Diminishing doors

Job redundancy is common in Australia, some 234,000 people in a twelve month period.

It happened to a friend of mine recently, an electrical engineer working in the naval vessel sector - an unfair redundancy in my opinion and he's got an open case with Fair Work Australia currently.

I've always held to the belief that when one is forced to exit their current employment and the door closes behind them, they're left standing in a corridor filled with other doors. Through those doors are other jobs and opportunities and if one opens enough of them something will eventually happen.

These days with businesses, companies and governments accelerating the use of AI and automation though...I don't know - there's fewer opportunities. The doors within that corridor, the jobs and opportunities, are slowly being diminished. Sure, maybe there's a few additional jobs in I.T. here and there but if a person's skillset doesn't match then what? Retrain? It's not that simple.

What if you were made redundant and you're a graphic artist and there were no jobs to go to because AI has filled them. Just retrain huh? Ok, what if I said, you can retrain as an infantry soldier. Would you do it?

It's a huge problem, the way humans seem so quick to replace humans with automation and AI, in my opinion.

So what...there's millions and millions of jobs available in I.T. around the world because of AI and automation? No, there is not.

I think humans are on the wrong path. Replacing humans with AI and automation when the global population is increasing at such a rapid rate makes for a lot of idle people. Are other "new" jobs created? Maybe, maybe not.

Is there an I.T. job for each and every one who's out of work? If so, why are there 670,000 unemployed Australians, 7.8 million unemployed in America and 1.83 million unemployed in the UK? No, there's not that many I.T jobs...maybe they could all join the military, the way things are going we'll all be at war soon anyway.

I'm not sure what my friend is going to do but he's looking for work. He will probably have to relocate his family across the country, his wife will have to leave her job and there's yet one more person in that corridor of diminishing doors. Will she find work? Who knows.

What do you reckon? Is it a bad situation? Is everything on this planet just fine and dandy? Is "AI productivity" worth putting real people out of work and often into poverty for? Do you even care? What "new" jobs do you think will be created? Comment if you like.