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This is flipping the burden of proof. That millions will be made redundant is already a projection about the future, and those are notoriously terrible. In th

by moxious 10y ago

This is flipping the burden of proof. That millions will be made redundant is already a projection about the future, and those are notoriously terrible. In the past when automation happened and jobs kept rolling it was due to the invention of new industries. So of course no one can say where the jobs of tomorrow will come from. Then again no one can really adequately explain why "this time it's different" with automation. Ever since the luddites, people have been projecting the death of work due to automation. Every time they're positive that this time is different. History suggests though that new industries will pop up to provide goods and services that no one had the time to make in our pre-automation state of toil. Human beings aren't going to stop being inventive, or stop wanting cool new stuff.

sillysaurus3 10y ago
A persuasive counter-argument, which convinced me, is: Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900's talking about technology. One horse worries all these new mechanical muscles will make horses unnecessary. The other horse reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier. Remember all that farm work? Remember running from coast-to-coast delivering mail? Remember riding into battle? All terrible. These new city jobs are pretty cushy, and with so many humans in the cities, there will be more jobs for horses than ever. "Even if this car thingy takes off," he might say, "there will be new jobs for horses we can't imagine." But you know what happened: There are still working horses today, but nothing like before. The horse population peaked in 1915. From that point on, it was nothing but down. There isn't a rule of economics that says "better technology makes more better jobs for horses." It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud. But swap "horses" for "humans," and suddenly people think it sounds about right.
- SomewhatLikely 10y ago
  I think more accurately in your analogy horses = those who derive their income from labor. As automation increases, the returns to capital will accumulate, whereas the returns to labor will decrease. But that capital will still be owned by humans.
  - throwaway2048 10y ago
    0.1% of humans maybe
- WalterBright 10y ago
  Horses are not creative, do not plan for the future, and will never think of looking for work. People are not horses.
  - candiodari 10y ago
    Maybe you need to meet more humans. At some point you'll realize that perhaps 60%, but likely more, of humans are horses, as far as your comparison goes. Until and unless they are completely and utterly without alternatives most humans will not look to be creative, plan for the future or look for work. Even when they don't have a choice, look at the amount of work government puts into helping them do so, and for how little result. When it comes to living among 20-30 year olds, they simply recently were without alternatives, and were creative and looking. But only for a short while. Some of them for a few years, but those are exceptions. I would even go further. In regions where an economic collapse utterly devastated the local economy and completely wiped it off the face of the earth, there are plenty of humans. There are such regions in Africa and in Asia (requirement seems to be that a human must reasonably be able to survive the winter there, so they are located close to the equator). The humans living there are not looking to improve their (very, very, very bad) situation. I disagree with the point you're making as well. You have to go back some ways, but essentially from the peak of the Roman Empire, at least until the renaissance (we're talking about a good millenium here), unemployment (non-subsistence labour) was going up. Well, it was going up for a few hundred years until it got deep in the 90%, and then it remained there for the rest of the millenium. Obviously, local huge swings were common (e.g. wars). Some say that entire religions (ie. islam) are essentially the result of the employment situation at the end of the Roman Empire (and specifically the raiding in that religion). The economic story of the world is very much not a story of continual improvement. So that humans do not try to improve their situation even goes down to zero. Even when the economic situation gets so bad that you're unlikely to survive your twenties (well, technically you're unlikely to make it to 1 year old, but if you get to 1 year old, odds are good you'll make 25, not much more though). Even under a situation that bad, the incredibly trivial efforts needed to improve that are not getting done (mostly basic sanitation). I am not talking about regions with famine, quite the opposite. I'm talking about regions where humans can survive growing zero food, so there never is any famine, never any need for anything but the most basic amount of work. You get basic shelter, you eat berries and you on occasion make a fire and roast some small animals. So no, it is very much not a given that the economic situation recovers. Not a given at all. If you take the total amount of time that the human race existed and you take the years where recovery "always" happened, and you compare with time where the economic situation allowed for nothing other than subsistence farming, you will find that subsistence economics doesn't just dominate, everything else is so small that you'd better use a log scale and even then ... We live in a period that is incredibly, incredibly much better than any other period in history, but it's duration (so far) is utterly insignificant. Is it the beginning of an open-ended incredible period of history ? Could be. Seems like a long shot when you look at the long term though. A very, very, VERY long shot. Many animals have had such periods. Periods where economics made so much sense that they utterly dominated the world for a short while. Some even used tools, though of course we do it quite a bit more. None of those animals' golden ages lasted. Are we truly sufficiently different ?
- moxious 10y ago
  That isn't a counter-argument, that's an analogy. It sounds quite nice, but it's also a bit a straw-man. The people who don't think technology is going to destroy work (I'm in that group) would never claim that there's a law of economics that says better technology makes more jobs. If you'll note in what I said, it's an observation about what people are (and what horses are not) that's going to keep things rolling. Namely that people are endlessly creative, and always wanting new things. That's kind of the point where the analogy with horses breaks down completely. Besides that of course, horses were valued for their muscles and not for their smarts. For as much as we as a community go on about AI, the robotics community hasn't even cost-effictively automated washing, drying, and folding laundry. To say that they're going to automate most knowledge work seems to me to be beyond grandiose. Not saying it's impossible, just not on any near-term timeline.

