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While it's true that there have been, are, and will continue to be a loss of manufacturing jobs as a result of automation, robotics, and AI, we also need to con

While it's true that there have been, are, and will continue to be a loss of manufacturing jobs as a result of automation, robotics, and AI, we also need to consider the other side of the economic spectrum, and look historically to see what has happened when these kinds of shifts come. For example, I'm sitting next to someone who is working on robotic apple-pickers. The amount of cost from buying apples is about 75% represented by labor. So yes, there would be job loss, but what if apples start to cost 25% of what they currently do? What if we extrapolate that across all fields? What if we could do this with everything we need - food, consumer goods, housing, etc? It's a shift as big as the industrial revolution and moving away from an agricultural society from a consumer perspective. In short: Life would get much better and cheaper for all of us and fast. But then there's unemployment. What will the masses do? Well, what did the masses that used to be farmers do when we moved from 50% of the United States being farmers to the current levels of ~2%? The answer historically has been that entirely new types of employment are created, and the pain is remarkably short-lived considering the size of the shift and the decrease in costs, and the Luddites look silly in retrospect. It's usually hard to see looking forward, but somehow it's always worked out. I'm not sure what the entire picture looks like; I do think that we will need massive re-education as a society, and we're completely unprepared for that. In the past we've replaced unskilled labor with new unskilled roles, and I don't see those roles hanging around anymore. (I moved to San Francisco from a very rural town, and I get stressed whenever I think of the economic future of that small town. Until there's risk-free education available at will that area is economically doomed. But I don't think the proper response is to slow innovation because of pending job loss. If the AI shift will be as big of a deal as the Knternet, imagine how much better it makes the lives of everyone - is that really something we should actively fight against? I'd argue history suggests we shouldn't.

AlisdairO 10y ago
> In the past we've replaced unskilled labor with new unskilled roles, and I don't see those roles hanging around anymore. The sad reality is that there's a nontrivial chunk of the populace that isn't able to pick up highly skilled roles. It also ignores the role of unskilled jobs in providing space for people whose job class has been destroyed and need to retrain (or mark time until retirement). I'm not advocating slowing innovation to prevent job loss. I am advocating avoiding magic thinking ('there's always new jobs to go to'): we need to start a serious conversation about what we do with our society when we have the levels of unemployment we can expect in an AI-shifted world. Right now we're trending much more towards dystopia than utopia.
- deepnotderp 10y ago
  ahem basic income
  - mc32 10y ago
    Rich economies could (barely?) afford that, how could mismanaged economies afford a basic income given they don't have much in the way of economic might to afford a basic income. Think Indonesia, Bangladesh.
    - carapace 10y ago
      I keep pointing out that Bucky Fuller calculated that we could pretty much take care of everyone on Earth while working ten hours a week if we just applied the technology we have in an efficient manner. (By the mid-1970's he claimed.)
petra 10y ago
>> but what if apples start to cost 25% of what they currently do? What if we extrapolate that across all fields? ... do this with everything we need... That's great, as long as there are new jobs, or a decent safety net(which i doubt). >> The answer historically has been that entirely new types of employment are created, ... It's usually hard to see looking forward, but somehow it's always worked out. It's not always worked out - remember horses ? and what about the terrible transition period ? but let's leave that.Is it really that hard to see looking forward ? That's a more interesting question: So before the industrial revolution, rich people bought a lot and a variety of clothes/foods/things/services(doctor/lawyer/cook/traveling/transportation), large houses, etc . So assuming things would get cheaper, they'll be more available , you could imagine that regular people will want those things,a lot of them, but maybe with even more variety(more people). So you could imagine a consumer culture. And the same for the business side: businesses wanted advertising, transportation, financial services, manufacturing, knowledge, etc.. So if all those things will become cheaper - and better, you could assume they would want more and more of them. And furthermore - before the industrial revolution there we're many problems - the world wasn't ideal(you got sick, life we're boring). In general , we can assume many of those problems will get solved, so they'll create new demand. So so many new jobs! And we know all that - we've seen it happen! So why the hell we cannot think of new jobs ?
- austenallred 10y ago
  > Why can't we think of new jobs? My job didn't exist 50 years ago. Did yours?
  - Gargoyle 10y ago
    Which job, existing or new, cannot be automated?
    - contingencies 10y ago
      Cross-cultural educationalist philosopher.
icebraining 10y ago
Well, what did the masses that used to be farmers do when we moved from 50% of the United States being farmers to the current levels of ~2%? Didn't that work in the opposite way, though? New opportunities appeared that pulled (sometimes forced) people away from farming; it wasn't like there was a bunch of unemployed ex-farmers who suddenly started finding new jobs.
- jaxn 10y ago
  I thought that's exactly what it was. Dustbowl -> Great Depression -> New Deal -> WWII -> Industrial Revolution takes off
- nostrademons 10y ago
  Which time period in history? In the 1830s, you'd get younger sons or daughters of a farming family who would move away to the city to earn extra spending money for their family and find a measure of independence; oftentimes the eldest son would inherit the farm, so there was no place there for the other children. In the 1930s, the farms were themselves collapsing. Mechanized agriculture created both a huge oversupply of produce (which drove down prices) and also ruined the ecology of the plains, which eventually led to the dust bowl. Farmers absolutely were forced off their land: that's where we got Okies, Hobos, the Great Migration, Grapes of Wrath, and all those other subcultures of migrant workers from.

