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Warning: the following is conjecture which I have not researched. Because who has the time? My main question while reading this article was why is the author s

Warning: the following is conjecture which I have not researched. Because who has the time? My main question while reading this article was why is the author so stuck on "manufacturing" jobs being automated away? He does address this very briefly in section III but I cannot help but feel his foundational research is highly skewed. Sure, robotics are growing in popularity and that technology, specifically, will likely impact manufacturing. Comparatively speaking, however, industrial robots are very expensive. Only the larger manufacturers are going to be upgrading plants with multi-million dollar (or very, very recently hundreds of thousands) equipment to replace a few hundred workers each (if that?). Fun fact: ~90% of the 5.7 million companies in the US had fewer than 20 employees in 2012. 50% of working Americans were employed by companies of fewer than 500 (source of questionable quality: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-employment-by-firm-size-has-a-fat-tailed-distribution-2015-6?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com.au/us-employment-by-firm-siz...). Compare all that to search results for "images of 1950s offices". You get photos of rows and rows of desks of identical configurations - people with paper pads, typewriters or tabulation machines. Look at what all these people are doing. They are accounting departments calculating statements and balance sheets by hand. They are typists writing out form letters one at a time. These are the job categories that have been wiped out in their entirety by spreadsheets and word processors that you can get literally for free. The CEO can do the work of that 1950s accounting department by herself in an hour. Where did those jobs go? I don't know how many there were to start but it looks significant. Yes, modern offices have the same configurations but it is fundamentally different. The companies I work in can have an entire business unit (or company!) working out of an office that size. One person at one desk is an entire marketing department, the next person is HR (including payroll/accounts/bookkeeping). The only rows of homogeneous roles you see these days are the grunts building the technology. In conclusion, I get the feeling a lot of people wondering if jobs are disappearing seem to be suffering from a bit of "out of sight, out of mind". Most of the automated jobs are already gone. Just my thoughts.

tjoff 9y ago
> Only the larger manufacturers are going to be upgrading plants [...] Well, one consequence of this might be that only larger manufacturers survive. The new robots are increasingly general purpose and an army of those could quickly switch tasks based on current needs.
zanny 9y ago
This is why the post-recession employment recovery in the US is complete fabrication. The jobs lost in 2008 were careers, the jobs that replaced them were gig work like Uber. The employment figures today discount the tens of millions of NEETs and the tens of millions of people trying to scrape by on gig jobs that provide no healthcare, retirement, stability, and put them below the poverty line. Per-capita incomes are messed up because the top 1000 incomes inflate as much as the bottom hundred million deflate. > will likely impact manufacturing Robotics have been impacting manufacturing for decades. The death of office jobs you mention was another casualty of automation we already felt. Nothing about the impeding automation apocalypse is coming up ahead because its already happening. Its just the low hanging fruit went first, and the tree will keep being picked clean from bottom to top. The economy warps in response to it, in a fleeting attempt to preserve outdated ideology, by fabricating work and creating bullshit jobs out of bureaucracy and artificial complexity to keep society from falling apart. The problem is every single private enterprise resists giving people bullshit jobs to varying degrees, which creates the discontent between workers who lose income over time and employers who keep reaping larger and larger profits.
- notabee 9y ago
  The increase in homeless encampments as detailed in this report are also a stark indication of how false the recovery is. Unfortunately most of the homeless get shipped to California, often with one way bus tickets from municipalities that don't want to deal with the problem. https://www.nlchp.org/Tent_City_USA_2017 https://www.nlchp.org/Tent_City_USA_2017 (Looks like they need to renew their TLS certificate.)
maxerickson 9y ago
Any company able to obtain financing will instantly replace 10 workers with a $1 million machine. If the machine is vaguely durable that even works if wages are $10 (~$30K annual cost per worker->$300,000 payroll per year, investment pays off in reasonable time).
- albertgoeswoof 9y ago
  That assumes the work stays the same- people can be repurposed to do something else or fired. Investing heavily in tech is a big risk and is something that slows this kind of unemployment significantly
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Sure, it's a cartoon example. But I think the broader point, that businesses can afford to invest quite large amounts to reduce labor costs, is not very controversial.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
      It's really not a cartoon example. I've seen your point but in reverse: small shops that get big contracts go out and buy $500,000 machines instead of hiring 10 people to do the work.
freeone3000 9y ago
He alludes to that in the "something happening since the 1960s" - this is that thing, the rise of the computer.
andrewjl 9y ago
What's to stop someone from making a cheaper industrial robot? And someone else to make an even cheaper one? And for someone else to make an open source basic robot and sell a higher level management suite as an add-on? Or better yet, someone can buy a bunch of these, put them in a building and lease them out by the minute via AWS-like service. I do agree with your point re 1950's offices.
HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
Only the larger manufacturers are going to be upgrading plants with multi-million dollar (or very, very recently hundreds of thousands) equipment to replace a few hundred workers each (if that?). Not really. Bear in mind that when you're talking machinery costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're looking at stuff that farmers are buying these days. It's not only the big companies that can do this. In an economy where a small house in SF costs $1M, a $1M machine is essentially a mortgage payment that you can depreciate.