by moxious 10y ago

sillysaurus3 10y ago

A persuasive counter-argument, which convinced me, is: Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900's talking about technology. One horse worries all these new mechanical muscles will make horses unnecessary. The other horse reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier. Remember all that farm work? Remember running from coast-to-coast delivering mail? Remember riding into battle? All terrible. These new city jobs are pretty cushy, and with so many humans in the cities, there will be more jobs for horses than ever. "Even if this car thingy takes off," he might say, "there will be new jobs for horses we can't imagine." But you know what happened: There are still working horses today, but nothing like before. The horse population peaked in 1915. From that point on, it was nothing but down. There isn't a rule of economics that says "better technology makes more better jobs for horses." It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud. But swap "horses" for "humans," and suddenly people think it sounds about right.

SomewhatLikely 10y ago
I think more accurately in your analogy horses = those who derive their income from labor. As automation increases, the returns to capital will accumulate, whereas the returns to labor will decrease. But that capital will still be owned by humans.
- throwaway2048 10y ago
  0.1% of humans maybe
WalterBright 10y ago
Horses are not creative, do not plan for the future, and will never think of looking for work. People are not horses.
- candiodari 10y ago
  Maybe you need to meet more humans. At some point you'll realize that perhaps 60%, but likely more, of humans are horses, as far as your comparison goes. Until and unless they are completely and utterly without alternatives most humans will not look to be creative, plan for the future or look for work. Even when they don't have a choice, look at the amount of work government puts into helping them do so, and for how little result. When it comes to living among 20-30 year olds, they simply recently were without alternatives, and were creative and looking. But only for a short while. Some of them for a few years, but those are exceptions. I would even go further. In regions where an economic collapse utterly devastated the local economy and completely wiped it off the face of the earth, there are plenty of humans. There are such regions in Africa and in Asia (requirement seems to be that a human must reasonably be able to survive the winter there, so they are located close to the equator). The humans living there are not looking to improve their (very, very, very bad) situation. I disagree with the point you're making as well. You have to go back some ways, but essentially from the peak of the Roman Empire, at least until the renaissance (we're talking about a good millenium here), unemployment (non-subsistence labour) was going up. Well, it was going up for a few hundred years until it got deep in the 90%, and then it remained there for the rest of the millenium. Obviously, local huge swings were common (e.g. wars). Some say that entire religions (ie. islam) are essentially the result of the employment situation at the end of the Roman Empire (and specifically the raiding in that religion). The economic story of the world is very much not a story of continual improvement. So that humans do not try to improve their situation even goes down to zero. Even when the economic situation gets so bad that you're unlikely to survive your twenties (well, technically you're unlikely to make it to 1 year old, but if you get to 1 year old, odds are good you'll make 25, not much more though). Even under a situation that bad, the incredibly trivial efforts needed to improve that are not getting done (mostly basic sanitation). I am not talking about regions with famine, quite the opposite. I'm talking about regions where humans can survive growing zero food, so there never is any famine, never any need for anything but the most basic amount of work. You get basic shelter, you eat berries and you on occasion make a fire and roast some small animals. So no, it is very much not a given that the economic situation recovers. Not a given at all. If you take the total amount of time that the human race existed and you take the years where recovery "always" happened, and you compare with time where the economic situation allowed for nothing other than subsistence farming, you will find that subsistence economics doesn't just dominate, everything else is so small that you'd better use a log scale and even then ... We live in a period that is incredibly, incredibly much better than any other period in history, but it's duration (so far) is utterly insignificant. Is it the beginning of an open-ended incredible period of history ? Could be. Seems like a long shot when you look at the long term though. A very, very, VERY long shot. Many animals have had such periods. Periods where economics made so much sense that they utterly dominated the world for a short while. Some even used tools, though of course we do it quite a bit more. None of those animals' golden ages lasted. Are we truly sufficiently different ?
moxious 10y ago
That isn't a counter-argument, that's an analogy. It sounds quite nice, but it's also a bit a straw-man. The people who don't think technology is going to destroy work (I'm in that group) would never claim that there's a law of economics that says better technology makes more jobs. If you'll note in what I said, it's an observation about what people are (and what horses are not) that's going to keep things rolling. Namely that people are endlessly creative, and always wanting new things. That's kind of the point where the analogy with horses breaks down completely. Besides that of course, horses were valued for their muscles and not for their smarts. For as much as we as a community go on about AI, the robotics community hasn't even cost-effictively automated washing, drying, and folding laundry. To say that they're going to automate most knowledge work seems to me to be beyond grandiose. Not saying it's impossible, just not on any near-term timeline.