9 ms·

Some predict computers will produce a jobless future. Here’s why they’re wrong.

21 points by Libertatea 13y ago

al2o3cr 13y ago
"This is because new technologies also increase demand for products and services. Consumers will demand more product if new technologies add desirable features or decrease the price, thanks to the smaller amount of labor needed to produce the product." Consumers, on the other hand, will not demand more of diddly if the have no job and no money.
- growupkids 13y ago
  Demand creates jobs. And businesses try to get ahead of demand so they can cease the market, creating those jobs sooner.
  - sixbrx 13y ago
    Creates jobs for robots, is the argument.
- nfoz 13y ago
  That will last for a while, but I know a lot of people who choose to live simple lives. You can make shiny gadgets, and I'll probably buy them, but we'll increasingly find people who are content not to have them.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
  What's already happening now is the wealthy are consuming more and the middle class is shrinking. The top 20% does 60% of personal spending. http://www.parapundit.com/archives/009383.html http://www.parapundit.com/archives/009383.html I see no reason for the trend of the disappearing middle class to stop. The future is Brazil: A wealthy elite alongside impoverished masses. There's less and less business need for a large middle class. http://www.thecollectiveint.com/2013/03/favelas-of-brazil-boundary-between.html http://www.thecollectiveint.com/2013/03/favelas-of-brazil-bo...
sharemywin 13y ago
Just because demand went up in the past doesn't mean it will in the future. That Tax service argument is ridiculous. People did their own taxes in the past now they use tax software so in the future they will use tax perparers? not seeing it. The middle class was propped up by unions plain and simple. With out government intervention society trends toward the rich and the exploited.
- growupkids 13y ago
  How did government intervention create the technology industry?
  - smartbuttcute 13y ago
    ARPANET was created by DOD. The Internet evolved from that.
  - bdcravens 13y ago
    Not really sure what you mean, but civilian computing technology is the product of military (think ENIAC and the Internet, GPS, and more) and other government uses (think Hollerith machine's use in census).
  - Nursie 13y ago
    Errr... not sure if serious. DARPA, military and civilian projects etc etc. Might have come about anyway, sure, but the early days of the computer industry point to a lot of Gov money flowing in and a lot of spinoffs from government-funded research.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - sharemywin 13y ago
    Without copyright and patent law their is no high tech industry. Facebook, instagram, intel, microsoft, google all protected by copyright and/or patents. even on network effected businesses you could build screen scrapers and such that would by pass advertising without laws.
yoha 13y ago
I still don't get why there is so much worry about keeping the same amount of jobs. When people imagine future, they like to think of robots doing chores for them and having time to work on personal projects or take leisure time. It means that the first thing we are expecting from automation is not more productivity but less work. Of course, it can be socially explained because the current way of thinking about economy does not allow for a gradual change to less work. I guess one of the topic that will have to be discussed here at some point is the concept of basic income [1]. Its advocates think that it will help such a transition by helping reducing the amount of existing jobs while making sure that everyone can sustain oneself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income
- CEyzaguirre 13y ago
  I worry because I don't see our safety net radically changing before mass unemployment. But I agree that should be more of the focus rather than holding onto to an antiquated notion of full unemployment.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  That kind of article is what people say when they don't want anybody to talk about basic income.
- chebum 13y ago
  Basic income and increased progressive taxes are a good idea to solve mass unemployment. However, as proofed by recent London riots, they increase crime rates. People just have too much spare time they cannot fulfill with meaningful activities. We always want more money than we have today. The only way to increase income when there are no jobs is to take them from somebody around. Forcefully or silently.
  - CEyzaguirre 13y ago
    Do Londoners have basic income? It seems like unemployment, police brutality and perceived social exclusion were major factors rather than "spare time." All those factors are why we should be concerned with the creation of an adequate safety net because exclusion and unemployment fostered by extreme income inequality create the conditions for violence, although we should be concerned about alleviating suffering regardless of the of potential for it to affect rich folk.
neals 13y ago
At some point in our Utopian future of mastering every form of science and technology, don't we all just get to sit around, plugged into our virtual worlds, living an endlessly happy simulation until we die of old age at 500? Wouldn't robots be keeping the simulation running, no jobs required for infinity? Or am I just an optimist?
- CEyzaguirre 13y ago
  Once we solve this whole scarcity problem, sure.
  - tostitos1979 13y ago
    In a virtual world, they need be no scarcity :D Edit: I thought it was interesting that in Marshall Brain's manna story, a class of people in the utopian world decide to live their entire lives in the virtual world. Their bodies are kept healthy and they get a longer lifespan as I recall. I'm not a fan of such existence but it is an interesting idea. Also see: Matrix, 13th floor.
    - neals 13y ago
      Matrix? What is this movie you speaketh of? :)
- ballard 13y ago
  And eventually converge to various degrees implanted tech, worn tech, other improvements and "improvements."
- prestadige 13y ago
  >Or am I just an optimist? Yes, the future can be bright providing we work to ensure that civilisation isn't destroyed, which itself requires optimism.
drakaal 13y ago
