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FuelDrop
Back in the forth edition book unwired, there is a section that talks about how skillsofts and skillwires drastically altered the landscape of skilled labour by suddenly making skilled workers cheap and easy to attain, and how this led to a dramatic social upheaval.

How have the drastically increased costs of skillwires in 5th edition changed things?
GloriousRuse
A boon to robotics and automation most likely.

Of course, another question is:

If old wires were cheap cause they had trace nano in them, did the workforce melt down as well?
Wakshaani
QUOTE (GloriousRuse @ Aug 11 2013, 08:28 PM) *
A boon to robotics and automation most likely.

Of course, another question is:

If old wires were cheap cause they had trace nano in them, did the workforce melt down as well?


I don't think it hammered old SKillwires so much as disrupted the manufacture of new ones.

That said, if it cascades through Horizon, those poor guys are *boned*. What percentage of their workforce is Skillwired again?
Eratosthenes
Where is the fluff about nanotech being dead? I keep seeing it referenced, but I couldn't find anything in the sourcebook describing what happened. Or is it just that there's no nanotech in the sourcebook (likely to be in a supplement)?
Wakshaani
STorm Front will bring you the nitty-gritty.
Eratosthenes
QUOTE (Wakshaani @ Aug 12 2013, 10:47 AM) *
STorm Front will bring you the nitty-gritty.


Ah! Thank you!
White Buffalo
QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Aug 12 2013, 01:04 AM) *
Back in the forth edition book unwired, there is a section that talks about how skillsofts and skillwires drastically altered the landscape of skilled labour by suddenly making skilled workers cheap and easy to attain, and how this led to a dramatic social upheaval.

I felt most of last edition that they missed an opurtunity with that one. SR4A and reset anything that might have been done by adjusting the costs but the "social upheaval" mentioned in Unwired was one of the best examples of dystopian wage slavery published in the last 10 years.
Blastula
Implanting low grade wires is still probably cheaper than training employees in certain job fields. Worker gets geeked due to a workplace accident, there's a chance the wires can still be salvaged and implanted into another drone.

It probably wouldn't be as widespread as it had been prior to SR5, but as long as it remained a cost effective alternative to full scale training and orientation programs, it'll have a place in the corporate world.
Wakshaani
QUOTE (White Buffalo @ Aug 12 2013, 10:30 AM) *
I felt most of last edition that they missed an opurtunity with that one. SR4A and reset anything that might have been done by adjusting the costs but the "social upheaval" mentioned in Unwired was one of the best examples of dystopian wage slavery published in the last 10 years.


Most writers aren't sociologists. Culture's my baby and, believe me, I want to explore certain areas along those lines. Unfortunately, five thousand words on the education system of 2075 North America isn't going to be useful for most people. Oh, it'll be *neat*, and those people like me will chew the Hell out of it, but most people would go "I don't really care where my dude went to school, I want to ride a motorcycle off a building, shoot a helicopter, and land on a zombie to wail on my guitar while the chopper explodes behind me in slow-mo."

And that's totally fine!

But it means I have to find different angles to bring that kind of thing to something vaguely akin to print.

(PS, "brake" in your sig should be "break")
Flaser
QUOTE (Wakshaani @ Aug 12 2013, 06:52 PM) *
Most writers aren't sociologists. Culture's my baby and, believe me, I want to explore certain areas along those lines. Unfortunately, five thousand words on the education system of 2075 North America isn't going to be useful for most people. Oh, it'll be *neat*, and those people like me will chew the Hell out of it, but most people would go "I don't really care where my dude went to school, I want to ride a motorcycle off a building, shoot a helicopter, and land on a zombie to wail on my guitar while the chopper explodes behind me in slow-mo."

And that's totally fine!

But it means I have to find different angles to bring that kind of thing to something vaguely akin to print.

(PS, "brake" in your sig should be "break")


Actually I'm a bit like you, as the hideously broken education system could leave all sorts of nasty marks on the person... including glaring gaps in their knowledge and their look on the world. While not directly related to the action-movie parts of SR, in social situations it could bring a strong flavor to everything.
Slide
I could see massive backlash from the unions, their political and organized crime partners. Maybe they finally got corps/government to agree to up the price on skill wires making the skilled laborer still competitive in the job market. After moving to NJ I've gotten to see how persistent the unions can be. Hell I could even see them trying to get laws passed to make it harder to higher a skill wired laborer.
Draco18s
Possibly relevant TED talk
Flaser
QUOTE (Slide @ Aug 12 2013, 07:15 PM) *
I could see massive backlash from the unions, their political and organized crime partners. Maybe they finally got corps/government to agree to up the price on skill wires making the skilled laborer still competitive in the job market. After moving to NJ I've gotten to see how persistent the unions can be. Hell I could even see them trying to get laws passed to make it harder to higher a skill wired laborer.


