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While I agree, it doesn't mean that there's not a tipping point at which these fears actually become reality in some form. In the past, you would have a single

While I agree, it doesn't mean that there's not a tipping point at which these fears actually become reality in some form. In the past, you would have a single innovation that threatened some particular worker population, and over time people would retrain, future generations would simply train for something else, and there was no enduring problem. As innovation in technology has accelerated, the level of education required to either create new opportunities or to retrain for existing ones has increased. It is possible that successful automation will eventually outpace the ability of the masses to retrain and adapt. Meanwhile the cost of traditional education continues to rise disproportionate to the rest of the economy, although we are seeing some other possible avenues open up on that front. I think it's an open question as to whether large scale, ongoing unemployment could result from technological innovation, given the right circumstances of rapid innovation and out of reach opportunities for education.

ekianjo 15y ago
Concerning education, as you mentioned we see another revolution happening there. Online education, with almost zero-costs (khanacademy and other initiatives). This means the costs or re-conversion to another activity will be lower as well for anyone who wants to dedicate the right time to learn. There's multiple things going on in parallel, it's just hard to make a simple rationale like this article does.
tomjen3 15y ago
Actually the cost of getting an education has crashed (and I do mean crashed) recently: between opencourseware, Khan Academy and Standfords "pay us a little bit of money and you get a certificate" getting an education has become a lot cheaper. With regards to your other assumption, note how much most programmers (to take a familiar subject) no longer have to care about -- manual memory management, micro optimizations, low level system interoperations to name a few -- because the price of a computer has dropped so much in relative terms. The masses will simply have to get their asses out of their seats and retrain. In some subjects they will have to specialize even more than we do today, which will enable them to overcome you issue, and in some areas computers will provide greater assistance than they previously have. Historically the factory represented an all-time low in the required skills of the workers -- many downshifted from farming or carpentry or some other skilled trade because factory work paid way more.
- randomdata 15y ago
  I would argue that the monetary cost to gaining an education has been, for quite a long time, near zero in much of the established world: You only had to make your way to the public library. It is the opportunity cost of dedicating several years of your life to study that is significant, and that remains unchanged.
  - AJ007 15y ago
    Agreed, education is cheap. It is credentials that are expensive today. Years ago when I was in college, I breezed through my business classes solely based on what I had read in magazines and a few books. In retrospect that knowledge was fluff, but that is another story.
  - jseliger 15y ago
    It is the opportunity cost of dedicating several years of your life to study that is significant, and that remains unchanged. More importantly, at least from an employers' perspective, it's the credential that signals your conscientiousness and other traits that remains unchanged. Online learning needs to leap the signalling hurdle before it becomes a real, mass alternative to conventional schools—despite the many problems of conventional schools. (Note: I'm not saying online learning won't clear the hurdle; it merely hasn't yet.)
  - eli_gottlieb 15y ago
    I really radically disagree. You simply can't do cutting-edge scientific research in a public library.
    - eru 15y ago
      Unless you are a mathematician.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  Re: cost of education getting cheaper. That's only true for some fields. Try to become a doctor or a vet via opencourseware-type programs. Even ignoring the certification aspects, a lot of fields of study still require physical access to equipment that is prohibitively expensive for individuals. For people interested in fields other than CS, pure math, etc, the cost of education is still a huge problem and one that is getting worse, not better.
dhx 15y ago
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been collecting detailed household expenditure statistics every few years since 1984. Table 1 of Australia_Data_Tables_2009-10 (65300DO001_200910)[1] provides the following overview: Proportion (%) of household goods and services expenditure per broad expenditure group - 84 88-9 93-4 98-9 03-4 09-10 - Current housing costs (selected dwelling) 12.8 14.3 14.2 13.9 16.1 18.0 Domestic fuel and power 2.9 2.6 2.8 2.6 2.6 2.6 Food and non-alcoholic beverages 19.7 19.1 18.4 18.2 17.1 16.5 Alcoholic beverages 3.4 3.4 2.9 2.9 2.6 2.6 Tobacco products 1.6 1.4 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.0 Clothing and footwear 6.5 6.1 5.6 4.6 4.0 3.6 Household furnishings and equipment 7.7 7.4 6.6 6.0 5.8 4.7 Household services and operation 4.3 4.8 5.2 5.9 6.1 5.5 Medical care and health expenses 3.9 4.3 4.5 4.6 5.1 5.3 Transport 16.3 15.1 15.5 16.9 15.6 15.6 Recreation 11.9 11.8 13.2 12.7 12.8 13.1 Personal care 1.8 2.0 1.9 2.0 1.9 1.9 Miscellaneous goods and services 7.2 7.8 7.6 8.2 8.9 9.4 - Total expenditures 100 100 100 100 100 100 From this table it appears that Australians are spending a greater proportion of their disposable income on housing, recreation, health and miscellaneous goods and services[2]. Australians are spending less on food, clothing and household furnishings. Do households have more disposable income to spend on luxury and recreational services such as personal travel guides, hot air balloon rides, coaching to ride a horse, etc? Not all of these areas require University-level education. [1] http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6530.02009-10?OpenDocument http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6530.02009-1... [2] 6530.0 HES 2009–10 Detailed tables breaks miscallenous goods and services into luxury items, financing costs (interest), private education, fees, fines and charitable donations, etc.
eli_gottlieb 15y ago
I don't think it's a lack of educational opportunities. Not as such. It's several things. * Machines used to enhance the productivity of a single person. Computers just replace people, and not with another person operating a computer to do what multiple people once could, with no humans at all. * As you noted, "the masses" can only adapt so much. We simply cannot make a scientist or a fine artist out of someone with an IQ of 85, and that person is only one standard deviation below average. Hell, we have a damned hard enough time trying to make a high-level white-collar worker out of someone with a merely median IQ of 100. * Our socioeconomic system is structured so that the productivity improvements from computing are captured by capital owners (broadly: businesses who own machines, business owners, and investors). So instead of higher productivity raising output, increased output making the worker more valuable, and the more valuable worker commanding a higher wage (what we used to get: wages rising with productivity), we now use productivity as an excuse to lay off unwanted and "unnecessary" workers, keep output at the same levels (or grow it only slightly), and pocket the difference. * The "rote bullshit" jobs being replaced by the machines are, in fact, the limiting factor of the economy. Scientists, artists, and philosophers in fact depend completely and utterly on functioning infrastructure and basic industries. To paraphrase Paul-Muad'dib Atreides, he who can destroy a thing has supreme power over it: the businesses that control the basic infrastructure on which the "higher-level" occupations rent-seek upon it. So we can't seem to have a market economy in which we pour all our productivity advancements in "raising the level" of occupations people hold. Today's prices bear this out: housing, health-care, education and energy are the most expensive and quickest-growing components of a common budget. At some point, we have to accept that many (most?) people are too dumb to work in a mostly-automated economy, that we've given the base of our economy entirely into the control of a narrow class of capitalists, and that these two classes of people hold the remaining productive/"higher-level" citizenry by the balls.

