The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html
246 comments
Are you familiar with potlatch society in the old Pacific Northwest? With wealth readily available, the "big men" of a tribe (roughly chiefs, but not hereditary) competed to see how much they could give away to their neighbors and rivals; all you had to do to eat well, or make it through a bad winter, was to admit that your neighbors were led by a great and glorious chief.
This system didn't work very well at the time (it bred slavery and warlordism, and produced a lot of waste, especially towards the end, when trade goods were abundant and population was running out); but it'll become increasingly more doable as capital becomes more productive. Magnanimity is a human instinct, and people already compete on status and prestige; just persuade holders of capital that supporting the unemployed/unemployable is a good thing, make sure they get personal feel-good-ness out of it, and persuade the unemployed/unemployable not to run up the red flag, and you've probably got a stable system.
Probably. I don't think we need to worry about slavery much, but warlordism could become a serious issue. Where potlatch-like culture exists, aggressive bids for the throne (or equivalent) tend to follow; the Earl of Warwick in the War of the Roses comes to mind. Still, even warlordism has potential to be less bad than Communism (more room for ambition, better management of capital) or Fascism (you can be a minority and not die) -- the Wars of the Roses had roughly zero impact on the common people of England. (See A Farewell to Alms for a detailed discussion of how England's wars, starting from a pretty early date, avoided messing up England's people.)
This is all hypothetical, though; I'm not saying that a potlatch orientation is the only possible solution, nor even that it's necessarily a working solution at all...
This system didn't work very well at the time (it bred slavery and warlordism, and produced a lot of waste, especially towards the end, when trade goods were abundant and population was running out); but it'll become increasingly more doable as capital becomes more productive. Magnanimity is a human instinct, and people already compete on status and prestige; just persuade holders of capital that supporting the unemployed/unemployable is a good thing, make sure they get personal feel-good-ness out of it, and persuade the unemployed/unemployable not to run up the red flag, and you've probably got a stable system.
Probably. I don't think we need to worry about slavery much, but warlordism could become a serious issue. Where potlatch-like culture exists, aggressive bids for the throne (or equivalent) tend to follow; the Earl of Warwick in the War of the Roses comes to mind. Still, even warlordism has potential to be less bad than Communism (more room for ambition, better management of capital) or Fascism (you can be a minority and not die) -- the Wars of the Roses had roughly zero impact on the common people of England. (See A Farewell to Alms for a detailed discussion of how England's wars, starting from a pretty early date, avoided messing up England's people.)
This is all hypothetical, though; I'm not saying that a potlatch orientation is the only possible solution, nor even that it's necessarily a working solution at all...
What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?
People think taxes are evil but for dome reason will accept warlords?
The thing about warlords is you get to skip the 'acceptance' bit.
A gun in your face shortcuts a lot of inconvenient thinking.
See Bush, George II and Nixon, Richard.
"What is the advantage of this over universal basic income funded by taxes?":
If you like getting giftcards at Xmas, nothing. But gifts from Santa or a potlatch are more fun, and more intimate. Choosing gifts forces us to think about each others' needs and desires, which is extremely pro-social.
If you like getting giftcards at Xmas, nothing. But gifts from Santa or a potlatch are more fun, and more intimate. Choosing gifts forces us to think about each others' needs and desires, which is extremely pro-social.
Cutting a check sounds a lot less problematic than warlordism/etc
Everyone could have his own small farm, fab and robots. No need to rely on "big men" competing for karma points from the peasants.
Everything old is new again.
It's going to be some damn thing when everyone in the South takes your idea and they build up their civilization around free robotic labor, and then when we hit AI sentience and start ensuring the civil rights of robots the entire South has to be burned to the ground again to free the sentient robots from their owners.
It's going to be some damn thing when everyone in the South takes your idea and they build up their civilization around free robotic labor, and then when we hit AI sentience and start ensuring the civil rights of robots the entire South has to be burned to the ground again to free the sentient robots from their owners.
You don't have to make machines sentient, you know. Some people seem to think the goal of AI and robotics should be to make more humans, but we already have plenty of humans. We should make machines that do our work more efficiently so we don't have to do it anymore.
We can still do the fun stuff of course, like writing and art, and get famous and all that.
We can still do the fun stuff of course, like writing and art, and get famous and all that.
It used to be a stupid question to me since how could rules have consciousness.
But most modern AI is learnt from data, not programmed, how will we know if our AI in conscious?
We're not there yet and may never be, but since we do not know what consciousness is or what leads to it, we may stumble into it...
But most modern AI is learnt from data, not programmed, how will we know if our AI in conscious?
We're not there yet and may never be, but since we do not know what consciousness is or what leads to it, we may stumble into it...
I agree, I'm just not sure we'll be able to convince everyone with the capability of making sentient robots that they shouldn't make sentient robots before they make sentient robots.
Human labor has solved a lot of problems. The obvious shortcut to solving lots of problems is mimicking human labor. Given the opportunity to take a shortcut to solve a problem (especially at a profit) some manager in some business will do it.
Human labor has solved a lot of problems. The obvious shortcut to solving lots of problems is mimicking human labor. Given the opportunity to take a shortcut to solve a problem (especially at a profit) some manager in some business will do it.
Zero people have the capability to make sentient robots at the moment.
And zero people can even describe how a sentient robot could be constructed, even with theoretical future hardware. "We'll have as many flops as some models say a brain has, and programmers are creative" is about as far as anyone can get, but I don't think that qualifies as a plan.
So, it's a fun thing to think about, but like all sci-fi it probably isn't the best basis for societal planning.
And zero people can even describe how a sentient robot could be constructed, even with theoretical future hardware. "We'll have as many flops as some models say a brain has, and programmers are creative" is about as far as anyone can get, but I don't think that qualifies as a plan.
So, it's a fun thing to think about, but like all sci-fi it probably isn't the best basis for societal planning.
The question is whether a silicon brain can acquire the capabilities of a human brain without picking up sentience along the way.
In order to perform at or above human level (in a general fashion), the robot will need a firm, comprehensive understanding of the world. Won't this unavoidably involve an understanding of the self as well?
In order to perform at or above human level (in a general fashion), the robot will need a firm, comprehensive understanding of the world. Won't this unavoidably involve an understanding of the self as well?
What self is there to understand? Does a computer chip know what it's processing?
The awareness of all sensory or data input, internal processes, as well as the system's dynamic conceptual models and their change over time. This includes an awareness of the system's conceptual model of itself.
I don't think any chips today have awareness. But it seems to me that you couldn't have general, adaptable intelligence without it.
I don't think any chips today have awareness. But it seems to me that you couldn't have general, adaptable intelligence without it.
But the land is all owned already, and not by the people who's jobs are being replaced?
And so far automation in farming is focused on large-scale operation, with much less good solutions for family -scale.
Economies of scale have been the bread and butter of progress in the last 100 years, but we're entering the age of customization now. Adaptive technologies can work on small scale as well as on large scale. And large scale can still be achieved by coops that provide services for many people at once. People do have capital and resources, it's just spread and divided. What we need is to organize.
I give self-replicating factories a higher probability than AGI. We'll probably have a 100% automated stack that can replicate and repair itself, as well as produce everything we need, all based on locally sourced and plentiful materials, before we have human level AI. It will be a manufacturing singularity. We should bootstrap automation in itself, like we bootstrap compilers. Object production would become similar to compilation, from source code to material object. We'd have optimized material compilers.
When we have a replicator, anyone can have one. Industry would become like agriculture, if you have the initial seeds, you can plant and then you bootstrap your crop.
If you think about self replication, on the whole, industry is a self replicator right now. But we need to make it fully automated, reduce its minimal footprint and make it less reliant on rare materials. There is a need for sustainable, smart materials and open source automation and AI in order to save the population from disenfranchisement. Capital and the means of production should belong to all of us, not just the 1%.
I give self-replicating factories a higher probability than AGI. We'll probably have a 100% automated stack that can replicate and repair itself, as well as produce everything we need, all based on locally sourced and plentiful materials, before we have human level AI. It will be a manufacturing singularity. We should bootstrap automation in itself, like we bootstrap compilers. Object production would become similar to compilation, from source code to material object. We'd have optimized material compilers.
When we have a replicator, anyone can have one. Industry would become like agriculture, if you have the initial seeds, you can plant and then you bootstrap your crop.
If you think about self replication, on the whole, industry is a self replicator right now. But we need to make it fully automated, reduce its minimal footprint and make it less reliant on rare materials. There is a need for sustainable, smart materials and open source automation and AI in order to save the population from disenfranchisement. Capital and the means of production should belong to all of us, not just the 1%.
Even if everyone has their own replicator, the competition shifts to who controls raw materials, and who controls energy.
Fresh water, for example, is a scarce (and becoming scarcer) resource, and it's impossible to farm or live without it.
Fresh water, for example, is a scarce (and becoming scarcer) resource, and it's impossible to farm or live without it.
Whisky is for Drinking. Water is for Fighting.
-Mark Twain
I agree. That's why capitalists owning automation should pay UBI - because they get to use raw materials.
Yes, although I'm not convinced that fresh water is going to be such a scarce resource in the future. There are a few "outs" on the horizon—besides changing our diet, the possibilities for desalinization, or things like lab-grown meats, may change our relationship with water. Just as long as population growth slows enough…
Agree with the comment about ownership. As technology has improved, more and more power has been going to whoever owns the capital.
Agree with the comment about ownership. As technology has improved, more and more power has been going to whoever owns the capital.
Fresh water is not a problem given unlimited energy since desalination works well.
The problem is that energy is expensive, and fresh water shortages will be worst in countries that are poor and can't afford these plants.
The problem is that energy is expensive, and fresh water shortages will be worst in countries that are poor and can't afford these plants.
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I like the comment, and you could add in the Roman "client" system which had real similarities. Rich citizens also acquired more status by donating public buildings or sponsoring games and festivals. More than one society has gone this route, with success.
But just a couple corrections re potlatch society: slavery happened in the Pacific Northwest with and without potlatch; potlatch didn't cause slavery. The fishing grounds in this region were the richest in the world at the time (they collapsed almost a century ago under white rule), if you conquered a neighbor (and that was frequent) you could afford to keep 'em and feed 'em, at least for a long time until your population expanded. So slavery was practical in a way it isn't for nomads, say. Excess production was the norm. Unemployment was dealt with largely by exalting art, and devoting an immense amount of the GNP to that, with spectacular results over time. So most excess labor and production was actually devoted to art, not giveaways. I suspect that's the real lesson, although I'm a No Man's Sky devotee - it's a damn wonderful art generator, if you like landscapes, as I do. Maybe humans can't compete there, anymore, either! Warlordism in an age of drones will do little for unemployment; but it's also easier, particularly for democracies, if only your machines get bent up in a successful war of aggression. So it may happen more, but will not be a safety valve for unemployment.
But just a couple corrections re potlatch society: slavery happened in the Pacific Northwest with and without potlatch; potlatch didn't cause slavery. The fishing grounds in this region were the richest in the world at the time (they collapsed almost a century ago under white rule), if you conquered a neighbor (and that was frequent) you could afford to keep 'em and feed 'em, at least for a long time until your population expanded. So slavery was practical in a way it isn't for nomads, say. Excess production was the norm. Unemployment was dealt with largely by exalting art, and devoting an immense amount of the GNP to that, with spectacular results over time. So most excess labor and production was actually devoted to art, not giveaways. I suspect that's the real lesson, although I'm a No Man's Sky devotee - it's a damn wonderful art generator, if you like landscapes, as I do. Maybe humans can't compete there, anymore, either! Warlordism in an age of drones will do little for unemployment; but it's also easier, particularly for democracies, if only your machines get bent up in a successful war of aggression. So it may happen more, but will not be a safety valve for unemployment.
I've been promoting this as the real solution to unemployment - An explosion of incredibly custom and niche art of various forms. We're already seeing the early signs of this with the explosion of indie games and youtube personalities. Not simply personalities like PewDiePie and Markiplier, who are big enough that they're more and more traditional media, even if they came from simpler roots - But the shows that have a few thousand or even hundred viewers. It's not profitable yet, but it's getting there. Patreon is a very key component of this - A few bucks here and there, and the creative class can earn a living - Or simply supplement a part-time job.
> We're already seeing the early signs of this with the explosion of indie games and youtube personalities.
That's a non-sequitur, you may as well say we're seeing this with the explosiong of freelancers and personal businesses.
Because that's really what those youtube personalities are, but that doesn't really address the issue of the older folks who have lost their jobs.
That's a non-sequitur, you may as well say we're seeing this with the explosiong of freelancers and personal businesses.
Because that's really what those youtube personalities are, but that doesn't really address the issue of the older folks who have lost their jobs.
Because we're talking about patronage systems here, profit isn't strictly necessary - you just have to be able to attract patrons; and patrons have to be especially valued by society (gain status) for sponsoring artists with even small followings. (Although government patronage might have to be part of the transition to such a scheme.) Then more older folk artists could be included, but I think this will do more to address future unemployment than present unemployment. I'd settle for that, it seems an ambitious at that.
> Still, even warlordism has potential to be less bad than Communism (more room for ambition, better management of capital) or Fascism (you can be a minority and not die)
Warlordism sounds much worse than communism and fascism. Any culture that is sufficiently advanced to not be chaos and wars for the lords under walordism, would be much better without the warlords. Advanced societies with abundant resources and abundant capital do not need gatekeeping hoarders playing charity Olympics.
Warlordism sounds much worse than communism and fascism. Any culture that is sufficiently advanced to not be chaos and wars for the lords under walordism, would be much better without the warlords. Advanced societies with abundant resources and abundant capital do not need gatekeeping hoarders playing charity Olympics.
Interesting that your example of warlordism in a "potlach-like" culture is from a feudal society.
The rest you've said is a gross misrepresentation of the giveaway culture shared amongst many more tribes than just the Northwest ones. And of course, white academia will just refuse and say "our written documentation written by genocidal outsiders is way more accurate than what the cultures themselves say about themselves through their own oral traditions".
This must be an interesting book that somehow argues that wars that killed huge numbers of civilians somehow had zero impact. Looking at the criticism of the book it seems to also argue that there were no negative effects of colonialism.
Funny, I wonder if the millions of people killed in North America between 1500 and 1900 would agree with that.
The rest you've said is a gross misrepresentation of the giveaway culture shared amongst many more tribes than just the Northwest ones. And of course, white academia will just refuse and say "our written documentation written by genocidal outsiders is way more accurate than what the cultures themselves say about themselves through their own oral traditions".
This must be an interesting book that somehow argues that wars that killed huge numbers of civilians somehow had zero impact. Looking at the criticism of the book it seems to also argue that there were no negative effects of colonialism.
Funny, I wonder if the millions of people killed in North America between 1500 and 1900 would agree with that.
Why stop keeping track at 1900?
Because since 1900 the genocide shifted from bodies to minds. IE, the millions of deaths occurred prior.
> The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval,
That's why we need to place the means of production in the hands of the people, not just of capitalists.
> What will it mean to work and contribute to society in the future of machines?
Self-supporting human society, a mix of small companies, skilled people and experts, using automation as well, that works to solve the daily necessities for itself. So it would have its own farms, fabs, schools and such, totally self supporting and self bootstrapped. People wouldn't need UBI if they had the means to directly make what they need. We're going that way - everything becoming cheaper, until it lifts itself by self replication.
That's why we need to place the means of production in the hands of the people, not just of capitalists.
> What will it mean to work and contribute to society in the future of machines?
Self-supporting human society, a mix of small companies, skilled people and experts, using automation as well, that works to solve the daily necessities for itself. So it would have its own farms, fabs, schools and such, totally self supporting and self bootstrapped. People wouldn't need UBI if they had the means to directly make what they need. We're going that way - everything becoming cheaper, until it lifts itself by self replication.
Marx speaking...
> According to distributists, property ownership is a fundamental right, and the means of production should be spread as widely as possible, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism), a few individuals (plutocracy), or corporations (corporatocracy). Distributism, therefore, advocates a society marked by widespread property ownership.
> Distributism has often been described in opposition to both socialism and capitalism, which distributists see as equally flawed and exploitive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
> Distributism has often been described in opposition to both socialism and capitalism, which distributists see as equally flawed and exploitive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
Maybe, but I'm not sure Marx understood that capitalism would have such a potential for wealth distribution. Today, you can buy a 3D printer for 1/20th of the median US salary. You can buy a super computer that fits in your pocket for 1/50th of it. You can call your broker and buy an ownership stake in Apple, Exxon Mobil, or General Electric for smaller fractions than that.
