What education should you get to best position yourself for the coming decades? What line of work should you be in, and which professions have no future and will disappear? This should come as no surprise to you at all. Just consider the amount of jobs that have vanished throughout human history.
Here is a list of 20 professions that will most likely be obsolete, or at the very least out-of-date, by 2038 or earlier:
1. Actor
Actors in film and television will be replaced by completely realistic animations. Stage actors will of course exist for a while. The will probably be performing in many parts of the world simultaneously, through the anticipated widespread use of holograms.
2. Cashier
Many grocery stores already have self-operated check stands, but that is just a trade-off between a cashier doing the job and you doing it yourself, making your groceries cheaper. In the future, check stands will be fully automated. Just leave your groceries on the belt and let the robot tally it up – many times faster than a human ever could. As a consequence, lines will be much less of a nuisance, as they become increasingly non-existent.
3. Construction worker
Construction work can be hazardous, so why should humans risk their lives doing it? Insurance companies certainly won’t cover a construction firm that that takes such unnecessary risks. Robotics are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and they’ll be constructing buildings cheaper, and far more rapidly than humans.
4. Soldier
Compared to sophisticated robots, humans are relatively susceptible to mental deficiencies such as nervousness, pride, stupidity, miscalculation, and slow reaction time. In other words: computers can do the same job more efficiently, without risking human life, and without apprehension.
5. Security guard
Buy a strong, obedient robot that can see in the dark, never falls asleep on duty, and won’t accept bribes, to protect your home or your business.
6. Car mechanic
Cars will become too technically complex to repair for humans. Computers and robots will take care of it. Eventually, cars will fix themselves. They’ve already started driving themselves.
7. Garbage collector
Instead of two slow, weak and unhappy guys tossing garbage into the back of the truck, a single fast, strong and highly “motivated” robot will complete the process in five seconds.
8. Assembly line worker
Automakers, textile producers and furniture factories (to mention some industries) around the world are cutting costs by reducing their number of salary, pension and insurance absorbing employees, and shifting focus to mechanical solutions.
9. Toll booth operator
Many developed countries have already successfully implemented money-and-time saving automatic toll booths with video detection and post payment/subscriptions.
10.Drivers
Whether you are a taxi, bus, truck, uber or delivery driver your job is on the verge of complete automation. Tesla the leading manufacturer of innovative vehicles has made the world aware that the next generation of cars will be 100% autonomous. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla agrees that it will take them 1 or 2 years to get the tech right and then 3 more to obtain government approvals. In the near future, riding a car will be like getting in an elevator. You just press a button and it takes you to wherever you want to go. When was the last time you met an elevator operator?
11.Nature photographer
Closeups from inside the lion’s cave and year-long stakeouts without the need for food or shelter are the advantages I can see robots having, off the top of my head.
12. Surgeon
Why let a nervous, shaky doctor with poor eyesight cut you with knives and fool around inside of you, when a steady handed, ice cool and accurate robot can do it instead? Medical malpractice lawsuits cost the American health providers some $30 billion each year. This will end.
13. Pilot
Computerized pilots are not like regular pilots in that they are not prone to human error, i.e. they won’t spill coffee on the instrument panels in the cockpit or miscalculate their landing angle. Nor do they need good visibility to fly, as their millimeter-accurate GPS and sensor systems will guide them blindly to their destination. Obviously, they will have to prove their merit before plane passengers, and by extension airlines, can trust them.
14. Film processor
Even today it seems absurd to have a full time employee engaged in nothing but changing film, and most modern movie theaters are rapidly moving away from this.
15. Librarian
Libraries will soon look very different. Why have a library containing 50,000 paper made books when you can have 50 million of them in virtual form, which you can access with your library card and download to your kindle or iPad. There will not be any need for humans to process the lending of books. Most importantly, there will be no human to force that look of guilt and embarrassment on your face if you return the book in a bad condition.
16. Call center operator
By 2029, when computers are scheduled to match human intelligence, a microchip will call your house and argue that you do in fact need flood insurance. Don’t worry as they will find a way to sort out that monotonous boring robotic voice.
17. News anchor
No mispronunciations, no misunderstandings, no Freudian slips, just a perfectly articulate teleprompter with a (beautiful) face.
18. Mailman
Who sends snail-mail these days? Mostly nostalgic pen pals. While we may have a small segment left of the paper mail industry, most of the things we use the mail for either is transitioning to or has already moved completely online: Bills, public notices, and business-letters. Although, we’ll still need package delivery (at least until nanotechnology enables us to send and download material objects like we send files today, in 30-40 years.)
19. Waiters
Robots don’t have an attitude, won’t spit in your food, and don’t need tips. They can work tirelessly around the clock, be ultra-efficient and be called upon by clicking a button in your menu. Besides, you won’t have to be nice to them if you are not a nice person.
20. Receptionist
Artificial intelligence and robotics sciences are approaching a point where the robots we can make will match humans in terms of intelligence. These robots will be our faithful servants who perform the menial tasks, so humans can focus on developing themselves. As a matter of fact, there are companies that replaced human receptionists with hologram figures.
Off course, some jobs that will be outsourced to countries. Yes, these jobs will still exist, but will be performed by personnel in countries that
can offer inexpensive, skilled labor and more efficient resources. Some of the alternative technologies to phase out the listed jobs might still not be accessible to everyone. Nevertheless, even developing countries are catching on technology faster than ever.
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