ekianjo 15y ago

Concerning education, as you mentioned we see another revolution happening there. Online education, with almost zero-costs (khanacademy and other initiatives). This means the costs or re-conversion to another activity will be lower as well for anyone who wants to dedicate the right time to learn. There's multiple things going on in parallel, it's just hard to make a simple rationale like this article does.

tomjen3 15y ago

Actually the cost of getting an education has crashed (and I do mean crashed) recently: between opencourseware, Khan Academy and Standfords "pay us a little bit of money and you get a certificate" getting an education has become a lot cheaper. With regards to your other assumption, note how much most programmers (to take a familiar subject) no longer have to care about -- manual memory management, micro optimizations, low level system interoperations to name a few -- because the price of a computer has dropped so much in relative terms. The masses will simply have to get their asses out of their seats and retrain. In some subjects they will have to specialize even more than we do today, which will enable them to overcome you issue, and in some areas computers will provide greater assistance than they previously have. Historically the factory represented an all-time low in the required skills of the workers -- many downshifted from farming or carpentry or some other skilled trade because factory work paid way more.

randomdata 15y ago
I would argue that the monetary cost to gaining an education has been, for quite a long time, near zero in much of the established world: You only had to make your way to the public library. It is the opportunity cost of dedicating several years of your life to study that is significant, and that remains unchanged.
- AJ007 15y ago
  Agreed, education is cheap. It is credentials that are expensive today. Years ago when I was in college, I breezed through my business classes solely based on what I had read in magazines and a few books. In retrospect that knowledge was fluff, but that is another story.
- jseliger 15y ago
  It is the opportunity cost of dedicating several years of your life to study that is significant, and that remains unchanged. More importantly, at least from an employers' perspective, it's the credential that signals your conscientiousness and other traits that remains unchanged. Online learning needs to leap the signalling hurdle before it becomes a real, mass alternative to conventional schools—despite the many problems of conventional schools. (Note: I'm not saying online learning won't clear the hurdle; it merely hasn't yet.)
- eli_gottlieb 15y ago
  I really radically disagree. You simply can't do cutting-edge scientific research in a public library.
  - eru 15y ago
    Unless you are a mathematician.
georgemcbay 15y ago
Re: cost of education getting cheaper. That's only true for some fields. Try to become a doctor or a vet via opencourseware-type programs. Even ignoring the certification aspects, a lot of fields of study still require physical access to equipment that is prohibitively expensive for individuals. For people interested in fields other than CS, pure math, etc, the cost of education is still a huge problem and one that is getting worse, not better.