Unions in Shadowrun? Maybe in the government.

Most AAA corps probably treat unions are the same way as Jihadist today, they can write whatever laws they want. Heck, incitement against the market (anything with a hint of Left Wing ideology) is probably a standard accusation to paint someone in a bad light.
Slide
well i guess extra territoriality does mess that up a bit.
Wakshaani
Yeah, Unions don't exist on corporate property. Governments have to deal with them to some degree, however. I know teh UCAS has several, the CAS, not so much. Aztlan is probably worse than the CAS in that regard, while the NAN.... huh. I'm not sure how union-friendly the NAN are. That's a good question, really.
Voran
If we look at Jackpoint, various comments throughout the sourcebooks, we'll see that general education is potentially worse than what we think is bad NOW. An enhanced version of "We'll teach them what we want, not what is necessarily true"

So you can imagine following the split the UCAS teaches different history than CAS. The Hawaiian Kingdom probably changed their education from the 'haole version'. Corps definitely change stuff, supporting the "Love us. Obey us." aspect of raising drones.

To a 2070s type, the early 2000s are probably as well known as the general person can describe (today) what the world was like during WWI era.

I figure you can take the worst stereotypes about cults/scientology/etc and figure that's the baseline Corps use to indoctrinate their people. And that's even before stuff like Horizon's "its kinda like a BTL' network that makes all their linked employees kinda drugged.
Flaser
QUOTE (Wakshaani @ Aug 12 2013, 08:05 PM) *
Yeah, Unions don't exist on corporate property. Governments have to deal with them to some degree, however. I know teh UCAS has several, the CAS, not so much. Aztlan is probably worse than the CAS in that regard, while the NAN.... huh. I'm not sure how union-friendly the NAN are. That's a good question, really.


Probably not that much, since Unions have traditional ties to the International Worker's Movement and Communism in general. Both of these candidly spoke in favor of class identity and international co-operation vs. any national interest or national identity. Being founded on specific *ethic* and *religious* identities, NAN probably doesn't like traditional Unions much, so how much a specific union is accepted/harassed would depend on how much they ascribe and subject themselves to the Tribal Identity of their are vs. traditional, international left wing ideologies.

The two are not mutually exclusive though, look at North Korea and you'll see a classical hard-line Bolshevik State that has fully immersed itself in the mythos of a national identity and even digested classical Confucian mores. There are (sorta) 'good' examples too, like (before the clusterfuck of the Balkan wars) Jugoslavia that went against Soviet pressure and built its own kind of socialism instead yet another Stalinist clusterfuck... or if you want *democratic* left wing movements that are nationalist too, all the anti-colonial socialists of Latin America are good candidates, as these groups actually pushed for policies in line with the will of populace.
CanRay
QUOTE (Flaser @ Aug 12 2013, 12:46 PM) *
Unions in Shadowrun? Maybe in the government.
One of the rules of the Corporate Court is that Unions are verboten, bad for business, and should be crushed wherever they can be.
Nath
QUOTE (CanRay @ Aug 12 2013, 09:38 PM) *
One of the rules of the Corporate Court is that Unions are verboten, bad for business, and should be crushed wherever they can be.
A source?

The only place I remember unions have been mentioned was the Ute chapter in Shadows of North America, and it didn't appear to be an issue at hands with corporations.
BlackJaw
QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Aug 11 2013, 05:04 PM) *
Back in the forth edition book unwired, there is a section that talks about how skillsofts and skillwires drastically altered the landscape of skilled labour by suddenly making skilled workers cheap and easy to attain, and how this led to a dramatic social upheaval.