AlisdairO 10y ago

> In the past we've replaced unskilled labor with new unskilled roles, and I don't see those roles hanging around anymore. The sad reality is that there's a nontrivial chunk of the populace that isn't able to pick up highly skilled roles. It also ignores the role of unskilled jobs in providing space for people whose job class has been destroyed and need to retrain (or mark time until retirement). I'm not advocating slowing innovation to prevent job loss. I am advocating avoiding magic thinking ('there's always new jobs to go to'): we need to start a serious conversation about what we do with our society when we have the levels of unemployment we can expect in an AI-shifted world. Right now we're trending much more towards dystopia than utopia.

deepnotderp 10y ago
ahem basic income
- mc32 10y ago
  Rich economies could (barely?) afford that, how could mismanaged economies afford a basic income given they don't have much in the way of economic might to afford a basic income. Think Indonesia, Bangladesh.
  - carapace 10y ago
    I keep pointing out that Bucky Fuller calculated that we could pretty much take care of everyone on Earth while working ten hours a week if we just applied the technology we have in an efficient manner. (By the mid-1970's he claimed.)

petra 10y ago

>> but what if apples start to cost 25% of what they currently do? What if we extrapolate that across all fields? ... do this with everything we need... That's great, as long as there are new jobs, or a decent safety net(which i doubt). >> The answer historically has been that entirely new types of employment are created, ... It's usually hard to see looking forward, but somehow it's always worked out. It's not always worked out - remember horses ? and what about the terrible transition period ? but let's leave that.Is it really that hard to see looking forward ? That's a more interesting question: So before the industrial revolution, rich people bought a lot and a variety of clothes/foods/things/services(doctor/lawyer/cook/traveling/transportation), large houses, etc . So assuming things would get cheaper, they'll be more available , you could imagine that regular people will want those things,a lot of them, but maybe with even more variety(more people). So you could imagine a consumer culture. And the same for the business side: businesses wanted advertising, transportation, financial services, manufacturing, knowledge, etc.. So if all those things will become cheaper - and better, you could assume they would want more and more of them. And furthermore - before the industrial revolution there we're many problems - the world wasn't ideal(you got sick, life we're boring). In general , we can assume many of those problems will get solved, so they'll create new demand. So so many new jobs! And we know all that - we've seen it happen! So why the hell we cannot think of new jobs ?

austenallred 10y ago
> Why can't we think of new jobs? My job didn't exist 50 years ago. Did yours?
- Gargoyle 10y ago
  Which job, existing or new, cannot be automated?
  - contingencies 10y ago
    Cross-cultural educationalist philosopher.

icebraining 10y ago

Well, what did the masses that used to be farmers do when we moved from 50% of the United States being farmers to the current levels of ~2%? Didn't that work in the opposite way, though? New opportunities appeared that pulled (sometimes forced) people away from farming; it wasn't like there was a bunch of unemployed ex-farmers who suddenly started finding new jobs.

jaxn 10y ago
I thought that's exactly what it was. Dustbowl -> Great Depression -> New Deal -> WWII -> Industrial Revolution takes off
nostrademons 10y ago
Which time period in history? In the 1830s, you'd get younger sons or daughters of a farming family who would move away to the city to earn extra spending money for their family and find a measure of independence; oftentimes the eldest son would inherit the farm, so there was no place there for the other children. In the 1930s, the farms were themselves collapsing. Mechanized agriculture created both a huge oversupply of produce (which drove down prices) and also ruined the ecology of the plains, which eventually led to the dust bowl. Farmers absolutely were forced off their land: that's where we got Okies, Hobos, the Great Migration, Grapes of Wrath, and all those other subcultures of migrant workers from.