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The linked IPPR report is worth reading. For this crowd, the section on "partial automation" is probably most important. Web dev is... up there... in terms of p
by throwawayjava 9y ago
The linked IPPR report is worth reading. For this crowd, the section on "partial automation" is probably most important. Web dev is... up there... in terms of potential for partial automation.
There are a few important observations that the article and the IPPR report don't stress enough.
1. The jobs most likely to be automated, will be automated using technology that's inaccessible to the employees whose jobs are being destroyed.
This point is often optimistically papered over using observations like "coal miners can go to coding bootcamps!" I know a few truckers and I have no doubt that each of them could go through a relatively short coding academy for web development work if it became a "do or starve" situation. But I doubt that most of them could become much more specialized autonomous vehicle software engineers, either due to raw intellectual ability or -- more often -- due to an inability to make a substantial half-decade investment in retraining (most of these folks would need to (re-)learn a lot of high school algebra).
So just because we're replacing truck drivers with programmers, doesn't mean that the folks displaced by self-driving are somehow getting jobs that were created via the destruction of their prior employment opportunities.
2. "Partial Automation" could mean less hours worked, but is more likely to mean lower pay and more hours worked, and not all "partial automation" is equal. I.e., to destroy trucking as a middle-class profession, you don't need a self-driving truck. You just need to automate enough of the hard stuff so that anyone can learn to drive truck in a week.
I think it's useful to separate the partial automation that de-skills work (level 4 autonomy for trucks) from the partial automation that simply means less equally-skilled work (web dev). The former creates more job opportunities, but turns a middle-class job into a low-class job. The latter just eliminates from middle-class jobs altogether.
- snarf21 9y agoI agree that there won't always be new jobs for those that are lost. There is some hope that the truck drivers can become mechanics and robot repair persons even if they can't learn coding. There is also a hugely underfunded part of our society that a lot of jobs will have to become in the future (imo) around elder care. Basically, low skilled people whose job it is to help other people, likely paid for by the government.
- throwawayjava 9y agoBut truck drivers are paid substantially more than the lowest educational rung in the nursing hierarchy.
- andrenth 9y agoYou also have to consider jobs that will exist which don’t exist now. For example, driving for Uber wasn’t a thing until recently.
- ethbro 9y agoDriving a taxi was, since pre-1635.
- andrenth 9y agoAre you serious? Do you not see the difference between driving for uber and driving a taxi? Let’s start with state-imposed bureaucracy and artificial limitation on supply.
- ethbro 9y agoYes, and no. For definitions relevant to the comment I was replying to, none of your points make Uber a new type of labor.
- andrenth 9y agoMy reply was about you equating uber and taxis. It may not be a new “type” of labor in the sense that driving jobs already existed, but what kind of refutation is that? Uber (and other similar companies) created new job opportunities, which is undeniable simply because a few years ago these companies didn’t exist.