Capitalism has actually provided far more avenues for laborers to own the means of production than any communist revolution has.
As automation gets better and cheaper, there will still be jobs for everyone - they'll just be performed by the robots they purchased for 1/10th, 1/20th or 1/50th of the median wage.
Capitalism has actually provided far more avenues for laborers to own the means of production than any communist revolution has.
As automation gets better and cheaper, there will still be jobs for everyone - they'll just be performed by the robots they purchased for 1/10th, 1/20th or 1/50th of the median wage.
You could buy bits of capital in the 1890s as well, and technology was advancing at a breakneck pace then too, but society still became a quasi-feudal state. Some form of wealth redistribution will be necessary to ensure people's freedom, the tricky bit is how to do it without unduly stifling innovation and investment.
Lately I've really been grappling with how to accomplish this, and it is a Very Hard problem.
Lately I've really been grappling with how to accomplish this, and it is a Very Hard problem.
Exactly. The problem is that automation is the problem. Automation should be the solution. The goal of automation should not be to save labor costs for corporations and make people unemployed, it should be to increase productivity and make people have to work less, so they get more time to enjoy life.
Best way to accomplish this, I think, is to have a Basic Income. Give everybody enough to live, and increase that the more machines take over our work.
Best way to accomplish this, I think, is to have a Basic Income. Give everybody enough to live, and increase that the more machines take over our work.
Is job displacement really different from large productivity gain? Both of them result in you needing fewer employees for the same amount of output, and in the end automated systems still need supervision, and someone has to make them.
The only difference is in what you do with it. Does it mean more profits for the owners and no money for the unemployed workers? Or does it mean workers get the same money for less work, now that machines can do it for them.
In our current economic system, we get the former. We need to change the system so it turns into the latter.
In our current economic system, we get the former. We need to change the system so it turns into the latter.
We need to have an AI tax that redistributes wealth back to the "ordinaries" so they can have the resources to be creative. Even if machines can generate writing and music there's no real point of view to fully machine generated material. You can do the thing they said don't quit your day job to do.
What are the things that need to be invented when robots do everything for you?
Cures for disease. Entertainment. Friendship.
Cures for diseases I expect AI to do much better than us very soon.
Entertainment will take longer, but I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible to algorithmically create. The lesser ones like Big Bang Theory is basically just a nerd reskin of every other sitcom Chuck Lorre has done. That could probably be churned out by a computer by the end of 2020. The more complicated entertainment will take longer to crack though.
Friendship is tough to define. So I'll give you that.
Entertainment will take longer, but I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible to algorithmically create. The lesser ones like Big Bang Theory is basically just a nerd reskin of every other sitcom Chuck Lorre has done. That could probably be churned out by a computer by the end of 2020. The more complicated entertainment will take longer to crack though.
Friendship is tough to define. So I'll give you that.
Friendship may be tough to define, but I think it won't present a problem. Even a simple attempt like this points the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkcKaNqfykg
> Friendship is tough to define
The first version could take the form of a pen pal over email.
The first version could take the form of a pen pal over email.
> I expect AI to do much better than us very soon.
and it's a good thing too, because if we are all out of work there'll be no good reason for us all to have so much intelligence so we'll me devolving back to the apes.
and it's a good thing too, because if we are all out of work there'll be no good reason for us all to have so much intelligence so we'll me devolving back to the apes.
I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
Up until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?
Because self-sufficiency provides a much lower standard of living than what you can get with trade and specialization.
True when dealing with a human workforce. Not convinced it's equally true when dealing with an automated workforce. That being said, I don't see why self-sufficient villages is something to strive after even it could be done efficiently.
If efficiency is not an issue, I definitely think self-sufficiency is something worth striving for. Makes you less dependent on outsiders. You're not suddenly in trouble when you get isolated, and because you don't strictly need anything from the outside, outsiders hold no power over your village, making it less likely to be exploited in unfavorable deals. Self-sufficiency would go a long way to addressing structural inequality.
It's not about efficiency, but about variety. Life gets pretty mundane when you have to eat the same damn foods for every meal.
Agree, I sometimes wonder how much of this is just a manifestation of our fear of the unknown.
Consider, the world before the internet when the postal services was doing all the heavy lifting for communication. Once we got internet, a huge chunk communication was replaced by email etc. But, it also gave rise to eCommerce, on demand delivery services etc. And, the same postal services companies are doing better than ever before.
Consider, the world before the internet when the postal services was doing all the heavy lifting for communication. Once we got internet, a huge chunk communication was replaced by email etc. But, it also gave rise to eCommerce, on demand delivery services etc. And, the same postal services companies are doing better than ever before.
Because the population density was much lower back then.
How will we get our iPhone 17s?
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When you refer to capital owners, it has a historic context related to land and farms and large amounts of money. Robots, on the other hand, aren't necessarily going to cost lots of money. If everybody can own a robot, nobody has to worry about being employed.
The real issues won't change though. Those people who are considered rich will be rich because they own land in nice areas, or have a military-backed monopoly on natural resources.
The first issue is due to population size, and the second issue is an eternal issue of war that can't be avoided.
The real issues won't change though. Those people who are considered rich will be rich because they own land in nice areas, or have a military-backed monopoly on natural resources.
The first issue is due to population size, and the second issue is an eternal issue of war that can't be avoided.
I have done a lot of thinking about this. There are 2 things that keep sticking out to me:
First, history. History does not make our future look good. Humanity has gone through a few disruptive changes in the way society viewed work and societal contribution. The most recent was with the spread of factories and assembly-line production. The result of the adoption of those structures/technologies was not good. Society saw factory workers as 'not deserving' reasonable wages because 'the machines are doing all the work.' Factory owners were more than willing to pay their workers as little as they could get away with. And it turned out, that was very little. Entire families (including children) working 16 hour days 6 days a week and barely being able to feed themselves was commonplace. Society had to adopt many radical (in comparison to previous history and other societies, they don't seem radical now because we've kept them around long past any practical utility) changes to function like this. Everything from anti-sex attitudes, the creation of 'adolescent' as a distinct category of person, even changes in the architecture of lower class homes to give separate sleeping quarters for children and adults.
And that didn't get adjusted for until the New Deal in the 1930s. Back when someone couldn't simply say 'socialism' and completely shut down all discussion, the New Deal was actually possible. People today don't realize how 'insane' the New Deal really was. Think of it from the perspective of the factory owner. Previously, you would get an entire family, say 4 workers, 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, and you'd pay them just enough to eat and pay rent. After the New Deal, you were expected to pay 1 worker for 8 hours of work 5 days a week such a (comparatively) titanic amount of money that they could raise an entire family on it comfortably. Let that sink in. From 96 hours of work from each of 4 workers each week, 384 hours total, down to 40. That increases your labor cost by nearly an order of magnitude. Society re-configured their notion of what work was worth to address the idea that regardless of what tools are being used, the value the worker creates should play SOME role in compensation. And the world did not implode. But could anything proportionally similar ever be imagined to be acceptable to our modern society? I would argue absolutely not.
But there is good news. Maybe. See, this isn't our future. It's our present. Between 1950 and 1980, the median wage rose by 75%. Between 1980 and 2010, it rose by only 1%. Computers and automation technology caused average productivity to skyrocket since 1980. But wages were frozen. Not because of any economic reason, the median income of the top 10% rose by 475% during that 1980-2010 period. Profits grew and grew with greater acceleration, but all the benefit went to the owners, executives, etc. Society once again started feeling that workers did not deserve compensation where the value of the work being done played a role. The machine was doing the work. It just seemed too easy. You write some software and make the company $10 million, why should you get a "lottery winning payday"? Apple, Google, Microsoft, and similar employers that set the standards saw this coming and rigged wages in the computer market early on. This isn't a conspiracy theory, the FTC prosecuted them for it. They ended up settling for hundreds of millions of dollars in a huge class-action lawsuit a decade ago. But, really, you could argue it was inevitable. Society didn't see workers using computers as deserving of pay which increased alongside their productivity, so employers obliged society.
But something is different this time. Factories and assembly lines are expensive. And computers are cheap. And distribution, the whole reason we MADE factories and big companies in the first place, is effectively a solved problem. While companies have been getting rid of pensions, doing away with annual raises that exceed cost of living increases, cutting vacation time, expanding the work week, reflexively laying off workers to meet quarterly projections, etc... workers have become more than able to out-compete them. The drawbacks of centralization, which for a century were papered over with the invaluable ability to solve the problem of distribution, are now showing through more and more every day.
Employment is a two-way street. Employers pay workers because they create the value that is profit, and workers seek employment for things like a reliable income stream, the ability to settle down and make plans for the future, the ability to provide for their family. Except employers have welched on every single thing they ever offered to workers. They provide zero insulation from market fluctuations. They adopt practices that make it necessary for workers to jump jobs every 4-5 years just to keep up with the increases in cost of living. Etc. And it actually might have worked... if not for the fact that their ace in the hole, their one golden ticket, solving the problem of distribution (both of products and of work needing to be done, one to customers the other to workers) became worthless thanks to computers and the Internet.
Society changes slowly, and it certainly doesn't abandon century-long traditions overnight. But we're barrelling right for some proper Big changes. We're going to end up with the 'tools of production' (as Marx, who I've never read, would I think call it) in the hands of everyone, with a global market on our desk with commoditized distribution. Eventually enough people will be out of work as automation enables corporations to "reduce their primary cost center" and just trying offering their services online out of desperation that someone will build an excellent marketplace that actually works. And once it takes off, it will hopefully happen so fast that large companies don't even have a chance to react.
And I'm serious about that part. If they do have a chance to react... it could be uglier than you could possibly imagine. Wars have been fought over much, much less wealth. And things like the Internet are still primarily controlled at the last mile by large companies which will be directly and existentially threatened by this kind of thing. The government handed over a trillion dollars to make sure that the banking system didn't have to bear the consequences of their actions, what might they do if 50% of the Fortune 500 were facing insolvency?
First, history. History does not make our future look good. Humanity has gone through a few disruptive changes in the way society viewed work and societal contribution. The most recent was with the spread of factories and assembly-line production. The result of the adoption of those structures/technologies was not good. Society saw factory workers as 'not deserving' reasonable wages because 'the machines are doing all the work.' Factory owners were more than willing to pay their workers as little as they could get away with. And it turned out, that was very little. Entire families (including children) working 16 hour days 6 days a week and barely being able to feed themselves was commonplace. Society had to adopt many radical (in comparison to previous history and other societies, they don't seem radical now because we've kept them around long past any practical utility) changes to function like this. Everything from anti-sex attitudes, the creation of 'adolescent' as a distinct category of person, even changes in the architecture of lower class homes to give separate sleeping quarters for children and adults.
And that didn't get adjusted for until the New Deal in the 1930s. Back when someone couldn't simply say 'socialism' and completely shut down all discussion, the New Deal was actually possible. People today don't realize how 'insane' the New Deal really was. Think of it from the perspective of the factory owner. Previously, you would get an entire family, say 4 workers, 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, and you'd pay them just enough to eat and pay rent. After the New Deal, you were expected to pay 1 worker for 8 hours of work 5 days a week such a (comparatively) titanic amount of money that they could raise an entire family on it comfortably. Let that sink in. From 96 hours of work from each of 4 workers each week, 384 hours total, down to 40. That increases your labor cost by nearly an order of magnitude. Society re-configured their notion of what work was worth to address the idea that regardless of what tools are being used, the value the worker creates should play SOME role in compensation. And the world did not implode. But could anything proportionally similar ever be imagined to be acceptable to our modern society? I would argue absolutely not.
But there is good news. Maybe. See, this isn't our future. It's our present. Between 1950 and 1980, the median wage rose by 75%. Between 1980 and 2010, it rose by only 1%. Computers and automation technology caused average productivity to skyrocket since 1980. But wages were frozen. Not because of any economic reason, the median income of the top 10% rose by 475% during that 1980-2010 period. Profits grew and grew with greater acceleration, but all the benefit went to the owners, executives, etc. Society once again started feeling that workers did not deserve compensation where the value of the work being done played a role. The machine was doing the work. It just seemed too easy. You write some software and make the company $10 million, why should you get a "lottery winning payday"? Apple, Google, Microsoft, and similar employers that set the standards saw this coming and rigged wages in the computer market early on. This isn't a conspiracy theory, the FTC prosecuted them for it. They ended up settling for hundreds of millions of dollars in a huge class-action lawsuit a decade ago. But, really, you could argue it was inevitable. Society didn't see workers using computers as deserving of pay which increased alongside their productivity, so employers obliged society.
But something is different this time. Factories and assembly lines are expensive. And computers are cheap. And distribution, the whole reason we MADE factories and big companies in the first place, is effectively a solved problem. While companies have been getting rid of pensions, doing away with annual raises that exceed cost of living increases, cutting vacation time, expanding the work week, reflexively laying off workers to meet quarterly projections, etc... workers have become more than able to out-compete them. The drawbacks of centralization, which for a century were papered over with the invaluable ability to solve the problem of distribution, are now showing through more and more every day.
Employment is a two-way street. Employers pay workers because they create the value that is profit, and workers seek employment for things like a reliable income stream, the ability to settle down and make plans for the future, the ability to provide for their family. Except employers have welched on every single thing they ever offered to workers. They provide zero insulation from market fluctuations. They adopt practices that make it necessary for workers to jump jobs every 4-5 years just to keep up with the increases in cost of living. Etc. And it actually might have worked... if not for the fact that their ace in the hole, their one golden ticket, solving the problem of distribution (both of products and of work needing to be done, one to customers the other to workers) became worthless thanks to computers and the Internet.
Society changes slowly, and it certainly doesn't abandon century-long traditions overnight. But we're barrelling right for some proper Big changes. We're going to end up with the 'tools of production' (as Marx, who I've never read, would I think call it) in the hands of everyone, with a global market on our desk with commoditized distribution. Eventually enough people will be out of work as automation enables corporations to "reduce their primary cost center" and just trying offering their services online out of desperation that someone will build an excellent marketplace that actually works. And once it takes off, it will hopefully happen so fast that large companies don't even have a chance to react.
And I'm serious about that part. If they do have a chance to react... it could be uglier than you could possibly imagine. Wars have been fought over much, much less wealth. And things like the Internet are still primarily controlled at the last mile by large companies which will be directly and existentially threatened by this kind of thing. The government handed over a trillion dollars to make sure that the banking system didn't have to bear the consequences of their actions, what might they do if 50% of the Fortune 500 were facing insolvency?
Since 1980 this globalization happened, which literally added billions of low paid people to the work force. Many of them educated.
So of course there will be a global pressure on salaries. It is just market economics. (You can't coordinate a "New Deal" in countries all over the world at the same time.)
My point about that is -- it isn't all bad. Literally billions of people have left the utmost poverty. It just sucks for the ones of the old "middle privileged" level, like us.
If it was just that, I would cautiously be positive, but I agree -- this new level of automation implies "Big changes", which are scary. Most revolutions seems to end up with a large part of the population dead or in slavery.
So of course there will be a global pressure on salaries. It is just market economics. (You can't coordinate a "New Deal" in countries all over the world at the same time.)
My point about that is -- it isn't all bad. Literally billions of people have left the utmost poverty. It just sucks for the ones of the old "middle privileged" level, like us.
If it was just that, I would cautiously be positive, but I agree -- this new level of automation implies "Big changes", which are scary. Most revolutions seems to end up with a large part of the population dead or in slavery.
How was the New Deal sold in to owners of capital who presumably controlled the press and political system? Would a similar approach work today?
FDR passed that kind of sweeping legislation almost entirely through, desperation, force of personality, and titanic reinterpreting of the powers of a peace time president and of the federal government. It also helped that for the first few years of his presidency he enjoyed a super majority in congress. He also was able to choose 8 of the 9 supreme court justices over the course of his time in office, and even initially he tried to pack the court. FDR was down right devious. He was well known for never ever telling the complete truth even to his most loyal of supporters.
The truth is he didn't bother to try and sell it to the people in power because he didn't have to. It was readily apparent that if something wasn't done America might not make it. At the time unemployment rate was at almost 30%. Most american's didn't have access to their bank accounts as many were insolvent. Literally the country was on the brink. Congress was going to do whatever it took to drag us out of that hole even if it meant completely rewriting the rules of well everything.
