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"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 amoun

"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.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > 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 Why “that couldn't be automated”? Automation is capital intensive, not free, if the people with money get everything they are getting now cheaper with automation there's no reason that the next highest cost/utility tier wouldn't also be produced by automation. If automation were free, sure, you'd have to get down to non-automatable tasks to consume resources. There's no inherent reason automation inherently needs to be less efficient than human labor at anything, and even if it is at something, there's no guarantee that that thing will have a cost/utility ratio that results in significant demand for it after all the things producible more efficiently by automation.
      - UncleEntity 9y ago
        Some things simply can't be automated by their very nature. "Home cooked meal" loses a lot of its appeal if it's Mom's robot doing the work. And not everything comes down to a cost/utility calculation. For example I have a poster on my wall that was silk screened by some french dude almost 100 years ago that has 0 utility yet I prefer it over any "modern" thing I could replace it with that may have some practical utilititarian value. Anyhoo, the main point I'm trying to make is there has been automation for a long, long time and we aren't any worse off because of it. Some could even argue were better off because of it even.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > And not everything comes down to a cost/utility calculation. I think you say this because you misunderstand economic utility, which is subjective value derived from the item in question.
        shkkmo 9y ago
        > "Home cooked meal" loses a lot of its appeal if it's Mom's robot doing the work. "Home Cooked Meal" isn't typically a job. I would argue that when it is, the difference between "Prepared by my employee human" and "Prepared by my robotic property" doesn't lose much appeal given equivalent quality/variety. However, I get your point. Many people do place a premium on expressions of power. The one thing that a human cooked meal provides that a robot cooked meal doesn't, is the sense of power over another person. I agree that there will probably always be jobs for people, purely based on this desire. However, this is rather beside the point of the article. > Anyhoo, the main point I'm trying to make is there has been automation for a long, long time and we aren't any worse off because of it. Some could even argue were better off because of it even. Most of us would happily agree with you that we are overall better off because of Automation. However, that is also besides the point of this article. The main point of the article is to point out one of the negative effects that can/has come out of automation. Your 'main point' seems to have no bearing on this, hence the downvotes.

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.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > 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 Why “that couldn't be automated”? Automation is capital intensive, not free, if the people with money get everything they are getting now cheaper with automation there's no reason that the next highest cost/utility tier wouldn't also be produced by automation. If automation were free, sure, you'd have to get down to non-automatable tasks to consume resources. There's no inherent reason automation inherently needs to be less efficient than human labor at anything, and even if it is at something, there's no guarantee that that thing will have a cost/utility ratio that results in significant demand for it after all the things producible more efficiently by automation.
    - UncleEntity 9y ago
      Some things simply can't be automated by their very nature. "Home cooked meal" loses a lot of its appeal if it's Mom's robot doing the work. And not everything comes down to a cost/utility calculation. For example I have a poster on my wall that was silk screened by some french dude almost 100 years ago that has 0 utility yet I prefer it over any "modern" thing I could replace it with that may have some practical utilititarian value. Anyhoo, the main point I'm trying to make is there has been automation for a long, long time and we aren't any worse off because of it. Some could even argue were better off because of it even.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > And not everything comes down to a cost/utility calculation. I think you say this because you misunderstand economic utility, which is subjective value derived from the item in question.
      - shkkmo 9y ago
        > "Home cooked meal" loses a lot of its appeal if it's Mom's robot doing the work. "Home Cooked Meal" isn't typically a job. I would argue that when it is, the difference between "Prepared by my employee human" and "Prepared by my robotic property" doesn't lose much appeal given equivalent quality/variety. However, I get your point. Many people do place a premium on expressions of power. The one thing that a human cooked meal provides that a robot cooked meal doesn't, is the sense of power over another person. I agree that there will probably always be jobs for people, purely based on this desire. However, this is rather beside the point of the article. > Anyhoo, the main point I'm trying to make is there has been automation for a long, long time and we aren't any worse off because of it. Some could even argue were better off because of it even. Most of us would happily agree with you that we are overall better off because of Automation. However, that is also besides the point of this article. The main point of the article is to point out one of the negative effects that can/has come out of automation. Your 'main point' seems to have no bearing on this, hence the downvotes.