tjoff 9y ago

> Only the larger manufacturers are going to be upgrading plants [...] Well, one consequence of this might be that only larger manufacturers survive. The new robots are increasingly general purpose and an army of those could quickly switch tasks based on current needs.

zanny 9y ago

This is why the post-recession employment recovery in the US is complete fabrication. The jobs lost in 2008 were careers, the jobs that replaced them were gig work like Uber. The employment figures today discount the tens of millions of NEETs and the tens of millions of people trying to scrape by on gig jobs that provide no healthcare, retirement, stability, and put them below the poverty line. Per-capita incomes are messed up because the top 1000 incomes inflate as much as the bottom hundred million deflate. > will likely impact manufacturing Robotics have been impacting manufacturing for decades. The death of office jobs you mention was another casualty of automation we already felt. Nothing about the impeding automation apocalypse is coming up ahead because its already happening. Its just the low hanging fruit went first, and the tree will keep being picked clean from bottom to top. The economy warps in response to it, in a fleeting attempt to preserve outdated ideology, by fabricating work and creating bullshit jobs out of bureaucracy and artificial complexity to keep society from falling apart. The problem is every single private enterprise resists giving people bullshit jobs to varying degrees, which creates the discontent between workers who lose income over time and employers who keep reaping larger and larger profits.

notabee 9y ago
The increase in homeless encampments as detailed in this report are also a stark indication of how false the recovery is. Unfortunately most of the homeless get shipped to California, often with one way bus tickets from municipalities that don't want to deal with the problem. https://www.nlchp.org/Tent_City_USA_2017 https://www.nlchp.org/Tent_City_USA_2017 (Looks like they need to renew their TLS certificate.)

maxerickson 9y ago

Any company able to obtain financing will instantly replace 10 workers with a $1 million machine. If the machine is vaguely durable that even works if wages are $10 (~$30K annual cost per worker->$300,000 payroll per year, investment pays off in reasonable time).

albertgoeswoof 9y ago
That assumes the work stays the same- people can be repurposed to do something else or fired. Investing heavily in tech is a big risk and is something that slows this kind of unemployment significantly
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Sure, it's a cartoon example. But I think the broader point, that businesses can afford to invest quite large amounts to reduce labor costs, is not very controversial.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
    It's really not a cartoon example. I've seen your point but in reverse: small shops that get big contracts go out and buy $500,000 machines instead of hiring 10 people to do the work.

freeone3000 9y ago

He alludes to that in the "something happening since the 1960s" - this is that thing, the rise of the computer.

andrewjl 9y ago

What's to stop someone from making a cheaper industrial robot? And someone else to make an even cheaper one? And for someone else to make an open source basic robot and sell a higher level management suite as an add-on? Or better yet, someone can buy a bunch of these, put them in a building and lease them out by the minute via AWS-like service. I do agree with your point re 1950's offices.

HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago

Only the larger manufacturers are going to be upgrading plants with multi-million dollar (or very, very recently hundreds of thousands) equipment to replace a few hundred workers each (if that?). Not really. Bear in mind that when you're talking machinery costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're looking at stuff that farmers are buying these days. It's not only the big companies that can do this. In an economy where a small house in SF costs $1M, a $1M machine is essentially a mortgage payment that you can depreciate.