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Historically speaking, automation in various fields greatly increased number of jobs, productivity and quality of life.

• jotm 13y ago
  But that curve will start going downwards as soon as machines can fully replace people and most countries start using said machines. It's kind of like slavery - you could have 1000 working citizens do the work of 50,000 people (because slaves were basically "free labor", like a robotic arm is nowadays)... Except slavery went away (thankfully), and automation will not (hopefully)...
• TeMPOraL 13y ago
  But it also systematically replaces low-skilled jobs with high-skilled ones. You can't expect a low-wage factory worker to change into control engineer overnight, nor a clerk will be able to program automated checkout machines. Nowdays new jobs are simply not accessible to the people who get replaced. I think what people don't get when discussing it is that historical (XIX century) examples don't apply because our computer-based automation is something different than their mechanical automation; robots can do any low-skilled thing humans can, which wasn't the case during Industrial Revolution. It's not just about doing stuff faster.
  • prostoalex 13y ago
    I think the discussion is more about long-term change than short-term. I'm sure operators of horse feeding stations had similar arguments when Model T came around, but you don't find many people in that occupation nowadays.
    • TeMPOraL 13y ago
      Well, that's kind of my point, isn't it? Except the meaning of "long-term" changes fast as the progress of technology accelerates.