How have the drastically increased costs of skillwires in 5th edition changed things?
I'm assuming that most Corporate Drones are only getting Skilljack systems under 5th Edition rules. Most jobs probably only require access to Profession and/or Academic Skillsofts to fulfill their corporate roles. Probably only at rating 3 (competent) to 5 (skilled) too. The trade off for the Human Resource department responsible for classifying young corporate citizens emerging from the "education system" is to compare the base talents (IE: probable future contributions) of the individual vs the cost of a proper higher or technical education. Average to above average citizens are likely best chipped, as the cost of doing so is probably comparable to a proper eduction for their bet-fit roles, but carries the advantages of being faster, easier to "re-traing," easier to retain internal corporate practices (as the employee knows little if their skillsoft is removed) and the investment can be repossessed, to some extent, should the employee find themselves unable to pay their loans related to implanting. Student loans, on the other hand, can not be repossessed, and it takes another investment of time and money to transfer the employee to new fields. If you're a young corporate citizen in school, unless you can show yourself as being more valuable in a roll requiring initiative, creativity, and/or development, (or magic obviously) you're likely to be get chipped.

This ethos carries over into even some of the more education heavy fields too. Lab techs, doctors, etc. These skills (Chemistry, Biotech, Medicine, etc) require use of activesofts. The cost for implanting a rating 4 to 5 skilljack and skillwire, while twice that of he average drone, is still likely a better investment of corporate dollars than getting a masters degree, PHD, or MD. The citizens approved for such implants, however, are likely in the above average to talented category of citizens.

I figure only in the case of the exceptional individuals is it more valuable to give a proper education. These people are those destined for positions where creativity and problem solving are key aspect of their future work. The mid to upper managers that will need to make tough decisions, the designers of new systems or processes, and those working the cutting edge. Also, anyone mystically inclined.

The other extreme is also present: those below average citizens destined for jobs so menial it's more cost effective to give them basic training than it is to chip them. Security guards and the rare none-drone janitors come to mind.

That means your average corp research lab the players are breaking into is likely to be staffed by a handful of exceptional individuals that are unchipped, like the head scientists and their younger "interns" or residents learning from them, some upper Managerial, HR, Security (Host-Spider, security mage, high threat response units), and PR types. Most of the rest of the staff would be chipped lab techs (with skillwires), admins (skilljacks only), etc. Finally there are the lowest wrung employees that haven't been replaced with automation, and are unchipped because it's still cheaper to just train them the old fashioned way, that probably means the basic daily security guards.

Or that's at least how I look at it. I like the dystopian edge of a largely chipped workforce, because as other posters have noted, it really plays up the "drone" aspect. This was actually somewhat easier in 4th edition because Knowsofts (IE: Profession and Academic Skills) only required a DNI to work, IE: The common drone's implanted commlink. Under 5th Edition rules, a Skilljack is once again required, which is substantially more expensive than a mid-level commlink, but still not more expensive than education. More interestingly though, this makes the act, at least in my games, of being made a full corporate drone more invasive. They are actively installing an investment of hardware into your brain that will probably leave you indebted to them for decades and unlike student loans: They can take it back if you don't make your payments.

I do like that research labs, a frequent target or setting for shadowrun missions, are more likely to have skilljacked and skillwired lab techs. I think it was in 4th Ed Unwired that talks about a run that went bad when the lab techs in the facility were converted into mid level soldiers though implanted combat skillsofts sent to them by the building's spider.
Voran
On the other hand, the 'problem' is with skillwires you get a worker that has a static skill level and doesn't develop tacit/experiential knowledge on their own. So sure you can hire a rating 3 skillwire guy, but his performance will be limited to how extensive the skillchips are. Good for stability I suppose, not that great for innovation/learning new tasks within the role/etc.
BlackJaw
QUOTE (Voran @ Aug 12 2013, 01:42 PM) *
On the other hand, the 'problem' is with skillwires you get a worker that has a static skill level and doesn't develop tacit/experiential knowledge on their own. So sure you can hire a rating 3 skillwire guy, but his performance will be limited to how extensive the skillchips are. Good for stability I suppose, not that great for innovation/learning new tasks within the role/etc.

Which is why you evaluate your people and give the "best and brightest" real education and positions groomed for growth, especially in fields or positions with possible promotion tracks or a need for creative problem solving/development. That's still only a fraction of your work force, and the rest really are "drones," at least that's how I view the dystopian mega-corp model.
Jaid
and then suddenly it becomes an incredibly profitable venture to break into low security housing for these corp drones and rake in the cash, because some chump with skillwires is packing a couple hundred thousand nuyen in augmentations, and they're everywhere.

also, i'm curious what makes you believe it costs more to train someone to be a lab technician than it takes to use skillwires. again, rating 4 (standard professional rating in SR5) has a market value of 160,000 nuyen. i bet you can do some pretty damned good educating for that kind of money per head, especially if you don't really care about innovation or creativity. and by the time you'd need to actually replace the person (say, 45 years, that being around standard retirement age today if you start at ~20 years old), those rating 4 skillwires probably no longer have any value anyways. oh, sure, if the person dies, you could recover skillwires, but really... are you suggesting that actual *deaths* are that common in the workplace?

