4 ms·

I think you're making something of a sweeping generalisation here. Jobs have moved overseas because labour is cheaper - true. Jobs have also been automated. So

by retube 16y ago

I think you're making something of a sweeping generalisation here. Jobs have moved overseas because labour is cheaper - true. Jobs have also been automated. So yes, some jobs have been "lost". But this is not a bad thing. This is progress. Hopefully these jobs get replaced by new jobs. 20 years ago there were no web designers - the web didn't exist. Now there's millions of web designers. How is this possible, where did these people come from? Education, training. This is vital for any advancing economy.

moe 16y ago
Hopefully these jobs get replaced by new jobs. Call me negative but I hear that often and don't share the optimism. There is an upper limit to how many office workers and programmers an economy needs - and can sustain at wages enabling the living standards that we've come to expect. The only big technical revolution that I see coming in the next few decades will be the robot revolution. Now go figure how that will affect the job market. My opinion is that the current system of wealth distribution will have to be reconsidered quite fundamentally when robots begin to replace the low-wage workforce. I also think this will not go smoothly, because when have such large changes ever gone smoothly in history... Feel free to disagree, call me a "dreamer" and my robot story "absurd" - I'm used to that. But looking at what robots can do today (cf. ASIMO) I'm deeply convinced it's going to happen, and much sooner than most people expect.
- lsc 16y ago
  I think most people agree that the trend towards automation will continue. It's not a new idea; this has been happening for far longer than either one of us has been alive. I mean, the difference between science fiction and reality is primarily that the robots we have, so far, look nothing like humans. but the part about them replacing workers, that's been true for a very long time now.
  - moe 16y ago
    It's not a new idea; this has been happening for far longer than either one of us has been alive. Yes, I'm thinking of a bigger magnitude, though. As naive as that may sound, I do believe in the "service bot" vision where households and workplaces are increasingly stuffed with robots. There's of course still a long way to go. But when I look at the individual pieces that are available today (see videos below) then I tend to, perhaps naively, expect the first robots capable of taking over simplistic jobs (outside of industrial environments) within a 15-20 year timeframe. And not long thereafter before it becomes cost effective to actually deploy them on a large scale. When that happens then it will likely be a different quality from what we've seen in industrialism before. It's not about machines reducing the workforce in certain industries. It's about machines replacing human labor as a whole in entire segments - not least in the service-sector. I'm deriving my guesstimate from the fact that what we see today is the result of the past circa 20 years of research. Add another 20yrs to that and the mind is blown, at least mine is. With regard to "not a new idea" you have a point in theory. Yet in practice, when I listen to political discussions then I don't hear anyone having it on the radar, even when they talk about the so-called "longterm". Perhaps I'm expecting too much, politicians rarely look further ahead than 10yrs anyways. I just wonder when we'll begin to seriously question the paradigm of "everyone has a job" which dominates everything today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg#t=3m32s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg#t=3m32s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiw-jbjnyzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiw-jbjnyzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPAIpXm-nU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPAIpXm-nU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrmrU7P-ysA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrmrU7P-ysA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwhPLeIq4uY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwhPLeIq4uY
    - lsc 16y ago
      I guess I don't see how robots that can do service jobs is different from robots that can do manufacturing jobs. (really, most service jobs are humans doing jobs a robot could do. Are you seriously going to argue that a robot couldn't make a big mac and frys, even using 1980s technology?) and really, I know people who use irobot products; I mean, it's still very much version .9 beta, from what I understand, it doesn't pick up your stuff and put it somewhere you can't find it like a real housekeeper does, but we'll get there. I guess I don't see how obsoleting the housekeeper or the barista is any more disruptive than obsoleting the assembly line worker. People fearing that technology will obsolete them is as old as technology itself. It is said that the etymology of the word 'sabotage' can be traced back to the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, feeling the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete. wikipedia also points out this is unverified... however, workers fearing competition from machines is not a new thing. sure, when the economy is good, everyone loves automation, as it tends to increase productivity and thus wages, and people who are automated away can be productively used elsewhere. When the economy is shit, though, like it is now, people tend to fear and hate automation, because when the economy is shit, rather than driving up wages, the increased productivity just replaces the least-productive workers. I mean, yeah, things are changing faster than they were before... but really, it's the same problem that the 15th century textile workers had. As time goes on and our technology advances, yeah, more and more people are largely idle. Very few people actually have to work to obtain food for everyone. But we come up with new things to do. I use the example of my sister, who got a degree in fine arts... I mean, she paints (and her paintings are certainly very interesting) and she makes expensive coffee for people, (and hey, I enjoy expensive coffee) but my point is that she went to school for four years (and is now trying to get into graduate school) studying for a job that nobody rationally expects to provide a comfortable living. I'm not saying it's a bad choice... but if we did not have a whole lot of spare capacity, it wouldn't be a choice at all. And hell, look at all the people in the advertising industry, convincing people to buy products they don't need. There will be new industries in the future. The retraining cycle is shorter than it has ever been before, true, but I think most of the problems we're seeing right now are because our economy is broken for other reasons, not because of the pace of productivity improvement.

