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Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by yummyfajitas on Sunday March 22, 2015 @06:12AM (#9246233)
So for the example of an actuary, ideally their job would also be automated by an advanced program...If we took every actuary working 9 to 5, and instead threw all of their tens of thousands of daily working hours at coding a program to do their job...

What, exactly, do you think actuaries do during their 9-5? Do you think they manually compute actuarial tables with a TI-89?

Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by stillsut on Sunday March 22, 2015 @09:30AM (#9246669)
Actuary here: only 5% of billable-hours go into the concept of the math and probability behind setting appropriate price.

95% of the work involves translating the messiness of real-world into the model-based world. This is the type of thing that's obliviously difficult to automate: e.g. more difficult to build a robot-nurse than a robot-surgeon.

Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by a3n on Sunday March 22, 2015 @12:24PM (#9247298)
Yes, as I was following this subthread, I imagined that an actuary's real job was to recognize and model things to be insured or otherwise predicted. The math is just the executive summary.
Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by collyw on Sunday March 22, 2015 @11:46AM (#9247139)
As a software engineer, you probably imagine that I spend most of my time programming.
Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by reitanqild on Sunday March 22, 2015 @07:30AM (#9246397)
I personally see a lot of potential for automation, -just tonight I was out working for a non-profit that saves a lot of hassle because I learned them a few Excel tricks back in 2012.

Another place I was paid for less than 20 hours and it shaved two hours of preparations for the run of a machine, meaning they could keep it for several years more.

Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by crimsoneer on Sunday March 22, 2015 @08:31AM (#9246507)
Actuaries are exceptionally well trained professionals who use incredibly sophisticated automation. They do not need help with Excel macros.