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> Past results are not an indicator of future performance. Sure, but we can't predict the future, so it's the best model we have. > Today, both sexes work lon

> Past results are not an indicator of future performance. Sure, but we can't predict the future, so it's the best model we have. > Today, both sexes work long hours just to afford a tiny apartment, they have to switch jobs every couple years and even started doing the gig economy on the side to get by. What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. > Sure, some humans will be more productive, but then we’ll need less of them. This has never happened before. I could be wrong and maybe it will happen, but the most technologically advanced country in the world has companies competing for workers and salaries going up. This is in the face of massive automation. > And with AI, it’s easier to just have the AI learn the new “irreplaceable” skills much faster than retraining millions of humans. > No amount of unionizing by horses would change that. If horses were the ones buying your products and creating your wealth, then they would actually have a pretty big say. What us workers fail to understand is just how essential we are to the economy. We need to organize and demand our fair share of the productivity gains.

EGreg 3y ago
> What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. Exactly! That is what happens under capitalism. Which is why we need safety nets in place that can grow and be funded by taxes on automation. The safety nets should redistribute money equally to all citizens. We can also fund them by other pigovian taxes, like those on fossil fuels at the point of extraction — Alaska does exactly this with its Permanent Fund. > This has never happened before AI that can replace humans at most tasks within a couple years of R&D hasn’t happened before. But when it came to machine labor, the farms were all automated and the factories were all automated. We know what happens. It’s not like humans got the windfall — because the only way regular get money in capitalism is through wages. > If horses were the consumer The ones unionizing are the labor producers, so not a valid analogy
- tchaffee 3y ago
  > AI that can replace humans at most tasks within a couple years of R&D hasn’t happened before. We've seen absolutely massive automation in manufacturing, and as you noted even in farming. And no massive unemployment as a result. I just won't believe that AI will do anything more than hugely increase productivity until I see the unemployment. People have predicted massive unemployment with every new technology advance. They were wrong every time. > The ones unionizing are the labor producers, so not a valid analogy. They are also the consumers. How are the wealthy supposed to get that way or even stay that way with no consumers?
  - EGreg 3y ago
    No massive unemployment? The Great Depression lasted quite a while! And we only got out of it by after a decade of building up the next job sector of things for people to work in (see three sector model in economics) Compare pictures of farms before and after automation and count the number of farmhands. Before automation, 20% of American jobs were farm-related! Read Grapes of Wrath and other books by John Steinbeck… you won’t say there was no unemployment after that. The Great Depression was largely caused by loss of farm jobs. As the farmhands migrated to the cities it took a decade to build up the manufacturing centers to give them all jobs. In the meantime, one third of the banks failed and the money supply they issued. The Fed didn’t bail them out and we got a depression. Oh, and the hugely increased productivity led farmers to be engaged in a race to the bottom, trying to make up for falling prices with ever-larger harvests. The land became depleted and this led to the Dust Bowl as it simply blew away in dust storms. Capitalism does this around the world. TODAY, one third of arable farmland has undergone desertification, likely due to similar economic factors. This is wayyy more pressing than global warming: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths-soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of... > How are the wealthy supposed to get that way and stay that way with no consumers? The wealthy can get that way without needing to pay much to human PRODUCERS. That’s the point. If the only way an average person can get money and be a consumer is to sell their labor, then they will get less purchasing power over time. Yes things might get cheaper due to technology, but not everything (eg rent) and also the money supply could be inflated so prices could also rise due to that. The government COULD be giving all that money to people as a UBI but it usually exacerbates inequality by propping up stock markets etc. Also, if wealthy people control all the resources and infrastructure then they can easily extract rents from all kinds of ecosystems. But even if the people on the ground barely have any money, the wealthy can just pay corporations for their own needs (eg robots doing their work). The owners of the corporations are wealthy and they cover the cost of robots. We already see this in rising inequality … the wealthy didn’t need the poor to consume their products. Many of them could just have the middle class and wealthy consume them. (Look up Plutocracy.) Having said that… if the automation could be made accessible to all, then everyone would be increasingly a consumer of products made by robots. Tax the robots, and give the money to the people unconditionally, so they can consume more.

EGreg 3y ago

> What you've missed is that productivity (as measured by GDP) has gone way up. Someone captured those profits. Which is why we see such massive wealth gaps. Exactly! That is what happens under capitalism. Which is why we need safety nets in place that can grow and be funded by taxes on automation. The safety nets should redistribute money equally to all citizens. We can also fund them by other pigovian taxes, like those on fossil fuels at the point of extraction — Alaska does exactly this with its Permanent Fund. > This has never happened before AI that can replace humans at most tasks within a couple years of R&D hasn’t happened before. But when it came to machine labor, the farms were all automated and the factories were all automated. We know what happens. It’s not like humans got the windfall — because the only way regular get money in capitalism is through wages. > If horses were the consumer The ones unionizing are the labor producers, so not a valid analogy

tchaffee 3y ago
> AI that can replace humans at most tasks within a couple years of R&D hasn’t happened before. We've seen absolutely massive automation in manufacturing, and as you noted even in farming. And no massive unemployment as a result. I just won't believe that AI will do anything more than hugely increase productivity until I see the unemployment. People have predicted massive unemployment with every new technology advance. They were wrong every time. > The ones unionizing are the labor producers, so not a valid analogy. They are also the consumers. How are the wealthy supposed to get that way or even stay that way with no consumers?
- EGreg 3y ago
  No massive unemployment? The Great Depression lasted quite a while! And we only got out of it by after a decade of building up the next job sector of things for people to work in (see three sector model in economics) Compare pictures of farms before and after automation and count the number of farmhands. Before automation, 20% of American jobs were farm-related! Read Grapes of Wrath and other books by John Steinbeck… you won’t say there was no unemployment after that. The Great Depression was largely caused by loss of farm jobs. As the farmhands migrated to the cities it took a decade to build up the manufacturing centers to give them all jobs. In the meantime, one third of the banks failed and the money supply they issued. The Fed didn’t bail them out and we got a depression. Oh, and the hugely increased productivity led farmers to be engaged in a race to the bottom, trying to make up for falling prices with ever-larger harvests. The land became depleted and this led to the Dust Bowl as it simply blew away in dust storms. Capitalism does this around the world. TODAY, one third of arable farmland has undergone desertification, likely due to similar economic factors. This is wayyy more pressing than global warming: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths-soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of... > How are the wealthy supposed to get that way and stay that way with no consumers? The wealthy can get that way without needing to pay much to human PRODUCERS. That’s the point. If the only way an average person can get money and be a consumer is to sell their labor, then they will get less purchasing power over time. Yes things might get cheaper due to technology, but not everything (eg rent) and also the money supply could be inflated so prices could also rise due to that. The government COULD be giving all that money to people as a UBI but it usually exacerbates inequality by propping up stock markets etc. Also, if wealthy people control all the resources and infrastructure then they can easily extract rents from all kinds of ecosystems. But even if the people on the ground barely have any money, the wealthy can just pay corporations for their own needs (eg robots doing their work). The owners of the corporations are wealthy and they cover the cost of robots. We already see this in rising inequality … the wealthy didn’t need the poor to consume their products. Many of them could just have the middle class and wealthy consume them. (Look up Plutocracy.) Having said that… if the automation could be made accessible to all, then everyone would be increasingly a consumer of products made by robots. Tax the robots, and give the money to the people unconditionally, so they can consume more.