4 ms·

I don't fully understand the arguments in these kinds of pieces. Haven't businesses always been economically incentivized to automate everything, because that's

I don't fully understand the arguments in these kinds of pieces. Haven't businesses always been economically incentivized to automate everything, because that's just how labor costs work? It seems implausible to me that the bottleneck to mass automation (or rather, more widespread automation) is the willingness of corporations to invest in it. The more feasible blockers—the fundamental technology even existing, the cost of research/production, etc—don't seem correlated to Coronavirus.

ashtonkem 6y ago
Surprisingly, no. When companies are making easy money, there is very little incentive to improve efficiency, and a lot of incentive to continue the status quo. It’s only during tight times do companies actually begin to seek out new efficiencies. Example: automated oil rig machines have existed for quite a while, but they really didn’t see a lot of usage until the oil crash in 2016[0]. After this crash the number of oil rig workers remained at low levels, even as oil rigs starting to produce again. Those jobs were already vulnerable to automation, it just took a financial crisis to trigger it. [0] https://medium.com/basic-income/the-real-story-of-automation-beginning-with-one-simple-chart-8b95f9bad71b https://medium.com/basic-income/the-real-story-of-automation...
- ChefboyOG 6y ago
  That's fascinating, and makes sense. I didn't think of it until you brought it up, but the risk/reward of investing in automation vs. maintaining current margins certainly flips when current margins plummet.
- ghastmaster 6y ago
  Purchases made with leveraged money that is all but disappearing. We are no longer in a 2016 scenario. Your link is to another article that is pushing for UBI using fear of automation that has no historical backing. Automation has been taking place since the dawn of man and people magically still have jobs even though the population has exploded. This is nonsense.
user5994461 6y ago
One blocker within company is the labor itself not being in favor of automation, because they care about having jobs. Software engineers on HN should have had experience of significantly improving some manual procedures, only for half the department to be laid off later.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I worked on a project once that would have had that effect, if it had been successful. But it depended on the assistance of the people doing things manually, who were overseas. It seemed to me their self-preservation depended on communication problems sinking the project. So I had this feeling it was doomed from the beginning being entirely predicated on conflicts of interest. Anyway, I later developed the hypothesis that one counterbalance to lower productivity in the government is that when people essentially cannot be fired, they are less likely to resist automation and efficiency. There may be more "dead weight" but it's not actively fighting the people who are improving things as much as in the private sector. Laziness cuts both ways. I'm interesting in why anyone might think this is clearly incorrect.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Surprisingly, no. When companies are making easy money, there is very little incentive to improve efficiency, and a lot of incentive to continue the status quo. It’s only during tight times do companies actually begin to seek out new efficiencies. Example: automated oil rig machines have existed for quite a while, but they really didn’t see a lot of usage until the oil crash in 2016[0]. After this crash the number of oil rig workers remained at low levels, even as oil rigs starting to produce again. Those jobs were already vulnerable to automation, it just took a financial crisis to trigger it. [0] https://medium.com/basic-income/the-real-story-of-automation-beginning-with-one-simple-chart-8b95f9bad71b https://medium.com/basic-income/the-real-story-of-automation...

ChefboyOG 6y ago
That's fascinating, and makes sense. I didn't think of it until you brought it up, but the risk/reward of investing in automation vs. maintaining current margins certainly flips when current margins plummet.
ghastmaster 6y ago
Purchases made with leveraged money that is all but disappearing. We are no longer in a 2016 scenario. Your link is to another article that is pushing for UBI using fear of automation that has no historical backing. Automation has been taking place since the dawn of man and people magically still have jobs even though the population has exploded. This is nonsense.

user5994461 6y ago

One blocker within company is the labor itself not being in favor of automation, because they care about having jobs. Software engineers on HN should have had experience of significantly improving some manual procedures, only for half the department to be laid off later.

perl4ever 6y ago
I worked on a project once that would have had that effect, if it had been successful. But it depended on the assistance of the people doing things manually, who were overseas. It seemed to me their self-preservation depended on communication problems sinking the project. So I had this feeling it was doomed from the beginning being entirely predicated on conflicts of interest. Anyway, I later developed the hypothesis that one counterbalance to lower productivity in the government is that when people essentially cannot be fired, they are less likely to resist automation and efficiency. There may be more "dead weight" but it's not actively fighting the people who are improving things as much as in the private sector. Laziness cuts both ways. I'm interesting in why anyone might think this is clearly incorrect.