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Machinist these days is several orders of magnitude more productive than manicurist. They make similar amounts of money. Cost of production mostly depends on s
by vlehto 11y ago
Machinist these days is several orders of magnitude more productive than manicurist. They make similar amounts of money.
Cost of production mostly depends on salaries, machinery and raw materials. Company that produces machinery has the same structure. So does company that produces the raw materials. In the end, all costs of production are related to human work.
If 90% of current jobs are automated, then purchase parity controlled prices of current products fall by ~90% too. (If competition happens.) Which means average consumer has 90% of their budget to spend on new stuff. That new stuff is going to employ people.
The fact that nobody here has any idea what those people are going to do, doesn't mean there is nothing to do. There are possible problems though. The type of person most needed might not be the most common psychological make up present in the population. Like currently with software developers. Also shift from production to services might require income inequality to work.
- ThomPete 11y agoAverage consumer (those 90%) don't have a job so they don't have any money to spend with. The cost of living is going up not down mainly because of urbanization. "The fact that nobody here has any idea what those people are going to do, doesn't mean there is nothing to do. " Thats not how it works. You would already now see plenty of new types of jobs replacing those that are lost. This is a gradual process although perhaps exponential. In other words you would already now see new types of jobs that would pay someone enough to live off and the prices go down on things. They are not and thats despite us needing less and less people for things.
- vlehto 11y agoMy great grandfathers we're all farmers. Only one of my cousins is a farmer. That supposed "90% don't have any income" -event already happened. My extended family is richer than ever. Human beings have tendency to find new jobs before they hit rock bottom and help each other out. That probably explains lot of this dynamic. Purchase parity controlled cost of square meter of habitable indoors space has remained pretty stable. People just want bigger houses. And are more willing to pay for it than before. >You would already now see plenty of new types of jobs replacing those that are lost. Short term yes. Short term seems to work out as unemployment is well below 20% in EU and U.S. But 30 years from now? Nobody has any idea. Just like for the past century. In other words, why is this time really different? Automation has been happening for a long time now. Computerized automation has been happening since 70's. Secretaries going unemployed did not cause permanent dent on employment.
- ThomPete 11y agoIt's not different this time because it's not a different time. It's just that technology is a very long trend who's exponential growth is now starting to rear it's ugly head. It used to be a tool to help us compete with others. Those who used them best got the biggest productivity gains. But now technology is not just competing with our muscles it's competing with our brains. Thats why it's different. We are moving away from a world where technology was our servant to a world were it very well be our master. Again your analogy says nothing when you take it in the bigger evolutionary perspective. There are no natural laws that says that just because something been a certain way for 150 years it will always be like that. The bigger trend shows no special treatment of humans.
- vlehto 11y agoI don't get what this bigger trend is that shows how humans will be slaves for technology. Could you explain please?
- ThomPete 11y agoTechnology is able to simulate higher and higher levels of abstraction. Did the horses find other jobs after cars renderede them useless for transportation? No because something better equipped at that job came along. Why do you think it will be any different for us? We also have limits. Computers on the other hand their limits are way beyond ours because they can reproduce faster than us, they can learn faster than us, they can endure more than we can. They are perfectly equipped for going into outspace. They can simulate almost everything maybe even black holes one day. And so on. We have only just started to explore what AI can do. We are barely a second into the potential. Evolution didn't start with humans either. It'e a continues process that start simple but eventually build something quite extraordinary. Some would say that biology found a way to reproduce even faster trough technology and the digital space.
- vlehto 11y agoThat is strong AI argument. If strong AI happens, I'm not worried about income inequality, jobs, economy or anything like that. How world is for humans after that point depends completely how somebody managed to program ethics and motivation into that AI. That AI probably can learn and modify itself, so the original designers probably can't even foresee what is going to happen. It's impossible to imagine something more intelligent than you. So any science fiction on the subject is bound to fall short. If we choose to be afraid of that, only real option is to go full unabomber.