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There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventu

There were a little over 3.5 million cashiers in the United States in 2016 — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads. Why is this the knee-jerk response to technological progress? True progress isn't forcing millions of people into low-wage routine work. True progress would emancipate people from this drudgery entirely. Isaac Asimov questioned why the goal of both the left and the right is always "full employment": "The goal of the future should be full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system."

arebop 9y ago
It is because we have no scalable mechanism in society to provide for the basic needs of the "emancipated." Sure, in theory the automation yields a surplus, but in practice how do we actually allocate the surplus? Not to the economically useless, that's for sure.
- bcherny 9y ago
  What do you mean? There’s a lot of work on this by various economists, including modern socialists like Picketty. The big ideas are distributing ownership of things (goods, land, means of production), capital, and education in a way that is fair (definitions vary) and doesn’t disincentivize production.
  - jjoonathan 9y ago
    It's easy to come up with ideas, it's nearly impossible to muster the political capital to actually try them.
dyyni 9y ago
>Why is this the knee-jerk response of many journalists in response to technological progress? Maybe because our society isn’t ready for such changes. The American system especially lacks safety nets and social security systems to support those without a job. The way things are now is that one needs to have a job to be able to “play”. One solution would be to tax the robots that replace the working class. Otherwise the only ones to gain are the ones who own the robots.
- hk__2 9y ago
  > Maybe because our society isn’t ready for such changes. Our society has been killing jobs with automation for the past 150 years or so. Think of all the jobs that don’t exist anymore because of your fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, car, etc. Before alarm clocks, people used to get paid to go yell in front of your house for 10 minutes until you got up. Before cars, there were tons of people living off horses as a transportation medium. Before automatic doors in the trains there was one employee in each coach to close them. Pretty much every complex object you touch nowadays has killed jobs when it first appeared.
nextstep 9y ago
Because to both customers and employees of grocery stores, this doesn’t seem like “technological progress”; I think it’s unclear if this experience is better. But it’s certainly being viewed as a costsaving measure by Amazon.
vixen99 9y ago
I hope you're not assuming that everybody is in agreement with this questionable proposition. 'Destroy' sounds like a call to battle given the world as it is.
rland12 9y ago
Workers whose jobs we have automated did not become "emancipated." They were completely forgotten by society, government, and the private enterprise as the spoils went to the top 20%. What about this particular shearing indicates a difference in the way "progress" is made?
- devoply 9y ago
  Well once those jobs are lost, then everyone is looking to retrain in the few industries which still have jobs. But then that creates massive labour which drops the cost of labour down to poverty. Another downward spiral. Universities will probably stop offering degrees in things like accounting pretty soon as there will be very little use for accounting degrees.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Plus--the future is in front of us now. We don't even need to speculate. I guess the Midwest is an easy target, but it's there. They made their product in the cheapest country, analogous to automation, and look at the lovely result. Misery, and mind numbing drugs. Even now, people love to quote the glorious unemployment number. They don't quote the, "able bodied, not working number", and they are not all students, or family members taking care of sick ones. And most people can't buy a Uber approved vechicle to carriage the wealthy ones around town. They are displaced workers. Hell, the chit jobs are coveted by desperate immigrants. Jobs that students, and non career minded folks used to depend on are filled by people who treat the job as a career. The tech society will feel the pain when this odd boom ends. Enjoy the cushy jobs while they last. I can easily see 90% cuts in labor at so many tech companies. The next boom will be about complete automation, and watch that homeless number skyrocket. I don't blame automation, or even globalization, but make those that benefit pay higher taxes to pay for the misery they are inflicting on society.
hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
> True progress would emancipate people from this drudgery entirely. This sounds like a "Let them eat cake" response. What do you propose is the solution then for giving these people a viable lifestyle if they don't have any competitive skills? A lot of potential ideas, like basic income, have been discussed on HN, but this should be considered a pretty scary problem because there aren't any immediately obvious solutions.
resu_nimda 9y ago
Because the politico-economic system Asimov referred to is still intact. Our society does not use technological advances to emancipate the general populace. It would be amazing if McDonalds fully automated their stores and allowed their current employees to work one day a week for the same pay they receive now, but we both know that's not how it would work out.
- melling 9y ago
  How would they hire future employees they don’t need to replace the current ones that don’t work?
- icelancer 9y ago
  >> Because the politico-economic system Asimov referred to is still intact. And it always will be until there is stimulus to change. Government - large systems in general - don't change the other way.
devoply 9y ago
The economic system is a cycle. What is produced is then consumed. It is consumed by using the same money which is paid for its production. Without that cycle of production and consumption the system is short circuited. In that you have products, but no logical way to distribute them and therefore no reason for their production. Therefore consumption drops and less products are demanded by the system. Therefore less labour is used and required. That's a downward spiral of employment the end result of which is that only things which are necessary are produced like clothing, food, and shelter and only enough money is in the system to provide those things. The only way to "fix" this is to short circuit the system again and provide money to people who have not earned it so they may buy goods. But how do you decide how much money everyone is entitled to so that social classes exist? You don't. Everyone is the same, so everyone is pretty much low class barely making more than poverty. Like for instance if you do this globally, everyone would be living in poverty as there isn't that money money or products to go around to make everyone rich. There is simply not that much money in the system meaning that there isn't that much production to make everyone rich. How about a future where the masses live like Amish, but with more free time. Sure you can play... but exactly what does that mean is a different question. I imagine housing developments in rural areas that cost very little and very little economic activity takes place there. Like for instance say small houses for 1 or 2 people for $25k in the middle of nowhere which you can support on your 20k minimum income. Place provides very few municipal services as well to keep the costs down.
vogelito 9y ago
Loved this comment. What does real progress look like? Paradigm-shifts take a lot of time to happen but need to start somewhere.
deecewan 9y ago
Except this only works if we can flip a switch at some point in time to automate everything. Otherwise people will still have to work maintaining robots, building new robots, or working on the technology that powers the robots. So, now when people are all out there 'playing', the ones enabling the playing still have to work. Good luck encouraging people that is a good idea, when they could just quit and go play themselves.
sumedh 9y ago
> Why is this the knee-jerk response to technological progress? because people lose jobs and then they elect people who promise to bring back jobs.