I don't know that any of that is possible today. The regulations we have in place largely prevent us from being able to get back to that sort of dark economic time. And in my opinion it will take either that sort of global catastrophe, or one of our current major parties to fall apart to enable the sort of cooperation in congress New Deal level policy requires.
The truth is he didn't bother to try and sell it to the people in power because he didn't have to. It was readily apparent that if something wasn't done America might not make it. At the time unemployment rate was at almost 30%. Most american's didn't have access to their bank accounts as many were insolvent. Literally the country was on the brink. Congress was going to do whatever it took to drag us out of that hole even if it meant completely rewriting the rules of well everything.
I don't know that any of that is possible today. The regulations we have in place largely prevent us from being able to get back to that sort of dark economic time. And in my opinion it will take either that sort of global catastrophe, or one of our current major parties to fall apart to enable the sort of cooperation in congress New Deal level policy requires.
> How was the New Deal sold in to owners of capital who presumably controlled the press and political system?
Communist parties were gaining steam back then, and we were under threat of having our own Red October if something extreme wasn't done to blunt the effects of the Great Depression.
Communist parties were gaining steam back then, and we were under threat of having our own Red October if something extreme wasn't done to blunt the effects of the Great Depression.
[deleted]
The 25 hour day might we well around
https://myprivate42.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/lets-shift-to-2...
as well as the obligation to consume, otherwise savings will be invalidated. Dystopia ahead.
https://myprivate42.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/lets-shift-to-2...
as well as the obligation to consume, otherwise savings will be invalidated. Dystopia ahead.
"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required"
Yes we do.
The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have.
The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit.
Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were multiple times more productive than citizens of any other nation. It was an astonishing explosion.
Imagine how many people a single train unemployed?
Or the weaving machines that did the work of hundreds.
The impact on labour was definite, direct and measurable - unlike a lot of the 'soft' impact that today's technology has (did MS Word really unemploy 'secretaries' - or was it a host of factors?)
But what happened during the industrial revolution?
Unemployment went down, wages went up. In fact the cost of human labour rose dramatically.
The surpluses from the machines went into the economy, basically providing the foundation for the modern consumer economy.
95% of folks back then worked on farms, mines - or did manual labour/service.
The industrial revolution created the middle class: lawyers, entertainers, restaurants, mass market clothing, design etc.. Electricity created massive new industries (think of what you could not do without electricity!).
The economy has been diversifying rapidly since the start of the 19th century in the UK, and everywhere else about 50 years later.
We will continue to do this.
In 1960 there were 3 channels. In the 1990's 50. Now it's 100's + online offerings.
There were no 'pro athletes' in 1930. Now we have massive industries around pro sports.
Working/middle class people did not travel much back in the day. Now they can travel around the world.
There were no consumer electronics past the radio in 1940. Now the are zillions of devices.
In the 1920's cars were made by people - now automated assembly lines.
And FYI - for the last 25 years and for at least the next little while - China (or rather, Mexico, China, India and other low-cost places) are by far and away bigger job killers than automation.
'Automation' as we understand it is not as fast a process as we think it is and the days of 'robot replaces x people' are long gone, it's a more complex and nuanced equation.
Try this one: tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? Not so many. Customer service? Possibly. Some banker analysts? Possibly. But even in the later, there are other things for them to do, and the bulk of the staff on both sides have more to fear form India than Microsoft. In fact, this is happening right now all over North America: people training dudes in India to do their jobs, after they've been told they've been outsourced ... (train your replacement if you want your severance!) ...
Also - since 1900 - the size of government has expanded dramatically. I'm not 'against government' or anything, but many gov. agencies are abhorrently inefficient. I have a distant family member who's friend, a low-level thug dealer who was recently arrested. The RCMP (Can. police) spent zillions tracking, investigating this guy. Two years of surveillance, bureaucratic justice issues, lawyers - yada yada. So it's not so nice, but we find ways to 'distribute the surpluses' of the new economy in ways, even if they are not very efficient.
The trick is to 'find things for people to do' in a manner that is reasonably efficient and fair.
Check out GDP/capita during 19th century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#/media/File:B...
Were there was more automation, wealth exploded. (This chart does not address wages, but there are others that do :) )
Yes we do.
The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have.
The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit.
Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were multiple times more productive than citizens of any other nation. It was an astonishing explosion.
Imagine how many people a single train unemployed?
Or the weaving machines that did the work of hundreds.
The impact on labour was definite, direct and measurable - unlike a lot of the 'soft' impact that today's technology has (did MS Word really unemploy 'secretaries' - or was it a host of factors?)
But what happened during the industrial revolution?
Unemployment went down, wages went up. In fact the cost of human labour rose dramatically.
The surpluses from the machines went into the economy, basically providing the foundation for the modern consumer economy.
95% of folks back then worked on farms, mines - or did manual labour/service.
The industrial revolution created the middle class: lawyers, entertainers, restaurants, mass market clothing, design etc.. Electricity created massive new industries (think of what you could not do without electricity!).
The economy has been diversifying rapidly since the start of the 19th century in the UK, and everywhere else about 50 years later.
We will continue to do this.
In 1960 there were 3 channels. In the 1990's 50. Now it's 100's + online offerings.
There were no 'pro athletes' in 1930. Now we have massive industries around pro sports.
Working/middle class people did not travel much back in the day. Now they can travel around the world.
There were no consumer electronics past the radio in 1940. Now the are zillions of devices.
In the 1920's cars were made by people - now automated assembly lines.
And FYI - for the last 25 years and for at least the next little while - China (or rather, Mexico, China, India and other low-cost places) are by far and away bigger job killers than automation.
'Automation' as we understand it is not as fast a process as we think it is and the days of 'robot replaces x people' are long gone, it's a more complex and nuanced equation.
Try this one: tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? Not so many. Customer service? Possibly. Some banker analysts? Possibly. But even in the later, there are other things for them to do, and the bulk of the staff on both sides have more to fear form India than Microsoft. In fact, this is happening right now all over North America: people training dudes in India to do their jobs, after they've been told they've been outsourced ... (train your replacement if you want your severance!) ...
Also - since 1900 - the size of government has expanded dramatically. I'm not 'against government' or anything, but many gov. agencies are abhorrently inefficient. I have a distant family member who's friend, a low-level thug dealer who was recently arrested. The RCMP (Can. police) spent zillions tracking, investigating this guy. Two years of surveillance, bureaucratic justice issues, lawyers - yada yada. So it's not so nice, but we find ways to 'distribute the surpluses' of the new economy in ways, even if they are not very efficient.
The trick is to 'find things for people to do' in a manner that is reasonably efficient and fair.
Check out GDP/capita during 19th century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#/media/File:B...
Were there was more automation, wealth exploded. (This chart does not address wages, but there are others that do :) )
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine?
As software developers, it's literally our jobs to put people out of work. My software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the company crows. In my industry, legal, entire departments (like night word processing) no longer exist.
The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years of human history and say everything will continue on. People just a few hundred years before that could not have predicted anything about modern employment.
As software developers, it's literally our jobs to put people out of work. My software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the company crows. In my industry, legal, entire departments (like night word processing) no longer exist.
The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years of human history and say everything will continue on. People just a few hundred years before that could not have predicted anything about modern employment.
> The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years of human history and say everything will continue on
It's a lot more than 100 years. The invention of the scientific process, the printing press, the popularization of steel and before that, bronze, heck even the invention of agriculture radically changed human societies by increasing individual productivity and enabling specialization.
> People just a few hundred years before that could not have predicted anything about modern employment.
Right, which is why it's silly for us to look at the technology we have today and say "welp, that's the end of human employment."
It's a lot more than 100 years. The invention of the scientific process, the printing press, the popularization of steel and before that, bronze, heck even the invention of agriculture radically changed human societies by increasing individual productivity and enabling specialization.
> People just a few hundred years before that could not have predicted anything about modern employment.
Right, which is why it's silly for us to look at the technology we have today and say "welp, that's the end of human employment."
>Right, which is why it's silly for us to look at the technology we have today and say "welp, that's the end of human employment."
And why it's also silly to look at the past and say "meh it worked out last time, everything will be fine".
And why it's also silly to look at the past and say "meh it worked out last time, everything will be fine".
It is your work to increase productivity. As tedious tasks are automated, you can deploy people doing new things. As you lower the cost of the product you manufacture or service you provide, you enable more people to afford it. That's how new industries are created. I am not to worried about the amount of work available as a whole. I am more worried about the nature of the work available, which will be increasingly skilled.
> As tedious tasks are automated, you can deploy people doing new things.
That has not been my experience at all. As tedious tasks are automated, the people who do those tedious tasks are no longer required.
Ultimately we are lowering the cost of our "product" but it's not to enable more people to afford it. We need to do that because less people can afford the service as is and we need to cut costs just to stay in business. It's a race to the bottom, not a race to the top.
That has not been my experience at all. As tedious tasks are automated, the people who do those tedious tasks are no longer required.
Ultimately we are lowering the cost of our "product" but it's not to enable more people to afford it. We need to do that because less people can afford the service as is and we need to cut costs just to stay in business. It's a race to the bottom, not a race to the top.
Even better, as you have automated tools available, no one needs you any more. 'You' being the company, that is. As factories replaced craftsmen, and distribution chains replaced individual travelling merchants, I think there is a very good chance that the very structure of centralized companies with offices and on-staff employees will dissolve. You were replying to someone working in the legal field, for example. Why does the person putting together my will or litigating a suit for me need to be backed by an organization with an office building, expensive executives, etc? An individual with the right knowledge and tools, that's all that's actually NEEDED. Much of economics centers around assuming that the market will eventually pare away inefficiencies and competition will strip away all but what is actually needed.
There is a plan to start deploying Watson-like AIs in the legal field to automatically data mine for precedents and other legal resources.
> Why does the person putting together my will or litigating a suit for me need to be backed by an organization with an office building, expensive executives, etc?
These exists because they are currently necessary (they are the "tools" you speak of) but they're a pure business cost and constantly under pressure to not exist. Computers have already reduced this back-end cost immensely. For example, lawyers these days all use dictation software rather than having a secretary write out shorthand. If all the tools can be automated, they eventually will.
> Why does the person putting together my will or litigating a suit for me need to be backed by an organization with an office building, expensive executives, etc?
These exists because they are currently necessary (they are the "tools" you speak of) but they're a pure business cost and constantly under pressure to not exist. Computers have already reduced this back-end cost immensely. For example, lawyers these days all use dictation software rather than having a secretary write out shorthand. If all the tools can be automated, they eventually will.
The legal field in particular is an interesting one as far as automation is concerned. Several states have passed laws which make illegal the creation of software systems that do simple easily-automatable tasks like generating boilerplate documents and filling in legal forms. They have variously considered either the creation or use of such software "practicing law without a license." Lawyers see the writing on the wall and are in the perfect position to do the most terrible thing possible - invent an artificial marketplace for services which should be being done by a machine.
This isn't a terribly novel idea. Companies which produce phonebooks have been suing the hell out of municipalities which wish to discontinue the practice of automatically giving a phonebook to their residents for years now. And, by the way, they win those cases. Even in municipalities where they simply want to change receiving a phonebook into an opt-in service, they're suing. That their product actually now goes beyond being worthless directly into the territory of actively destroying value, requiring the munis to put out special dumpsters so that the residents can immediately throw away the useless things, doesn't seem to bother them. They want their money and they don't care how or why they get it.
There was an article about the issue with writing software which does legal things in the Communications of the ACM a year or so ago. I haven't kept up with the topic, but at that time several states had adopted the laws and they were being considered in others. Having lawyers pushing new laws is a pretty easy sell, though, as most legislators come from law in the first place. Some of the states have a nice exemption that just really hammers the intent home - you can run a software service that lets people fill forms, get generated documents, etc... if you pay a lawyer for each thing it does. They don't have to be involved in any way. They don't have to review the documents and put their name on them or anything like that. They just have to get a check. Honestly though, I think that is better than only making it legal for lawyers to use the software. I fear a future where everyone is yolked and herded into a cubicle to sit there and push a single button mindlessly, prodding the automated system to do its thing simply because society and management want people to have to do a job.
This isn't a terribly novel idea. Companies which produce phonebooks have been suing the hell out of municipalities which wish to discontinue the practice of automatically giving a phonebook to their residents for years now. And, by the way, they win those cases. Even in municipalities where they simply want to change receiving a phonebook into an opt-in service, they're suing. That their product actually now goes beyond being worthless directly into the territory of actively destroying value, requiring the munis to put out special dumpsters so that the residents can immediately throw away the useless things, doesn't seem to bother them. They want their money and they don't care how or why they get it.
There was an article about the issue with writing software which does legal things in the Communications of the ACM a year or so ago. I haven't kept up with the topic, but at that time several states had adopted the laws and they were being considered in others. Having lawyers pushing new laws is a pretty easy sell, though, as most legislators come from law in the first place. Some of the states have a nice exemption that just really hammers the intent home - you can run a software service that lets people fill forms, get generated documents, etc... if you pay a lawyer for each thing it does. They don't have to be involved in any way. They don't have to review the documents and put their name on them or anything like that. They just have to get a check. Honestly though, I think that is better than only making it legal for lawyers to use the software. I fear a future where everyone is yolked and herded into a cubicle to sit there and push a single button mindlessly, prodding the automated system to do its thing simply because society and management want people to have to do a job.
"I am not to worried about the amount of work available as a whole. I am more worried about the nature of the work available, which will be increasingly skilled."
This is the same thing, FWIW. Opportunities to use skilled labour rely on the existence of skilled labour capable to fulfil it. The reason is that skilled labour shortages push up the price of labour, and that reduces the viability of businesses that use it as an input, and thus reduces the number of opportunities advertised.
This is the same thing, FWIW. Opportunities to use skilled labour rely on the existence of skilled labour capable to fulfil it. The reason is that skilled labour shortages push up the price of labour, and that reduces the viability of businesses that use it as an input, and thus reduces the number of opportunities advertised.
>>As tedious tasks are automated, you can deploy people doing new things.
That almost never happens in my experience. Deploying those people to do new things requires training them on those new things, and most companies aren't willing to make that investment, especially since said people are usually near the bottom of the totem pole and the fact that they just got made redundant by software is regarded by management as proof that they are just cogs.
That almost never happens in my experience. Deploying those people to do new things requires training them on those new things, and most companies aren't willing to make that investment, especially since said people are usually near the bottom of the totem pole and the fact that they just got made redundant by software is regarded by management as proof that they are just cogs.
> My software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the company crows.
That is either a very amusing typo or your employers are not nice people.
That is either a very amusing typo or your employers are not nice people.
Same here. I work on conversational systems and our explicit goal is to enable our customers to replace humans with our systems.
The period you describe was marked by revolutions, civil wars and world wars not stabilized until after WWII.
Things did indeed come out well eventually but that better world most definitely did not emerge serenely and rationally. It took the utter annihilation of the pre-WWI world order through decades of enormous violence. Indeed, the egalitarian socialist plan and the response of populist fascist to crush it emerged exactly because of industrialization.
There can be no doubt that displaced workers are not going to smoothly transfer to become professional athletes: a 50 year old unemployed coal miner with no social safety net is not going to peaceable become a wedding planer in a big city even if he could.
Until then, there will be increasing political disruption and radicalization as the advantaged group holds the disadvantaged down believing it's their own fault for not changing careers. And just like last time, the fighting will continue until adequate social safety nets are in place.
It would be better to honestly face the events of the past and not try to convince ourselves that an idealized smooth economic shift is how it's going to work out. But unfortunately we are just at the beginning of this and likely most people in the advantaged group will ideological despise the level of social security that will solve the problem. Indeed, in many quarters, there is a fetishization of and desire to return to that pre-WWI unconstrained economy that caused the nightmares in the 20th century. So, polarization, demagoguery, extremism and eventually violence loom for now I fear.
Things did indeed come out well eventually but that better world most definitely did not emerge serenely and rationally. It took the utter annihilation of the pre-WWI world order through decades of enormous violence. Indeed, the egalitarian socialist plan and the response of populist fascist to crush it emerged exactly because of industrialization.