as far as indebtedness, there isn't really a functional difference between a 20,000 nuyen debt that you can't pay off realistically ever and a 160,000 nuyen debt that you can't pay off realistically ever. sure, you've got the threat of repossessing the person's 'ware (and leaving them unemployable), but you also guarantee they will never improve, and more importantly, if they ever leave (without your permission, obviously), they've got 160k nuyen worth of 'ware stuck in them.
BlackJaw
Well just for a Bachelors: Private Four-Year Not-For-Profit College: National Average: $85,296 per year.

I know modern American dollars and 2075 NuYen isn't the same thing, but considering something like 75% of the applicable workforce only needs a rating 3 Skilljack (60,000 NuYen for new) and only smaller subset of above average individuals need the more expensive Skillwire system too (rating 4 skilljack and skillwire is 160,000 NuYen for new) and those are the corp equivalent of middle class: chipped lab techs and basic doctors living a decent life but unlikely to have much in the way of promotion prospects. Looking at modern averages, for medical school: "In 2010, the median debt at graduation was $150,000 at public institutions, $180,000 at private, and $160,000 combined."

If it's $160,000 for a medical education taking more than 6 years, or $160,000 for an implanted skilljack 4 and skill wire 4, taking a few months at worst... with various extras like re-programing, or cutting the wires out after 5 years when the person defaults on their debt... well why would you as an HR manager direct people towards education instead of wires?

So yes, I think my numbers aren't so crazy for 2070s, but as to why people don't go door to door killing corp employees and carefully cutting out their augmentations for black market sales... well maybe because that's the kind of thing corps hunt you down and do terrible things to you for. Especially because they notice all those wireless devices going often line one after another inside their extra-territoriality subdivisions where they have plenty of security forces?

Also, this is for average (skilljack rating 3) to Competent (rating 5) employees. The 40% of the population that is lower average or worse is getting very little if anything, and those are the ones living in low-class high density housing only somewhat above SINless. Essentially the jobs that in modern terms don't have college degrees. The upper 20% (?) of the population isn't wired, because they are worth educating for the advantages of real knowledge/initiative instead of chipped skills. That's leaves just the middle section of the population, what is more or less the middle class in modern terms, that chipping is the more economical option for.

Then again, I'm by no means an expert, so I may very well be way off on these things. I think it at least makes an interesting dystopian megacorp setting.
Wakshaani
QUOTE (Voran @ Aug 12 2013, 04:42 PM) *
On the other hand, the 'problem' is with skillwires you get a worker that has a static skill level and doesn't develop tacit/experiential knowledge on their own. So sure you can hire a rating 3 skillwire guy, but his performance will be limited to how extensive the skillchips are. Good for stability I suppose, not that great for innovation/learning new tasks within the role/etc.


Of course, this assumes that you want them to get better. If they do the job enough, but never improve, then you don't have to worry about giving them performance bonuses or yearly increases in pay.

Know what you also might see, now that the cost of Skillwires has gone up?

Ever hear of Skill Hardwires?
Epicedion
Remember that corps also have a "corp society" where employees are born to corp parents, raised in corp schools, and shuffled into appropriate corp jobs. I imagine that when little corp kids reach a certain age they're tested and filed as trainable or untrainable for skilled jobs. A portion of the untrainable would be moved into menial tasks, while another portion would be offered a skill package.

The benefit to the corp would be huge. They'd have a drone on a leash, and be able to reconfigure the skilljacked workforce into whatever arrangement is financially suitable without having to mess around with anything as complex as retraining, determining suitability, or literally any factor other than the number of warm bodies they have available. Your skilljacked accountant can just as easily be a skilljacked lab tech, or a skilljacked data entry specialist. Immediately, with no more effort than flipping a switch.

NutraSoy customer service in Vietnam isn't going so hot? Reconfigure 200 German customer service reps with Vietnamese linguasofts and put them on duty today. H&R Block needs to be liquidated? Replace all your tax accountants' knowsofts with gambling knowsofts and put them to work on the floor of the new casino that's opening tomorrow.

