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IMO, there will always be work that needs doing. Once a particular kind of work becomes worthless another will replace it. Will the rapid increase in automatio

IMO, there will always be work that needs doing. Once a particular kind of work becomes worthless another will replace it. Will the rapid increase in automation cause a "correction" in the labor market? Yup. Will it negatively effect lots of people in the short term? Sure. Will automation destroy the labor market entirely? No. Even if a majority of jobs were in creating automation you still have to pay those people to automate. I am wary of the people who feel the need to try and prevent the correction by way of government regulation. That seems like an easy way to create artificial markets like the housing bubble of 2008. At least at the current rate of automation there is not going to be a sudden massive collapse.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Okay but the question isn't 'will there still be some jobs?' it's 'will there be enough jobs?' If the answer is that no and we're at some fundamental point on the technological growth curve where we're advancing fast enough that we wipe more jobs out than we create then what do we do with a society which allocates 'deserts' and 'worth' to those who have jobs on the understanding that everyone could have one if they really tried? The only way out is government involvement.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Okay but the question isn't 'will there still be some jobs?' it's 'will there be enough jobs?' No, it's will there be enough jobs with sufficient pay.
CodeCube 9y ago
This is a very easy position to take when you're part of the group that can easily become an "automator". I want to be entirely on the side that you describe here, but I simply can't ignore the negative quality of life that this will (and has been) imposing on a large proportion of society. This group is casually waved away; "just get a higher education", "just move to where the jobs are", "don't have to take care of your grandchildren because your children fell into opioid abuse because of the lack of opportunity even if you (currently) have a job", "take family-breaking commutes to better jobs in areas where the public transportation is poor or nonexistent". The "free market" doesn't give a crap about these folks ... just like nature doesn't care when an ecosystem is affected by the arrival of some new invasive species. If there ain't no food, you starve. That may be fine for the local rabbit population, but we have to watch out and help our fellow human ... we're not savages. edit: To be clear, as an "automator" myself, I obviously have a vested interest in this trend continuing. I'm obviously not saying that we should become the proverbial luddites and stop automation. But we do need to get better about making sure that humanity keeps marching forward one way or another.
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  > But we do need to get better about making sure that humanity keeps marching forward one way or another. Like it always has? The internets was all abuzz back in 1841 when Howe invented a pin making machine that displaced hundreds of thousands of workers. All the matchmakers were especially concerned and rightly so it turned out.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > > But we do need to get better about making sure that humanity keeps marching forward one way or another. > Like it always has? It always has, in a zoomed out view, because people are either concerned and take steps in advance of foreseeable backwards steps, or because they become concerned at take responsive steps afterwards, not because adverse change does not happen.
shkkmo 9y ago
Nobody is claiming the labor market will be destroyed. > Once a particular kind of work becomes worthless another will replace it. Yes, but the question is if the new jobs will pay, in aggregate, as much as the jobs that disappeared: "Aggregate wages will be reduced if workers are substituted for technology without new jobs of equivalent worth in aggregate wages being created elsewhere in the economy." > I am wary of the people who feel the need to try and prevent the correction by way of government regulation. I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. The only way to prevent the correction(s) is to prevent the automation(s). There are many ways we can make the correction(s) less painful. We can provide funding for re-training. We can provide unemployment benefits. We can provide basic income.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > Nobody is claiming the labor market will be destroyed. Well, let me claim it then. The labor market will eventually be destroyed. That's the end goal of automation and it is an achievable goal. It's very likely decades away what makes it both too far to be an emergency and too near to ignore.
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    > The labor market will eventually be destroyed. That's the end goal of automation and it is an achievable goal. The destruction of the labor market requires more than just lots and lots of automation. You would need extremely capable general AI. Thus, I don't see the destruction of the labor market without entering a technological singularity. Since predictions about a post-singularity future are extremely hard to evaluate, I don't see how planning for it can accomplish much. We can however make plans for the route that may lead up to that point. It behooves us to make plans for a labor market that has not been destroyed, but which is undergoing significant changes due to automation.
  - andrenth 9y ago
    The auto industry is heavily automated and yet more people than ever work on it now.
lkrubner 9y ago
"IMO, there will always be work that needs doing." You misunderstand the dynamics. The amount of work to do is infinite. But at any given price point the amount of labor that will be hired to work is finite. The price (the wage) for that work is effected by supply and demand. If the demand falls, then the price of labor (the wage) must also fall.
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  > If the demand falls, then the price of labor (the wage) must also fall. Which doesn't follow from "the amount of work to do is infinite" which implies infinite demand for labor. Speaking on the whole, or course supply and demand determines the cost of labor (up to a point) but it isn't a valid argument against "there will always be work that needs doing."
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Which doesn't follow from "the amount of work to do is infinite" which implies infinite demand for labor. No, it implies that quantity demanded of labor asymptotically approaches infinity as price approaches zero. (“Infinite demand” is somewhat incoherent, since demand and supply aren't scalar values, they are functions mapping price to quantity.) Demand can fall (the function can be transformed so that at every price, quantity demanded is less than before the change) without a change to the asymptotic behavior.
    - UncleEntity 9y ago
      That still doesn't apply to the argument at hand. Human wants are unbounded and they have this knack for applying resources towards the fulfillment of their wants. It's basically all they do, all the time. So it would follow that if automation were to fulfill the most pressing wants then people would simply just find less pressing wants that couldn't be automated to fill like, I don't know, building a death star. This (I believe without looking it up because I'm lazy) is the first axiom of praxeology.
      - 9y ago
kelnos 9y ago
We shouldn't be preventing or putting barriers in front of automation, but... > Will it negatively effect lots of people in the short term? Sure. ... this is actually a huge problem that we don't have a solution for. Telling people "sorry, you won't have a job for a year or two while you retrain" isn't acceptable without some sort of assistance. Social and political will seem to be against this sort of thing, so what do we do?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Okay but the question isn't 'will there still be some jobs?' it's 'will there be enough jobs?' If the answer is that no and we're at some fundamental point on the technological growth curve where we're advancing fast enough that we wipe more jobs out than we create then what do we do with a society which allocates 'deserts' and 'worth' to those who have jobs on the understanding that everyone could have one if they really tried? The only way out is government involvement.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Okay but the question isn't 'will there still be some jobs?' it's 'will there be enough jobs?' No, it's will there be enough jobs with sufficient pay.

