In the year 2040 you need to go to the dentist. The dentist you visit has a big shop, with lots of employees. There's Linda, who works the telephone and knows you and your family. There's the hygienist. There's the nurse's aide. The dentist even makes his own amalgams for fillings. It's a very personal and homey atmosphere. People like it.
The other place has robots. There is no dentist. You click on your iPad (or whatever you have then) that you want to see a dentist, and within ten minutes you're in the office. A robot does the exam, consults with you, and completes the work.
The first dentist costs four times as much as the second one. It also takes twice the time, and you have to wait two weeks for an appointment. (If you're lucky)
Now that's not some strange imaginings -- that's going to happen, whether we like it or not. The main question becomes: do we evolve a mixed-mode shop full of artisans working (programming) computers and technology? Or do we just commoditize the lot of it, take the humanity and ingenuity completely out of the picture? If you set aside programming, make the programming shop some special place where people go to commoditize business practices, you end up with no people around. After all, you've replaced them. If, however, each person knows their job and also programming, you create something new that wasn't there before. This is the startup question, "should all the founders know how to program?" applied to the world at large.
The essay makes the case not for programmers to rule the world, but for people of all jobs to learn to manipulate complex programmable technology in the same way they might today use Microsoft Publisher to make a banner. It's actually arguing your case for you: for our own benefit, the creative and unique aspect of people must be preserved.
Yes, I would save money by going to the robot dentist, but my dentist would be out of work in no time. It partially rests on humans to keep the exploits of technology at bay. We can't turn personable human tasks into machine work.
Our world can be set up to be completely self-sufficient. Yes, a few people would make a lot of money, but I personally believe the impacts would be horrendous.
We can see this as an increased demand for education / training. But, not everyone is able to keep up and over time ever fewer people are going to be capable of the remaining niches. It's possible that the service industry's are going to continue to absorb the less capable, but that does not help the economy in the long term.
One of them has his or her hand in your mouth and might need to drill, remove, fill or otherwise mess around with your teeth. I think a lot of people would be more comfortable with a human element in all medical interactions, even if robots are eventually as effective.
What about when robots become more effective? Drastically more effective?
I would not let a modern day robot work on my teeth, they are too stupid, but I can imagine a day (fairly soon) when this will not be the case, and my gut reaction will start to be the exact opposite: I would not let a human being work on my teeth.
Now, with automation and 3D imaging technology we can have a specialist specify what to change and let a computer design a series of discrete non-invasive attachments that allow a home users to quickly attach and remove their implant. It's far less painful, takes less time,can far more precisely preform complex work like rotating a tooth, and the only downside is it costs about the same amount as braces. Note: This is an actual company not just BS (http://www.invisalign.com/Pages/default.aspx).
PS: I still occasionally see a teller for complex interactions, but I trust an ATM to be far more accurate for my day to day needs. And there is still plenty of work for orthodontists, but a lot of the simple stuff is simply better handled by a machine.
As to programming; I don't know a lot about how the software works, but advanced users in front of really complex software like Excel and Photoshop tend to blur the line between a Specialist and Programmer.
If that doesn't happen, Wall-E future or massive human revolt.
I might indeed prefer Dentist #1. But if competition in my field of interest has significant reduced my salary or rendered me unemployed, I may have no choice but to dial-up Dentist #2.
This effect then results in Dentist #1 joining me in having his/her livelihood under pressure.
I can't see this ending well...
Just because some chefs with decades of experience figured out how to mass produce relatively poor quality cookies does not mean that it will be a snap for those chefs to spend years learning how to program well enough that they can create Star Trek replicators.
They're not. However, their work is greatly enhanced by using programming to, for example, generate procedural patterns, to mock up new shapes, and to test out new ideas.
Being able to program reduces the constraints that our mental abilities put on us by offloading parts of it to a computer.
But even in your replies, you're often dealing with only small subsets. I don't want to live in a society which feels painters and sculptors are obsolete because we have webgl. I certainly don't want to live in a society in which the Oreo is an example of good baking. And the existence of webgl and Oreos doesn't indicate to me that painters, sculptors, and traditional bakers need to know about the programmatic options.
When not subsets, it's not clear to me why the professional ought to know programming rather than enlisting the help of a programmer. Programming tools for fire prediction would probably be quite involved. I've been programming professionally for 3 years, and I'm not sure I'd be up to the challenge. I'm not sure someone could be a skilled firefighter, learn programming well enough to write fire prediction tools, and still have a social life. And even if someone can, there's no reason every firefighter needs to. Once it's written, it's written, and others just need to learn to use it.
(As for the burger, I wouldn't eat it. I like my food traditional, minimally processed, and made of things I would recognize on a shelf [a category into which his emulsifiers do not fall].)