8 ms·

Economics in One Lesson: "The Curse of Machinery"

34 points by lionhearted 17y ago

pmichaud 17y ago
This goes through historical examples of when machinery that automated jobs did not actually, over the long term, create job loss. His position is that that will be the case forever... but he doesn't actually prove it. I think his assumption is that since it's happened with steam engines and industrial looms, it'll happen again with robots and the internet?
- kiba 17y ago
  Well, who will the create robots that maintain the robots? AIs? Cyborgs? Now, robots can create all that stuff and maintain it all. Who will it sell it to? Even if robots can create all the stuff and then sell it, who is responsible for the entrepreneural function? AIs? Cyborgs? If robots take over every single jobs in the world? What will really happen? Moreover, who will own these robots? Maybe robots become cheap enough that everyone own bots? If we become machines, than what are robots? Robots and machinery aren't free lunch! The automation thread is just getting started, and we have not figured out how to automate entrepreneurship yet! And even if we do, we might already become machines!
  - sophacles 17y ago
    Note: parent edited while i was replying. This is in response to the first 2 lines. (who will maintain the robots) Well, first it can probably be assumed that there will be a few standard robot types. These will be cheaper to replace than to repair. One of the standard robots will be a replacer robot which can swap out all the standard robot types (including other replacer robots). I presume that the few standard type robots can themselves be assembled by robots. Then it is simply a matter of having two (or more) robotic factories with the necessary stuff to create a robotic factory. Should one factory fail, a robotic robot will become the number 1 manufacturing priority. Now since the robotic robot factories would become ideal targets for sabatuers and terrorists and the like, a better step would be for each robot to know how to create a robotic robot facotory built in. Then even if both robotic robot factories fail, they can team up with the nearest robots to create a new robotic robot factory.
    - gills 17y ago
      Robot of the future == the ghost of java programs past? :p
- roundsquare 17y ago
  I think his assumption is that since it's happened with steam engines and industrial looms, it'll happen again with robots and the internet? Not really, he presents a general argument (though he uses a specific example). Basically: Automation --> Efficiency --> More Income Somewhere --> More Jobs You can argue that he is wrong, but he isn't relying solely on history to prove his point, he has a model in mind.
sophacles 17y ago
So, number of jobs is the only variable that matters? Compare the lifestyles of the 7900 old-style weavers to those of the textile factory workers. Who lived longer on average? Who ate better? Who had time for family? Strictly in terms of money: what was the wage of a spinner and what was the wage of a textile worker? I'm not saying that machines are bad, I'm saying this argument leaves out an awful lot of info -- unless you take on faith that more jobs == better.
- netcan 17y ago
  The "argument" is about jobs. You may want to talk about something else, but that is not what the article is about. It is an answer to the claim that automation created unemployment, not that automation is better.
  - sophacles 17y ago
    The article pretty obviously is written under the assumption that more jobs is better. I am challenging that assumption. I am not suggesting that the article does not show how more jobs are created. The fact remains unchanged that a bunch of people got the crap end of the automation stick. It is not unreasonable to think that maybe there was a better way to got about the automation that was both good for the people being displaced, and created a bunch of jobs? My previous questions were sort of aimed here, but when I wrote them I had not yet coherently formed this most recent question.
    - netcan 17y ago
      This is like when someone calls in to call in radio show about how the new way of qualifying for the rugby world cup asking "should we really be encouraging our kids to play such a violent game?" OK. Good Question. We can talk about that next week. Today we're talking about qualifying matches. Most people who listen to this show like rugby, so we probably will keep relying on the assumption that rugby is fun and we should keep doing it. Yes. There is an assumption that employment is better then unemployment, indirectly. The point being challenged (automation causes unemployment) assumes that unemployment is bad and the counterargument goes on assuming that. It doesn't (as you suggest) assume that employment is the only possibly important thing in the world. If you would like to make the case that employment is not good or that automation is bad for some reason not related to employment, go ahead. It is perfectly reasonable to write that article with the assumptions that it made.
ryandvm 17y ago
I'm not sure how the rest of it will pan out, but we are right on the cusp of a pretty significant job takeover by robots. Truck drivers. Consider that we already have vehicles (in prototype) that can outperform a human behind the wheel. Hell, Stanford is sending an Audi TT up Pike's Peak at 100+ mph (http://bit.ly/9akGU1 http://bit.ly/9akGU1). And consider that truck drivers are basically meat-based robots anyway inasmuch as they are all practically interchangeable. Once the first trucking company gets the idea to start replacing drivers, that's going to put them at such an insane competitive advantage that the rest of the industry will have no choice but to follow suit. No downtime, no accidents, far cheaper, no irresponsible behavior. Once the process is started, the entire delivery driver industry is going to be obsoleted within 12 years. That will be the first time a massive number of people perk up their eyebrows and start wondering if their job is far behind...
- gridspy 17y ago
  It gets more exciting when you have companies creating robotic forklifts (http://www.inro.co.nz/automated-forklift/ http://www.inro.co.nz/automated-forklift/), so the end-to-end manufacturing, loading, shipping and unloading could potentially all be automated. I wonder if a robo-shipping vessel would be next? With radar, anti-pirating water cannons and no accessible decks, galley, etc it would be a huge boon for shipping. Then again, I don't know how uneventful those journeys are. Hopefully the govt can step up with some way of re-educating employees obsoleted industries into something that interests those citizens.
  - philk 17y ago
    To be honest I imagine that a robo-shipping vessel would be easier to create than robo-trucks. for several reasons: * The ships are larger and more expensive and hence the add on expense is smaller, comparatively * There's less traffic around and the traffic that is around is likely to have on board beacons, etc * The ships already have more sophisticated instrumentation than trucks (radar, etc)
    - cubix 17y ago
_delirium 17y ago
FWIW, here's a 1983 National Academy of Engineering report on the topic: http://books.google.com/books?id=hS0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1 http://books.google.com/books?id=hS0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1
padmanabhan01 17y ago
"While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired." -- Milton Friedman
netcan 17y ago
There is an even more common fallacy that is even harder, probably impossible to kill: trade create unemployment. I find the argument very convincing that trade, from the perspective of one partner is exactly like technology. Found a way to produce grapes in a building cheaply; Found a way produce grapes in a shoe factory.
cageface 17y ago
I think it may be more interesting in many ways to consider not only the amount of work that machines might create or destroy but the nature of that work. John Ruskin had some very interesting things to say about this in the early industrial era: http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2008/02/ruskin-work-and-nature-of-gothic.html http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2008/02/ruskin-work-and-na...
bluedanieru 17y ago
Higher average productivity is great, but the problem America has at the moment is an ever-widening gap in income, and very little political will to do anything about it. An important passage in the article: William Felkin, in his History of the Machine-Wrought Hosiery Manufactures (1867), tells us (though the statement seems implausible) that the larger part of the 50,000 English stocking knitters and their families did not fully emerge from the hunger and misery entailed by the introduction of the machine for the next forty years. If this is true it is a big deal. Suppose you invent a device that will double economic output while putting half the population out of work. There's no question the device needs to be put to use, but something needs to be done about all these displaced people as well. Much of the surplus in productivity borne of your invention will need to be used to help those people switch to other work, allow them to retire early, etc. In other words you will be taxed heavily, something which is very hard to do these days in the States. So the American worker seems especially vulnerable to displacement by automation, and you get this scapegoating of machinery. If you don't like it, next time you hear some jerk on the radio bleating about high taxes and socialism, think about where that money might be going, and vote accordingly.