arebop 9y ago

It is because we have no scalable mechanism in society to provide for the basic needs of the "emancipated." Sure, in theory the automation yields a surplus, but in practice how do we actually allocate the surplus? Not to the economically useless, that's for sure.

bcherny 9y ago
What do you mean? There’s a lot of work on this by various economists, including modern socialists like Picketty. The big ideas are distributing ownership of things (goods, land, means of production), capital, and education in a way that is fair (definitions vary) and doesn’t disincentivize production.
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  It's easy to come up with ideas, it's nearly impossible to muster the political capital to actually try them.

dyyni 9y ago

>Why is this the knee-jerk response of many journalists in response to technological progress? Maybe because our society isn’t ready for such changes. The American system especially lacks safety nets and social security systems to support those without a job. The way things are now is that one needs to have a job to be able to “play”. One solution would be to tax the robots that replace the working class. Otherwise the only ones to gain are the ones who own the robots.

hk__2 9y ago
> Maybe because our society isn’t ready for such changes. Our society has been killing jobs with automation for the past 150 years or so. Think of all the jobs that don’t exist anymore because of your fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, car, etc. Before alarm clocks, people used to get paid to go yell in front of your house for 10 minutes until you got up. Before cars, there were tons of people living off horses as a transportation medium. Before automatic doors in the trains there was one employee in each coach to close them. Pretty much every complex object you touch nowadays has killed jobs when it first appeared.

nextstep 9y ago

Because to both customers and employees of grocery stores, this doesn’t seem like “technological progress”; I think it’s unclear if this experience is better. But it’s certainly being viewed as a costsaving measure by Amazon.

vixen99 9y ago

I hope you're not assuming that everybody is in agreement with this questionable proposition. 'Destroy' sounds like a call to battle given the world as it is.