CodeCube 9y ago

This is a very easy position to take when you're part of the group that can easily become an "automator". I want to be entirely on the side that you describe here, but I simply can't ignore the negative quality of life that this will (and has been) imposing on a large proportion of society. This group is casually waved away; "just get a higher education", "just move to where the jobs are", "don't have to take care of your grandchildren because your children fell into opioid abuse because of the lack of opportunity even if you (currently) have a job", "take family-breaking commutes to better jobs in areas where the public transportation is poor or nonexistent". The "free market" doesn't give a crap about these folks ... just like nature doesn't care when an ecosystem is affected by the arrival of some new invasive species. If there ain't no food, you starve. That may be fine for the local rabbit population, but we have to watch out and help our fellow human ... we're not savages. edit: To be clear, as an "automator" myself, I obviously have a vested interest in this trend continuing. I'm obviously not saying that we should become the proverbial luddites and stop automation. But we do need to get better about making sure that humanity keeps marching forward one way or another.

UncleEntity 9y ago
> But we do need to get better about making sure that humanity keeps marching forward one way or another. Like it always has? The internets was all abuzz back in 1841 when Howe invented a pin making machine that displaced hundreds of thousands of workers. All the matchmakers were especially concerned and rightly so it turned out.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > > But we do need to get better about making sure that humanity keeps marching forward one way or another. > Like it always has? It always has, in a zoomed out view, because people are either concerned and take steps in advance of foreseeable backwards steps, or because they become concerned at take responsive steps afterwards, not because adverse change does not happen.

shkkmo 9y ago

Nobody is claiming the labor market will be destroyed. > Once a particular kind of work becomes worthless another will replace it. Yes, but the question is if the new jobs will pay, in aggregate, as much as the jobs that disappeared: "Aggregate wages will be reduced if workers are substituted for technology without new jobs of equivalent worth in aggregate wages being created elsewhere in the economy." > I am wary of the people who feel the need to try and prevent the correction by way of government regulation. I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. The only way to prevent the correction(s) is to prevent the automation(s). There are many ways we can make the correction(s) less painful. We can provide funding for re-training. We can provide unemployment benefits. We can provide basic income.

marcosdumay 9y ago
> Nobody is claiming the labor market will be destroyed. Well, let me claim it then. The labor market will eventually be destroyed. That's the end goal of automation and it is an achievable goal. It's very likely decades away what makes it both too far to be an emergency and too near to ignore.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  > The labor market will eventually be destroyed. That's the end goal of automation and it is an achievable goal. The destruction of the labor market requires more than just lots and lots of automation. You would need extremely capable general AI. Thus, I don't see the destruction of the labor market without entering a technological singularity. Since predictions about a post-singularity future are extremely hard to evaluate, I don't see how planning for it can accomplish much. We can however make plans for the route that may lead up to that point. It behooves us to make plans for a labor market that has not been destroyed, but which is undergoing significant changes due to automation.
- andrenth 9y ago
  The auto industry is heavily automated and yet more people than ever work on it now.

lkrubner 9y ago

"IMO, there will always be work that needs doing." You misunderstand the dynamics. The amount of work to do is infinite. But at any given price point the amount of labor that will be hired to work is finite. The price (the wage) for that work is effected by supply and demand. If the demand falls, then the price of labor (the wage) must also fall.

UncleEntity 9y ago
> If the demand falls, then the price of labor (the wage) must also fall. Which doesn't follow from "the amount of work to do is infinite" which implies infinite demand for labor. Speaking on the whole, or course supply and demand determines the cost of labor (up to a point) but it isn't a valid argument against "there will always be work that needs doing."
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Which doesn't follow from "the amount of work to do is infinite" which implies infinite demand for labor. No, it implies that quantity demanded of labor asymptotically approaches infinity as price approaches zero. (“Infinite demand” is somewhat incoherent, since demand and supply aren't scalar values, they are functions mapping price to quantity.) Demand can fall (the function can be transformed so that at every price, quantity demanded is less than before the change) without a change to the asymptotic behavior.
  - UncleEntity 9y ago
    That still doesn't apply to the argument at hand. Human wants are unbounded and they have this knack for applying resources towards the fulfillment of their wants. It's basically all they do, all the time. So it would follow that if automation were to fulfill the most pressing wants then people would simply just find less pressing wants that couldn't be automated to fill like, I don't know, building a death star. This (I believe without looking it up because I'm lazy) is the first axiom of praxeology.
    - 9y ago

kelnos 9y ago

We shouldn't be preventing or putting barriers in front of automation, but... > Will it negatively effect lots of people in the short term? Sure. ... this is actually a huge problem that we don't have a solution for. Telling people "sorry, you won't have a job for a year or two while you retrain" isn't acceptable without some sort of assistance. Social and political will seem to be against this sort of thing, so what do we do?