There can be no doubt that displaced workers are not going to smoothly transfer to become professional athletes: a 50 year old unemployed coal miner with no social safety net is not going to peaceable become a wedding planer in a big city even if he could.
Until then, there will be increasing political disruption and radicalization as the advantaged group holds the disadvantaged down believing it's their own fault for not changing careers. And just like last time, the fighting will continue until adequate social safety nets are in place.
It would be better to honestly face the events of the past and not try to convince ourselves that an idealized smooth economic shift is how it's going to work out. But unfortunately we are just at the beginning of this and likely most people in the advantaged group will ideological despise the level of social security that will solve the problem. Indeed, in many quarters, there is a fetishization of and desire to return to that pre-WWI unconstrained economy that caused the nightmares in the 20th century. So, polarization, demagoguery, extremism and eventually violence loom for now I fear.
"The period you describe was marked by revolutions, civil wars and world wars not stabilized until after WWII."
No - the late 19th century was relatively peaceful.
"But unfortunately we are just at the beginning"
Just at the beggining of the longest period of peace and economic prosperity in history.
Donald Trump, Brexit - this kind of 'nationalism' and 'demagoguery' is not even remotely in the league of anything in the past. Not even close.
No - the late 19th century was relatively peaceful.
"But unfortunately we are just at the beginning"
Just at the beggining of the longest period of peace and economic prosperity in history.
Donald Trump, Brexit - this kind of 'nationalism' and 'demagoguery' is not even remotely in the league of anything in the past. Not even close.
In the 1800s after even after Napoleon there were sporadic uprisings scattered through Europe and around the world, especially in the 1830s and 40s. The Franco-Prussina war was a prelude to WWI. Brits fought Russians, Turks fought Russians, Spain had multiple civil wars, Germans fought each other constantly. Even the US had a civil war. And the seeds for 1914's WWI did not suddenly appear in the 14 years of the 20th century before it.
>...is not even remotely in the league of anything in the past. Not even close...
I wish this were the case. And while Brexit is only one referendum, possibly recoverable, the Front National, AfD, PVV and Trump use rhetoric that is completely indistinguishable for Eastern and Southern European fascism of the 1920s. Some of it is verbatim quotes translated. And the economic policies of these parties will only worsen the economic well being of the electorate angering them further.
We can keep making optimistic guesses about the next score years but there is also more realistic outcome:
We do not in fact live in a magic time at the end of history. The post WWII (relative) peace is not remotely an inevitable state of affairs. It is an incredibly delicate thing maintained by moderate democratic global nurturing. Inept leaders set on dissolving alliances and treaties combined with aggressive rhetoric and random hostilities executed solely to excite a demagogue's support base could break that peace in any of a dozen powder kegs world wide faster than the bullet that killed prince Ferdinand. Indeed, if NATO weakens enough, as many on the far-right wish, and Putin starts loosing popularity, god help the Baltic states.
>...is not even remotely in the league of anything in the past. Not even close...
I wish this were the case. And while Brexit is only one referendum, possibly recoverable, the Front National, AfD, PVV and Trump use rhetoric that is completely indistinguishable for Eastern and Southern European fascism of the 1920s. Some of it is verbatim quotes translated. And the economic policies of these parties will only worsen the economic well being of the electorate angering them further.
We can keep making optimistic guesses about the next score years but there is also more realistic outcome:
We do not in fact live in a magic time at the end of history. The post WWII (relative) peace is not remotely an inevitable state of affairs. It is an incredibly delicate thing maintained by moderate democratic global nurturing. Inept leaders set on dissolving alliances and treaties combined with aggressive rhetoric and random hostilities executed solely to excite a demagogue's support base could break that peace in any of a dozen powder kegs world wide faster than the bullet that killed prince Ferdinand. Indeed, if NATO weakens enough, as many on the far-right wish, and Putin starts loosing popularity, god help the Baltic states.
In the late 19th, there was nearly the same conflicts areas as today, some european wars and massive colonization:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%9399
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%9399
I don't think the issue is whether automation and globalization are able to create more wealth in absolute, but whether the resulting wealth is distributed fairly (or effciently).
If a company is able to automate its facilities to achieve 2X profits with half the workers, you'll have an higher overall GPD, but the created wealth will be shared by a reduced number of people.
People struggling to make a living won't give a damn whether TV has 3 channels or 300, they can travel cheaply around the world and there is a new smartphone model every year.
This has been sustainable up until technological advancement still allowed for enough decently paid unskilled jobs, but it's clear we are past this point.
We are running out of, as you say, "things for people to do".
I don't think these trends can or should be reversed (because they have undeniable benefits), but how to deal with the consequences is a real challenge.
If a company is able to automate its facilities to achieve 2X profits with half the workers, you'll have an higher overall GPD, but the created wealth will be shared by a reduced number of people.
People struggling to make a living won't give a damn whether TV has 3 channels or 300, they can travel cheaply around the world and there is a new smartphone model every year.
This has been sustainable up until technological advancement still allowed for enough decently paid unskilled jobs, but it's clear we are past this point.
We are running out of, as you say, "things for people to do".
I don't think these trends can or should be reversed (because they have undeniable benefits), but how to deal with the consequences is a real challenge.
Of course wealth will be distributed unevenly if it is created unevenly. Anything else is both unfair and unwise.
Poor people in the United States, today, have a significantly higher standard of living than my grandparents, who were neither uneducated or poor for the time.
Poverty has moved way up Maslow's hierarchy.
Poor people in the United States, today, have a significantly higher standard of living than my grandparents, who were neither uneducated or poor for the time.
Poverty has moved way up Maslow's hierarchy.
> But what happened during the industrial revolution? Unemployment went down, wages went up. In fact the cost of human labour rose dramatically.
It should be added that wages going up and the emergence of a middle class was not a direct result of increased productivity. The labour movement had to fight hard to ensure that those productivity gains were shared with workers.
The problem we face with automation is that there is not much of a collective 'working class' to fight that fight.
It should be added that wages going up and the emergence of a middle class was not a direct result of increased productivity. The labour movement had to fight hard to ensure that those productivity gains were shared with workers.
The problem we face with automation is that there is not much of a collective 'working class' to fight that fight.
"It should be added that wages going up and the emergence of a middle class was not a direct result of increased productivity. "
I fully agree that the labour movement was essential.
BUT - wages did definitely rise far before labour got going - and wages could not rise as they did without underlying productivity gains.
But yes - the labour movement was essential.
I fully agree that the labour movement was essential.
BUT - wages did definitely rise far before labour got going - and wages could not rise as they did without underlying productivity gains.
But yes - the labour movement was essential.
> ...wages could not rise as they did without underlying productivity gains
Absolutely. The challenge with automation is ensuring that the increased productivity benefits all of society (not necessarily equally). As useful as capitalism is, it doesn't really have a mechanism for doing this properly. The solution will always have to be political.
Absolutely. The challenge with automation is ensuring that the increased productivity benefits all of society (not necessarily equally). As useful as capitalism is, it doesn't really have a mechanism for doing this properly. The solution will always have to be political.
It's not like this is something far off. Wages have been frozen since 1980. And productivity has increased at a breakneck pace. From 1950-1980, when productivity gains were slow and incremental, the median wage rose by 75%. Between 1980 and 2010, it rose by 1% while companies posted record-breaking profits and the median income of the top 10% rose by 475%. The average wage increased alongside productivity gains, but due to the extremely skewed distribution, that hides the fact that the gains of computers and automation technology benefitted only the very top.
I think a large part of it has to do with how disruptive computers and software are. One person can walk in and write some software that makes an employee 50x as productive. How do you compensate that? They enabled your employee to create profoundly more value. If compensation is in any way tied to the value of the work being done, the compensation should obviously be similarly profound. You have to divorce value of work and compensation from one another completely to avoid ending up paying software creators very highly and practically creating a special class for them.
I think a large part of it has to do with how disruptive computers and software are. One person can walk in and write some software that makes an employee 50x as productive. How do you compensate that? They enabled your employee to create profoundly more value. If compensation is in any way tied to the value of the work being done, the compensation should obviously be similarly profound. You have to divorce value of work and compensation from one another completely to avoid ending up paying software creators very highly and practically creating a special class for them.
The global market was still expanding so all efficiency gains from industrial revolution and the internet revolution were absorbed. Where as today the global economy is stagnating. The efficiency gains in the next decade are expected to be a few times the rate of market growth which would put many people out of work making the global market contract further. This cycle could accelerate very quickly.
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"Where as today the global economy is stagnating."
The global economy is in good shape.
Western economies are stagnating - but there are 5 billion people who were not even on the economic radar just 50 years ago. They were earning basically 'nothing'.
But now they are earning 'something' and it's growing fast.
There are more than 40 countries with growth over 5% GDP growth in 2015. [1]
There are 5 billion people who need: electricity, clothes, cars, tv, entertainment, sports, medicine etc. etc..
So, no. As prices fall, and globalization expands - all those products and services become accessible to these countries.
And what happens when they get reliable electricity? Governance? Consistent internet access? Their productivity goes up and they can afford to buy more.
Viewed from a 'modern world perspective' - I would be concerned, we are going to have to 'find new jobs' for a lot of people - but from a global perspective, the picture is mostly positive.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_...
The global economy is in good shape.
Western economies are stagnating - but there are 5 billion people who were not even on the economic radar just 50 years ago. They were earning basically 'nothing'.
But now they are earning 'something' and it's growing fast.
There are more than 40 countries with growth over 5% GDP growth in 2015. [1]
There are 5 billion people who need: electricity, clothes, cars, tv, entertainment, sports, medicine etc. etc..
So, no. As prices fall, and globalization expands - all those products and services become accessible to these countries.
And what happens when they get reliable electricity? Governance? Consistent internet access? Their productivity goes up and they can afford to buy more.
Viewed from a 'modern world perspective' - I would be concerned, we are going to have to 'find new jobs' for a lot of people - but from a global perspective, the picture is mostly positive.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_...
The top 15 economies in the world are 75% of the world economy. Most are in the West. The growth of the other 25% is not going to help much if these 15 combined do not grow more than the efficiency gains from automation.
"The top 15 economies in the world are 75% of the world economy. Most are in the West. The growth of the other 25% is not going to help much if these 15 combined do not grow more than the efficiency gains from automation."
But they are not most of the population.
We're talking about employment here.
5 billion people 'lives improving dramatically' vs. 2 billion people 'lives improving slowly' is a good equation.
That those 2 billion are 'already wealthy' and a small uptick in their wealth increases the global GDP a little bit more is and odd way of looking at it.
By that measure, we should be focusing on Gates and Zuckerbergs wealth more than anything else!
The 'global GDP' is not the point here.
But they are not most of the population.
We're talking about employment here.
5 billion people 'lives improving dramatically' vs. 2 billion people 'lives improving slowly' is a good equation.
That those 2 billion are 'already wealthy' and a small uptick in their wealth increases the global GDP a little bit more is and odd way of looking at it.
By that measure, we should be focusing on Gates and Zuckerbergs wealth more than anything else!
The 'global GDP' is not the point here.
You are combining 2 seperate issues automation is going to help in many ways.
But there are 2 main kinds of resoure that people use to earn income 1.money 2.labour(mental or physical) More than 99% of the people earn income with the latter so automation will take away the only source of income for most of the world's population.
I am personally pro automation as it will solve many of the problems humanity faces today but at the same time see that the way the current capilistic economies work automation is also going to cause huge problems for many countries and the world should be preparing for it.
This is the real problem. While it may be good ecologically for population growth to slow and then reverse, it will lead to what I've long called "planet Japan."
Life in Japan is pretty nice though. You don't need economic growth if the population isn't growing.
What do you mean by "Planet Japan"?
Japan has second oldest population world-wide with 27.28% over 65, after Monaco, which doesn't really count (retirement home for rich people).
http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a01001/
http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a01001/
... and economic stagnation. It's basically a permanent liquidity trap.
If you adjust GDP for population growth Japan is actually doing quite well. The fact that it has a growing economy and a shrinking population shows that productivity is going up. Countries like the US have historically had high population growth which is reflected in higher GDP growth.
No issue there. The problem is that this completely breaks all modern finance, which is built on the assumption of permanent macroeconomic growth to deliver returns and permanent inflation to continuously re-price debt.
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine?
I have literally seen a room full of people that lost their jobs because of software I wrote (admittedly, not alone, but still). The software was almost ready by that point and it was quite a disturbing experience that still bothers me up to this day to be honest.
It had nothing to do with AI and was quite a long time ago, but I still remember it very vividly.
I have literally seen a room full of people that lost their jobs because of software I wrote (admittedly, not alone, but still). The software was almost ready by that point and it was quite a disturbing experience that still bothers me up to this day to be honest.
It had nothing to do with AI and was quite a long time ago, but I still remember it very vividly.
Losing their job is a violent and unpleasant process but a sort of necessary one as a society. I have seen that first hand many times. It forces people to reconsider their career, move to another more promising industry, move to another city or another country. That's how the economy adapts to change and resources are allocated efficiently.
What I have seen often too is bankers wealthy enough to be able to live on their savings for a long time, and therefore not willing to reconsider their career. And as a result staying unemployed for a long time before coming to the conclusion that they need to do something else.
I'm not saying this is fun and that I wouldn't mind going through it myself but this is capitalist's creative destruction at work. Not something you should feel particularly bad about.
What I have seen often too is bankers wealthy enough to be able to live on their savings for a long time, and therefore not willing to reconsider their career. And as a result staying unemployed for a long time before coming to the conclusion that they need to do something else.
I'm not saying this is fun and that I wouldn't mind going through it myself but this is capitalist's creative destruction at work. Not something you should feel particularly bad about.
We have to feel bad because they lost their main (and I think only) source of income, not because they lost their jobs.
Nobody has to be forced to reconsider his career (so his entire life..) when we just have to cut the link between work and salary that we learn at school.
Nobody has to be forced to reconsider his career (so his entire life..) when we just have to cut the link between work and salary that we learn at school.
Sorry, but have you ever really witnessed firsthand the difficulty of being forced "to reconsider one's career, move to another more promising industry, or move to another city or another country"?
The economy might adapt to change, but people aren't able to nearly as well.
You say "capitalist's creative destruction", but it's really "greed-driven devastation".
The economy might adapt to change, but people aren't able to nearly as well.
You say "capitalist's creative destruction", but it's really "greed-driven devastation".
But are you suggesting we should keep people employed doing manual tasks to spare them the unpleasant experience of reconsidering their career? Are you suggesting that industrialisation or automation is greed? You can reverse a lot of technological advance that way. And we see that in many socialist economies, where zombie-like industries have been subsided well after they should have disappeared (like mining in the North of France).
I'm not really suggesting anything. I literally have no answers.
But I do think we (humanity) do ourselves a massive disservice when we push for automation for the sole purpose of reducing costs/boosting profits.
I also think that we need to remember it's real people being affected here. You say "spare them the unpleasant experience" - that's an almost comically insulting way to phrase it - it's really more like "spare them the emotionally traumatic and devastating experience of watching their future evaporate". You say "creative destruction", but you're really talking about lives being literally destroyed. And the key difference here is that (unlike previous time periods), there is no obvious future for these people who are losing their jobs to automation.
You rail against bankers not being willing to reconsider their careers, but what about cashiers at fast food restaurants? What about truck drivers? Train engineers? Miners? etc...
You say it's not something we should feel particularly bad about, but it absolutely is. I can't tell you how hard my eyes roll when I hear people talking in the almost kumbaya-esque way that I'm talking now, but we are all really in this together, and if we can't figure out a way to help people through the transition that is coming, well, what good are we as people?
Speaking so clinically about people's lives being destroyed does no one any favors. That's really all my point is.
But I do think we (humanity) do ourselves a massive disservice when we push for automation for the sole purpose of reducing costs/boosting profits.
I also think that we need to remember it's real people being affected here. You say "spare them the unpleasant experience" - that's an almost comically insulting way to phrase it - it's really more like "spare them the emotionally traumatic and devastating experience of watching their future evaporate". You say "creative destruction", but you're really talking about lives being literally destroyed. And the key difference here is that (unlike previous time periods), there is no obvious future for these people who are losing their jobs to automation.
You rail against bankers not being willing to reconsider their careers, but what about cashiers at fast food restaurants? What about truck drivers? Train engineers? Miners? etc...
