6 ms·

> but it will also create new jobs managing the automation No, that's bullshit. New jobs will be created that way but far less: there would be no incentive to

by Iv 9y ago

> but it will also create new jobs managing the automation No, that's bullshit. New jobs will be created that way but far less: there would be no incentive to automation otherwise. This month I visited a warehouse with a team tasked to automate it. If we succeed, phase I should put ~10 people out of job and we don't expect to have to do more than occasional monthly interventions (and that's assuming that we have a high failure rate). The thing that is different in this cycle is that we may very well manage to 100% automate some industries. At this point, there will be a genuine question: why do we need to work to benefit from the goods of these industries? At the core of the pact that makes our society is the idea of specialization: we have varied needs that we ask specialists to fill (farmers, car makers, fridge makers, power plant workers, etc...) while we, too, fill one small niche. The less people work we need to fulfill our daily needs, the less work we should be asked daily. But this transition will only happen if we are conscious that it is possible and desirable.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
Humanity stuck on this notion that labor = virtue, which made some sense in an agricultural society where everyone would starve to death if most of the population wasn't actively engaged in production, but is getting increasingly toxic as we approach a post-scarcity world.
aorloff 9y ago
> At this point, there will be a genuine question: why do we need to work to benefit from the goods of these industries? For the same reason you can't look over to your neighbor's driveway and say, since he doesn't use his truck all day while he's at work, why can't I drive it ? The people who built those automated industries expended capital, and likely, borrowed against future revenue to do so. What you are free to do is compete with them. You can drive them into their stupid lender's hands by forcing a collapsing of margins in the industry using your wits. But nationalizing the factories has, historically, generally led to nasty (the opposite of what your conscious advocates would call desirable) outcomes. And you are saying that a 100% automated factory should be effectively nationalized.
- knodi123 9y ago
  > The people who built those automated industries expended capital, and likely, borrowed against future revenue to do so. > What you are free to do is compete with them. You can drive them into their stupid lender's hands by forcing a collapsing of margins in the industry using your wits. So the solution for the hordes of people who were put out of work by automation, is to gamble it all on the bet that they can outcompete powerful, established businesses by operating with far less profit? Are you really saying "I'm sorry you lost your factory job, but the only moral solutions are a.) let your family starve to death, or b.) every unemployed factory worked just, sorta, becomes an entrepreneur, scrapping with all his former coworkers and bosses over who can survive on the slimmest margins." ? Nationalizing factories may lead to undesirable outcomes, but your alternative is a different kind of dystopia.
  - aorloff 9y ago
    I'm not suggesting that literally, I'm saying that's what the overall system does. Someone will gamble their time on beating powerful established businesses, and they will figure out some efficiency to win by. Some of the factory workers will find other work, some in other industries, or other businesses in the same industry. But when you are suggesting policy, you think about the overall system, not just the poor factory workers. The overall system works, even if labor isn't part of production due to automation, because labor builds, maintains, and services the automation. Sometimes there's some debugging involved too. Yes some workers will lose their jobs because they don't have marketable skills any more. That's why we invest in education. Maybe not terribly wisely, but that's the idea.
    - heavenlyblue 9y ago
      You're saying "someone will gamble", another one would say "he was at the right time at the right place to have it all together in order to be able to take that risk. By the way - the only reason he was at the right time and at the right place was because the country he was living in could allow him to have it all". Our planet as of today becomes an increasingly finite resource. Someone else's gamble is hedged by your responsibility.
intended 9y ago
An article somewhere had a useful categorizaiton of automation of jobs in terms of human jobs 1) Automation removes a bottleneck, and lets workers be more productive - often creating more work. 2) Automation removes a better paying job, and leaves behind a less skilled role for humans 3) Automation removes an entire type of work. Automation doomsday scenarios focus on the last work. The issue with automation, fundamentally ties down with the ability to transfer people to other roles if they suffer from automation of types 2 and 3. But as I have pointed out elsewhere, and economists also admit - retraining is not really an option. For someone to change tack and learn an entirely new set of skills is more than slightly challenging on its own. Let alone with the tensions of losing a job and having to take care of a family with their time needs. The weakpoint in the larger economic model is retraining.
- Qwertious 9y ago
  >1) Automation removes a bottleneck, and lets workers be more productive - often creating more work. What's not mentioned is that on average, the work created will be more skilled than the work it displaces. This means that in the long term, training [enough to get a job] is harder, because more and more work will require skill. In the long run, I suspect that the biggest unskilled job group will be the type that involves interacting with people (so, management and retail/sales), which could well end up being where we ditch as many of our unskilled workers that we've made redundant, unless we can manage to remove them from the economy with e.g. UBI. And oh my god, did I just stumble across that one part of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
tome 9y ago
> New jobs will be created that way but far less: there would be no incentive to automation otherwise The incentive would be to produce more for the same cost. One human plus one robot produces more than one human alone for the same cost.
- Iv 9y ago
  What if you don't need more?

