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No, it will only get worse. The world is diverging into a dystopian future where we will have essentially two classes - the tech elite (software, product, QA, a

by papito 5y ago

No, it will only get worse. The world is diverging into a dystopian future where we will have essentially two classes - the tech elite (software, product, QA, automation, AI, data) and the people who live on basic income because the jobs got automated out. On the flip side, they would be free to pursue their passions and discover themselves, be that in art or artisanal pickles. It requires enforcing the social and economic balance, however. In a country like the United States, we are not going to talk about this being a problem until the rich get tired of tripping over homeless families on their way to the driverless Uber vehicle.

powerapple 5y ago
I hope the way software companies make money in the future will change. New taxation will level the field of internet companies with traditional companies, especially those "user as product" companies, they will need to pay additional tax and their profit margin will decrease.
ishjoh 5y ago
Maybe this is why the job of YouTube influencer is so popular among younger generations, they see where automation will take us.
morpheos137 5y ago
The way the economy is structured, i.e. a consumer economy in a "democracy" that trend can't sustain in the long run. If the fruits of economic production increasingly become centralised in fewer and fewer hands then eventually either people will clamor for their slice of the pie, resulting in re-distribution via taxes and social programs like UBI or the system will collapse from insufficient consumption. Also your comment assumes things like AI, driverless tech and so on are going to be readily available in the near future. Evidence suggests the contrary. I bet there will not be widespread driverless taxis even two decades from now. Even if it is possible to create a toy demostration like Waymo has done it is far from clear that such a model is economically feasible. I.e. for a very long time it will be cheaper to hire a person to drive a car than to program and build a car to drive itself after accounting for remote supervision, maintenace, cleaning cost. Despite all the talk of automation in industry not much has happened in many industries because it is still cheaper to pay somebody $15 an hour to do some manual task than to buy a 1.5 million dollar robot (those SWE salaries again) to do the same task especially considering it will need high paid engineers, operators, and technicians to install, run (supervise) and maintain it. The way for tech to replace manual labor is for the wages of manual labor to go up and the price of tech to come down. If tech drives down low skill wages then it exerts a feedback effect limiting the adoption of tech.
znpy 5y ago
> On the flip side, they would be free to pursue their passions and discover themselves, be that in art or artisanal pickles. You're very optimistic

by papito 5y ago

powerapple 5y ago

I hope the way software companies make money in the future will change. New taxation will level the field of internet companies with traditional companies, especially those "user as product" companies, they will need to pay additional tax and their profit margin will decrease.

ishjoh 5y ago

Maybe this is why the job of YouTube influencer is so popular among younger generations, they see where automation will take us.

morpheos137 5y ago

The way the economy is structured, i.e. a consumer economy in a "democracy" that trend can't sustain in the long run. If the fruits of economic production increasingly become centralised in fewer and fewer hands then eventually either people will clamor for their slice of the pie, resulting in re-distribution via taxes and social programs like UBI or the system will collapse from insufficient consumption. Also your comment assumes things like AI, driverless tech and so on are going to be readily available in the near future. Evidence suggests the contrary. I bet there will not be widespread driverless taxis even two decades from now. Even if it is possible to create a toy demostration like Waymo has done it is far from clear that such a model is economically feasible. I.e. for a very long time it will be cheaper to hire a person to drive a car than to program and build a car to drive itself after accounting for remote supervision, maintenace, cleaning cost. Despite all the talk of automation in industry not much has happened in many industries because it is still cheaper to pay somebody $15 an hour to do some manual task than to buy a 1.5 million dollar robot (those SWE salaries again) to do the same task especially considering it will need high paid engineers, operators, and technicians to install, run (supervise) and maintain it. The way for tech to replace manual labor is for the wages of manual labor to go up and the price of tech to come down. If tech drives down low skill wages then it exerts a feedback effect limiting the adoption of tech.

znpy 5y ago

> On the flip side, they would be free to pursue their passions and discover themselves, be that in art or artisanal pickles. You're very optimistic