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Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this

Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this would work is often ignored. > Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they're paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts. No, the workers are now fired. They don't get a raise. > The advanced robo-restaurant technology would itself be a valuable American export good, and people would be employed in designing and selling it. Yes, but not the people we just fired. > Some low-wage work would be reallocated out of the relatively low-social-value restaurant sector and into things like child care and home health assistance, for which there is ample demand. If there is ample demand for such things, and those things pay better, and typical restaurant workers are qualified, then we should already see a mass exodus from restaurant work. We don't. Thus one of these things isn't true. > Since poor people are now making more money... You have not given any evidence to support this.

HillaryBriss 11y ago
> The advanced robo-restaurant technology would itself be a valuable American export good ... Yeah. I don't know about this one either. Why do I get the feeling America will be buying a really large fraction of those robots from overseas?
bradleyprice 11y ago
This was my thought as well. I'm not even sure how to judge this article. It seems very misinformed with making assumptions without any supporting evidence on how we get there. It's true that automation would bring in new jobs, but not the jobs that the people affected would be able to jump into. As far as the whole child care and home health jobs go, I'm not sure there would be a mass influx of opportunities there. I don't know if I've ever personally seen employees at a daycare making much more than minimum wage and there's already a thin margin with daycares. So, I'd think they'd be in same trouble as a restaurant employee.
- protomyth 11y ago
  Daycare is a hard industry to pay decent wages since it's basically a replacement for an adult to stay home and the child to staff ratio is a factor (infants were 3 to 1 staff). Also, about 1/2 the population (males) are heavily discriminated against (85+% women). I did budgets for a group of daycares serving 45 families in the 90's and we did not pay well even for ND.
curiousgeorgio 11y ago
> Some low-wage work would be reallocated ... Since poor people are now making more money, there will be opportunities to sell them things — things like restaurant meals! — that they couldn't previously afford, which in turn creates demand for new jobs. Even if the poor people were making more money, the rest of the logic here is equally as flawed; somehow by firing people and replacing them with machines, those people will spend more money, and that will create the same jobs for which they were replaced by machines. Kind of a new twist on circular logic where each point in the circle is also a logical fallacy.
cornholio 11y ago
You are essentially making the luddite case. The counterargument usually goes like this: yes, people would be fired and there will be serious pain in the short run; however the machines will drastically improve productivity, therefore reduce prices, so real wages will go up along with demand and the extra income not spent on, say, buying feed stock for your horse, will go in creating other jobs and economic sectors that will make use of the available labor. The government can and should ease the transition by offering skill-training and incentives. While economically sound, I'm skeptical this process can go on forever. The human biology and mind is clearly limited, while the progress of machines does not seem to be. So eventually you will hit a fundamental limit where larger and larger chunks of the workforce will simply be too old, uneducated or simply too human to keep up. How close we are to this fundamental limit it's anyone's guess, but I would venture to say we are closer than most think. At the point where a serious part of the population is unable to participate in the labor market, this ceases to be an appropriate system to distribute the fruits of economic activity and some form of basic income is required to maintain social order.
- deegles 11y ago
  I read somewhere that the amount of people employed in the transportation industry is roughly equal to the tech industry. If 75% or more become redundant, where will they go? Certainly not the restaurant industry... One theory I have about all of the coding "boot camps" popping up is that they are preparing for an exodus of people from the next job sector to be automated/eliminated (auto-lated?).
  - protomyth 11y ago
    If you look at the most popular job in each state, you will find truck driving is either #1 or pretty high on the list.
    - greeneggs 11y ago
      Citation: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t... The prevalence of secretaries from 1984-1988 is interesting, too.
fleitz 11y ago
In 1900 there were 1.6 billion people, and we had a lot less technology, with many people living in poverty. In 2016, there are 7 billion people, we have a lot less technology, only about 1 billion still live in poverty. If technology 'killed' jobs we shouldn't have more than about 400 million people employed in the world.
mangeletti 11y ago
I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only thing raising the minimum wage does is punish people like my little brother who worked so hard to get to $14/hr. If minimum wage is raised to $15, he will earn minimum wage again. This means the buying power he has earned over the past 3 years will be lost to those who should be starting where he started 3 years ago. If you don't understand the difference between that and prosperity, then you're an idiot. That's not an ad hominem attack. That's meant in the literal sense.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Minimum wage increases, experience has shown, put upward pressure on wages generally. It is not the case that everyone making between the old minimum wage and the new minimum wage ends up at the new minimum after the change.
  - SEJeff 11y ago
    Source? I'd like to read up on that.
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    Let's continue your thought: If minimum wage increases put upward pressure on wages generally, then what happens? Higher wage levels in general means more money in people's pockets, and this can turn into general price inflation (especially since business costs have risen due to the general level of wages going up). So let's assume you now have inflation. This means everything just got more expensive, so now that new higher wage level buys you less and less. And now the people who are completely out of work and can't command the minimum wage for their skills/labor are even farther behind.
    - petra 11y ago
blazespin 11y ago
Yes, people will be fired. Yes, that is fine. Yes, we need a minimum guaranteed income as a result of increased automation. Ideally, you'd get the income for going to school and learning.
sharkjacobs 11y ago
remember a hundred years ago, when 90% of Americans were employed in agriculture? Remember when tractors were invented, and now only 2% of americans work in agriculture? Yeah, it sucks that 88% of americans are unemployed now.
- refurb 11y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. Just replace whatever job people are saying will be automated with {horse shoe maker, blacksmith,farmer} and you'd swear the current discussion was taking place in the 1900's.

