3 ms·

Everyone keeps saying that automation will mean we have/get to work less. People were saying it in 1900. People were saying it in 1950. People were saying it in

by 013a 8y ago

Everyone keeps saying that automation will mean we have/get to work less. People were saying it in 1900. People were saying it in 1950. People were saying it in 2000. People are saying it in 2018. Still waiting for those unemployment numbers to not be the lowest they've been in recent history. Turns out people rather like working, at least more than the alternative. Most jobs suck. I'm not hoping for or expecting a future without jobs; I'm hopeful for a future with better jobs.

senectus1 8y ago
if robots are going to push people out of work, then how will people earn money to buy the things that the expensive robots will make? Its not zero sum.
- mirceal 8y ago
  Pay the robots a wage. Robots will buy things. /s
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Fricken 8y ago
  Back in the 70s computers were going to put all the clerk's out of work, yet here we are 40 years later, computers are everywhere, and yet we have more information workers than ever before. There are more people sitting at computer terminals today than there were people pushing pencils back before the computer revolution. The whole conspiracy to eliminate all those jobs completely backfired, we just kept finding new things to do.
taneq 8y ago
The problem is that automation (like mechanization before it) is easiest to apply to simple repetitive jobs. The remaining jobs are 'knowledge jobs' like engineering, project management etc. which require a specialized understanding of the work (often on a project-by-project basis) in order to perform it. You need one individual (or a small group) who are responsible for 100% of a project, or the communication overheads become massive and the work becomes intractable. Which is why we have what we have now - a few overworked people doing stupid hours trying to hold everything together, and a lot of underemployed / unemployed people who can't break in because they don't have the skills or proven track record required.
randomdata 8y ago
I maintain that automation means that we have to work more. Perhaps counterintuitively, automation creates more job demand. And that's when the battle begins. If I work a little more with more work available to me, I have a little bit more to spend. And spend it I will... Probably on housing. Now you can't afford a place to live, so you have to start working a little more so that you can also afford a place to live. And so on. It is not a coincidence that women started entering the workforce en-masse at the same time automation was coming into its own. Previously there wasn't enough work for women to do, but once automation created an abundance of jobs there were some who started to take jobs. Once they did, soon all households needed both a man and a woman (generalizing for simplicity's sake) to have jobs to be able to afford anything. But now we don't have another gender to help fill the void. It has been fascinating (albeit unfortunate) to watch people start to flounder as this plays out, and it will be interesting to see what happens when it all comes to a head as there is only so much work one person can do.
Alex3917 8y ago
> I'm hopeful for a future with better jobs. Most people on HN don't have real jobs. The entire premise of venture capital is gambling that you'll be able to fund the next Facebook or whatever. The reason that jobs would go away is more automation, but more automation means markets are more winner-take-all. And if more markets are winner-take-all, then that which means higher expected returns to capital if you can back a winning startup. I don't know to what extent they balance out, but it seems at least plausible that as technology centralizes the economy then most jobs could basically be in service of gambling with investor money.
Chathamization 8y ago
You're right, and productivity growth isn't particularly high at the moment (indicating a low rate of automation compared to past decades). I also think it must take a colossal lack of imagination - not to mention lack of awareness in the world around you - to think that we're going to run of of things to do anytime soon. On the other hand, a lot of the work that needs to be done is stuff that needs to come from collective action (Replication crisis, aging infrastructure, global warming, cancer research, environmental destruction, food scarcity, etc.), which we don't seem to have much a a political/societal will for at the moment. And a lot of the work that people are currently doing seems rather pointless, or even having a net negative impact on society (soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, arguably almost all advertising, etc.). It's possible that we'll end up as a society where a larger and larger percentage of the population will end up working parasitic jobs meant to leech off of the smaller and smaller percentage of the population doing actual productive work. Again, this seems to stem from the lack of political and societal will to try to allocate resources more efficiently.

by 013a 8y ago

senectus1 8y ago

if robots are going to push people out of work, then how will people earn money to buy the things that the expensive robots will make? Its not zero sum.

mirceal 8y ago
Pay the robots a wage. Robots will buy things. /s
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Fricken 8y ago
Back in the 70s computers were going to put all the clerk's out of work, yet here we are 40 years later, computers are everywhere, and yet we have more information workers than ever before. There are more people sitting at computer terminals today than there were people pushing pencils back before the computer revolution. The whole conspiracy to eliminate all those jobs completely backfired, we just kept finding new things to do.

taneq 8y ago

The problem is that automation (like mechanization before it) is easiest to apply to simple repetitive jobs. The remaining jobs are 'knowledge jobs' like engineering, project management etc. which require a specialized understanding of the work (often on a project-by-project basis) in order to perform it. You need one individual (or a small group) who are responsible for 100% of a project, or the communication overheads become massive and the work becomes intractable. Which is why we have what we have now - a few overworked people doing stupid hours trying to hold everything together, and a lot of underemployed / unemployed people who can't break in because they don't have the skills or proven track record required.

randomdata 8y ago

I maintain that automation means that we have to work more. Perhaps counterintuitively, automation creates more job demand. And that's when the battle begins. If I work a little more with more work available to me, I have a little bit more to spend. And spend it I will... Probably on housing. Now you can't afford a place to live, so you have to start working a little more so that you can also afford a place to live. And so on. It is not a coincidence that women started entering the workforce en-masse at the same time automation was coming into its own. Previously there wasn't enough work for women to do, but once automation created an abundance of jobs there were some who started to take jobs. Once they did, soon all households needed both a man and a woman (generalizing for simplicity's sake) to have jobs to be able to afford anything. But now we don't have another gender to help fill the void. It has been fascinating (albeit unfortunate) to watch people start to flounder as this plays out, and it will be interesting to see what happens when it all comes to a head as there is only so much work one person can do.

Alex3917 8y ago

> I'm hopeful for a future with better jobs. Most people on HN don't have real jobs. The entire premise of venture capital is gambling that you'll be able to fund the next Facebook or whatever. The reason that jobs would go away is more automation, but more automation means markets are more winner-take-all. And if more markets are winner-take-all, then that which means higher expected returns to capital if you can back a winning startup. I don't know to what extent they balance out, but it seems at least plausible that as technology centralizes the economy then most jobs could basically be in service of gambling with investor money.

Chathamization 8y ago

You're right, and productivity growth isn't particularly high at the moment (indicating a low rate of automation compared to past decades). I also think it must take a colossal lack of imagination - not to mention lack of awareness in the world around you - to think that we're going to run of of things to do anytime soon. On the other hand, a lot of the work that needs to be done is stuff that needs to come from collective action (Replication crisis, aging infrastructure, global warming, cancer research, environmental destruction, food scarcity, etc.), which we don't seem to have much a a political/societal will for at the moment. And a lot of the work that people are currently doing seems rather pointless, or even having a net negative impact on society (soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, arguably almost all advertising, etc.). It's possible that we'll end up as a society where a larger and larger percentage of the population will end up working parasitic jobs meant to leech off of the smaller and smaller percentage of the population doing actual productive work. Again, this seems to stem from the lack of political and societal will to try to allocate resources more efficiently.