5 ms·

same should be said of minimum wage. Minimum wage is probably the worst form of income redistribution we use. not allowing people to have salaries competitive

same should be said of minimum wage. Minimum wage is probably the worst form of income redistribution we use. not allowing people to have salaries competitively priced vs machines will cause most of the swift pain AI will bring. please, replace minimum wage with more welfare or better yet negative income tax. Of course, some jobs will die regardless. But minimum wage greatly exacerbates this.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
A lot of people said that about the minimum wage in the UK before it was introduced, it turned out to be far from the truth.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- randomdata 9y ago
  But you're looking at this from the point of view of the environment where automation has always created far more work than what was replaced. In fact, up to this point, automation has created so much work that we even reached a point where the male half of the population could not handle doing it all and we had to start integrating women, who historically were not involved, into the workplace. Minimum wage is working out just fine right now because every time a job is automated, several new jobs appear to take its place. Previous comments have suggested this trend will not last. Be it that AI will reach a point where it is capable of taking on any new job that we throw at it, or that we will simply run out of new ideas for new kinds of jobs at some point in the future. That is the context being discussed above. In that case, your options are: Compete against automation on price, or go without work entirely. Minimum wage prevents the former, leaving only the latter as an option. The parent is saying it is less ideal to have a $0 income than it is to have a less than minimum, but above zero, income. But that all hinges on the assumption that work will dry up. The opposite has held true for centuries. It seems highly unlikely that this time is any different. I sincerely doubt we have reached the pinnacle of human achievement already.
  - tigershark 9y ago
    No, it makes much more financial sense to not work and earn 0 while getting income with begging or criminal actions than work 10h/day for 1/3 of minimum wage that is for sure not enough to survive.
    - randyrand 9y ago
      Begging only works if the number of beggars is few. When streets have 300 beggars on it, good luck making any money. I live a few blocks from skid row.
    - randomdata 9y ago
      In my country, according to income data provided by the national data collection agency, ~14% of the adult population make less than $10,000 per year. Minimum wage where I am is $14/hr (with some variation across the entire country). Someone working full-time at minimum wage will earn just shy of $30,000 here. Very conveniently, the yearly earnings of that 14% of the population works out to your chosen 1/3 of minimum wage figure almost exactly. I haven't heard any reports of 14% of adults dying off each year due to not making enough money, and that would be a pretty big news story, so it seems that they have somehow managed to survive. And while the data indicates that some have chosen $0 (~4%), and maybe a life of begging and crime (the data is not sufficient to see that correlation), it seems some dollar value greater than zero is still the preferred option for most even when their earning potential is limited.
- randyrand 9y ago
  I dont know the specific claims you are referring to, but the effects of price floors are well known and theoretically easy to understand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_floor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_floor
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    As I said, those arguments were put forward when the UK government introduced a minimum wage and they turned out to be wrong.
bastawhiz 9y ago
Minimum wage is orthogonal to many jobs that AI will replace, especially in medicine. If it's your job to diagnose illness from medical imagery, you probably make a good deal more than minimum wage but your job is very much in jeopardy. Truck drivers make three times minimum wage in many cases, and their jobs are going to disappear in only a few years. At past jobs, I've seen finance folks (with graduate degrees) have their jobs outsourced to overseas _data science teams_.
- randomdata 9y ago
  The parent is referring to the how people cannot lower their wage (below the minimum) when automation starts competing against them. The truck driver may make three times minimum wage right now, but the truck driver will be prevented, by law, from offering to drive a truck for 1/3 minimum wage when driverless trucks cost 1/2 minimum wage to operate. Humans may want to sharpen their pencils and outcompete automation on price, but are prevented from doing so. Robots never work for free. Capital, operational, and maintenance costs can be quite expensive. However, the cost of automation amortized on an hourly basis may be below the price of hiring someone at minimum wage. As such, humans are legally forced to find something else, or go without work entirely. Given that automation has historically created far more jobs than it replaced, you can argue that it is good thing that people are forced into more useful roles by not allowing them to compete with machines. But if you believe that automation simply takes away jobs for good, as many people do, then minimum wage will actually result in even lower wages for these people than they would have without minimum wage.
  - dmoo 9y ago
    You could easily tax robot labor to ensure it wasn't competitive with cheap labour
    - randomdata 9y ago
      It is an interesting thought. How would the tax be implemented? The automated dishwasher in my kitchen relieves human dishwashing services to the tune of an hour or two per week. Minimum wage where I live is $14/hr. That is, on the low end, a little over $700 per year. Would I be on the hook for the $700 each year, minus the current operating costs of the dishwasher, in order to have it operational in my home? And should the taxed value be a straight up calculation like that? Humans are quirky and unreliable, and I may not be comfortable with having a stranger in my house to clean up after me. As such, I may be willing to pay quite a bit more to have the reliable and comfortable automation over hiring a human. Would the tax need to account for that disparity to allow humans to still have a competitive edge?