rland12 9y ago

Workers whose jobs we have automated did not become "emancipated." They were completely forgotten by society, government, and the private enterprise as the spoils went to the top 20%. What about this particular shearing indicates a difference in the way "progress" is made?

devoply 9y ago
Well once those jobs are lost, then everyone is looking to retrain in the few industries which still have jobs. But then that creates massive labour which drops the cost of labour down to poverty. Another downward spiral. Universities will probably stop offering degrees in things like accounting pretty soon as there will be very little use for accounting degrees.
icantdrive55 9y ago
Plus--the future is in front of us now. We don't even need to speculate. I guess the Midwest is an easy target, but it's there. They made their product in the cheapest country, analogous to automation, and look at the lovely result. Misery, and mind numbing drugs. Even now, people love to quote the glorious unemployment number. They don't quote the, "able bodied, not working number", and they are not all students, or family members taking care of sick ones. And most people can't buy a Uber approved vechicle to carriage the wealthy ones around town. They are displaced workers. Hell, the chit jobs are coveted by desperate immigrants. Jobs that students, and non career minded folks used to depend on are filled by people who treat the job as a career. The tech society will feel the pain when this odd boom ends. Enjoy the cushy jobs while they last. I can easily see 90% cuts in labor at so many tech companies. The next boom will be about complete automation, and watch that homeless number skyrocket. I don't blame automation, or even globalization, but make those that benefit pay higher taxes to pay for the misery they are inflicting on society.

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago

> True progress would emancipate people from this drudgery entirely. This sounds like a "Let them eat cake" response. What do you propose is the solution then for giving these people a viable lifestyle if they don't have any competitive skills? A lot of potential ideas, like basic income, have been discussed on HN, but this should be considered a pretty scary problem because there aren't any immediately obvious solutions.

resu_nimda 9y ago

Because the politico-economic system Asimov referred to is still intact. Our society does not use technological advances to emancipate the general populace. It would be amazing if McDonalds fully automated their stores and allowed their current employees to work one day a week for the same pay they receive now, but we both know that's not how it would work out.

melling 9y ago
How would they hire future employees they don’t need to replace the current ones that don’t work?
icelancer 9y ago
>> Because the politico-economic system Asimov referred to is still intact. And it always will be until there is stimulus to change. Government - large systems in general - don't change the other way.

devoply 9y ago

The economic system is a cycle. What is produced is then consumed. It is consumed by using the same money which is paid for its production. Without that cycle of production and consumption the system is short circuited. In that you have products, but no logical way to distribute them and therefore no reason for their production. Therefore consumption drops and less products are demanded by the system. Therefore less labour is used and required. That's a downward spiral of employment the end result of which is that only things which are necessary are produced like clothing, food, and shelter and only enough money is in the system to provide those things. The only way to "fix" this is to short circuit the system again and provide money to people who have not earned it so they may buy goods. But how do you decide how much money everyone is entitled to so that social classes exist? You don't. Everyone is the same, so everyone is pretty much low class barely making more than poverty. Like for instance if you do this globally, everyone would be living in poverty as there isn't that money money or products to go around to make everyone rich. There is simply not that much money in the system meaning that there isn't that much production to make everyone rich. How about a future where the masses live like Amish, but with more free time. Sure you can play... but exactly what does that mean is a different question. I imagine housing developments in rural areas that cost very little and very little economic activity takes place there. Like for instance say small houses for 1 or 2 people for $25k in the middle of nowhere which you can support on your 20k minimum income. Place provides very few municipal services as well to keep the costs down.

vogelito 9y ago

Loved this comment. What does real progress look like? Paradigm-shifts take a lot of time to happen but need to start somewhere.

deecewan 9y ago

Except this only works if we can flip a switch at some point in time to automate everything. Otherwise people will still have to work maintaining robots, building new robots, or working on the technology that powers the robots. So, now when people are all out there 'playing', the ones enabling the playing still have to work. Good luck encouraging people that is a good idea, when they could just quit and go play themselves.

sumedh 9y ago

> Why is this the knee-jerk response to technological progress? because people lose jobs and then they elect people who promise to bring back jobs.