4 ms·

Later figures showed that this increase was short lived. Vox describes the initial flaws in Schmidt's reasoning here: https://www.vox.com/2017/5/8/15584268/eri

Later figures showed that this increase was short lived. Vox describes the initial flaws in Schmidt's reasoning here: https://www.vox.com/2017/5/8/15584268/eric-schmidt-alphabet-automation-atm-bank-teller https://www.vox.com/2017/5/8/15584268/eric-schmidt-alphabet-... (this is also the source behind that Wikipedia article) Statistics from the US Beauteau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/tellers.htm#tab-6 https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/te...) proves Vox's assessment was correct: there are now only 378,000 tellers in 2021 and is forecasted to continue to decrease. For context, the US population grew 68% over the same period suggesting that as a proportion of available jobs the difference is even more stark.

Buttons840 3y ago
This is a good discussion. If, like tellers, the initial effect of AI is to increase the demand for developers and then taper off, this could be ideal. The initial surge in demand will give many a chance to increase their knowledge of AI techniques and in about a decade when AI is everywhere, demand for all knowledge work will start to drop. The good thing about this is knowledge and experience about AI has spread, it is for all to use (hopefully it works reasonably well on a desktop computer). Then the real shakeup begins, but at least the means of production -- or rather, the means of AI -- has spread and isn't completely siloed in one or two companies.
bko 3y ago
You have some variation over time but you would need to look at the drastic rise in ATMs from 1970-1990. If the theory that ATMs impacted employment negatively is true, that's where you should see the drop in jobs. Or broaden it out and ask what happened to job opportunities in banks or finance in general. There has been huge growth in productivity and hence headcount growth. Same is true for engineers. With modern dev tools and eng is a lot more productive and hence more profitable. And the ATM was invented 50 years ago, so even if bank tellers are on the decline today i wouldn't call that short lived https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/ https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-ro...
- ulrashida 3y ago
  If the hypothesis is revised to "increasing automation does not automatically reduce employment in the short term" that is feasible from the 1970-1990 dataset as you've noted. I suggest that the ATM comparison is inadequate for this proof. Looking at a nominally favorable article from AEI (https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/ https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-ro...) we see the case of "teller employment is going up AND ATMs are going up, ergo ATM adoption does not steal teller jobs". Except we don't know that, all we know is that both are going up. There is no way of knowing what the teller growth rate would have been absent ATM technology. Looking at the graphs shown, it is fairly clear that tellers were increasing from 1970-1980 at a strong rate and then it more or less levelled off. ATMs grew at a very similar rate from 1990-2000. It seems reasonable that if ATMs were not as successful as they were, the teller growth would have been higher and therefore ATMs have "stolen" at least some teller jobs growth potential. Absent a technological efficiency increase, the base demand of US population growth would have created more need for human provided services. In the long term the truth is laid bare: in the AEI article (2016) it says "employment of tellers is projected to decline 8% over the next decade". That would have left us with ~543k tellers -- instead we have 378k, a drop of 35%. When the tailwind stops, we will often see capital choose technology over humans and often at higher rates than projected. A parting concern: the rate of technological change and capability of industries to swap inputs was impressive in 1970-2000 but I hope you will agree it is nothing compared to the pace of change now. There is every reason to believe the trends, short and long term, we saw with ATM:tellers is going to repeat faster in the future.
  - deafpolygon 3y ago
    The decrease in tellers and ATM's are happening in the last decade because of the internet and the rise of smart phones.
    - tough 3y ago
      Mobile-payments is huge where I live, nobody carries cards anymore

Buttons840 3y ago

This is a good discussion. If, like tellers, the initial effect of AI is to increase the demand for developers and then taper off, this could be ideal. The initial surge in demand will give many a chance to increase their knowledge of AI techniques and in about a decade when AI is everywhere, demand for all knowledge work will start to drop. The good thing about this is knowledge and experience about AI has spread, it is for all to use (hopefully it works reasonably well on a desktop computer). Then the real shakeup begins, but at least the means of production -- or rather, the means of AI -- has spread and isn't completely siloed in one or two companies.

bko 3y ago

You have some variation over time but you would need to look at the drastic rise in ATMs from 1970-1990. If the theory that ATMs impacted employment negatively is true, that's where you should see the drop in jobs. Or broaden it out and ask what happened to job opportunities in banks or finance in general. There has been huge growth in productivity and hence headcount growth. Same is true for engineers. With modern dev tools and eng is a lot more productive and hence more profitable. And the ATM was invented 50 years ago, so even if bank tellers are on the decline today i wouldn't call that short lived https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/ https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-ro...

ulrashida 3y ago
If the hypothesis is revised to "increasing automation does not automatically reduce employment in the short term" that is feasible from the 1970-1990 dataset as you've noted. I suggest that the ATM comparison is inadequate for this proof. Looking at a nominally favorable article from AEI (https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/ https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-ro...) we see the case of "teller employment is going up AND ATMs are going up, ergo ATM adoption does not steal teller jobs". Except we don't know that, all we know is that both are going up. There is no way of knowing what the teller growth rate would have been absent ATM technology. Looking at the graphs shown, it is fairly clear that tellers were increasing from 1970-1980 at a strong rate and then it more or less levelled off. ATMs grew at a very similar rate from 1990-2000. It seems reasonable that if ATMs were not as successful as they were, the teller growth would have been higher and therefore ATMs have "stolen" at least some teller jobs growth potential. Absent a technological efficiency increase, the base demand of US population growth would have created more need for human provided services. In the long term the truth is laid bare: in the AEI article (2016) it says "employment of tellers is projected to decline 8% over the next decade". That would have left us with ~543k tellers -- instead we have 378k, a drop of 35%. When the tailwind stops, we will often see capital choose technology over humans and often at higher rates than projected. A parting concern: the rate of technological change and capability of industries to swap inputs was impressive in 1970-2000 but I hope you will agree it is nothing compared to the pace of change now. There is every reason to believe the trends, short and long term, we saw with ATM:tellers is going to repeat faster in the future.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  The decrease in tellers and ATM's are happening in the last decade because of the internet and the rise of smart phones.
  - tough 3y ago
    Mobile-payments is huge where I live, nobody carries cards anymore