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

A lot of people said that about the minimum wage in the UK before it was introduced, it turned out to be far from the truth.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
randomdata 9y ago
But you're looking at this from the point of view of the environment where automation has always created far more work than what was replaced. In fact, up to this point, automation has created so much work that we even reached a point where the male half of the population could not handle doing it all and we had to start integrating women, who historically were not involved, into the workplace. Minimum wage is working out just fine right now because every time a job is automated, several new jobs appear to take its place. Previous comments have suggested this trend will not last. Be it that AI will reach a point where it is capable of taking on any new job that we throw at it, or that we will simply run out of new ideas for new kinds of jobs at some point in the future. That is the context being discussed above. In that case, your options are: Compete against automation on price, or go without work entirely. Minimum wage prevents the former, leaving only the latter as an option. The parent is saying it is less ideal to have a $0 income than it is to have a less than minimum, but above zero, income. But that all hinges on the assumption that work will dry up. The opposite has held true for centuries. It seems highly unlikely that this time is any different. I sincerely doubt we have reached the pinnacle of human achievement already.
- tigershark 9y ago
  No, it makes much more financial sense to not work and earn 0 while getting income with begging or criminal actions than work 10h/day for 1/3 of minimum wage that is for sure not enough to survive.
  - randyrand 9y ago
    Begging only works if the number of beggars is few. When streets have 300 beggars on it, good luck making any money. I live a few blocks from skid row.
  - randomdata 9y ago
    In my country, according to income data provided by the national data collection agency, ~14% of the adult population make less than $10,000 per year. Minimum wage where I am is $14/hr (with some variation across the entire country). Someone working full-time at minimum wage will earn just shy of $30,000 here. Very conveniently, the yearly earnings of that 14% of the population works out to your chosen 1/3 of minimum wage figure almost exactly. I haven't heard any reports of 14% of adults dying off each year due to not making enough money, and that would be a pretty big news story, so it seems that they have somehow managed to survive. And while the data indicates that some have chosen $0 (~4%), and maybe a life of begging and crime (the data is not sufficient to see that correlation), it seems some dollar value greater than zero is still the preferred option for most even when their earning potential is limited.
randyrand 9y ago
I dont know the specific claims you are referring to, but the effects of price floors are well known and theoretically easy to understand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_floor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_floor
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  As I said, those arguments were put forward when the UK government introduced a minimum wage and they turned out to be wrong.

bastawhiz 9y ago

Minimum wage is orthogonal to many jobs that AI will replace, especially in medicine. If it's your job to diagnose illness from medical imagery, you probably make a good deal more than minimum wage but your job is very much in jeopardy. Truck drivers make three times minimum wage in many cases, and their jobs are going to disappear in only a few years. At past jobs, I've seen finance folks (with graduate degrees) have their jobs outsourced to overseas _data science teams_.

randomdata 9y ago
The parent is referring to the how people cannot lower their wage (below the minimum) when automation starts competing against them. The truck driver may make three times minimum wage right now, but the truck driver will be prevented, by law, from offering to drive a truck for 1/3 minimum wage when driverless trucks cost 1/2 minimum wage to operate. Humans may want to sharpen their pencils and outcompete automation on price, but are prevented from doing so. Robots never work for free. Capital, operational, and maintenance costs can be quite expensive. However, the cost of automation amortized on an hourly basis may be below the price of hiring someone at minimum wage. As such, humans are legally forced to find something else, or go without work entirely. Given that automation has historically created far more jobs than it replaced, you can argue that it is good thing that people are forced into more useful roles by not allowing them to compete with machines. But if you believe that automation simply takes away jobs for good, as many people do, then minimum wage will actually result in even lower wages for these people than they would have without minimum wage.
- dmoo 9y ago
  You could easily tax robot labor to ensure it wasn't competitive with cheap labour
  - randomdata 9y ago
    It is an interesting thought. How would the tax be implemented? The automated dishwasher in my kitchen relieves human dishwashing services to the tune of an hour or two per week. Minimum wage where I live is $14/hr. That is, on the low end, a little over $700 per year. Would I be on the hook for the $700 each year, minus the current operating costs of the dishwasher, in order to have it operational in my home? And should the taxed value be a straight up calculation like that? Humans are quirky and unreliable, and I may not be comfortable with having a stranger in my house to clean up after me. As such, I may be willing to pay quite a bit more to have the reliable and comfortable automation over hiring a human. Would the tax need to account for that disparity to allow humans to still have a competitive edge?