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>The existence of call-center work, which is intrinsically dehumanizing and unrelentingly laborious, is considered a failure of our society. If the existence o

>The existence of call-center work, which is intrinsically dehumanizing and unrelentingly laborious, is considered a failure of our society. If the existence of these jobs is a failure of our society, what do you call taking these jobs away without any sufficient replacements that pay as well? There are plenty of places in the US where a call center job is the best job you can get without special skills.

Legend2440 3y ago
We will not run out of jobs because there isn't a fixed number of jobs. There's a fixed number of workers. We've been automating jobs for centuries and yet workforce participation has stayed in the 60-70% range. New jobs will always spring into existence to occupy the newly available workers.
- hackinthebochs 3y ago
  There's an approximately fixed number of jobs in time periods meaningful to humans. My rent is not going to wait for new fields to blossom in the wake of "progress".
  - lmm 3y ago
    > There's an approximately fixed number of jobs in time periods meaningful to humans. Bullshit. I've got relatives who can remember when call centers weren't a thing.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    > My rent is not going to wait for new fields to blossom in the wake of "progress". Don’t worry, you wouldn’t even be qualified for the new jobs anyway, unless ofc they’re low skilled in which case you might barely scrape by on rent.
  - Legend2440 3y ago
    If we didn't do "progress" we'd both still be farming in the dirt and washing our clothes by hand. It's kind of hypocritical to ask for it to stop as soon as it starts inconveniencing you.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      This is literally an excuse for anything I can label "progress." Random citations of examples of hard work, capped off with an accusation of hypocritical selfishness. The word "progress" is not a justification, any more than the word "reform."
    - hackinthebochs 3y ago
      The benefits from past progress do not imply all future progress will be similarly beneficial. Our culture takes it as axiomatic that more efficiency is good. But its not clear to me that it is. The principle goal of society should be the betterment of the lives of people. Yes, efficiency has historically been a driver of widespread prosperity, but it's not obvious that there isn't a local maximum past which increased efficiency harms the average person. We may already be on the other side of the critical point. How the benefits from increased efficiency are distributed matter to how much progress benefits average people. Historically, efficiency increases from technology were driven by innovation that brought a decrease in the costs of transactions. This saw an explosion of the space of viable economic activity and with it new classes of jobs and a widespread growth in prosperity. But crucially, the need for human labor kept pace with the expansion of wealth creation. This largely avoided the creation of a new distribution problem. But this time is in fact different. The expanding impact of AI on our economy will create a serious distribution problem as wealth creation becomes more and more decoupled from human labor. It is extremely narrow-minded to ignore this problem. It is not something that will just work itself out.
      - mr_toad 3y ago
        > But this time is in fact different. Said by people throughout history.
gumballindie 3y ago
People wanting to replace those folks’ jobs without a plan for them are precisely the types of people that turned such jobs into dehumanising meat grinders. Petty power games and greed will not be replaced by ai thats for sure.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  The first sentence is literally and nearly tautologically true, because they are the employers of the industry. Characterizing it as "petty power games and greed" is bizarre, though. They want AI for the same reason you want a calculator instead of having to hire someone to do your arithmetic. Businesses aren't here to fix society, they're here to make money. Giving them command is our mistake, not theirs.
  - noobermin 3y ago
    That's fine and why the article exists to push back on those businesses.
indymike 3y ago
It's easy to say someone else's job is a failure of society. Contact centers do pretty important work, and not all of them are run as soul-sucking, penny-pinching, toilet paper usage measuring, hellscapes. At some point work has to be done in most businesses. In many, the contact center is where the work is done.

Legend2440 3y ago

We will not run out of jobs because there isn't a fixed number of jobs. There's a fixed number of workers. We've been automating jobs for centuries and yet workforce participation has stayed in the 60-70% range. New jobs will always spring into existence to occupy the newly available workers.

hackinthebochs 3y ago
There's an approximately fixed number of jobs in time periods meaningful to humans. My rent is not going to wait for new fields to blossom in the wake of "progress".
- lmm 3y ago
  > There's an approximately fixed number of jobs in time periods meaningful to humans. Bullshit. I've got relatives who can remember when call centers weren't a thing.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  > My rent is not going to wait for new fields to blossom in the wake of "progress". Don’t worry, you wouldn’t even be qualified for the new jobs anyway, unless ofc they’re low skilled in which case you might barely scrape by on rent.
- Legend2440 3y ago
  If we didn't do "progress" we'd both still be farming in the dirt and washing our clothes by hand. It's kind of hypocritical to ask for it to stop as soon as it starts inconveniencing you.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    This is literally an excuse for anything I can label "progress." Random citations of examples of hard work, capped off with an accusation of hypocritical selfishness. The word "progress" is not a justification, any more than the word "reform."
  - hackinthebochs 3y ago
    The benefits from past progress do not imply all future progress will be similarly beneficial. Our culture takes it as axiomatic that more efficiency is good. But its not clear to me that it is. The principle goal of society should be the betterment of the lives of people. Yes, efficiency has historically been a driver of widespread prosperity, but it's not obvious that there isn't a local maximum past which increased efficiency harms the average person. We may already be on the other side of the critical point. How the benefits from increased efficiency are distributed matter to how much progress benefits average people. Historically, efficiency increases from technology were driven by innovation that brought a decrease in the costs of transactions. This saw an explosion of the space of viable economic activity and with it new classes of jobs and a widespread growth in prosperity. But crucially, the need for human labor kept pace with the expansion of wealth creation. This largely avoided the creation of a new distribution problem. But this time is in fact different. The expanding impact of AI on our economy will create a serious distribution problem as wealth creation becomes more and more decoupled from human labor. It is extremely narrow-minded to ignore this problem. It is not something that will just work itself out.
    - mr_toad 3y ago
      > But this time is in fact different. Said by people throughout history.

gumballindie 3y ago

People wanting to replace those folks’ jobs without a plan for them are precisely the types of people that turned such jobs into dehumanising meat grinders. Petty power games and greed will not be replaced by ai thats for sure.

pessimizer 3y ago
The first sentence is literally and nearly tautologically true, because they are the employers of the industry. Characterizing it as "petty power games and greed" is bizarre, though. They want AI for the same reason you want a calculator instead of having to hire someone to do your arithmetic. Businesses aren't here to fix society, they're here to make money. Giving them command is our mistake, not theirs.
- noobermin 3y ago
  That's fine and why the article exists to push back on those businesses.

indymike 3y ago

It's easy to say someone else's job is a failure of society. Contact centers do pretty important work, and not all of them are run as soul-sucking, penny-pinching, toilet paper usage measuring, hellscapes. At some point work has to be done in most businesses. In many, the contact center is where the work is done.