3 ms·

1. Labor force participation rate is much less rosy than typical employment measures. If skilled jobs are automated away and those workers completely drop out o

1. Labor force participation rate is much less rosy than typical employment measures. If skilled jobs are automated away and those workers completely drop out of the pool or rely on disability/benefits, can we really celebrate having lower unemployment from the remainder of non-automation-decimated jobs? 2. Minimum wage hikes in some areas are a great start, but when big players like Lyft, Uber, and restaurant industry get away with relying on tips and chance to meet minimum wage, we still are left with many low-quality, low-skill jobs that seem rife for further automation. 3. Where is the long-term focus on what to do about automation? Is any large population in the rich world going to try UBI or another mechanism?

beat 7y ago
I think the risks of automation economically are getting handwaved away far too much, lots of #invisiblehand and #learntocode nonsense. Significant swaths of middle-class jobs are going to go away, including a lot of jobs that provide a solid middle class income for no more than a high school education (like truck driving). But it's not just those low-education skilled jobs... what about paralegals, for example? And while the handwavers may dismiss one job, or two, or three, there are a lot more vulnerable to automation or obsolescence. I don't think UBI is a long-term solution, but maybe it's a short-term solution. In the long term, I think we need to find other ways of valuing people besides their economic productivity.
briandear 7y ago
> Where is the long-term focus on what to do about automation? https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/30/rick-wartzman-book-excerpt-automation-donald-trump-215207 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/30/rick-wart... > A study by University of Chicago economist Yale Brozen would find that while 13 million jobs had been destroyed during the 1950s, the adoption of new technology was among the ingredients that led to the creation of more than 20 million other positions. “Instead of being alarmed about growing automation, we ought to be cheering it on,” he wrote. “The catastrophe that doom criers constantly threaten us with has retreated into such a dim future that we simply cannot take their pronouncements seriously.” > Economists started to explore the issue in the early 1800s, during the Industrial Revolution. Most classical theorists of the time—including J. B. Say, David Ricardo and John Ramsey McCulloch—held that introducing new machines would, save perhaps for a brief period of adjustment, produce more jobs than they’d destroy. By the end of the century, concern had faded nearly altogether. “Because the general upward trends in investment, production, employment and living standards were supported by evidence that could not be denied,” the economic historian Gregory Woirol has written, “technological change ceased to be seen as a relevant problem.” We go through this "fear" pretty regularly and it's unfounded. Also from the article: > General Motors, for example, added more than 287,000 people to its payroll between 1940 and the mid-1950s. “There is widespread fear that technological progress … is a Grim Reaper of jobs,” GM vice president Louis Seaton told lawmakers. “Our experience and record completely refutes this view.”
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Are people getting more capable? Does it look like the machines will stop getting more capable? If neither of those are true, we will probably keep worrying about automation outperforming humans until it happens. A line heading up is going to intersect a flat line eventually.
tropo 7y ago
I don't see why the labor force participation rate should be high, which is what I believe you mean by "rosy". If the jobs are good, then it only takes one income to support a family and people can retire early. Both single-income families and retired people pull down the labor force participation rate.

beat 7y ago

I think the risks of automation economically are getting handwaved away far too much, lots of #invisiblehand and #learntocode nonsense. Significant swaths of middle-class jobs are going to go away, including a lot of jobs that provide a solid middle class income for no more than a high school education (like truck driving). But it's not just those low-education skilled jobs... what about paralegals, for example? And while the handwavers may dismiss one job, or two, or three, there are a lot more vulnerable to automation or obsolescence. I don't think UBI is a long-term solution, but maybe it's a short-term solution. In the long term, I think we need to find other ways of valuing people besides their economic productivity.

briandear 7y ago

> Where is the long-term focus on what to do about automation? https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/30/rick-wartzman-book-excerpt-automation-donald-trump-215207 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/30/rick-wart... > A study by University of Chicago economist Yale Brozen would find that while 13 million jobs had been destroyed during the 1950s, the adoption of new technology was among the ingredients that led to the creation of more than 20 million other positions. “Instead of being alarmed about growing automation, we ought to be cheering it on,” he wrote. “The catastrophe that doom criers constantly threaten us with has retreated into such a dim future that we simply cannot take their pronouncements seriously.” > Economists started to explore the issue in the early 1800s, during the Industrial Revolution. Most classical theorists of the time—including J. B. Say, David Ricardo and John Ramsey McCulloch—held that introducing new machines would, save perhaps for a brief period of adjustment, produce more jobs than they’d destroy. By the end of the century, concern had faded nearly altogether. “Because the general upward trends in investment, production, employment and living standards were supported by evidence that could not be denied,” the economic historian Gregory Woirol has written, “technological change ceased to be seen as a relevant problem.” We go through this "fear" pretty regularly and it's unfounded. Also from the article: > General Motors, for example, added more than 287,000 people to its payroll between 1940 and the mid-1950s. “There is widespread fear that technological progress … is a Grim Reaper of jobs,” GM vice president Louis Seaton told lawmakers. “Our experience and record completely refutes this view.”

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Are people getting more capable? Does it look like the machines will stop getting more capable? If neither of those are true, we will probably keep worrying about automation outperforming humans until it happens. A line heading up is going to intersect a flat line eventually.

tropo 7y ago

I don't see why the labor force participation rate should be high, which is what I believe you mean by "rosy". If the jobs are good, then it only takes one income to support a family and people can retire early. Both single-income families and retired people pull down the labor force participation rate.