by Iv 9y ago

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

Humanity stuck on this notion that labor = virtue, which made some sense in an agricultural society where everyone would starve to death if most of the population wasn't actively engaged in production, but is getting increasingly toxic as we approach a post-scarcity world.

aorloff 9y ago

> At this point, there will be a genuine question: why do we need to work to benefit from the goods of these industries? For the same reason you can't look over to your neighbor's driveway and say, since he doesn't use his truck all day while he's at work, why can't I drive it ? The people who built those automated industries expended capital, and likely, borrowed against future revenue to do so. What you are free to do is compete with them. You can drive them into their stupid lender's hands by forcing a collapsing of margins in the industry using your wits. But nationalizing the factories has, historically, generally led to nasty (the opposite of what your conscious advocates would call desirable) outcomes. And you are saying that a 100% automated factory should be effectively nationalized.

knodi123 9y ago
> The people who built those automated industries expended capital, and likely, borrowed against future revenue to do so. > What you are free to do is compete with them. You can drive them into their stupid lender's hands by forcing a collapsing of margins in the industry using your wits. So the solution for the hordes of people who were put out of work by automation, is to gamble it all on the bet that they can outcompete powerful, established businesses by operating with far less profit? Are you really saying "I'm sorry you lost your factory job, but the only moral solutions are a.) let your family starve to death, or b.) every unemployed factory worked just, sorta, becomes an entrepreneur, scrapping with all his former coworkers and bosses over who can survive on the slimmest margins." ? Nationalizing factories may lead to undesirable outcomes, but your alternative is a different kind of dystopia.
- aorloff 9y ago
  I'm not suggesting that literally, I'm saying that's what the overall system does. Someone will gamble their time on beating powerful established businesses, and they will figure out some efficiency to win by. Some of the factory workers will find other work, some in other industries, or other businesses in the same industry. But when you are suggesting policy, you think about the overall system, not just the poor factory workers. The overall system works, even if labor isn't part of production due to automation, because labor builds, maintains, and services the automation. Sometimes there's some debugging involved too. Yes some workers will lose their jobs because they don't have marketable skills any more. That's why we invest in education. Maybe not terribly wisely, but that's the idea.
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    You're saying "someone will gamble", another one would say "he was at the right time at the right place to have it all together in order to be able to take that risk. By the way - the only reason he was at the right time and at the right place was because the country he was living in could allow him to have it all". Our planet as of today becomes an increasingly finite resource. Someone else's gamble is hedged by your responsibility.

intended 9y ago

An article somewhere had a useful categorizaiton of automation of jobs in terms of human jobs 1) Automation removes a bottleneck, and lets workers be more productive - often creating more work. 2) Automation removes a better paying job, and leaves behind a less skilled role for humans 3) Automation removes an entire type of work. Automation doomsday scenarios focus on the last work. The issue with automation, fundamentally ties down with the ability to transfer people to other roles if they suffer from automation of types 2 and 3. But as I have pointed out elsewhere, and economists also admit - retraining is not really an option. For someone to change tack and learn an entirely new set of skills is more than slightly challenging on its own. Let alone with the tensions of losing a job and having to take care of a family with their time needs. The weakpoint in the larger economic model is retraining.

Qwertious 9y ago
>1) Automation removes a bottleneck, and lets workers be more productive - often creating more work. What's not mentioned is that on average, the work created will be more skilled than the work it displaces. This means that in the long term, training [enough to get a job] is harder, because more and more work will require skill. In the long run, I suspect that the biggest unskilled job group will be the type that involves interacting with people (so, management and retail/sales), which could well end up being where we ditch as many of our unskilled workers that we've made redundant, unless we can manage to remove them from the economy with e.g. UBI. And oh my god, did I just stumble across that one part of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

tome 9y ago

> New jobs will be created that way but far less: there would be no incentive to automation otherwise The incentive would be to produce more for the same cost. One human plus one robot produces more than one human alone for the same cost.

Iv 9y ago
What if you don't need more?