When I studied supply chain ( was called materials management) in the 90’s I remember the professors confidently predicting that shopping centres , car dealers etc will be extinct in the future, ( within 20 years) due to e commerce. The reality is the internet boom certainly changed things but hey 35 years later shopping centres and car dealers certainly still exist. 🙂 I have no doubt jobs will be lost to AI but am also pretty confident more new jobs will also be created….University professors even the really good ones often get it wrong.…🙂 personally I think the future is rather exciting especially if AI can assist with providing some decent aged care for the aging population including myself🙂
They made the predictions based on intent which were absolutely correct, however they forgot about the thing that is still yet to be solved in Australia. Logistics
It is slowly getting better here, but its so far behind most other countries, super expensive (because of distance) and very slow. When I moved back to Australia I had culture shock of having to wait several days for something that I ordered online, whereas in Amsterdam as long as I ordered before midnight whatever I ordered would be there the next day before 12 and they would usually give you a 10 - 20 minute window for when it was delivered. Now given you can circum navigate the entire country of the Netherlands in about 6 hours but this was the same for things coming in from Germany, Belgium or France and even the UK were next day.
Car dealerships are never going away, because we will always need somewhere for scumbags to work.
The other thing they didn't factor into these predictions was that the internet also lead us down a path of instant gratification, the battles of Logistics and waiting days meant too much cooling time on products.
Finally there are a few things that I would never buy online. Anything you sit on or Lay on needs to be tested before you buy it, clothing, unless you know the retailer and their sized your are on a hiding to none.
I would probably buy a car online, but even new I would like to see it and drive it first.
Theres always a threat to the job market, economy etc and we seem to always make predictions based on the invention and commercialisation of the car, but those who fail to heed history are destined to repeat it.
What I mean by this is prior to the car, horses were the beast of burden for just about everything, travel, work etc entire industries existed because of the horse. We needed people to care for the horses hooves, stables, feed supply, grooming, health care, breeding, sales so much of the economy depended on them and in less than a decade, cars replaced them and changed everything.
Anyway all that is to say the people in the media reporting on these things, are not trying to sell anything other than advertising, the industry that truly controls the world. Watched bits of the the news as one of my kids had it on the other week. Switched it off and told him to go do something constructive, every story was doom and gloom and crime and rubbish