Wakshaani
Yuppers. That's the "beauty" of skilljacks and skill wires; you get loyal people with the ability to do what you need, then give them the tools that they need to complete the task. Move your artists into shipping when crunch time comes and they do it like old pros. Have your janitorial slot in cooking programs to handle lunch, then back to janitorial after the fact for cleanup. Make everyone an accountant when tax time gets near, then ditch 'em for teh rest of the year.

Etc etc etc.

Horizon was all over that.
CanRay
QUOTE (Epicedion @ Aug 13 2013, 12:23 AM) *
Remember that corps also have a "corp society" where employees are born to corp parents, raised in corp schools, and shuffled into appropriate corp jobs.
"With the ability to work from home, I can spend time with my family and not feel like I'm neglecting the Corporation!"
FuelDrop
So... anyone got any figures on how much it costs to train cops? cos if it's cheaper to give cops skillwires rather than training or, more particularly, give detectives skillchips instead of training them in detective skills, that would be a huge advantage to shadowrunners as we'd be able to reliably know how they think.
DMiller
QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Aug 13 2013, 04:27 PM) *
So... anyone got any figures on how much it costs to train cops? cos if it's cheaper to give cops skillwires rather than training or, more particularly, give detectives skillchips instead of training them in detective skills, that would be a huge advantage to shadowrunners as we'd be able to reliably know how they think.

Though I don't have cost figures, I doubt that many Law Enforcement people (at least by the rank of Detective) would be chipped. Being a detective involves a lot of creative thinking and intuition (gut instinct) that chips can not provide. You will likely find a few skills chipped in the lower ranks, and even maybe a few skills chipped even at the detective level, but not the core investigative skills. Those will need to be actual skills for the better detectives.

IMO
White Buffalo
I would imagine that would create a glut of true skilled workers. Detectives don't come out of the academy as detectives. They gain experience as beet cops and study and between books and experience take and pass a detectives exam. But with skill wires as presented in Unwired there is no experience gained. When the chip turns off you know as much as you did before you turned it on. It'd be hard to grow into a truly skilled detective/doctor/scientist/etc. under such a system.

ChromeZephyr
QUOTE (White Buffalo @ Aug 13 2013, 07:39 AM) *
They gain experience as beet cops....



"Put the rhubarb down and slowly back away! You have 5 seconds to comply!" biggrin.gif

Not making fun of you, White Buffalo, beet cop just made me snicker. It's "beat cop".
Jaid
QUOTE (BlackJaw @ Aug 12 2013, 10:01 PM) *
Well just for a Bachelors: Private Four-Year Not-For-Profit College: National Average: $85,296 per year.

I know modern American dollars and 2075 NuYen isn't the same thing, but considering something like 75% of the applicable workforce only needs a rating 3 Skilljack (60,000 NuYen for new) and only smaller subset of above average individuals need the more expensive Skillwire system too (rating 4 skilljack and skillwire is 160,000 NuYen for new) and those are the corp equivalent of middle class: chipped lab techs and basic doctors living a decent life but unlikely to have much in the way of promotion prospects. Looking at modern averages, for medical school: "In 2010, the median debt at graduation was $150,000 at public institutions, $180,000 at private, and $160,000 combined."

If it's $160,000 for a medical education taking more than 6 years, or $160,000 for an implanted skilljack 4 and skill wire 4, taking a few months at worst... with various extras like re-programing, or cutting the wires out after 5 years when the person defaults on their debt... well why would you as an HR manager direct people towards education instead of wires?

So yes, I think my numbers aren't so crazy for 2070s, but as to why people don't go door to door killing corp employees and carefully cutting out their augmentations for black market sales... well maybe because that's the kind of thing corps hunt you down and do terrible things to you for. Especially because they notice all those wireless devices going often line one after another inside their extra-territoriality subdivisions where they have plenty of security forces?

Also, this is for average (skilljack rating 3) to Competent (rating 5) employees. The 40% of the population that is lower average or worse is getting very little if anything, and those are the ones living in low-class high density housing only somewhat above SINless. Essentially the jobs that in modern terms don't have college degrees. The upper 20% (?) of the population isn't wired, because they are worth educating for the advantages of real knowledge/initiative instead of chipped skills. That's leaves just the middle section of the population, what is more or less the middle class in modern terms, that chipping is the more economical option for.