34 points by lionhearted 17y ago

This goes through historical examples of when machinery that automated jobs did not actually, over the long term, create job loss. His position is that that will be the case forever... but he doesn't actually prove it. I think his assumption is that since it's happened with steam engines and industrial looms, it'll happen again with robots and the internet?

kiba 17y ago
Well, who will the create robots that maintain the robots? AIs? Cyborgs? Now, robots can create all that stuff and maintain it all. Who will it sell it to? Even if robots can create all the stuff and then sell it, who is responsible for the entrepreneural function? AIs? Cyborgs? If robots take over every single jobs in the world? What will really happen? Moreover, who will own these robots? Maybe robots become cheap enough that everyone own bots? If we become machines, than what are robots? Robots and machinery aren't free lunch! The automation thread is just getting started, and we have not figured out how to automate entrepreneurship yet! And even if we do, we might already become machines!
- sophacles 17y ago
  Note: parent edited while i was replying. This is in response to the first 2 lines. (who will maintain the robots) Well, first it can probably be assumed that there will be a few standard robot types. These will be cheaper to replace than to repair. One of the standard robots will be a replacer robot which can swap out all the standard robot types (including other replacer robots). I presume that the few standard type robots can themselves be assembled by robots. Then it is simply a matter of having two (or more) robotic factories with the necessary stuff to create a robotic factory. Should one factory fail, a robotic robot will become the number 1 manufacturing priority. Now since the robotic robot factories would become ideal targets for sabatuers and terrorists and the like, a better step would be for each robot to know how to create a robotic robot facotory built in. Then even if both robotic robot factories fail, they can team up with the nearest robots to create a new robotic robot factory.
  - gills 17y ago
    Robot of the future == the ghost of java programs past? :p
roundsquare 17y ago
I think his assumption is that since it's happened with steam engines and industrial looms, it'll happen again with robots and the internet? Not really, he presents a general argument (though he uses a specific example). Basically: Automation --> Efficiency --> More Income Somewhere --> More Jobs You can argue that he is wrong, but he isn't relying solely on history to prove his point, he has a model in mind.

sophacles 17y ago

So, number of jobs is the only variable that matters? Compare the lifestyles of the 7900 old-style weavers to those of the textile factory workers. Who lived longer on average? Who ate better? Who had time for family? Strictly in terms of money: what was the wage of a spinner and what was the wage of a textile worker? I'm not saying that machines are bad, I'm saying this argument leaves out an awful lot of info -- unless you take on faith that more jobs == better.