You say it's not something we should feel particularly bad about, but it absolutely is. I can't tell you how hard my eyes roll when I hear people talking in the almost kumbaya-esque way that I'm talking now, but we are all really in this together, and if we can't figure out a way to help people through the transition that is coming, well, what good are we as people?
Speaking so clinically about people's lives being destroyed does no one any favors. That's really all my point is.
I agree with your main point (that this is a small increment to the industrial revolution), but two objections:
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine
Right now AI is still a future technology. The current AI algorithms are the equivalent of the early GSM phones, which looked like car batteries, very far from modern smartphones. But it is reasonable to expect that they will get better, and it is reasonable to expect that we will be able to emulate the brain with transistors and on a much bigger scale some days.
The second objection is that the demand for unskilled workers keeps shrinking. Our society has adapted to the industrial revolution by having a much larger skilled worker base, pretty much everyone can now read and write, college degrees have become the norm, etc. But there are brick walls to how skilled a society can be. A not insignificant share of the population just cannot become skilled. And even among skilled workers, only a fraction will always be capable to satisfy the demand for the "hotest" skills (engineering, software development, etc).
So I think that as that imbalance develops, we are bound to live with a structurally unequal society. And it doesn't have much to do with capitalism, it has more to do with the evolution of the technology outpacing the biological evolution of our species.
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine
Right now AI is still a future technology. The current AI algorithms are the equivalent of the early GSM phones, which looked like car batteries, very far from modern smartphones. But it is reasonable to expect that they will get better, and it is reasonable to expect that we will be able to emulate the brain with transistors and on a much bigger scale some days.
The second objection is that the demand for unskilled workers keeps shrinking. Our society has adapted to the industrial revolution by having a much larger skilled worker base, pretty much everyone can now read and write, college degrees have become the norm, etc. But there are brick walls to how skilled a society can be. A not insignificant share of the population just cannot become skilled. And even among skilled workers, only a fraction will always be capable to satisfy the demand for the "hotest" skills (engineering, software development, etc).
So I think that as that imbalance develops, we are bound to live with a structurally unequal society. And it doesn't have much to do with capitalism, it has more to do with the evolution of the technology outpacing the biological evolution of our species.
" But it is reasonable to expect that they will get better, and it is reasonable to expect that we will be able to emulate the brain with transistors and on a much bigger scale some days."
No, it's not reasonable to assume they will emulate brains.
Not even the experts are saying that.
They're not trying to emulate brains at all.
No, it's not reasonable to assume they will emulate brains.
Not even the experts are saying that.
They're not trying to emulate brains at all.
Uhm... yes, they most definitely are. There are many efforts underway right now building 'neuromorphic' architectures with memristors (which function very similarly to neurons). I don't think there is any promise in the approach personally (our 'mind' is a property of the feedback loop between our body and the world, and can not exist without the body, dualism is just wrong) but there are many who disagree.
Also, even going back to von Neumann it has always been expected that the brain will be able to be built in hardware, simply because neurons exhibit binary behavior. They fire or not, and all the rest is massive interconnectedness and adaptive changes to their activation potential. There's lots of argument about whether reproducing the behavior of neurons will result in a 'mind' or be useful, but no one would argue that we simply won't be able to build a brain workalike.
Also, even going back to von Neumann it has always been expected that the brain will be able to be built in hardware, simply because neurons exhibit binary behavior. They fire or not, and all the rest is massive interconnectedness and adaptive changes to their activation potential. There's lots of argument about whether reproducing the behavior of neurons will result in a 'mind' or be useful, but no one would argue that we simply won't be able to build a brain workalike.
I was under the impression that neural networks are inspired by the brain. And as we understand how the brain works better, it is obvious that we will be replicating it mechanically.
Only superficially. Deep learning has little to do with biology, and even if a future AGI was running on a NN, it's structure would be very different from our brains.
A not insignificant share of the population just cannot become skilled.
Can you justify that statement?
Can you justify that statement?
What's unique now isnt the "rate of change" but the absolute gap between skill sets.
Lets say youre a truck driver and suddenly you lose your job. You cant transfer your existing skill set to driving a cab for very long because guess what? Thats been automated too.
There arent any other jobs that involve sitting at a wheel avoiding bad drivers and rush hour traffic and pulling all nighters. Simultaneously the chance for that person to find work in new markets becomes low. They have to train themselves.
Lets say youre a truck driver and suddenly you lose your job. You cant transfer your existing skill set to driving a cab for very long because guess what? Thats been automated too.
There arent any other jobs that involve sitting at a wheel avoiding bad drivers and rush hour traffic and pulling all nighters. Simultaneously the chance for that person to find work in new markets becomes low. They have to train themselves.
Machines took a long time to build and replace people. Software can be instantly copied.
>In 1960 there were 3 channels. In the 1990's 50. Now it's 100's + online offerings.
Exactly, we're already beyond the limits of what we can consume. There won't be jobs producing more stuff when there is no one to consume it.
>In 1960 there were 3 channels. In the 1990's 50. Now it's 100's + online offerings.
Exactly, we're already beyond the limits of what we can consume. There won't be jobs producing more stuff when there is no one to consume it.
"Exactly, we're already beyond the limits of what we can consume. "
No, because in 1960 everyone had the same thing.
Now - you get programming for your niche, which is different than that of the dude next door.
Take clothing: even in the year 2000 people did not really wear fashion. We had 'the Gap' and not much more. Everything else was expensive.
'Fast fashion' has changed the world. Young people can now afford an absurd variety in fashion. Nobody 50+ ever thought you needed a 'new pair of pants' every season. Now it's normal. Clothes are almost disposable. That's a consequence of increased productivity and adapting demand.
No, because in 1960 everyone had the same thing.
Now - you get programming for your niche, which is different than that of the dude next door.
Take clothing: even in the year 2000 people did not really wear fashion. We had 'the Gap' and not much more. Everything else was expensive.
'Fast fashion' has changed the world. Young people can now afford an absurd variety in fashion. Nobody 50+ ever thought you needed a 'new pair of pants' every season. Now it's normal. Clothes are almost disposable. That's a consequence of increased productivity and adapting demand.
But a lot of that is subsidized through globalization, which nearly every colonizing country is eschewing. Without it, 80℅ of your users and customers can't afford clothes or phones or apps. It's all subsidized through foreigners plights and profited upon wildly. Watch what happens if that goes away. The neoliberal idea of the world was born to stop a revolution in the western world - instead of paying people fairly, they just exploited other countries through capitalist guises instead of barbaric colonisation. If the new answer is that everything has to be made in the nation, no one can afford anything without some sort of basic income/welfare, which the masses will vote against because they've been trained to hate recipients of such social programs for the last half century
"But a lot of that is subsidized through globalization, which nearly every colonizing country is eschewing."
"It's all subsidized through foreigners plights and profited upon wildly"
This is highly speculative, and I don't think in any way substantiated.
"they just exploited other countries through capitalist guises instead of barbaric colonisation."
Borderline racist.
American consumers are fuelling a massive wealth creation boom in places like China and India, where 100's of millions are coming out of poverty.
Trade is generally good for both sides, and it has benefited China/India etc. massively.
It's funny what you call 'exploitation' is 100's of millions of people with massively increasing wealth.
If you want to see China and India desperately poor again, we can 'turn off globalization'. A few more Americans will have jobs, but it will be back to the dark ages for many economies.
"It's all subsidized through foreigners plights and profited upon wildly"
This is highly speculative, and I don't think in any way substantiated.
"they just exploited other countries through capitalist guises instead of barbaric colonisation."
Borderline racist.
American consumers are fuelling a massive wealth creation boom in places like China and India, where 100's of millions are coming out of poverty.
Trade is generally good for both sides, and it has benefited China/India etc. massively.
It's funny what you call 'exploitation' is 100's of millions of people with massively increasing wealth.
If you want to see China and India desperately poor again, we can 'turn off globalization'. A few more Americans will have jobs, but it will be back to the dark ages for many economies.
>But what happened during the industrial revolution?
Unemployment went down, wages went up. In fact the cost of human labour rose dramatically.
I'd be really interested to see sources for this since there is almost no accurate unemployment data pre-1840 and at least in the US it doesn't seem likely as what information we have tells us that during the period from 1800-1840 slaves made up over 26% of the workforce in the United States, peaking at almost 32% in 1810.
I'm assuming you're going by wage estimates from the UK over the period, but if you are those are really contested as a method for evaluating quality of life or actually real wages - many people at the time didn't earn inside the wage system.
I don't disagree that eventually cost of labor and general unemployment improved as a result of the industrial revolution - I just don't think it happened DURING the industrial revolution, at least not until its late stages.
Also, GDP per capita is a really bad way to estimate effects on the working class, particularly in a period famous for massive income inequality.
I'd be really interested to see sources for this since there is almost no accurate unemployment data pre-1840 and at least in the US it doesn't seem likely as what information we have tells us that during the period from 1800-1840 slaves made up over 26% of the workforce in the United States, peaking at almost 32% in 1810.
I'm assuming you're going by wage estimates from the UK over the period, but if you are those are really contested as a method for evaluating quality of life or actually real wages - many people at the time didn't earn inside the wage system.
I don't disagree that eventually cost of labor and general unemployment improved as a result of the industrial revolution - I just don't think it happened DURING the industrial revolution, at least not until its late stages.
Also, GDP per capita is a really bad way to estimate effects on the working class, particularly in a period famous for massive income inequality.
All good examples!
I need someone to burst my bubble from time to time.
Also, as a side note, I for one would be delighted if the future included people brewing delicious beer for one another as an important part of the economy.
I need someone to burst my bubble from time to time.
Also, as a side note, I for one would be delighted if the future included people brewing delicious beer for one another as an important part of the economy.
Try this one: tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? Not so many.
This is a nice tidy test that is not entirely useful. You can't know anyone that didn't get hired into a job that didn't get created. Say a plant doubles output while destaffing by way of retirement. No one loses a job, automation eats more than 1 plants worth of jobs.
This is a nice tidy test that is not entirely useful. You can't know anyone that didn't get hired into a job that didn't get created. Say a plant doubles output while destaffing by way of retirement. No one loses a job, automation eats more than 1 plants worth of jobs.
> There were no 'pro athletes' in 1930.
Babe Ruth, arguably one of the most famous athletes ever, played from 1914-1935.
Babe Ruth, arguably one of the most famous athletes ever, played from 1914-1935.
"Babe Ruth, arguably one of the most famous athletes ever, played from 1914-1935."
Correction: there were 'few' pro athletes. Today, it's almost a career path. Back in the day, it was mostly amateurs.
Correction: there were 'few' pro athletes. Today, it's almost a career path. Back in the day, it was mostly amateurs.
One of the side effects of Industrial revolution was acceleration of colonialism. So job tremendous job loss may and subsequent suffering was not felt directly by western nations but instead outsourced to colonies. May be version 2.0 of colonialism might emerge to cushion Job loss from first mover nation.
[deleted]
little human labor is required,but much more human doctor are required.
How to make human labor to human doctor?
Education is just result,not methods.The key is that Capital is not the pursuit of money, but the pursuit of a higher level of human nature.
You might want to watch incoperated to get a feel :)
Violence.
This is exactly wrong. Automation happened already, 200 years ago. It upended society. It was called the Industrial Revolution. Things changed dramatically, and nothing remotely of that scale is occurring now.
We are suffering today not because of technological progress, but rather the contrary: the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally come to a grinding halt. Let's stop denying this. The stream of lifechanging breakthrough inventions of the 20th century, from A (antibiotics) to Z (zippers), have ended. As a result, we now suffer from secular stagnation. [1]
This is why people can't get jobs. The answer is Keynesian spending, and the most fair kind of Keynesian spending is basic income. Call it a "Keynesian dividend".
[1] http://larrysummers.com/2016/02/17/the-age-of-secular-stagna...
We are suffering today not because of technological progress, but rather the contrary: the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally come to a grinding halt. Let's stop denying this. The stream of lifechanging breakthrough inventions of the 20th century, from A (antibiotics) to Z (zippers), have ended. As a result, we now suffer from secular stagnation. [1]
This is why people can't get jobs. The answer is Keynesian spending, and the most fair kind of Keynesian spending is basic income. Call it a "Keynesian dividend".
[1] http://larrysummers.com/2016/02/17/the-age-of-secular-stagna...
I disagree that it's "exactly wrong", though I at the same time agree with the secular stagnation concept. It's important to remember that past revolutions in automation have destroyed one field of labor while creating another. For example, the industrial revolution destroyed hand and muscle-driven labor and replaced it with factory labor. In the US we then went from an industrial economy driven by factory jobs to a service economy driven by knowledge-based labor.
Automation today is now destroying service economy jobs, but it's not clear, at least to me, what new sector is ramping up to pick up the displacement slack. The tech sector isn't going to have enough jobs for everyone getting automated away, and this time around automation is unique in that it's attacking pretty much everything all at once. Human drivers are going to be displaced by autonomous vehicles at the same time as financial advisers are being displaced by wealth allocation algorithms at the same time as warehouse workers are being displaced by picker robots, etc.
Automation today is now destroying service economy jobs, but it's not clear, at least to me, what new sector is ramping up to pick up the displacement slack. The tech sector isn't going to have enough jobs for everyone getting automated away, and this time around automation is unique in that it's attacking pretty much everything all at once. Human drivers are going to be displaced by autonomous vehicles at the same time as financial advisers are being displaced by wealth allocation algorithms at the same time as warehouse workers are being displaced by picker robots, etc.
Even jobs in the tech sector are likely under threat. Remember that guy a few weeks ago showing an AI platform be built to design logos for customers? We're not far from having AI build our web pages, and then simple web apps, and then probably native apps, and before long, finding and patching bugs in software, and eventually writing the software itself
Even finance is being upended actively by automation and AI.
The narrative will follow the "drug war." When it's the poor people (factory workers::blacks), they're just "losers" who need to try harder or should be locked away for decades. When it's happening in upper middle and middle class suburbia (opioid epidemic::white collar automation), then it's a "public health crisis that commands our empathy!"
The narrative will follow the "drug war." When it's the poor people (factory workers::blacks), they're just "losers" who need to try harder or should be locked away for decades. When it's happening in upper middle and middle class suburbia (opioid epidemic::white collar automation), then it's a "public health crisis that commands our empathy!"
You don't need much in the way of AI to design and build simple web pages. Existing templates and wizards already do that; those jobs were automated away years ago.
Patching all but the simplest software bugs will require real AGI. Understanding a bug and the side effects of a patch goes way beyond current AI technology, and there is still no defined R&D path which is likely to produce an AGI.
Patching all but the simplest software bugs will require real AGI. Understanding a bug and the side effects of a patch goes way beyond current AI technology, and there is still no defined R&D path which is likely to produce an AGI.
> It's important to remember that past revolutions in automation have destroyed one field of labor while creating another.
That's exactly right. We've been creating work to keep people busy for 200 years in many more ways than you mention. Consumerism. Marketing. Bureaucracy. We have one industry that makes people sick (food) and another industry that makes people healthy (healthcare). The twin peaks of the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, especially in the USA. We have industries that make plastic casings to wrap goods, just so we can sell goods to consumers, who unwrap and immediately dispose the plastic, so that another industry (sanitation) can take them away.
We basically have a society which continuously breaks glass windows and then fixes them. It's all, in some sense, pure dead weight, just to keep people employed.
So why should this stop now?
That's exactly right. We've been creating work to keep people busy for 200 years in many more ways than you mention. Consumerism. Marketing. Bureaucracy. We have one industry that makes people sick (food) and another industry that makes people healthy (healthcare). The twin peaks of the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, especially in the USA. We have industries that make plastic casings to wrap goods, just so we can sell goods to consumers, who unwrap and immediately dispose the plastic, so that another industry (sanitation) can take them away.
We basically have a society which continuously breaks glass windows and then fixes them. It's all, in some sense, pure dead weight, just to keep people employed.
So why should this stop now?
The New Economy: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms...
Think of the additional economic boost from treating these people in hospitals, or even better, prisons! Countless "jobs" will be created!
Think of the additional economic boost from treating these people in hospitals, or even better, prisons! Countless "jobs" will be created!
Because we are in the process of automating away all jobs except consumption this time around. In the past as those new "busywork" industries popped up, human workers filled the new roles. But now we're approaching the point where every new busywork job can be filled by machines, which are cheaper than employees.