Then again, I'm by no means an expert, so I may very well be way off on these things. I think it at least makes an interesting dystopian megacorp setting.


technicians don't get a 6 year or even a 4 year program. it's generally a 2-year program, and at least where i am, is not nearly as inflated in cost as university. everything combined for a 2 year technician program that i looked at here was about 8-9,000 dollars canadian. now, granted, that's not the *full* cost (i'm sure it's subsidized, education almost always is), but that does include books. the amount of debt people graduate with almost certainly includes living expenses as well, which are incurred whether or not the person is in school.

in shadowrun, if you don't even really care how much the person actually understands, you could probably train them even less than that. sure, doctors cost a lot to train (though i rather suspect VR has brought the cost for training in almost anything down an awful lot), but then again, not everyone is a doctor.

and more to the point, if a person with skillwires is more than 10 times the cost of a drone with autosofts (and it's looking suspiciously like that is exactly the case), then you have no need for the person regardless. if you're just getting non-creative work done by corporate drones, you may as well use actual drones which can be just as versatile, most likely have much lower maintenance expenses, won't ever have loyalty issues, and cost a mere fraction of the amount.

remember, this is a setting where an almost humanoid drone can be purchased for 4,500 nuyen. no hands, but unless hands are going to cost more than 55,000 nuyen (assuming only chipjack; add another 60k for workers with skillwires), we're already ahead of the game. and that's before you factor in the cost for autosofts being lower (provided the missions emergency errata is the same as what the eventual official errata will be).

and if it's a position that doesn't require activesofts, you can likely even get away with an agent running a virtual persona and some appropriate autosofts.
BlackJaw
QUOTE (Jaid @ Aug 13 2013, 07:55 AM) *
technicians don't get a 6 year or even a 4 year program. it's generally a 2-year program, and at least where i am, is not nearly as inflated in cost as university. everything combined for a 2 year technician program that i looked at here was about 8-9,000 dollars canadian. now, granted, that's not the *full* cost (i'm sure it's subsidized, education almost always is), but that does include books. the amount of debt people graduate with almost certainly includes living expenses as well, which are incurred whether or not the person is in school.

in shadowrun, if you don't even really care how much the person actually understands, you could probably train them even less than that. sure, doctors cost a lot to train (though i rather suspect VR has brought the cost for training in almost anything down an awful lot), but then again, not everyone is a doctor.

and more to the point, if a person with skillwires is more than 10 times the cost of a drone with autosofts (and it's looking suspiciously like that is exactly the case), then you have no need for the person regardless. if you're just getting non-creative work done by corporate drones, you may as well use actual drones which can be just as versatile, most likely have much lower maintenance expenses, won't ever have loyalty issues, and cost a mere fraction of the amount.

remember, this is a setting where an almost humanoid drone can be purchased for 4,500 nuyen. no hands, but unless hands are going to cost more than 55,000 nuyen (assuming only chipjack; add another 60k for workers with skillwires), we're already ahead of the game. and that's before you factor in the cost for autosofts being lower (provided the missions emergency errata is the same as what the eventual official errata will be).

and if it's a position that doesn't require activesofts, you can likely even get away with an agent running a virtual persona and some appropriate autosofts.

$8-9 thousand for the degree, which might be subsidized, but also living expenses for 2 years, etc. I'm not talking about tuition fees, I'm talking about overall investment in the education, which includes food and board costs while you get the person from "applicant" to "on the job." You do have a good point that many technical jobs that would require skillwires are actually a much shorter and cheaper education that I've been talking about. I imagine technical work (programers, drone maintenance, etc) is actually a booming industry in the 2070s.

An agent or pilot program is still a lot more limited than a human with a skilljack and a chipped profession. Shadowrun is a setting with cheap robots but, but no mass produced AI of quality. Skilljacks will keep you from developing or building on your knowledge, but the user still gets to apply that knowledge and make decisions. The question of drones/agents replacing people (skilljacked or otherwise) hinges more on the lack of decent AI in Shadowrun, in my opinion.

You do, however, have a really good point on Tutorsofts and VR Training. I may be way overestimating the number of roles where installing a $60,000 rating 3 skilljack or $160,000 rating 4 skilljack/skillwire combo is more cost effective than education, but then I really like the idea of a heavily chipped corporate drone work force in shadowrun. To each their own, of course.
Jaid
a drone really isn't notably worse in shadowrun. at most, you might need to have a human overseer (who does not actually need to have a control rig or anything like that, though it certainly wouldn't hurt)

i mean, a human rolls attribute + skill. a drone rolls pilot + autosoft. they can have very comparable dice pools. if the drone ever runs into problems, then you just kick it up to the human overseer (the number of overseers needed may vary, but one should be able to cover quite a few drones since those problems won't come up constantly).
BlackJaw
QUOTE (Jaid @ Aug 13 2013, 08:47 AM) *
a drone really isn't notably worse in shadowrun. at most, you might need to have a human overseer (who does not actually need to have a control rig or anything like that, though it certainly wouldn't hurt)

i mean, a human rolls attribute + skill. a drone rolls pilot + autosoft. they can have very comparable dice pools. if the drone ever runs into problems, then you just kick it up to the human overseer (the number of overseers needed may vary, but one should be able to cover quite a few drones since those problems won't come up constantly).

