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"...It’s always hard to say whether economic changes are cyclical or structural, but I think it’s fair to say that there’s a slowly accumulating consensus that

"...It’s always hard to say whether economic changes are cyclical or structural, but I think it’s fair to say that there’s a slowly accumulating consensus that technology is now destroying jobs faster than it’s creating them..." That's a strange thing to say, because I'm of the opinion that more people worldwide are employed in productive economic activity than at any time in the past. In fact, that we've lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in the last decade or so. I was going to start this off with "here we go again" because observing this great change that's overtaking us and catastrophizing about it seems to be a cottage industry -- and has been for many decades. No doubt general purpose computers and robots are going to massively change the face of society and commerce. I'll even go so far and guess that parts of our coming evolution are going to be painful -- just like it always has been. But our relationship to the worldwide economy is a funny thing. We can sit back, assume that we're appropriately educated, tooled, and have the right attitude for success, then complain when there aren't jobs. Or we can choose to monitor and adapt to where the economy actually is. When we read about great changes coming, we should be thinking about the great opportunities we're going to have and how to adapt to meet the future, not about "what to do when your job is gone" That's self-fulfilling horse hockey. There's an infinite amount of economic activity left in the world. The question is whether we want to learn how to engage in it or sit on the sidelines worrying about terrible structural changes that will doom us all.

lkrubner 13y ago
But you can acknowledge that there may be a real scarcity of work for people who have low IQ? In the past, there was always manual labor, which could soak up all labor so long as aggregate demand in the economy was great enough -- and the best way to ensure sufficient aggregate demand, in the past, was typically a combination of productivity gains and sufficient monetary creation. But what happens when all the work that can be done by low IQ people is automated? You might be willing to respond with "New forms of work will open up that will allow for the employ of those people with low IQs". However, I am asking you to consider the hypothetical where every such form of work is eventually automated by machines that have sufficiently advanced AI. Between 1850 and 1973 there were immense improvements in labor productivity that completely transformed the world, and for a long time the rising productivity created more new jobs, rather than less. But going forward, we face a situation where increasing automation will still create new wealth, and it will still create huge improvements in labor productivity, but the improvements will only be available for those who have enough IQ to understand the technologies in use. And much of this scenario might come to pass during the next 50 years. But imagine even further afield -- imagine 200 years now. Do you think the period 1850 to 1973 offers a reasonable model to think about, say for instance, economic growth between 2100 and 2200? What happens if there comes a day when absolutely everything is automated and humans no longer need to work? We have reached utopia, yes? But you can probably see where I am going with this: eventually there needs to be some way to provide an income to people, when the day eventually comes when no one needs to work.
- TomJoad 13y ago
  What does a "low IQ" have to do with manual labor? IQ or any other measure of so called intelligence, has never -- and will probably never -- have any correlation with a person's occupation. Ultimately, it is the parent's socio-economic status which usually dictates what jobs their children will have. The fact that you believe it could be a person's "IQ" which dictates what job they may have really shows how little regard you have for people.
  - JamesArgo 13y ago
    Look, that sounds nice and all, but it just isn't true. Some people are smarter than others. This should be an incredibly uncontroversial claim. Also, textbook ad hominem at the end there. The fact that you believe a persons "height" dictates their chance of competing in the NBA really shows how little regard you have for people.
  - Strilanc 13y ago
    > Ultimately, it is the parent's socio-economic status which usually dictates what jobs their children will have. That's not an agreed upon fact. For example, a cursory googling of "correlation between iq and job" brings up a lot of articles with language like "This is why hundreds of studies have found that IQ predicts job performance best (though not all that well) at the start of a person’s career, and progressively weakens over the course of that career."[1] or subtitles like "Intelligence wins out over socio-economic status when it comes to career advancement"[2]. (But maybe that search term is biased. I just entered the most obvious thing.) As another example, wikipedia says "The validity of IQ as a predictor of job performance is above zero for all work studied to date, but varies with the type of job and across different studies, ranging from 0.2 to 0.6. The correlations were higher when the unreliability of measurement methods was controlled for."[3] > really shows how little regard you have for people. Inappropriate. 1. http://danielgoleman.info/the-trouble-with-iq/ http://danielgoleman.info/the-trouble-with-iq/ 2. http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16373 http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=1637... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_perf...
  - deleted 13y ago
xinsight 13y ago
A TED talk with Andrew McAfee made an interesting observation: once long-haul trucks are fully automated (the tech exists, it's just a matter of time), there will be a massive number of truckers suddenly out of work. Yes, other types jobs will no doubt be created, but i'm not sure many of those truck drivers will be in a good position to make the transition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF-Z74C1QE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF-Z74C1QE
cle 13y ago
"When we read about great changes coming, we should be thinking about the great opportunities we're going to have and how to adapt to meet the future, not about "what to do when your job is gone" That's self-fulfilling horse hockey." I think this overlooks a very real problem. There are a large number of real people out there who lose their jobs because of this. Essentially their skills are no longer valuable, so they need to learn new skills. How are they going to afford the insane cost of going back to school? It's a tough situation, and even tougher if they have a family. And if both spouses worked in the same labor market, they could easily fall into poverty trying to feed their children. Of course structural changes won't "doom us all". It does doom many people who suddenly find themselves in expired labor markets with no way out. We need technological advances, but we also need to find ways to adapt to those changes better in order to minimize the collateral damage.