by retube 16y ago

moe 16y ago

Hopefully these jobs get replaced by new jobs. Call me negative but I hear that often and don't share the optimism. There is an upper limit to how many office workers and programmers an economy needs - and can sustain at wages enabling the living standards that we've come to expect. The only big technical revolution that I see coming in the next few decades will be the robot revolution. Now go figure how that will affect the job market. My opinion is that the current system of wealth distribution will have to be reconsidered quite fundamentally when robots begin to replace the low-wage workforce. I also think this will not go smoothly, because when have such large changes ever gone smoothly in history... Feel free to disagree, call me a "dreamer" and my robot story "absurd" - I'm used to that. But looking at what robots can do today (cf. ASIMO) I'm deeply convinced it's going to happen, and much sooner than most people expect.

lsc 16y ago
I think most people agree that the trend towards automation will continue. It's not a new idea; this has been happening for far longer than either one of us has been alive. I mean, the difference between science fiction and reality is primarily that the robots we have, so far, look nothing like humans. but the part about them replacing workers, that's been true for a very long time now.
- moe 16y ago
  It's not a new idea; this has been happening for far longer than either one of us has been alive. Yes, I'm thinking of a bigger magnitude, though. As naive as that may sound, I do believe in the "service bot" vision where households and workplaces are increasingly stuffed with robots. There's of course still a long way to go. But when I look at the individual pieces that are available today (see videos below) then I tend to, perhaps naively, expect the first robots capable of taking over simplistic jobs (outside of industrial environments) within a 15-20 year timeframe. And not long thereafter before it becomes cost effective to actually deploy them on a large scale. When that happens then it will likely be a different quality from what we've seen in industrialism before. It's not about machines reducing the workforce in certain industries. It's about machines replacing human labor as a whole in entire segments - not least in the service-sector. I'm deriving my guesstimate from the fact that what we see today is the result of the past circa 20 years of research. Add another 20yrs to that and the mind is blown, at least mine is. With regard to "not a new idea" you have a point in theory. Yet in practice, when I listen to political discussions then I don't hear anyone having it on the radar, even when they talk about the so-called "longterm". Perhaps I'm expecting too much, politicians rarely look further ahead than 10yrs anyways. I just wonder when we'll begin to seriously question the paradigm of "everyone has a job" which dominates everything today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg#t=3m32s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg#t=3m32s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiw-jbjnyzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiw-jbjnyzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPAIpXm-nU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPAIpXm-nU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrmrU7P-ysA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrmrU7P-ysA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwhPLeIq4uY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwhPLeIq4uY
  - lsc 16y ago
    I guess I don't see how robots that can do service jobs is different from robots that can do manufacturing jobs. (really, most service jobs are humans doing jobs a robot could do. Are you seriously going to argue that a robot couldn't make a big mac and frys, even using 1980s technology?) and really, I know people who use irobot products; I mean, it's still very much version .9 beta, from what I understand, it doesn't pick up your stuff and put it somewhere you can't find it like a real housekeeper does, but we'll get there. I guess I don't see how obsoleting the housekeeper or the barista is any more disruptive than obsoleting the assembly line worker. People fearing that technology will obsolete them is as old as technology itself. It is said that the etymology of the word 'sabotage' can be traced back to the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, feeling the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete. wikipedia also points out this is unverified... however, workers fearing competition from machines is not a new thing. sure, when the economy is good, everyone loves automation, as it tends to increase productivity and thus wages, and people who are automated away can be productively used elsewhere. When the economy is shit, though, like it is now, people tend to fear and hate automation, because when the economy is shit, rather than driving up wages, the increased productivity just replaces the least-productive workers. I mean, yeah, things are changing faster than they were before... but really, it's the same problem that the 15th century textile workers had. As time goes on and our technology advances, yeah, more and more people are largely idle. Very few people actually have to work to obtain food for everyone. But we come up with new things to do. I use the example of my sister, who got a degree in fine arts... I mean, she paints (and her paintings are certainly very interesting) and she makes expensive coffee for people, (and hey, I enjoy expensive coffee) but my point is that she went to school for four years (and is now trying to get into graduate school) studying for a job that nobody rationally expects to provide a comfortable living. I'm not saying it's a bad choice... but if we did not have a whole lot of spare capacity, it wouldn't be a choice at all. And hell, look at all the people in the advertising industry, convincing people to buy products they don't need. There will be new industries in the future. The retraining cycle is shorter than it has ever been before, true, but I think most of the problems we're seeing right now are because our economy is broken for other reasons, not because of the pace of productivity improvement.