Actually the game makes a point of noting on page 269 that Dog-Brains "hardly makes up for a metahuman brain." I've personally always taken it as an inherent feature of robots in shadowrun that they aren't very smart, which is why there are still so many people around in roles like security guard, or basic admin. Should the corps ever figure out how to really make AI, and they are constantly hunting down the rogue "real" AIs so they can study them, then it would be a real game changer for the society and literally for the game. One I actually don't want in the setting.

As it stands right now, I figure you can probably get by with a virtual receptionist, but not a virtual administrative assistant. Your administrative assistant, however, may be chipped instead of having a BA in business/etc. Their social skills, however, are probably real skills they've picked up through experience and life, which is how they have any chance of getting a marginally better job. But, once again, that's my opinion on the dystopia. Your millage can, and probably does, vary.
Mal-2
QUOTE (ChromeZephyr @ Aug 13 2013, 10:33 AM) *
It's "beat cop".


If you insist!
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (BlackJaw @ Aug 12 2013, 09:01 PM) *
Well just for a Bachelors: Private Four-Year Not-For-Profit College: National Average: $85,296 per year.


Entertaining Number, since I only spent just at $10,000 In the University of Texas Education System for my 5 Year Education Plan. (1991-1996). Even in Denver, a Reputable Private Institution is only about $48,000/Year ($24,000/Semester); of course, that was a couple of years ago. I am sure there are others out there, to be sure, that run in the Hundreds of Thousands of dollars per year, but $85,000/Year sounds a bit excessive for an Average (of course they are Private Institutions you are talking about). Especially since I know at least two individuals who graduated last year with a total of under $50,000 in loans for their 4 year education (Including their cost of living figured).

PRIVATE institutions are probably not the best price point to be comparing against, when talking about an Education, in my opinion. Unless you think that Private Institutions are the only place you can get a Real Education. *shrug* wobble.gif
Epicedion
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Aug 13 2013, 01:10 PM) *
Entertaining Number, since I only spent just at $10,000 In the University of Texas Education System for my 5 Year Education Plan. (1991-1996). Even in Denver, One of the best Private Institutions is only about $48,000/Year ($24,000/Semester); of course, that was a couple of years ago. I am sure there are others out there, to be sure, that run in the Hundreds of Thousands of dollars per year, but $85,000/Year sounds a bit excessive for an Average (of course they are Private Institutions you are talking about). Especially since I know at least two individuals who graduated last year with a total of under $50,000 in loans for their 4 year education.

PRIVATE institutions are probably not the best price point to be comparing against, when talking about an Education, in my opinion. Unless you think that Private Institutions are the only place you can get a Real Education. *shrug* wobble.gif


The cost of education has been going up by an obscene amount per year, and your number is 20 years old at this point.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Epicedion @ Aug 13 2013, 12:14 PM) *
The cost of education has been going up by an obscene amount per year, and your number is 20 years old at this point.


For me, yes, but not for the two recent graduates, clocking in at roughly $12,000/year. Care to explain that $73,000 discrepancy? smile.gif
Sendaz
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Aug 13 2013, 01:36 PM) *
For me, yes, but not for the two recent graduates, clocking in at roughly $12,000/year. Care to explain that $73,000 discrepancy? smile.gif

Beer money?
Epicedion
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Aug 13 2013, 01:36 PM) *
For me, yes, but not for the two recent graduates, clocking in at roughly $12,000/year. Care to explain that $73,000 discrepancy? smile.gif


His numbers are wrong, for one. The average cost for a public institution in the US is closer to $16,000 per year for a four-year school. Private institutions come in at about $33,000 per year.

If the current trend holds, that will go up by about 40% per decade, so the costs would look like:

2020: 22,400
2030: 31,360
2040: 43,904
2050: 61,465.60
2060: 86,051.84
2070: 120,472.58

Private schools tend to run about twice as much as public schools (though the cost-increase trend is slightly lower), so you would expect a private school in 2070 to run about $200,000 a year.

