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Many machinists, welders, etc would have asked the same question when we shipped most of American manufacturing overseas. There was a generation of experienced

by Dig1t 3y ago

Many machinists, welders, etc would have asked the same question when we shipped most of American manufacturing overseas. There was a generation of experienced people with good jobs that lost their jobs and white collar workers celebrated it. Just Google “those jobs are never coming back”, you’ll find a lot of heartless comparisons to the horse and buggy. Why should we treat these office jobs any differently?

vidarh 3y ago
US manufacturing has not been shipped out. US manufacturing output keeps increasing, though it's overall share of GDP is dropping. US manufacturing jobs went overseas. What went overseas were those areas of manufacturing that was more expensive to automate than it was to hire low paid workers elsewhere. With respect to your final question, I don't think we should treat them differently, but I do think few societies have handled this well. Most societies are set up in a way that creates a strong disincentive for workers to want production to become more efficient other than at the margins (it helps you if your employer is marginally more efficient than average to keep your job safer). Couple that with a tacit assumption that there will always be more jobs, and you have the makings of a problem if AI starts to eat away at broader segments. If/when AI accelerates this process you either need to find a solution to that (in other words, ensure people do not lose out) or it creates a strong risk of social unrest down the line.
allturtles 3y ago
If I didn't celebrate that job loss am I allowed to not celebrate this one?
sgt101 3y ago
Agree - also note that many office jobs have been shipped overseas, and also automated out of existence. When I started work there were slews of support staff booking trips, managing appointments, typing correspondence & copying and typesetting docuements. For years we laughed at the paperless office - well it's been here for a decade and there's no discussion about it anymore. Interestingly at the same time as all those jobs disappeared and got automated there were surges of people into the workforce. Women started to be routinely employed for all but a few years of child birth and care, and many workers came from overseas. Yet, white collar unemployment didn't spike. The driver for this was that the effective size of the economy boomed with the inclusion of Russia, China, Indonesia, India and many other smaller countries in the western sphere/economy post cold war... and growth from innovation.

by Dig1t 3y ago

vidarh 3y ago

US manufacturing has not been shipped out. US manufacturing output keeps increasing, though it's overall share of GDP is dropping. US manufacturing jobs went overseas. What went overseas were those areas of manufacturing that was more expensive to automate than it was to hire low paid workers elsewhere. With respect to your final question, I don't think we should treat them differently, but I do think few societies have handled this well. Most societies are set up in a way that creates a strong disincentive for workers to want production to become more efficient other than at the margins (it helps you if your employer is marginally more efficient than average to keep your job safer). Couple that with a tacit assumption that there will always be more jobs, and you have the makings of a problem if AI starts to eat away at broader segments. If/when AI accelerates this process you either need to find a solution to that (in other words, ensure people do not lose out) or it creates a strong risk of social unrest down the line.

allturtles 3y ago

If I didn't celebrate that job loss am I allowed to not celebrate this one?

sgt101 3y ago

Agree - also note that many office jobs have been shipped overseas, and also automated out of existence. When I started work there were slews of support staff booking trips, managing appointments, typing correspondence & copying and typesetting docuements. For years we laughed at the paperless office - well it's been here for a decade and there's no discussion about it anymore. Interestingly at the same time as all those jobs disappeared and got automated there were surges of people into the workforce. Women started to be routinely employed for all but a few years of child birth and care, and many workers came from overseas. Yet, white collar unemployment didn't spike. The driver for this was that the effective size of the economy boomed with the inclusion of Russia, China, Indonesia, India and many other smaller countries in the western sphere/economy post cold war... and growth from innovation.