4 ms·

Woo, rough in this thread. Treading carefully, I do notice that the subject of the article is short on concrete solutions to the (potential) problem, instead re

by percept 10y ago

Woo, rough in this thread. Treading carefully, I do notice that the subject of the article is short on concrete solutions to the (potential) problem, instead relying on: "“The concern is that the process of turnover, in which workers displaced by technology find new jobs as technology gives rise to new consumer demands and thus new jobs, could lead to sustained periods of time with a large fraction of people not working,” he said. Still, the solution isn’t a universal basic income, Mr. Furman said. Instead, he focused on reforming the existing array of programs meant to help the unemployed and the poor." This almost seems to bolster the opposing point: yes, there's a real threat here, but we (hand-wavy thing) have existing programs we can fix up for that. Other than the last sentence, I don't see substance, but more of a media sound bite.

percept 10y ago
Also, don't forget: election year. Shuffle to the middle, don't freak out vested interests.
threeseed 10y ago
Only one solution exists to the threat of automation and that is: training. People need to be able to rapidly move from unproductive or fully automated parts of the economy to others. It's easier said than done and in the US at least would require a massive investment in and rethinking of access to vocational education. It needs to be free as a start.
- ianai 10y ago
  Automated driving could unemploy millions of truck drivers. Give me one other industry that needs millions of workers and that retrained truck drivers could do. Or even 5. But I don't think it exists outside of creating other, large "new deal" type programs.
  - IndianAstronaut 10y ago
    I don't see why we shouldn't do a new deal. Possibly a new deal for the space age. There is also a tremendous amount of work to be done in the sciences as well. Work ranging from high skill scientific experimental design to low skill pouring of agar plates.
    - ianai 10y ago
      I am all for a new deal set of programs. The roads are all falling apart from what I've seen. Plenty of infrastructure to be maintained. Space, sciences, etc would all be great. Or how about just employing people to cook healthy food for other people? As it is even restaurants have gone largely preprocessed in the search of disminished costs.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - prostoalex 10y ago
    With all those new efficiencies found around automated trucks the volume of goods shipped will expand, requiring more people to load and unload it?
- prawn 10y ago
  I don't know if it's the only solution, but it would definitely help if there was adequate, well-respected and well-promoted free education. Unfortunately, paid education will inevitably work aggressively to maintain their place in the system. The biggest problem I think is not just the availability but the motivation for people to see it through. There are great options available now for people willing to teach themselves, do online courses (free or cheap) and most don't bother.
  - pm90 10y ago
    The problem with education, and online education specially, is the disconnect between the effort required for learning and the rewards. The latter often are realized once a sufficient amount of skill has been developed, which takes quite some patience to get to. If employers were to somehow collaborate with online course providers to create some kind of pipeline from unskilled-> skilled workers, that would be really amazing. I honestly wonder why more companies don't do that.
    - erichocean 10y ago
      > I honestly wonder why more companies don't do that. Easy: generic education applies to any potential employer, not just the original sponsor, and there's no legal way to force a person, once educated, to work for you. (I'm not arguing there should be, either.) Put another way, you'd be training your competitor's employees if you were to do that. No rational actor wants (or can afford) to do that.
      - lj3 10y ago
        Would they be able to put a clause in the employment contract to trade X number of years for $X amount of education? I know the US government offers college scholarships that have similar terms, but I don't know if private industry would be able to enforce something like that.
        erichocean 10y ago
        To the best of my knowledge, what you're describing is called a "debt slave", and it's illegal in the United States. Here's Wikipedia on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  The problem with training is that the government are in charge of bursaries (or other forms of payment to learn or train) not the market. So you can get money to get a degree or become a doctor or teacher, not to learn AI or VR or cloud computing etc...

by percept 10y ago

percept 10y ago

Also, don't forget: election year. Shuffle to the middle, don't freak out vested interests.

threeseed 10y ago

Only one solution exists to the threat of automation and that is: training. People need to be able to rapidly move from unproductive or fully automated parts of the economy to others. It's easier said than done and in the US at least would require a massive investment in and rethinking of access to vocational education. It needs to be free as a start.

ianai 10y ago
Automated driving could unemploy millions of truck drivers. Give me one other industry that needs millions of workers and that retrained truck drivers could do. Or even 5. But I don't think it exists outside of creating other, large "new deal" type programs.
- IndianAstronaut 10y ago
  I don't see why we shouldn't do a new deal. Possibly a new deal for the space age. There is also a tremendous amount of work to be done in the sciences as well. Work ranging from high skill scientific experimental design to low skill pouring of agar plates.
  - ianai 10y ago
    I am all for a new deal set of programs. The roads are all falling apart from what I've seen. Plenty of infrastructure to be maintained. Space, sciences, etc would all be great. Or how about just employing people to cook healthy food for other people? As it is even restaurants have gone largely preprocessed in the search of disminished costs.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- prostoalex 10y ago
  With all those new efficiencies found around automated trucks the volume of goods shipped will expand, requiring more people to load and unload it?
prawn 10y ago
I don't know if it's the only solution, but it would definitely help if there was adequate, well-respected and well-promoted free education. Unfortunately, paid education will inevitably work aggressively to maintain their place in the system. The biggest problem I think is not just the availability but the motivation for people to see it through. There are great options available now for people willing to teach themselves, do online courses (free or cheap) and most don't bother.
- pm90 10y ago
  The problem with education, and online education specially, is the disconnect between the effort required for learning and the rewards. The latter often are realized once a sufficient amount of skill has been developed, which takes quite some patience to get to. If employers were to somehow collaborate with online course providers to create some kind of pipeline from unskilled-> skilled workers, that would be really amazing. I honestly wonder why more companies don't do that.
  - erichocean 10y ago
    > I honestly wonder why more companies don't do that. Easy: generic education applies to any potential employer, not just the original sponsor, and there's no legal way to force a person, once educated, to work for you. (I'm not arguing there should be, either.) Put another way, you'd be training your competitor's employees if you were to do that. No rational actor wants (or can afford) to do that.
    - lj3 10y ago
      Would they be able to put a clause in the employment contract to trade X number of years for $X amount of education? I know the US government offers college scholarships that have similar terms, but I don't know if private industry would be able to enforce something like that.
      - erichocean 10y ago
        To the best of my knowledge, what you're describing is called a "debt slave", and it's illegal in the United States. Here's Wikipedia on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage
monk_e_boy 10y ago
The problem with training is that the government are in charge of bursaries (or other forms of payment to learn or train) not the market. So you can get money to get a degree or become a doctor or teacher, not to learn AI or VR or cloud computing etc...