The best dollars-to-nuyen conversion that I can find puts the (UCAS) dollar at about 4 to 1 nuyen, so a private school would run about 50,000 nuyen per year, or 200,000 nuyen for a full 4 year education -- with the public school being about 120,000 nuyen for the full 4 years.

This puts a Rating 6 Skilljack at comparable to the cost of a public education, and Rating 6 Skilljack + Rating 6 Skillwires at comparable to the cost of a private education, for a Bachelor's equivalent.
shinryu
my guess as to who really gets skillwires: poor orks and trolls.

well, the poor in general, actually, but these two groups in particular.

ever see those commericals for crapulent, over-priced schools that teach you to be a nursing assistant, and also how to default on student loans when the sub-par education you received fails to land you a job? the ones with the disproportionate number of female minorities in the commericals? skillwires are like that, except they work.

given the systemic discrimination against these two groups, it's hard to imagine you see a lot of orks and trolls at the university of washington or UCLA unless they somehow issued from a legacy's loins. hell, even the corps probably have a big weighting factor towards "corpsec" when they calculate your ASVAB (Ares Standardized Vocational Aptitude Battery, of course...) if you happen to be of the tusky persuasion and not otherwise very, very talented. so the best chance for an ork or a troll to get out of the ghetto is likely to get themselves some wires and go into debt. used wires really aren't that expensive, necessarily, and they're the one thing that can almost guarantee employment if you're not a completely obvious criminal.

orks and trolls have the secondary impetus of having a shorter lifespan to worry about; i imagine there's a great deal of thought along the lines of not wanting to waste four years in college (even if you can get in to said college), or the drive to makes your money and get your leonization (got to be getting cheaper every year, right?). there's also the cognitive difficulties that trolls are saddled with to consider, making the idea of a troll skillwire affirmative action plan (read: we wire 'em up and give 'em guns!) a perversely plausible and perversely hilarious idea.

so i imagine you see a lot of say, wired ork mechanics responsible for servicing the army of drones that do the actual work. "your job will be to service these tiny robots that fight in space, or at the top of a very high mountain."

dumb question: would you need to actually have skillwires to drive vehicle skills through a control rig? seems like that's all in the motor cortex. i guess you might need that part of the skillwires, then, but it seems like having a pud with skillsofts and a control rig is a very efficient way to spider your factory floor, or to let your driver also be your pilot.
BigGreenSquid
QUOTE (BlackJaw @ Aug 12 2013, 08:01 PM) *
Well just for a Bachelors: Private Four-Year Not-For-Profit College: National Average: $85,296 per year.


The corps sending their citizens to one of their own colleges would be more likely the $25,588 per year as it would be comparable to an instate public school. Also, a corp wouldn't give a rats a$$ about giving a well rounded education. Your there on a biotech scholarship, don't even think of registering for a liberal arts class, or any other task not directly related to your field. That being the case, it would probably be closer to the Palm Beach State College (Florida) range of $7,960 per year. Finally, without all the extra crap you have to take, like humanities, one could complete Bachelor's in Biotech degree in roughly half the time.
Slide
the current prices on schools are supper inflated. but I'll leave my real life societal commentary for another site and go about my fake life societal commentary here.

But what are the limits of a skill wire set? For task like say welding, pip fitting, carpentry, masonry, shooting, kickboxing.... I could imagine how that would work. But say my job as a power plant technician, or what some one said earlier about detectives, that require large amounts of analytic thought..... Well I guess that's the real limit. Thought.
Voran
Side note, Continuum the tv series had an episode similar to this topic, unnamed detention facility of dissidents, tried and sentenced to be meat puppets on an assembly line, with 'skillwires' for the task.
Sendaz
Servitors in Warhammer 40K are extreme examples of this as well, being pretty much lobotomized organic bots by that point.
BigGreenSquid
QUOTE (Wakshaani @ Aug 12 2013, 09:34 PM) *
Ever hear of Skill Hardwires?


I'll bite, what is a skill hardwire? Its it homebrew or in an older source book?
Tzeentch
Skill hardwires were in the original Street Samurai's Handbook. I don't have the newer books on hand to check if they showed up later.
BigGreenSquid
QUOTE (Tzeentch @ Aug 14 2013, 02:21 PM) *
Skill hardwires were in the original Street Samurai's Handbook. I don't have the newer books on hand to check if they showed up later.


Wow, I'm gonna have to go digging in the boxes of old books for that one. Short version, what is it?
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