lkrubner 13y ago

But you can acknowledge that there may be a real scarcity of work for people who have low IQ? In the past, there was always manual labor, which could soak up all labor so long as aggregate demand in the economy was great enough -- and the best way to ensure sufficient aggregate demand, in the past, was typically a combination of productivity gains and sufficient monetary creation. But what happens when all the work that can be done by low IQ people is automated? You might be willing to respond with "New forms of work will open up that will allow for the employ of those people with low IQs". However, I am asking you to consider the hypothetical where every such form of work is eventually automated by machines that have sufficiently advanced AI. Between 1850 and 1973 there were immense improvements in labor productivity that completely transformed the world, and for a long time the rising productivity created more new jobs, rather than less. But going forward, we face a situation where increasing automation will still create new wealth, and it will still create huge improvements in labor productivity, but the improvements will only be available for those who have enough IQ to understand the technologies in use. And much of this scenario might come to pass during the next 50 years. But imagine even further afield -- imagine 200 years now. Do you think the period 1850 to 1973 offers a reasonable model to think about, say for instance, economic growth between 2100 and 2200? What happens if there comes a day when absolutely everything is automated and humans no longer need to work? We have reached utopia, yes? But you can probably see where I am going with this: eventually there needs to be some way to provide an income to people, when the day eventually comes when no one needs to work.

TomJoad 13y ago
What does a "low IQ" have to do with manual labor? IQ or any other measure of so called intelligence, has never -- and will probably never -- have any correlation with a person's occupation. Ultimately, it is the parent's socio-economic status which usually dictates what jobs their children will have. The fact that you believe it could be a person's "IQ" which dictates what job they may have really shows how little regard you have for people.
- JamesArgo 13y ago
  Look, that sounds nice and all, but it just isn't true. Some people are smarter than others. This should be an incredibly uncontroversial claim. Also, textbook ad hominem at the end there. The fact that you believe a persons "height" dictates their chance of competing in the NBA really shows how little regard you have for people.
- Strilanc 13y ago
  > Ultimately, it is the parent's socio-economic status which usually dictates what jobs their children will have. That's not an agreed upon fact. For example, a cursory googling of "correlation between iq and job" brings up a lot of articles with language like "This is why hundreds of studies have found that IQ predicts job performance best (though not all that well) at the start of a person’s career, and progressively weakens over the course of that career."[1] or subtitles like "Intelligence wins out over socio-economic status when it comes to career advancement"[2]. (But maybe that search term is biased. I just entered the most obvious thing.) As another example, wikipedia says "The validity of IQ as a predictor of job performance is above zero for all work studied to date, but varies with the type of job and across different studies, ranging from 0.2 to 0.6. The correlations were higher when the unreliability of measurement methods was controlled for."[3] > really shows how little regard you have for people. Inappropriate. 1. http://danielgoleman.info/the-trouble-with-iq/ http://danielgoleman.info/the-trouble-with-iq/ 2. http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16373 http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=1637... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_perf...
- deleted 13y ago

xinsight 13y ago

A TED talk with Andrew McAfee made an interesting observation: once long-haul trucks are fully automated (the tech exists, it's just a matter of time), there will be a massive number of truckers suddenly out of work. Yes, other types jobs will no doubt be created, but i'm not sure many of those truck drivers will be in a good position to make the transition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF-Z74C1QE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF-Z74C1QE

cle 13y ago

"When we read about great changes coming, we should be thinking about the great opportunities we're going to have and how to adapt to meet the future, not about "what to do when your job is gone" That's self-fulfilling horse hockey." I think this overlooks a very real problem. There are a large number of real people out there who lose their jobs because of this. Essentially their skills are no longer valuable, so they need to learn new skills. How are they going to afford the insane cost of going back to school? It's a tough situation, and even tougher if they have a family. And if both spouses worked in the same labor market, they could easily fall into poverty trying to feed their children. Of course structural changes won't "doom us all". It does doom many people who suddenly find themselves in expired labor markets with no way out. We need technological advances, but we also need to find ways to adapt to those changes better in order to minimize the collateral damage.