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For those of you who have your doubts, this is the bottom line for me: Corporate America is raking in the cash even though the economy is lousy. They don't NEED

For those of you who have your doubts, this is the bottom line for me: Corporate America is raking in the cash even though the economy is lousy. They don't NEED to hire new workers. They're doing fine without them, that's the thing no one in DC will talk about. Small businesses will rescue the country you say? I'm not so sure. I own a reusable water bottle company. All of my warehousing and shipping needs are done by a fulfillment house (which does the same thing for other small businesses). Our shipping and warehousing needs are shared. And most of my marketing can be done through MailChimp,Twitter etc. I don't need to hire any workers either. Worse still, let's say my competition has 5-10 employees. All things being equal, I can undercut them ruthlessly if I wanted to because I have lower overhead. I think an easy way to keep tabs on all of this is to simply look at unemployment. If it stays around 10% for another few years, it seems like we have a STRUCTURAL unemployment problem on our hands. And one of the causes is surely automation.

WalterBright 15y ago
>And one of the causes is surely automation. People have been saying that since the first mechanised loom machines appeared 200 years ago.
- mtgentry 15y ago
  Totally agree, but that was one sector. Automation is disrupting every industry it can. Economists say those disrupted workers will adjust and learn new skills, but Martin Ford and many others think their numbers will be too vast and the available positions will be too few.
- bermanoid 15y ago
  And they were just as right back then as they are now about the fundamental problem: fewer and fewer humans, over time, have anything of value to contribute to the economy. Come strong AI, and that number will rapidly drop to zero, and even the people that specialize in AI will quickly become useless in comparison to their creations... People may disagree about exactly when that will happen, but 20 years is probably a good inside guess computationally speaking, and anything much past 40 would mean that we really dropped the ball on AI software research (which is definitely possible, to be fair), so I'm not really so hot on the idea of writing off these concerns as overly premature or ill conceived. People were way off 200 years ago, but these days the literal end of human usefulness is visible on a very real horizon, possibly within our lifetimes.
sien 15y ago
Who will they sell to? Will robots buy the things that are made in the end? Why will people build robot factories,cab drivers,teachers and doctors if there is no demand? Automation is self-limiting in that the robots will only built if there are consumers who want to buy the end product.
- intended 15y ago
  - who will they sell to? Thats not a question a corporation is not equipped to care about. Competition and shareholders ensure that a firm remembers its bottom line - to identify targets and to reduce costs - thats it. Competition ensures that automation will stick around in the workforce - If 99% of all firms eschew automation, then the remaining 1% will beat the remainder. (caveat: Ideal perfect competitive situation used) So no matter what - corporations will not care about that kind of thinking, that decision/processing is left up to the greater 'market'.

WalterBright 15y ago

>And one of the causes is surely automation. People have been saying that since the first mechanised loom machines appeared 200 years ago.

mtgentry 15y ago
Totally agree, but that was one sector. Automation is disrupting every industry it can. Economists say those disrupted workers will adjust and learn new skills, but Martin Ford and many others think their numbers will be too vast and the available positions will be too few.
bermanoid 15y ago
And they were just as right back then as they are now about the fundamental problem: fewer and fewer humans, over time, have anything of value to contribute to the economy. Come strong AI, and that number will rapidly drop to zero, and even the people that specialize in AI will quickly become useless in comparison to their creations... People may disagree about exactly when that will happen, but 20 years is probably a good inside guess computationally speaking, and anything much past 40 would mean that we really dropped the ball on AI software research (which is definitely possible, to be fair), so I'm not really so hot on the idea of writing off these concerns as overly premature or ill conceived. People were way off 200 years ago, but these days the literal end of human usefulness is visible on a very real horizon, possibly within our lifetimes.

sien 15y ago

Who will they sell to? Will robots buy the things that are made in the end? Why will people build robot factories,cab drivers,teachers and doctors if there is no demand? Automation is self-limiting in that the robots will only built if there are consumers who want to buy the end product.

intended 15y ago
- who will they sell to? Thats not a question a corporation is not equipped to care about. Competition and shareholders ensure that a firm remembers its bottom line - to identify targets and to reduce costs - thats it. Competition ensures that automation will stick around in the workforce - If 99% of all firms eschew automation, then the remaining 1% will beat the remainder. (caveat: Ideal perfect competitive situation used) So no matter what - corporations will not care about that kind of thinking, that decision/processing is left up to the greater 'market'.