HillaryBriss 11y ago

> The advanced robo-restaurant technology would itself be a valuable American export good ... Yeah. I don't know about this one either. Why do I get the feeling America will be buying a really large fraction of those robots from overseas?

bradleyprice 11y ago

This was my thought as well. I'm not even sure how to judge this article. It seems very misinformed with making assumptions without any supporting evidence on how we get there. It's true that automation would bring in new jobs, but not the jobs that the people affected would be able to jump into. As far as the whole child care and home health jobs go, I'm not sure there would be a mass influx of opportunities there. I don't know if I've ever personally seen employees at a daycare making much more than minimum wage and there's already a thin margin with daycares. So, I'd think they'd be in same trouble as a restaurant employee.

protomyth 11y ago
Daycare is a hard industry to pay decent wages since it's basically a replacement for an adult to stay home and the child to staff ratio is a factor (infants were 3 to 1 staff). Also, about 1/2 the population (males) are heavily discriminated against (85+% women). I did budgets for a group of daycares serving 45 families in the 90's and we did not pay well even for ND.

curiousgeorgio 11y ago

> Some low-wage work would be reallocated ... Since poor people are now making more money, there will be opportunities to sell them things — things like restaurant meals! — that they couldn't previously afford, which in turn creates demand for new jobs. Even if the poor people were making more money, the rest of the logic here is equally as flawed; somehow by firing people and replacing them with machines, those people will spend more money, and that will create the same jobs for which they were replaced by machines. Kind of a new twist on circular logic where each point in the circle is also a logical fallacy.

cornholio 11y ago

You are essentially making the luddite case. The counterargument usually goes like this: yes, people would be fired and there will be serious pain in the short run; however the machines will drastically improve productivity, therefore reduce prices, so real wages will go up along with demand and the extra income not spent on, say, buying feed stock for your horse, will go in creating other jobs and economic sectors that will make use of the available labor. The government can and should ease the transition by offering skill-training and incentives. While economically sound, I'm skeptical this process can go on forever. The human biology and mind is clearly limited, while the progress of machines does not seem to be. So eventually you will hit a fundamental limit where larger and larger chunks of the workforce will simply be too old, uneducated or simply too human to keep up. How close we are to this fundamental limit it's anyone's guess, but I would venture to say we are closer than most think. At the point where a serious part of the population is unable to participate in the labor market, this ceases to be an appropriate system to distribute the fruits of economic activity and some form of basic income is required to maintain social order.

deegles 11y ago
I read somewhere that the amount of people employed in the transportation industry is roughly equal to the tech industry. If 75% or more become redundant, where will they go? Certainly not the restaurant industry... One theory I have about all of the coding "boot camps" popping up is that they are preparing for an exodus of people from the next job sector to be automated/eliminated (auto-lated?).
- protomyth 11y ago
  If you look at the most popular job in each state, you will find truck driving is either #1 or pretty high on the list.
  - greeneggs 11y ago
    Citation: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t... The prevalence of secretaries from 1984-1988 is interesting, too.

fleitz 11y ago

In 1900 there were 1.6 billion people, and we had a lot less technology, with many people living in poverty. In 2016, there are 7 billion people, we have a lot less technology, only about 1 billion still live in poverty. If technology 'killed' jobs we shouldn't have more than about 400 million people employed in the world.

mangeletti 11y ago

I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only thing raising the minimum wage does is punish people like my little brother who worked so hard to get to $14/hr. If minimum wage is raised to $15, he will earn minimum wage again. This means the buying power he has earned over the past 3 years will be lost to those who should be starting where he started 3 years ago. If you don't understand the difference between that and prosperity, then you're an idiot. That's not an ad hominem attack. That's meant in the literal sense.

dragonwriter 11y ago
Minimum wage increases, experience has shown, put upward pressure on wages generally. It is not the case that everyone making between the old minimum wage and the new minimum wage ends up at the new minimum after the change.
- SEJeff 11y ago
  Source? I'd like to read up on that.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  Let's continue your thought: If minimum wage increases put upward pressure on wages generally, then what happens? Higher wage levels in general means more money in people's pockets, and this can turn into general price inflation (especially since business costs have risen due to the general level of wages going up). So let's assume you now have inflation. This means everything just got more expensive, so now that new higher wage level buys you less and less. And now the people who are completely out of work and can't command the minimum wage for their skills/labor are even farther behind.
  - petra 11y ago

blazespin 11y ago

Yes, people will be fired. Yes, that is fine. Yes, we need a minimum guaranteed income as a result of increased automation. Ideally, you'd get the income for going to school and learning.

sharkjacobs 11y ago

remember a hundred years ago, when 90% of Americans were employed in agriculture? Remember when tractors were invented, and now only 2% of americans work in agriculture? Yeah, it sucks that 88% of americans are unemployed now.

refurb 11y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Just replace whatever job people are saying will be automated with {horse shoe maker, blacksmith,farmer} and you'd swear the current discussion was taking place in the 1900's.