Health and food are actually a great example. We've already automated away most farm jobs (in the US at least) and a lot of the food production & prep jobs for junk food type things. And now we're starting to see in the healthcare space that software can reduce loads on doctors, for example ML-based interpretation of X-rays, automated patient record tracking, etc. Fitbit is the tip of iceberg for what's possible in at-home health monitoring based on software instead of humans. I would argue that while the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, the number of jobs in each cannot.
Health and food are actually a great example. We've already automated away most farm jobs (in the US at least) and a lot of the food production & prep jobs for junk food type things. And now we're starting to see in the healthcare space that software can reduce loads on doctors, for example ML-based interpretation of X-rays, automated patient record tracking, etc. Fitbit is the tip of iceberg for what's possible in at-home health monitoring based on software instead of humans. I would argue that while the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, the number of jobs in each cannot.
I agree that secular stagnation and the global savings glut are the real problems but Keynesian fiscal spending is supposed to be periodic to counter cycles. It cannot fix long term secular trends.
A worldwide monetary policy change that keeps real interest rates sufficiently negative to be in line with private market rates is the only real solution.
A worldwide monetary policy change that keeps real interest rates sufficiently negative to be in line with private market rates is the only real solution.
> The stream of lifechanging breakthrough inventions of the 20th century, from A (antibiotics) to Z (zippers), have ended
I agree, but this only leads to more questions: why? And is it permanent?
I think we are in a temporary lull. Finance people, in the vain of JP Morgan, have gotten very good at controlling the social processes around both physical resources and human output. They keep most people tired and scared to change jobs, so they can be made to focus on production. The rest who are actively problem solving despite those pressures, the finance folks try to steer them towards a maze where big bets are made and equity changes hands often.
We were bison, and now we're cattle. There's more meat, but less frolicking, and no semblance of any kind of ecosystem that produced so many bison-y moments.
Is it forever? I don't think so. We're only fairly recently getting lots of brains trying to discover tools for doing things outside of finance. And still, it's a trickle. Look at all the beautiful brains on this message board, whose output is getting fed into the feedlots of VCs and Paul Graham.
I agree, but this only leads to more questions: why? And is it permanent?
I think we are in a temporary lull. Finance people, in the vain of JP Morgan, have gotten very good at controlling the social processes around both physical resources and human output. They keep most people tired and scared to change jobs, so they can be made to focus on production. The rest who are actively problem solving despite those pressures, the finance folks try to steer them towards a maze where big bets are made and equity changes hands often.
We were bison, and now we're cattle. There's more meat, but less frolicking, and no semblance of any kind of ecosystem that produced so many bison-y moments.
Is it forever? I don't think so. We're only fairly recently getting lots of brains trying to discover tools for doing things outside of finance. And still, it's a trickle. Look at all the beautiful brains on this message board, whose output is getting fed into the feedlots of VCs and Paul Graham.
> I agree, but this only leads to more questions: why? And is it permanent?
Our rapid technological progress in the last 2 centuries was an anomaly. We have 200,000 years of history as a species, most of which did not have nearly the same level of progress. The burden is on to you to explain what made those 2 centuries so great.
Our rapid technological progress in the last 2 centuries was an anomaly. We have 200,000 years of history as a species, most of which did not have nearly the same level of progress. The burden is on to you to explain what made those 2 centuries so great.
> the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally come to a grinding halt
Fine, I can buy that. But stagnant productivity alone doesn't generate low employment. How do you explain low employment then?
Fine, I can buy that. But stagnant productivity alone doesn't generate low employment. How do you explain low employment then?
Secular stagnation
Employment is not low, so we don't need to explain it. Despite what you were told by some people at election time, the US jobless rate is 4.9% which is internationally low and has been roughly the same for 60 years. In the golden 1950s that rate was down to 4% and had a peak of 10% in the early 1980s. US employment is pretty darn stable.
> the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally come to a grinding halt
Nah. The mother of all tech progressions, AI, is just kicking in.
Nah. The mother of all tech progressions, AI, is just kicking in.
I don't understand how HN so easily handwaves away these enormous problems with "basic income". What do you do when the currency becomes completely worthless?
You will have to explain why you think currency would become worthless. That would be a monetary problem, not a fiscal one. Basic income is financed with debt and taxes, and monetary policy remains a separate concern.
We have already done things like basic income in the USA:
- Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
- Earned Income Tax Credit
Please provide some sort of argumentation or data.
We have already done things like basic income in the USA:
- Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
- Earned Income Tax Credit
Please provide some sort of argumentation or data.
Not sure if I agree with your analysis, but I certainly agree with your solution.
That's my point. I have a contrarian analysis. You have the conventional analysis. I think the conventional wisdom is wrong. It's frustrating that people just throw out economics and history and go for some sort of post-modern analysis of "things are so different now. No one could ever have imagined robots! We can't apply classical economics to the situation" Yes they could have, yes they did, and yes we can.
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Thank you! Finally someone who gets it.
IMHO these articles are fake news, journalists love beating the Automation is killing jobs drum.
IT certainly is changing and outsourcing is swings and roundabouts. But there's more work than ever.
IMHO these articles are fake news, journalists love beating the Automation is killing jobs drum.
IT certainly is changing and outsourcing is swings and roundabouts. But there's more work than ever.
Automation is "changing the world" provided you're finding excuses for why there are fewer jobs with worse pay that exculpate the 1%.
Suddenly the American oligarchy loses its faith in automation once you discuss potentially inflationary increases to public spending.
If we really are in an automation renaissance public spending could be ramped up massively and the potentially inflationary impact would be offset by all of the cost savings from replacing people with robots.
If.
Suddenly the American oligarchy loses its faith in automation once you discuss potentially inflationary increases to public spending.
If we really are in an automation renaissance public spending could be ramped up massively and the potentially inflationary impact would be offset by all of the cost savings from replacing people with robots.
If.
>IMHO these articles are fake news
Oh god, stop with this in every article.
This isn't "fake"; it isn't even "news".
News is either fake or not. A researched opinion piece isn't "fake" because you disagree with the conclusions. It might be wrong, but it isn't "fake".
Oh god, stop with this in every article.
This isn't "fake"; it isn't even "news".
News is either fake or not. A researched opinion piece isn't "fake" because you disagree with the conclusions. It might be wrong, but it isn't "fake".
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One upside to automation is that comparative advantage with regard to labour costs becomes much less important. This means that manufacturers can more easily afford to keep production in high wage economies.
There are other considerations of course, such as proximity to resources, transport hubs, and markets.
Ultimately though, this doesn't change the fact that automation is mostly beneficial to capital owners and not the wider workforce, so capitalism's tendency toward inequality (as described by Piketty) still applies.
There are other considerations of course, such as proximity to resources, transport hubs, and markets.
Ultimately though, this doesn't change the fact that automation is mostly beneficial to capital owners and not the wider workforce, so capitalism's tendency toward inequality (as described by Piketty) still applies.
> Ultimately though, this doesn't change the fact that automation is mostly beneficial to capital owners
I think that inequality will increase but not because of owning capital. Rather because this automation will shift demand away from unskilled workers and into software developers, marketing experts, etc. And I do not think that the supply of skilled worker can adapt fast enough, if any.
The good news (for the US) is that China will be the main casualty. In a way the US has already largely paid this tax to automation by outsourcing factory jobs to China. It is chinese factory workers that are going to be automated the first. Some low skilled jobs that couldn't be outsourced offshore like construction, taxis, etc will suffer but I'd argue a large part of the impact is behind us.
Obviously the tax paid to outsourcing is also having Trump at the white house.
I think that inequality will increase but not because of owning capital. Rather because this automation will shift demand away from unskilled workers and into software developers, marketing experts, etc. And I do not think that the supply of skilled worker can adapt fast enough, if any.
The good news (for the US) is that China will be the main casualty. In a way the US has already largely paid this tax to automation by outsourcing factory jobs to China. It is chinese factory workers that are going to be automated the first. Some low skilled jobs that couldn't be outsourced offshore like construction, taxis, etc will suffer but I'd argue a large part of the impact is behind us.
Obviously the tax paid to outsourcing is also having Trump at the white house.
While we'll have to agree to disagree about ownership of capital leading to increased inequality, I definitely agree with you when you say that you "do not think that the supply of skilled worker can adapt fast enough" to the demand. I think that while education is fundamental, even if it were always of a high quality and free, not everyone has the temperament or innate ability necessary to make the commitment to getting sufficiently qualified.
> ...agree to disagree about ownership of capital leading to increased inequality...
If it is not capital ownership, then some other inequality mechanism is at work if the automation trend is true, considering that as automation scoops the obvious and not-so-obvious patterns of workflows in the economy out of the labor market, proportionally none of the benefits accrue to those who are left creating that automation. Think about that for a second.
If you are one of the few who create the automation, then by definition what you are doing is currently not amenable to automation. You are creating a fabulous wealth machine with the automation, but by and large, unless you own a capital stake in that exercise, you will not see compensation proportional to the value you bring to the table. It's a curious dynamic to me, because due to classical economics, I would have expected capital to flow more readily to those whose work could not (yet) be automated, to accelerate delivery towards the proven benefits of automation.
If it is not capital ownership, then some other inequality mechanism is at work if the automation trend is true, considering that as automation scoops the obvious and not-so-obvious patterns of workflows in the economy out of the labor market, proportionally none of the benefits accrue to those who are left creating that automation. Think about that for a second.
If you are one of the few who create the automation, then by definition what you are doing is currently not amenable to automation. You are creating a fabulous wealth machine with the automation, but by and large, unless you own a capital stake in that exercise, you will not see compensation proportional to the value you bring to the table. It's a curious dynamic to me, because due to classical economics, I would have expected capital to flow more readily to those whose work could not (yet) be automated, to accelerate delivery towards the proven benefits of automation.
It would probably require 15-20 years if automation does reach the scale to have macro-level effects on employment. By that time China's economy will be 2x-3x bigger than it is now with GDP per capita around 30k USD. China would essentially be a developed country at that point.
It's easy to assume and take for granted that the US will create all the automation technology. However, I think it's more probable that China will move up the value chain and be the ones to own and develop these technologies, especially in manufacturing as China already has a super strong manufacturing ecosystem and talent (think Silicon Valley and Software).
If China owns the technology, the wealth would be in China so less will be available to spread around for basic income in developed countries like the US.
It's easy to assume and take for granted that the US will create all the automation technology. However, I think it's more probable that China will move up the value chain and be the ones to own and develop these technologies, especially in manufacturing as China already has a super strong manufacturing ecosystem and talent (think Silicon Valley and Software).
If China owns the technology, the wealth would be in China so less will be available to spread around for basic income in developed countries like the US.
> This means that manufacturers can more easily afford to keep production in high wage economies.
But this doesn't really bring jobs back, since they'll just be automated.
That's not to say there aren't other benefits aside from job creation, though.
But this doesn't really bring jobs back, since they'll just be automated.
That's not to say there aren't other benefits aside from job creation, though.
> But this doesn't really bring jobs back, since they'll just be automated.
Yeah, that's right. There would certainly be other benefits (and a limited number of jobs created) that are more indirect.
The real issue around automation in my opinion is how we as a society manage it. If we stay the course, it is clear that capital owners stand to benefit most (almost entirely I would say). We are already seeing problems with rising inequality due to diverging returns from capital and labour. This is going to exacerbate that hugely.
I'm generally in favour of capitalism but I think we are going to need to revisit 'the social contract' that allows capitalism to exist in exchange for a share of the rewards being used to ensure that society's basic needs are met. Just as when it was first negotiated by Bismark, this is going to have to be an initiative of the capital owners if serious unrest is to be avoided.
I'm hopeful and think that it is possible. Rich people are not inherently sociopathic. A good example of this sort of compromise in more modern times was the reaction of Kennedy snr when the US faced economic and social unrest. Partly through correspondence with Keynes he was convinced that if himself and his peers didn't take a hit for the good of wider society then they stood a good chance of losing a great deal more.
Every so often the social contract needs a reset (e.g. Bismark, the labour movement, the new deal, etc). Automation is going to make this more urgent. The one thing I am sure of is that it will be a political solution and not simply an economic one (e.g. less regulation, more free markets, etc).
Yeah, that's right. There would certainly be other benefits (and a limited number of jobs created) that are more indirect.
The real issue around automation in my opinion is how we as a society manage it. If we stay the course, it is clear that capital owners stand to benefit most (almost entirely I would say). We are already seeing problems with rising inequality due to diverging returns from capital and labour. This is going to exacerbate that hugely.
I'm generally in favour of capitalism but I think we are going to need to revisit 'the social contract' that allows capitalism to exist in exchange for a share of the rewards being used to ensure that society's basic needs are met. Just as when it was first negotiated by Bismark, this is going to have to be an initiative of the capital owners if serious unrest is to be avoided.
I'm hopeful and think that it is possible. Rich people are not inherently sociopathic. A good example of this sort of compromise in more modern times was the reaction of Kennedy snr when the US faced economic and social unrest. Partly through correspondence with Keynes he was convinced that if himself and his peers didn't take a hit for the good of wider society then they stood a good chance of losing a great deal more.
Every so often the social contract needs a reset (e.g. Bismark, the labour movement, the new deal, etc). Automation is going to make this more urgent. The one thing I am sure of is that it will be a political solution and not simply an economic one (e.g. less regulation, more free markets, etc).
Someone has to service the machines. Also, big machines are expensive to transport, so it makes sense to make them closer to where they will be used, leading to more service jobs.
There are also a lot of engineering jobs designing the hardware and software of these automated factories.
There are also a lot of engineering jobs designing the hardware and software of these automated factories.
The whole point of automation is to increase benefit by increasing productivity, i.e. by either increasing the production output for the same amount of jobs, or decreasing the amount of jobs needed for the same production.
Since we already produce about everything in the amount we need (and sometimes much more than we need), there is no point in increasing production (it would not be sold, consumed), so productivity gains will translate into cost reduction, i.e. less jobs.
Since we already produce about everything in the amount we need (and sometimes much more than we need), there is no point in increasing production (it would not be sold, consumed), so productivity gains will translate into cost reduction, i.e. less jobs.
No one is arguing that. The argument is if we should have automated factories in high paying regions (like the US). I'm arguing that having automated factories here is better than no factories here.
Yes, but this isn't very many jobs. The amount of labor per unit of productivity is drastically reduced in any case.
If we can attract new factories then it could be a net win, but someone will lose out (not china, but Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, and other countries that are trying to break into middle income).
If we can attract new factories then it could be a net win, but someone will lose out (not china, but Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, and other countries that are trying to break into middle income).
Some jobs is better than no jobs, right?
Actually no. Zero jobs would be best, because then -everything- that people didn't do for their own sense of enjoyment would be automated.
Well, there is the theory that employed masses are too busy to cause trouble (e.g. demand more equality), and much of our society is structured around keeping the non-upper class busy, even if that means making them move dirt between holes. The distribution of wealth sort of bears this out.
One outcome would be a utopia where everyone would share equally in this new prosperity. Another would be a distopia where the prosperity only went to the factory owners.
Doesn't the question then become how many and at what salary do these engineering jobs exist?
Seems like there typically are fewer jobs and the total compensation for labor is reduced when manufacturing is automated (why else would the company pursue such a course of action?)
Seems like there typically are fewer jobs and the total compensation for labor is reduced when manufacturing is automated (why else would the company pursue such a course of action?)
The engineering jobs already exist. Factory automation has been a big business for decades (Siemens, Rockwell Automation, Mitsubishi and others). They generally aren't high paying compared to Silicon Valley software engineers, but pay more than civil engineers.
Automation will continue, but labor will probably never be completely replaced within our lifetimes. I think it makes sense to have factories and make physical goods in the US. It is easier to bring hardware to market when the production is in the same timezone. I think it leads to a more robust economy even if there is heavy automation. There are still ancillary jobs associated with factories.
Automation will continue, but labor will probably never be completely replaced within our lifetimes. I think it makes sense to have factories and make physical goods in the US. It is easier to bring hardware to market when the production is in the same timezone. I think it leads to a more robust economy even if there is heavy automation. There are still ancillary jobs associated with factories.
It won't bring manual assembly line jobs back, but let's be honest: nothing will.
This was one of the more frustrating parts of this past election cycle:
"No candidate talked much about automation on the campaign trail. Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico, there is no clear way to stop it, and many of the technology companies are in the United States and benefit the country in many ways."
