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I'm glad someone is bringing this up. I see so many "X job getting automated, jobs are lost, oh no!" portrayed as some novel scenario where jobs are automated
by 09bjb 10y ago
I'm glad someone is bringing this up. I see so many "X job getting automated, jobs are lost, oh no!" portrayed as some novel scenario where jobs are automated and no new jobs are ever made. Automation of routine jobs has been happening for thousands of years, and historically hasn't affected the unemployment rate AT ALL because new hard-tp-imagine jobs replace them.
The more I read dig it, the more I don't believe in technological unemployment (i.e. a technology automates a person out of a job, and that person remains forever unemployed). Instead, recently, something seems wrong with the re-hiring process in the global economy.
Very lucid discussion (found on HN no less) here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/# http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_a...
- bduerst 10y agoYep, and to expand on that, the problem isn't technological automation, but retraining. We're in the middle of an education bubble right now, and while there will always be automation-driven job disruption, whether or not the workers will be able to retrain to meet the new job demand isn't guaranteed. There's an opportunity for relatively low-cost job training, but until the University-degree title system flops, it won't be revered to be the same level of quality.