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I do find some perversion in the way the market tackles this issue: the market attacks the lowest paying people first, trying to automate the low-skill jobs, as

I do find some perversion in the way the market tackles this issue: the market attacks the lowest paying people first, trying to automate the low-skill jobs, as opposed to attacking things like CEO compensation at 100 million, or software engineers making 200k in silicon valley. I think the market is being inefficient here, and I don't know if its a market failure (lowest paying people have the lowest bargaining power, cultural power, etc) or a regulatory challenge (you cant automate away doctors, lawyers, VC capital, management, investment votes, etc). Probably both.

notme77 7y ago
It's targeting what is easiest to automate. This happens to be mostly low skilled workers. Software engineers constantly cannibalize their own jobs, but there are so many positions for software engineers available (or potentially available) that we (software engineers) don't feel the affects.
- mbrumlow 7y ago
  Seems like CEOs could be replaced with a spread sheet. As far as I can tell most CEOs basically follow a spread sheet provided by the PE that owns the company. So I never knew why PE would ever seek to fire the 30k a year office manager, when they could fire the 7 figure CEO and half his management team -- if meetings need to be had, we can still have meetings rooms and all the spread sheets can show them self on the projectors -- automated and all.
  - notme77 7y ago
    The CEO is the CEO because he makes profitable decisions. You have to replace her with someone / something that makes at least equally good decisions.
    - hakfoo 7y ago
      From that perspective, the big question is if their decisions statistically more profitable than cheaper alternatives. There are some companies on a very predictable path. You could replace Eddie Lampert or Johnny Ive with a D20 mapped to management tactics and get pretty much the same outcomes at least on a short to mid term. Plenty of competent companies have enough self-contained knowledge that you could make good decisions simply by surveying the on-the-ground employees, weighting them in some way, and generating policy that way. One would hope a widget factory with a combined 200,000 man-years of widget industry experience would know more about the widget business than a drop-in CEO that had to look up what a widget was on Wikipedia before he made his introduction speech. I suspect the real justification for the wildly overpaid C-suite is that you need someone to be a scapegoat for Wall Street's whims. A local and autonomous team that knows their market and is competent is not going to sack half of their own to finance a stock buyback, but a $30 million a year stuffed suit can impose it from above.
    - mbrumlow 7y ago
      The vast majority of decisions that make or break companies are not done by the CEO. Or any of the C level people. Most companies are like a train. The C level guys mostly report to the board where they think the train is going to be -- which is normally wag or ferry tail. I know I am speaking in broad terms. There are companies out there where the CEO matters, but those are few and far .
- conanbatt 7y ago
  It should target what is most valuable to automate. Thats normally how markets work.
pixelrevision 7y ago
It's people relying on the market to fix everything. It works quite well for some things but not so much as a social contract. CEOs in the past were not making the same kind of percentages but most of that was not based on the market, it was based on push back such as unions and not wanting to appear greedy.
- jandrese 7y ago
  The market is only good for optimizing cashflow. It doesn't care one bit about human needs or happiness. External factors are needed if you care about humans. Having a bunch of factory jobs replaced by a machine is an excellent example of this. People are blaming the management, but really it's the market forcing it. If the management here doesn't do this and their competitors do, they'll become uncompetitive and eventually go out of business. The worst part is that there isn't an easy solution to this. You can try to re-train those workers so they can get new jobs, but eventually those jobs will be automated away as well. You can try to make laws to protect the jobs, but this makes it inefficient and prone to corruption.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    My argument is the opposite though..the market is NOT targeting the most profitable places to attack. I would extend the "automate" to more the more generalized "innovate".
- conanbatt 7y ago
  Unions are plenty greedy. In SF, police officers make 400k, bart officials make 300k+ and firemen make 200k+. They are also part of the (general) problem. And all of those jobs should also be targets of automation.
  - dahart 7y ago
    > In SF, police officers make 400k Where are you getting this data? “San Francisco offers excellent benefits and the current starting salary is $87,230 per year. After seven years of service a Police Officer may earn up to $129,896 per year.” https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/careers/sworn-job-openings/salary-and-benefits https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/careers/sworn-j...

notme77 7y ago

It's targeting what is easiest to automate. This happens to be mostly low skilled workers. Software engineers constantly cannibalize their own jobs, but there are so many positions for software engineers available (or potentially available) that we (software engineers) don't feel the affects.

mbrumlow 7y ago
Seems like CEOs could be replaced with a spread sheet. As far as I can tell most CEOs basically follow a spread sheet provided by the PE that owns the company. So I never knew why PE would ever seek to fire the 30k a year office manager, when they could fire the 7 figure CEO and half his management team -- if meetings need to be had, we can still have meetings rooms and all the spread sheets can show them self on the projectors -- automated and all.
- notme77 7y ago
  The CEO is the CEO because he makes profitable decisions. You have to replace her with someone / something that makes at least equally good decisions.
  - hakfoo 7y ago
    From that perspective, the big question is if their decisions statistically more profitable than cheaper alternatives. There are some companies on a very predictable path. You could replace Eddie Lampert or Johnny Ive with a D20 mapped to management tactics and get pretty much the same outcomes at least on a short to mid term. Plenty of competent companies have enough self-contained knowledge that you could make good decisions simply by surveying the on-the-ground employees, weighting them in some way, and generating policy that way. One would hope a widget factory with a combined 200,000 man-years of widget industry experience would know more about the widget business than a drop-in CEO that had to look up what a widget was on Wikipedia before he made his introduction speech. I suspect the real justification for the wildly overpaid C-suite is that you need someone to be a scapegoat for Wall Street's whims. A local and autonomous team that knows their market and is competent is not going to sack half of their own to finance a stock buyback, but a $30 million a year stuffed suit can impose it from above.
  - mbrumlow 7y ago
    The vast majority of decisions that make or break companies are not done by the CEO. Or any of the C level people. Most companies are like a train. The C level guys mostly report to the board where they think the train is going to be -- which is normally wag or ferry tail. I know I am speaking in broad terms. There are companies out there where the CEO matters, but those are few and far .
conanbatt 7y ago
It should target what is most valuable to automate. Thats normally how markets work.

pixelrevision 7y ago

It's people relying on the market to fix everything. It works quite well for some things but not so much as a social contract. CEOs in the past were not making the same kind of percentages but most of that was not based on the market, it was based on push back such as unions and not wanting to appear greedy.

jandrese 7y ago
The market is only good for optimizing cashflow. It doesn't care one bit about human needs or happiness. External factors are needed if you care about humans. Having a bunch of factory jobs replaced by a machine is an excellent example of this. People are blaming the management, but really it's the market forcing it. If the management here doesn't do this and their competitors do, they'll become uncompetitive and eventually go out of business. The worst part is that there isn't an easy solution to this. You can try to re-train those workers so they can get new jobs, but eventually those jobs will be automated away as well. You can try to make laws to protect the jobs, but this makes it inefficient and prone to corruption.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  My argument is the opposite though..the market is NOT targeting the most profitable places to attack. I would extend the "automate" to more the more generalized "innovate".
conanbatt 7y ago
Unions are plenty greedy. In SF, police officers make 400k, bart officials make 300k+ and firemen make 200k+. They are also part of the (general) problem. And all of those jobs should also be targets of automation.
- dahart 7y ago
  > In SF, police officers make 400k Where are you getting this data? “San Francisco offers excellent benefits and the current starting salary is $87,230 per year. After seven years of service a Police Officer may earn up to $129,896 per year.” https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/careers/sworn-job-openings/salary-and-benefits https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/careers/sworn-j...