A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this seems painfully obvious to me, and I would hope most politicians are intelligent enough to see it as well. Unfortunately none of them have even talked about it, much less proposed solutions to help displaced workers.
"No candidate talked much about automation on the campaign trail. Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico, there is no clear way to stop it, and many of the technology companies are in the United States and benefit the country in many ways."
A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this seems painfully obvious to me, and I would hope most politicians are intelligent enough to see it as well. Unfortunately none of them have even talked about it, much less proposed solutions to help displaced workers.
Senator Ben Sasse has spoken about automation frequently.
https://twitter.com/SenSasse/status/806889568276336641
https://twitter.com/SenSasse/status/806889568276336641
>Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico
Technology is a MUCH more convenient villain. You can roll back 1% friendly trade agreements with China and Mexico. You can point pitchforks at the 1%. You can't roll back technological advancement and it's pointless to try.
You achieve nothing by being against technology except looking like an idiot, which is precisely why articles like this are trying to convince everybody that technology is the "villain".
Because god forbid Lloyd Blankfein and his cronies start being seen as villains.
>A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this seems painfully obvious to me,
Funny. As a software developer it seems painfully obvious to me just how far off we are from this supposed goal. All around me I see developers who shirk at even automating their own tests while getting excited over vaporware.
Technology is a MUCH more convenient villain. You can roll back 1% friendly trade agreements with China and Mexico. You can point pitchforks at the 1%. You can't roll back technological advancement and it's pointless to try.
You achieve nothing by being against technology except looking like an idiot, which is precisely why articles like this are trying to convince everybody that technology is the "villain".
Because god forbid Lloyd Blankfein and his cronies start being seen as villains.
>A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this seems painfully obvious to me,
Funny. As a software developer it seems painfully obvious to me just how far off we are from this supposed goal. All around me I see developers who shirk at even automating their own tests while getting excited over vaporware.
Its not just automation. There have been many more applications of optimization to reducing operating margins. At my company, there was, for example, a project aimed at identifying the optimal service intervals for heavy mining equipment. As a result of this work, it was possible to substantially reduce the amount of preventative maintenance that was being done on the machinery. It was found that not all of the preventive maintenance was cost effective.
This is a missing part of long stories about AI and automation. I too work in servicing of industrial equipment that is now being connected. The algorithms can be simple - after n running hours a component needs servicing. No fancy AI or automation, no over-hyped 'predictive maintenance' machine learning, just a 'connected machine'. As a result, the number of service engineers can be reduced significantly because they no longer over-service. This is not a robot taking someone's job, but a 10% efficiency gain in servicing equipment is a lot of people. It's across a skills range too - we have customers that range from minimum wage floor cleaners to PhD-level scientific equipment engineers.
It's interesting that many politicians, including Trump and Sanders, want policies to prevent jobs from leaving the US, but have no policy proposals around automation.
If you want manufacturing jobs to stay in the US, regulating automation would be far more effective than trying to prevent companies from outsourcing jobs. (Incidentally, a lot of jobs that have been outsourced probably would have been automated if outsourcing had not been possible, and that's what opponents of outsourcing are missing.)
I'm very much against a policy to restrict automation, but it's worth pointing out.
If you want manufacturing jobs to stay in the US, regulating automation would be far more effective than trying to prevent companies from outsourcing jobs. (Incidentally, a lot of jobs that have been outsourced probably would have been automated if outsourcing had not been possible, and that's what opponents of outsourcing are missing.)
I'm very much against a policy to restrict automation, but it's worth pointing out.
Being against automation does not make for good sound bites. But if the business of America is business (I forgot who said that, maybe Hoover or Coolidge?) and automation makes more profit, then it will happen assuming society doesn't fall apart first.
You know what else is interesting? The same part of the political spectrum that cites automation as the real cause of working class decline does not hesitate to rationalize mass immigration as necessary to fill the demand for labor. If automation is the problem then what are all the unskilled immigrants for?
What part of the political spectrum are you referring to? It certainly isn't part of the mainstream.
A Butlerian Jihad perhaps? Frank Herbet was really on to something in his Dune series.
It's about time for fruit picking to be automated. There are prototype systems, but they come from SRI International, not John Deere, and they're too fragile and too complicated mechanically. The vision system isn't the problem any more; that's simpler than a smartphone.
Once that works, California loses jobs about 2.1 million illegal immigrants.
Once that works, California loses jobs about 2.1 million illegal immigrants.
I'm not sure what everyone is so afraid of? There will be tensions and a political problem about redistribution if "simple" jobs dry up, sure, but isn't automation a good thing regardless? It means we make more stuff withuot putting in more effort.
Automation and industrialization over the last 150 years already meant we went from 120h weeks on farms to 40h weeks in offices and factories, while living standards increased. Measured in 40h/week jobs per person that means we lost 2 of 3 jobs in the industrialization! The world didn't end. And now everyone is worried that if we go from 40 to 30h or 20h weeks that will be a disaster?
We can't afford to have a large fraction of the people unemployed and the rest still working 40h weeks in ever fewer jobs of course, but that's a problem societies will hopefully solve.
Automation and industrialization over the last 150 years already meant we went from 120h weeks on farms to 40h weeks in offices and factories, while living standards increased. Measured in 40h/week jobs per person that means we lost 2 of 3 jobs in the industrialization! The world didn't end. And now everyone is worried that if we go from 40 to 30h or 20h weeks that will be a disaster?
We can't afford to have a large fraction of the people unemployed and the rest still working 40h weeks in ever fewer jobs of course, but that's a problem societies will hopefully solve.
This is a very idealistic view that I don't believe is based in reality.
While we still measure a person's worth out of how much they make, this is going to pose an enormous problem for all of us. We can't just take away people's livelihoods for the benefit of a few (us, to be honest).
There will be a violent reaction, as there has been every time this situation has arisen throughout history.
While we still measure a person's worth out of how much they make, this is going to pose an enormous problem for all of us. We can't just take away people's livelihoods for the benefit of a few (us, to be honest).
There will be a violent reaction, as there has been every time this situation has arisen throughout history.
> We can't just take away people's livelihoods for the benefit of a few
But how is shifting from e.g. production to services taking away peoples livielihood any more than shifting from farms to industry was?
> While we still measure a person's worth out of how much they make, this is going to pose an enormous problem for all of us.
Aren't most developed countries already either speculating in, or already effectively using shorter working hours now than say just one or two decades ago? Working less seems like the natural way to go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_...
Edit: I should add: I'm optimistic about this in societies with a high degree of labour organization, a flexible/agile political system, reasonably strong welfare states and a population that is positive towards working less in general.
Simply put: if you are in an OECD country and using kilograms you'll be fine.
But how is shifting from e.g. production to services taking away peoples livielihood any more than shifting from farms to industry was?
> While we still measure a person's worth out of how much they make, this is going to pose an enormous problem for all of us.
Aren't most developed countries already either speculating in, or already effectively using shorter working hours now than say just one or two decades ago? Working less seems like the natural way to go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Gradual_decrease_...
Edit: I should add: I'm optimistic about this in societies with a high degree of labour organization, a flexible/agile political system, reasonably strong welfare states and a population that is positive towards working less in general.
Simply put: if you are in an OECD country and using kilograms you'll be fine.
The service industry generally pays less and as a society we respect it less.
And service jobs are not immune to automation either, eg Eatsa.
And service jobs are not immune to automation either, eg Eatsa.
Four years ago, I was working full time. That job was automated away, but I found another part-time job that paid minimum wage for fewer hours, so my income dropped dramatically. That job was automated away, and I was very lucky to find a job (that ended up being around double full-time hours, but only paid for half of them, so legally I was paid about half of minimum wage), which went away. Now, I'm working one third of a full time job, for minimum wage. That doesn't even cover living costs, and it's looking like it'll be automated away in the next few months.
As working hours drop and wages tend toward minimum, we do indeed end up in a bad situation.
As working hours drop and wages tend toward minimum, we do indeed end up in a bad situation.
Sorry to hear about your job troubles. Can you share what you do that has been automated away? Were all these jobs in the same industry? If so, what are your plans to shift to jobs that are less prone to automation (if you don't mind my asking)?
Care to share what jobs you had that were automated away?
I can recommend the book The Second Machine Age that discuss this topic thoroughly:
https://www.amazon.com/Second-Machine-Age-Prosperity-Technol...
There is also a (imho) great SF short story by Marshall Brain about this: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
There is also a (imho) great SF short story by Marshall Brain about this: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
I guess we in tech have seen this coming for the past oh.. 25 years? Now it is really starting to hit home.
Another big thing that drives automation is the stock market. The stock market provides a bunch of money to companies that can show earnings growth. Used to be you could just expand globally. Well, all the big brands have done that now. So the next step is to cut costs. How?
Automate.
Without the stock market this might also happen but at a slower pace.
Another big thing that drives automation is the stock market. The stock market provides a bunch of money to companies that can show earnings growth. Used to be you could just expand globally. Well, all the big brands have done that now. So the next step is to cut costs. How?
Automate.
Without the stock market this might also happen but at a slower pace.
We have finally reached the age where humans can only do creative jobs. Humans are not good enough in doing heavy and repeating stuff. Robots on the other side are perfect for that. So the problem imho is not technology but lack of education.
Surprised I haven't seen CGP Grey's Humans Need Not Apply[1] video posted up in any of these automation discussions.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Anyone who thinks that automation isn't a big deal want to respond?
I'm also curious how we assume with such confidence that everything will be fine since we survived the Industrial Revolution when there was an order of magnitude less people on the planet in the 19th century?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Anyone who thinks that automation isn't a big deal want to respond?
I'm also curious how we assume with such confidence that everything will be fine since we survived the Industrial Revolution when there was an order of magnitude less people on the planet in the 19th century?
Whatever.
In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build up the automation expertise ourselves, and, while we wait for the End of Work, stop making the middle of our IQ bell curve compete with countries that don't give a shit about their environment, the concept of intellectual property or the safety of their workers.
We can figure the automation problem out later.
In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build up the automation expertise ourselves, and, while we wait for the End of Work, stop making the middle of our IQ bell curve compete with countries that don't give a shit about their environment, the concept of intellectual property or the safety of their workers.
We can figure the automation problem out later.
Automation saves money, bringing jobs back doesn't, that's why the jobs went away in the first place.
> In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build up the automation expertise ourselves
How? There's obvious long term financial value in having local supply chains and manufacturing expertise. Therefore state capitalist systems will subsidize local manufacturing in the short term, while anarcho-capitalist systems will flock to set up shop there to capture convert those short-term subsidies into short-term profit.
Do you have a solution that will work to build high-tech manufacturing infrastructure in the United States with no corporate incentives and no US government intervention? (I mean besides tweeting brags about job creation)
How? There's obvious long term financial value in having local supply chains and manufacturing expertise. Therefore state capitalist systems will subsidize local manufacturing in the short term, while anarcho-capitalist systems will flock to set up shop there to capture convert those short-term subsidies into short-term profit.
Do you have a solution that will work to build high-tech manufacturing infrastructure in the United States with no corporate incentives and no US government intervention? (I mean besides tweeting brags about job creation)
Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy. Check out the various regulation registries at the Federal level, the US is choking to death on thousands of unnecessary regulations (growing rapidly for decades) that are almost always written solely for the benefit of protectionism or for fake the-government-is-doing-something purposes (which happens at all levels).
The US corporate income tax rate has been a bad joke for a long time. Countries like Sweden at 22%, understood decades ago that it was bad economic policy to have a high rate. You tax the income of the wealthy as the offset. The US for example already has an extremely progressive personal income tax rate. For several decades the corporate income tax rate has been falling around the world; the world's average rate has fallen from near 30% to 22% in the last 12 years. The US isn't competitive, you see that in how we've been bleeding pharma & biotech companies off to Ireland. Over time, you start seeing R&D & operations offshoring because of that. Give it time and you've artificially created a lot more global competition through bad policy.
If you're a small to mid size manufacturer in the US, paying a 30% effective income tax rate is brutal if you want to compete globally while everyone else is paying far lower rates. Germany for example lowered their top rate by about 9 points a decade ago. Finland and Iceland have a 20% rate. Korea is at 24% and China at 25%. The European average is about 20%.
The US corporate income tax rate has been a bad joke for a long time. Countries like Sweden at 22%, understood decades ago that it was bad economic policy to have a high rate. You tax the income of the wealthy as the offset. The US for example already has an extremely progressive personal income tax rate. For several decades the corporate income tax rate has been falling around the world; the world's average rate has fallen from near 30% to 22% in the last 12 years. The US isn't competitive, you see that in how we've been bleeding pharma & biotech companies off to Ireland. Over time, you start seeing R&D & operations offshoring because of that. Give it time and you've artificially created a lot more global competition through bad policy.
If you're a small to mid size manufacturer in the US, paying a 30% effective income tax rate is brutal if you want to compete globally while everyone else is paying far lower rates. Germany for example lowered their top rate by about 9 points a decade ago. Finland and Iceland have a 20% rate. Korea is at 24% and China at 25%. The European average is about 20%.
The US effective tax rate for corporations is pretty much comparable to other developed countries' effective rates [1], because the US has more deductions, write-offs, and tax holidays.
If you're talking about cutting the statutory rate while also eliminating deductions and simplifying the code, I'm all for that (ditto for personal income taxes). A huge complicated tax code benefits big corporations more than your small business owner, because tax lawyers and accountants are largely a fixed cost.
But let's not keep repeating the misguided fact that US corporations pay unusually high taxes -- they simply don't.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/03/25/the-truth...
If you're talking about cutting the statutory rate while also eliminating deductions and simplifying the code, I'm all for that (ditto for personal income taxes). A huge complicated tax code benefits big corporations more than your small business owner, because tax lawyers and accountants are largely a fixed cost.
But let's not keep repeating the misguided fact that US corporations pay unusually high taxes -- they simply don't.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/03/25/the-truth...
When looking at effective tax rates, one might want to include the cost for all the experts employed to get to the difference between nominal and effective tax rate, and the brain drain these careers impose on more productive disciplines. But you will have a hard time finding a country where people are not convinced that their tax system is the worst, so maybe the US is not particularly bad in that way either.
The observation that a complicated makes the big guy part a lower effective rate than the small guy should be much more popular, I wish someone established a good name for it.
The observation that a complicated makes the big guy part a lower effective rate than the small guy should be much more popular, I wish someone established a good name for it.
> Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy.
That's a great way to destroy the environment and increase corporate profits, but I was asking about how to get companies to ignore the profit of offshoring; how to convince them to act in direct opposition to their shareholder's interests, and not take advantage of the subsidies provided by state capitalist systems and locate manufacturing overseas.
All cutting the tax rate is going to to is make offshoring more profitable. At no time in US history has a tax cut been correlated with business growth and job growth. Quite the contrary, The Bush tax repatriation holiday gave many businesses the working capital to invest in closing plants and moving factories overseas, resulting in the net job losses in many industries. But if you have hard data on examples of cutting taxes below a top marginal rate of 40% in western countries having any effect other than increasing income inequality, I'd love to see your peer reviewed study.
And is there a particular regulation that you can think of cutting that would have more of lure for for domestic manufacturing than China dumping trillions of dollars into currency manipulation and building infrastructure and manufacturing subsidies?
That's a great way to destroy the environment and increase corporate profits, but I was asking about how to get companies to ignore the profit of offshoring; how to convince them to act in direct opposition to their shareholder's interests, and not take advantage of the subsidies provided by state capitalist systems and locate manufacturing overseas.
All cutting the tax rate is going to to is make offshoring more profitable. At no time in US history has a tax cut been correlated with business growth and job growth. Quite the contrary, The Bush tax repatriation holiday gave many businesses the working capital to invest in closing plants and moving factories overseas, resulting in the net job losses in many industries. But if you have hard data on examples of cutting taxes below a top marginal rate of 40% in western countries having any effect other than increasing income inequality, I'd love to see your peer reviewed study.
And is there a particular regulation that you can think of cutting that would have more of lure for for domestic manufacturing than China dumping trillions of dollars into currency manipulation and building infrastructure and manufacturing subsidies?
Two things: firstly, the article was about the long term problem of automation, so not sure the meantime is a factor here. Secondly, who is to say that even without waiting there will be enough jobs returned to make any dent in the joblessness of that "middle of our IQ bell curve".