dhx 15y ago

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been collecting detailed household expenditure statistics every few years since 1984. Table 1 of Australia_Data_Tables_2009-10 (65300DO001_200910)[1] provides the following overview: Proportion (%) of household goods and services expenditure per broad expenditure group - 84 88-9 93-4 98-9 03-4 09-10 - Current housing costs (selected dwelling) 12.8 14.3 14.2 13.9 16.1 18.0 Domestic fuel and power 2.9 2.6 2.8 2.6 2.6 2.6 Food and non-alcoholic beverages 19.7 19.1 18.4 18.2 17.1 16.5 Alcoholic beverages 3.4 3.4 2.9 2.9 2.6 2.6 Tobacco products 1.6 1.4 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.0 Clothing and footwear 6.5 6.1 5.6 4.6 4.0 3.6 Household furnishings and equipment 7.7 7.4 6.6 6.0 5.8 4.7 Household services and operation 4.3 4.8 5.2 5.9 6.1 5.5 Medical care and health expenses 3.9 4.3 4.5 4.6 5.1 5.3 Transport 16.3 15.1 15.5 16.9 15.6 15.6 Recreation 11.9 11.8 13.2 12.7 12.8 13.1 Personal care 1.8 2.0 1.9 2.0 1.9 1.9 Miscellaneous goods and services 7.2 7.8 7.6 8.2 8.9 9.4 - Total expenditures 100 100 100 100 100 100 From this table it appears that Australians are spending a greater proportion of their disposable income on housing, recreation, health and miscellaneous goods and services[2]. Australians are spending less on food, clothing and household furnishings. Do households have more disposable income to spend on luxury and recreational services such as personal travel guides, hot air balloon rides, coaching to ride a horse, etc? Not all of these areas require University-level education. [1] http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6530.02009-10?OpenDocument http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6530.02009-1... [2] 6530.0 HES 2009–10 Detailed tables breaks miscallenous goods and services into luxury items, financing costs (interest), private education, fees, fines and charitable donations, etc.

eli_gottlieb 15y ago

I don't think it's a lack of educational opportunities. Not as such. It's several things. * Machines used to enhance the productivity of a single person. Computers just replace people, and not with another person operating a computer to do what multiple people once could, with no humans at all. * As you noted, "the masses" can only adapt so much. We simply cannot make a scientist or a fine artist out of someone with an IQ of 85, and that person is only one standard deviation below average. Hell, we have a damned hard enough time trying to make a high-level white-collar worker out of someone with a merely median IQ of 100. * Our socioeconomic system is structured so that the productivity improvements from computing are captured by capital owners (broadly: businesses who own machines, business owners, and investors). So instead of higher productivity raising output, increased output making the worker more valuable, and the more valuable worker commanding a higher wage (what we used to get: wages rising with productivity), we now use productivity as an excuse to lay off unwanted and "unnecessary" workers, keep output at the same levels (or grow it only slightly), and pocket the difference. * The "rote bullshit" jobs being replaced by the machines are, in fact, the limiting factor of the economy. Scientists, artists, and philosophers in fact depend completely and utterly on functioning infrastructure and basic industries. To paraphrase Paul-Muad'dib Atreides, he who can destroy a thing has supreme power over it: the businesses that control the basic infrastructure on which the "higher-level" occupations rent-seek upon it. So we can't seem to have a market economy in which we pour all our productivity advancements in "raising the level" of occupations people hold. Today's prices bear this out: housing, health-care, education and energy are the most expensive and quickest-growing components of a common budget. At some point, we have to accept that many (most?) people are too dumb to work in a mostly-automated economy, that we've given the base of our economy entirely into the control of a narrow class of capitalists, and that these two classes of people hold the remaining productive/"higher-level" citizenry by the balls.