netcan 17y ago
The "argument" is about jobs. You may want to talk about something else, but that is not what the article is about. It is an answer to the claim that automation created unemployment, not that automation is better.
- sophacles 17y ago
  The article pretty obviously is written under the assumption that more jobs is better. I am challenging that assumption. I am not suggesting that the article does not show how more jobs are created. The fact remains unchanged that a bunch of people got the crap end of the automation stick. It is not unreasonable to think that maybe there was a better way to got about the automation that was both good for the people being displaced, and created a bunch of jobs? My previous questions were sort of aimed here, but when I wrote them I had not yet coherently formed this most recent question.
  - netcan 17y ago
    This is like when someone calls in to call in radio show about how the new way of qualifying for the rugby world cup asking "should we really be encouraging our kids to play such a violent game?" OK. Good Question. We can talk about that next week. Today we're talking about qualifying matches. Most people who listen to this show like rugby, so we probably will keep relying on the assumption that rugby is fun and we should keep doing it. Yes. There is an assumption that employment is better then unemployment, indirectly. The point being challenged (automation causes unemployment) assumes that unemployment is bad and the counterargument goes on assuming that. It doesn't (as you suggest) assume that employment is the only possibly important thing in the world. If you would like to make the case that employment is not good or that automation is bad for some reason not related to employment, go ahead. It is perfectly reasonable to write that article with the assumptions that it made.

ryandvm 17y ago

I'm not sure how the rest of it will pan out, but we are right on the cusp of a pretty significant job takeover by robots. Truck drivers. Consider that we already have vehicles (in prototype) that can outperform a human behind the wheel. Hell, Stanford is sending an Audi TT up Pike's Peak at 100+ mph (http://bit.ly/9akGU1 http://bit.ly/9akGU1). And consider that truck drivers are basically meat-based robots anyway inasmuch as they are all practically interchangeable. Once the first trucking company gets the idea to start replacing drivers, that's going to put them at such an insane competitive advantage that the rest of the industry will have no choice but to follow suit. No downtime, no accidents, far cheaper, no irresponsible behavior. Once the process is started, the entire delivery driver industry is going to be obsoleted within 12 years. That will be the first time a massive number of people perk up their eyebrows and start wondering if their job is far behind...

gridspy 17y ago
It gets more exciting when you have companies creating robotic forklifts (http://www.inro.co.nz/automated-forklift/ http://www.inro.co.nz/automated-forklift/), so the end-to-end manufacturing, loading, shipping and unloading could potentially all be automated. I wonder if a robo-shipping vessel would be next? With radar, anti-pirating water cannons and no accessible decks, galley, etc it would be a huge boon for shipping. Then again, I don't know how uneventful those journeys are. Hopefully the govt can step up with some way of re-educating employees obsoleted industries into something that interests those citizens.
- philk 17y ago
  To be honest I imagine that a robo-shipping vessel would be easier to create than robo-trucks. for several reasons: * The ships are larger and more expensive and hence the add on expense is smaller, comparatively * There's less traffic around and the traffic that is around is likely to have on board beacons, etc * The ships already have more sophisticated instrumentation than trucks (radar, etc)
  - cubix 17y ago

_delirium 17y ago

FWIW, here's a 1983 National Academy of Engineering report on the topic: http://books.google.com/books?id=hS0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1 http://books.google.com/books?id=hS0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1

padmanabhan01 17y ago

"While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired." -- Milton Friedman

netcan 17y ago

There is an even more common fallacy that is even harder, probably impossible to kill: trade create unemployment. I find the argument very convincing that trade, from the perspective of one partner is exactly like technology. Found a way to produce grapes in a building cheaply; Found a way produce grapes in a shoe factory.

cageface 17y ago

I think it may be more interesting in many ways to consider not only the amount of work that machines might create or destroy but the nature of that work. John Ruskin had some very interesting things to say about this in the early industrial era: http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2008/02/ruskin-work-and-nature-of-gothic.html http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/2008/02/ruskin-work-and-na...

bluedanieru 17y ago

Higher average productivity is great, but the problem America has at the moment is an ever-widening gap in income, and very little political will to do anything about it. An important passage in the article: William Felkin, in his History of the Machine-Wrought Hosiery Manufactures (1867), tells us (though the statement seems implausible) that the larger part of the 50,000 English stocking knitters and their families did not fully emerge from the hunger and misery entailed by the introduction of the machine for the next forty years. If this is true it is a big deal. Suppose you invent a device that will double economic output while putting half the population out of work. There's no question the device needs to be put to use, but something needs to be done about all these displaced people as well. Much of the surplus in productivity borne of your invention will need to be used to help those people switch to other work, allow them to retire early, etc. In other words you will be taxed heavily, something which is very hard to do these days in the States. So the American worker seems especially vulnerable to displacement by automation, and you get this scapegoating of machinery. If you don't like it, next time you hear some jerk on the radio bleating about high taxes and socialism, think about where that money might be going, and vote accordingly.