human supervisor at the store to deal with emergencies (and irate customers). Several smaller stores will likely have a joint human supervisor.

But if it's routine, an LAI can easily do it.

Originally Posted by RogerBW

And while the McDonald's-equivalent of THS is probably fully automated, anywhere that genuinely cooks food on site will still need someone with a little creativity and a sense of taste.

And these stores will be correspondingly more expensive.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

And these stores will be correspondingly more expensive.

I think it would be more correct that automatic stores will be cheaper, while human-shops will maintain their price.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I think it would be more correct that automatic stores will be cheaper, while human-shops will maintain their price.

When human labor becomes a luxury instead of a necessity, then people will be paying more for that luxury.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

When human labor becomes a luxury instead of a necessity, then people will be paying more for that luxury.

But it will likely have reduced demand, driving price back down.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

All the low-brain power, "low-skill"* labour could become robotic; fast-food chef, receptionist, manual labour, stores/ warehousing/ grocery shopping, farming.

Excellent start. Also: Truck driving, package delivery, lots of home and building maintenance ranging from tidying up to gardening and lawn care to painting. Probably a lot of basic construction, electrical, and plumbing work. I can see a lot of that being done by robots who occasionally have human supervisors remotely patch in to assess unusual situations and talk to humans on site, and then hand control back over to the robot to do the work once it has been given instructions.