> stop making the middle of our IQ bell curve compete with countries that don't give a shit about their environment
FYI: The US produces way more CO2 per capita than China - about double, IIRC.
edit: source -http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations...
FYI: The US produces way more CO2 per capita than China - about double, IIRC.
edit: source -http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations...
The global market was still expanding so all efficiency gains from industrial revolution and the internet revolution were absorbed. Where as today the global economy is stagnating.
The efficiency gains in the next decade are expected to be a few times the rate of market growth which would put many people out of work making the global market contract further. This cycle could accelerate very quickly.
(I posted this on another thread this week where it was less relevant, so I'll just repost it here and see if anybody notices.)
Mass automation is undermining our democracy in a very specific way: it's acting as the ultimate "resource curse." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
"Countries with an abundance of natural resources, specifically non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources."
Scholars debate the causes of the resource curse, but one popular theory has to do with the way autocrats fund themselves relative to democracies.
Autocrats, it turns out, need a lot of wealth to pay their cronies. No dictator rules alone; they need someone to run the military, someone to collect the taxes, and someone to enforce the laws. Those people have to be paid, and handsomely, or they'll overthrow the dictator (or just allow the dictator to be overthrown). This is called "selectorate theory" and this video is a great introduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
Oil wealth, specifically, undermines democracy because when autocrats have access to oil wealth, they don't need to depend on their citizens very much. (Indeed, many oil-rich autocratic countries just allow other countries to come in and drill it, keeping local labor entirely out of the loop.)
Resource-cursed autocracies tend to democratize when the oil wealth runs out and they need to rely on the people's productivity to deliver wealth to cronies. When autocrats are forced to allow people to educate themselves and communicate with one another, democracy ensues.
It can work the other way, too. In every democracy, there's a group of folks asking themselves a question: is now the time to try a coup, to replace democracy with an autocracy? As the value of capital increases and the value of human labor decreases, the advantages of staging a coup become more and more enticing.
For years we've thought of human labor as the "ultimate resource." But it turns out that human labor isn't the ultimate resource. Robot labor that's just as good if not better than human labor is a resource beyond any we've ever seen.
But that means that we're discovering/inventing the ultimate resource curse.
We might use automation to fund universal basic income, or a class of elites could use it to undermine "unnecessary" citizens (the "unnecessariat"), establishing a corporate fascism.
When the government depends on human productivity for our tax base, the government needs to keep us all well-educated and healthy. But soon, government won't depend on human labor.
"Is now the time?" they're asking. And, increasingly, the answer is "yes."
Mass automation is undermining our democracy in a very specific way: it's acting as the ultimate "resource curse." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
"Countries with an abundance of natural resources, specifically non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources."
Scholars debate the causes of the resource curse, but one popular theory has to do with the way autocrats fund themselves relative to democracies.
Autocrats, it turns out, need a lot of wealth to pay their cronies. No dictator rules alone; they need someone to run the military, someone to collect the taxes, and someone to enforce the laws. Those people have to be paid, and handsomely, or they'll overthrow the dictator (or just allow the dictator to be overthrown). This is called "selectorate theory" and this video is a great introduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
Oil wealth, specifically, undermines democracy because when autocrats have access to oil wealth, they don't need to depend on their citizens very much. (Indeed, many oil-rich autocratic countries just allow other countries to come in and drill it, keeping local labor entirely out of the loop.)
Resource-cursed autocracies tend to democratize when the oil wealth runs out and they need to rely on the people's productivity to deliver wealth to cronies. When autocrats are forced to allow people to educate themselves and communicate with one another, democracy ensues.
It can work the other way, too. In every democracy, there's a group of folks asking themselves a question: is now the time to try a coup, to replace democracy with an autocracy? As the value of capital increases and the value of human labor decreases, the advantages of staging a coup become more and more enticing.
For years we've thought of human labor as the "ultimate resource." But it turns out that human labor isn't the ultimate resource. Robot labor that's just as good if not better than human labor is a resource beyond any we've ever seen.
But that means that we're discovering/inventing the ultimate resource curse.
We might use automation to fund universal basic income, or a class of elites could use it to undermine "unnecessary" citizens (the "unnecessariat"), establishing a corporate fascism.
When the government depends on human productivity for our tax base, the government needs to keep us all well-educated and healthy. But soon, government won't depend on human labor.
"Is now the time?" they're asking. And, increasingly, the answer is "yes."
Interesting perspective!
The biggest worry here is the automation of law enforcement. Once we're policed by robots, there's nobody to rise up against the dictators.
Maybe we should ensure that every person has one robot to do their work for them, and that's it. No robots for governments and corporations.
The biggest worry here is the automation of law enforcement. Once we're policed by robots, there's nobody to rise up against the dictators.
Maybe we should ensure that every person has one robot to do their work for them, and that's it. No robots for governments and corporations.
> Mass automation is undermining our democracy in a very specific way: it's acting as the ultimate "resource curse."
This. This exact thought occurred to me about a week ago -- to my shame, a full year after I read The Dictator's Handbook.
The natural concentration of robot ownership in the hands of a few creates the same autocracy dynamic as described in the book for oil and other natural resources. Also, robotic factories can be seized and controlled by an autocracy, just like oil wells. What's really scary about this is that threatens stable democracies, like the USA.
This. This exact thought occurred to me about a week ago -- to my shame, a full year after I read The Dictator's Handbook.
The natural concentration of robot ownership in the hands of a few creates the same autocracy dynamic as described in the book for oil and other natural resources. Also, robotic factories can be seized and controlled by an autocracy, just like oil wells. What's really scary about this is that threatens stable democracies, like the USA.
I think we have to deal with reality first, rather than delving into hypothetical situations where robots control the world. Currently, many countries are growing their population despite the reduction in jobs. Secondly, corruption in the government, and businesses that manipulate the government, is funneling money into a small group of people.
These are two issues that will actually help with both creating jobs and ensuring decent pay. Nobody really knows what will happen in the future. If there are robots that can do all of our work, who says that only extremely rich people will be able to afford them? Which technologies have stayed permanently unaffordable where there is consumer demand? Not that many.
These are two issues that will actually help with both creating jobs and ensuring decent pay. Nobody really knows what will happen in the future. If there are robots that can do all of our work, who says that only extremely rich people will be able to afford them? Which technologies have stayed permanently unaffordable where there is consumer demand? Not that many.
Self-driving cars and robots replacing factory workers are obviously just the beginning. How about computers that can program themselves? How about machines that can think and create like we do (and better)?
We approach 2017, we know climate change is a real threat, we know automation is going to be a big problem, we know we're consuming the world's resources at an alarming rate and there's 7.5 billion people on this rock...
I get the feeling the future won't be this Utopian scenario that some people are dreaming of.
We approach 2017, we know climate change is a real threat, we know automation is going to be a big problem, we know we're consuming the world's resources at an alarming rate and there's 7.5 billion people on this rock...
I get the feeling the future won't be this Utopian scenario that some people are dreaming of.
Time to invest in firearms. Apocalypse is near.
>How about computers that can program themselves
We've done that. Starting with the first language after Assembly.
We've done that. Starting with the first language after Assembly.
Automation, which is rooted in all of our brains.
We'll have to solve that paradox and change our mindset on life. Philosophy time.
We'll have to solve that paradox and change our mindset on life. Philosophy time.
Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness" is relevant here.
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
No kidding! Based on early nineteenth century trends, automation will result in most people being completely unable to do work of any kind by the middle of the twentieth century :( :(
Once productivity increases through bio hacking becomes possible, we may see the day when hacking yourself to be competitive for employment becomes an ethical problem.
Ever heard of a guy called Lance Armstrong? How many people routinely mess with their brain chemistry to fulfill self-imposed (via career expectation) performance expectations?
The long term job killer is UNFAIR access to automation decided by the costs of automation or political decision.
The revolt in late XIXth century in Europe were based on the generalisation of the steam engine that were favoring without any other merits than birth the wealthy and ripping the craftsmen of their jobs.
Diesel made an engine so craftsman could compete vs steam engine. The german government pre-empted his invention so that it would not disrupt the dominant position of big corporations...
Automation is not the problem, it is unfair access to automation decided by capital.
The revolt in late XIXth century in Europe were based on the generalisation of the steam engine that were favoring without any other merits than birth the wealthy and ripping the craftsmen of their jobs.
Diesel made an engine so craftsman could compete vs steam engine. The german government pre-empted his invention so that it would not disrupt the dominant position of big corporations...
Automation is not the problem, it is unfair access to automation decided by capital.
we not only need accelerated minimum wages consensus and field trials, but also defined way to remove wealth from the top few using such creative ways, that wealth still become desirable pursuit.
I think it's likely that automation will be a huge creator of jobs. And I'm not talking about creation of high skill jobs at the expense of destruction of low skill jobs. I'm talking about a net creation of both low and high skill jobs.
Allow me to explain. Here's a youtube movie of some robots in a Mercedes factory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VreG1iC65Lc
There are thousands of movies like that. Lots of robots doing a lot of work, and apparently displacing lots of jobs. But there are some jobs in the background. Someone has programmed those robots. But aren't those programmers (super-)highly skilled?
I don't know for sure, but it feels to me a robot is programed like an Excel macro: you record the moves, and then edit what you recorded. For an Excel macro, both parts are done (generally) by the same person, but for industrial robots, they are probably done by different people. The person who is being recorded needs only know how to manipulate a mechanical arm with a controller, that is probably not very different from a PS4 controller. The person who edits the macros, creates procedures, then combines them, optimizes them, creates tests, etc, etc, that person is a highly skilled individual. The other one not so much. The difference here is the capacity for abstraction.
Now, one could say that both these jobs happen only once, and then the robot performs the jobs thousands of times, so you have 2 new jobs (one high skill, one low skill) displacing thousands others. Alas, the programming, maintenance, re-programming, upgrading, not to mention construction of the robots still needs a small army of people. But overall, I agree that it's possible that introducing these robots resulted in a net job destruction for Mercedes and its suppliers (but not entirely sure; Mercedes was most likely more concerned with the quality of their cars rather than their cost of production).
However, not every manufacturer is similar to Mercedes. A lot of manufacturers produce things in smaller batches for example. And now you start to look at the trade-off of putting the automation in place:
https://xkcd.com/1205/
If a batch is small enough, the initial investment in automation is not recouped. If the batch is huge, the automation is a no-brainer. But there's a huge middle ground where only some partial automation makes sense. And part of that automation that makes sense is to do things using some mechanical arms moved by some PS4-type controller.
I think in the near future, a lot of the "mechanical" type of work (welding, cutting, soldering, hammering) will become remote-controlled. It might look like high-skilled now, but the job of a machinist was considered high-skilled 50 years ago, and essentially they are the same.
Now, the farther you are from the moving or hot or electricity-conducting parts, the farther you are from danger, and the more people can try something as a hobby. More importantly, the barrier of entry for a given (low-skilled) trade goes down, so people will be able to retrain themselves more quickly. And these people will be able to create more quickly.
Just like blogging has created millions of (unofficial, but money making) jobs, the advent of remote-controlled machines will create millions of new (low-skilled) jobs. And these remote-controlled machine will show up exactly because of the need for automation.
Allow me to explain. Here's a youtube movie of some robots in a Mercedes factory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VreG1iC65Lc
There are thousands of movies like that. Lots of robots doing a lot of work, and apparently displacing lots of jobs. But there are some jobs in the background. Someone has programmed those robots. But aren't those programmers (super-)highly skilled?
I don't know for sure, but it feels to me a robot is programed like an Excel macro: you record the moves, and then edit what you recorded. For an Excel macro, both parts are done (generally) by the same person, but for industrial robots, they are probably done by different people. The person who is being recorded needs only know how to manipulate a mechanical arm with a controller, that is probably not very different from a PS4 controller. The person who edits the macros, creates procedures, then combines them, optimizes them, creates tests, etc, etc, that person is a highly skilled individual. The other one not so much. The difference here is the capacity for abstraction.
Now, one could say that both these jobs happen only once, and then the robot performs the jobs thousands of times, so you have 2 new jobs (one high skill, one low skill) displacing thousands others. Alas, the programming, maintenance, re-programming, upgrading, not to mention construction of the robots still needs a small army of people. But overall, I agree that it's possible that introducing these robots resulted in a net job destruction for Mercedes and its suppliers (but not entirely sure; Mercedes was most likely more concerned with the quality of their cars rather than their cost of production).
However, not every manufacturer is similar to Mercedes. A lot of manufacturers produce things in smaller batches for example. And now you start to look at the trade-off of putting the automation in place:
https://xkcd.com/1205/
If a batch is small enough, the initial investment in automation is not recouped. If the batch is huge, the automation is a no-brainer. But there's a huge middle ground where only some partial automation makes sense. And part of that automation that makes sense is to do things using some mechanical arms moved by some PS4-type controller.
I think in the near future, a lot of the "mechanical" type of work (welding, cutting, soldering, hammering) will become remote-controlled. It might look like high-skilled now, but the job of a machinist was considered high-skilled 50 years ago, and essentially they are the same.
Now, the farther you are from the moving or hot or electricity-conducting parts, the farther you are from danger, and the more people can try something as a hobby. More importantly, the barrier of entry for a given (low-skilled) trade goes down, so people will be able to retrain themselves more quickly. And these people will be able to create more quickly.
Just like blogging has created millions of (unofficial, but money making) jobs, the advent of remote-controlled machines will create millions of new (low-skilled) jobs. And these remote-controlled machine will show up exactly because of the need for automation.
> Alas, the programming, maintenance, re-programming, upgrading, not to mention construction of the robots still needs a small army of people.
If automation doesn't result in absolutely massive savings on employment, it just won't happen. You're army of people is more like a small platoon -- the army being entirely displaced.
But I think there is something to be said about automation allowing for creation to become more accessible. It might make entire categories of small-scale products designed by small teams possible in ways that were not possible before.
If automation doesn't result in absolutely massive savings on employment, it just won't happen. You're army of people is more like a small platoon -- the army being entirely displaced.
But I think there is something to be said about automation allowing for creation to become more accessible. It might make entire categories of small-scale products designed by small teams possible in ways that were not possible before.
Right. Kiva warehouse robots are a particularly striking example. Before Amazon bought Kiva, they gave out info about operating costs. All the little mobile robots are interchangeable, so if one fails, it's just sidelined. You have somebody on site to replace batteries and wheels; anything non-trivial goes back to the factory. The entire Kiva company, which was servicing about a dozen big Internet retailers before Amazon bought them, was 600 people. A single warehouse automated with Kiva loses at least half its staff.
There is an interesting precedent for small scale production through automation, and it already played out twenty years ago: the possibilities of CNC-machining aluminium parts created a huge amount of diversity of offerings in the market of mountain bike parts. At the height of this wave you would have been able to equip a whole club of riders with different brake designs in funky anodized colors. Very few of those manufacturers survived, because mass production methods involving casting and forging still had (and have, and will likely continue to have) an edge in price and performance. It's nice to see the premium required for low volume production shrink, but I doubt that it will ever disappear.
The final stage are fully automated factory's on ships, going to where the resources are the cheapest. Receiving machinery from other ships, selling Kalashnikov and cellphones, to a mankind at war over boredom.
Good thing is though, machines dont need CEOs - so the last rat on the ship, might have the flagpoles cotton as towel.
That is unless they can invent so many boolshit jobs, that the hamster wheel keeps on churning.
Good thing is though, machines dont need CEOs - so the last rat on the ship, might have the flagpoles cotton as towel.
That is unless they can invent so many boolshit jobs, that the hamster wheel keeps on churning.
Does automation kill jobs in China?
That's Foxconn, and they're just getting started with replacing workers. Foxconn has 1.3 million employees. Hon Hai CEO Terry Gou: "Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache."
He means it. He brought in the director of the Tapei Zoo for advice on how to manage animals with different temperaments.
He means it. He brought in the director of the Tapei Zoo for advice on how to manage animals with different temperaments.
Countries where manufacturing makes up a big proportion of their economy are likely to suffer most because manufacturing is the low hanging fruit for automation.
Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
We're going to have to find ways to help people stay busy/occupied. Otherwise, society will just turn nasty.
We're going to have to find ways to help people stay busy/occupied. Otherwise, society will just turn nasty.
We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighted vision.
What will it mean to work and contribute to society in the future of machines?