I am working on Natural Language Processing. I am a bad person. My stated goal is to make it so you never have to call a company (like expedia) and talk to someone in a foreign country (Like the Philippines). I have a very nice demo of doing a Cable modem tech support call where you only talk to a machine. It works well. Is faster than a human can be, and if it got adoption would cost a few Million jobs. What are those people going to do? I don't know. Do I think that the savings that Comcast, Cox, or Expedia will have will be passed on to consumer so that they can buy more stuff? Not likely. Do I think that my tech might end up increasing the divide between the upper and middle class (global not domestic classification [middle class on a global scale include people in call centers in India, Philippines and such who by US standards live at poverty levels])? Yes. Do I think that it will raise the quality of living for the those living at the poverty level? Yes. The lowering of the cost of things like Internet, Cellphones, and such will help those at the lowest income levels. So am I a bad guy or a good guy? -Brandon Wirtz CTO PlexiNLP http://www.PlexiNLP.com http://www.PlexiNLP.com Feel free to tell me why I'm a bad guy as a comment. I do have this discussion in my own head on a regular basis.
- CEyzaguirre 13y ago
  Someones going to push technology forward inevitably, so I think it's not productive (or correct) to point the finger at those working on these innovations as "bad people." Rather, we should direct our energy towards those that oppose the creation of a safety net to support the unemployed affected by such innovations.
- yardie 13y ago
  Everytime I've had a problem with my cable I just say cancellation and it takes me directly to a human. NLP isn't bad but most of my problems are with billing, something that should have been easily solvable by an early 80s mainframe. Yet every few months the cable company managed to screw it up and I'm fairly sure they were doing it on purpose.
- talmand 13y ago
  There's a contradiction in there. It is thought that the savings that Comcast, cox, or Expedia will have will not be passed down to consumers but the quality of life at poverty level will be better because Internet, Cellphones, and such will cost less? Anyway, that's not enough information to determine if you are a bad guy or good guy. I would say you're just a guy working on something with little idea of what the future holds. Much like the rest of us.
transfire 13y ago
BZZZ! WRONG ANSWER! First and foremost this article totally disregards technological acceleration. Its conclusions draw on a past that will look as quaint as the 1700s do today, and in only a few more decades. Secondly, the tax example is the perfect demonstration of the fallacy of the argument. Those jobs have only managed to grow b/c the government keeps creating ever more complex tax regulations. Which is exactly what happens when a society puts the "jobs numbers" and "full employment" above actual economic efficacy -- They have to create bullshit work to keep people busy.
- ballard 13y ago
  The other point is we have to look at a way that somehow voluntarily redistributes some gigawealth for necessities of those that are struggling to survive. There is so much wealth now that survival is pretty much assured, but it's the degree of pleasantness and dignity where a little can go a long ways.
saintgimp 13y ago
As computers/robots get better and more versatile, they inevitably "compete" for jobs and provide downward wage pressure the same as if the skilled human labor pool (but not the human consumer pool) had drastically increased. Fundamentally it's all about who can do the job better and/or cheaper. If you aren't the one at the top of the "better" or "cheaper" list in some category, you don't have a job. Period. As a simple thought experiment, imagine a world in which a computer or robot could do literally any job a human could do better and cheaper than a human could do it. In such a world, the only reason a human would draw a salary would be due to charity, not good business sense. Of course, in such a world you don't have an economy as we know it either, which is kind of the point. Our current social contract won't survive in that kind of a world. We'll need a new one. You might argue that such a day will never come; that there will always be a large class of jobs that humans can do better or cheaper than machines. Perhaps that's true. But that's what this conversation is really about: do machines have fundamental limitations due to physics that will keep them below the level of a large majority of humans forever? I think that's a strange position for most of us at HN to be arguing. Even software development will someday be automated to a large extent, I expect (yes, not anytime soon), and then where will we be?
TelmoMenezes 13y ago
An important distinction that this sort of "there will be jobs forever" rhetoric never seems to address is that of basic necessities vs. other stuff. Through automation, the basic necessities of all of Humanity can be produced/met by an increasingly smaller proportion of the human population. The new jobs are moving to the "other stuff" category. At some point, someone is bound to notice that "basic necessities" are now potentially dirt cheap, and that we can all be free from work we do not desire. We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit, but they are necessary purely to distribute wealth. This is a horrible and absurd system which forces people to be prisoners for a good chunk of their lives for no good reason whatsoever. Also: I really can't stand "Here's why..." titles. They come across as arrogant and cliché at the same time. If you're going to be arrogant, make sure you're also brilliant.
- kfk 13y ago
  We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit You are either extremely arrogant or you are trolling. I can't believe you can say things like this and nobody is pointing you how absurd and how bad this sounds. What now? The only real "job" is typing letters in a text editor? Didn't they cut a lot of those jobs already? I mean, things like frameworks must cut a lot of programming jobs, right? They were bullshit jobs before they were cut? Most of those "bullshit" jobs are in companies that create massive wealth. You are either saying that such companies are complete idiots, or I don't know what you are saying, nobody, nobody, hires for the sake of hiring.
  - null_ptr 13y ago
    If not bullshit, how else would you describe driving long commutes each day and night, only to park your ass in a cubicle for 10 hours and shuffle PowerPoint reports for some dick that doesn't even know what he needs them for in the first place? A lot of white collar jobs are adult busy work. A lot of blue collar jobs are wasting away people's potential and creativity all the same, burning them out and making them bitter. The sooner people are free and confident to pursue their genuine interests the better off we'll all be.
jla32 13y ago
I don't agree fully with this since a lot of research is already going into this.
mcv 13y ago
We should get rid of the idea that people need to have jobs. People need to have food, shelter, and the opportunity to develop themselves. The more stuff gets automated, the less we need people to work. Of course that requires a totally different economic system. Our capitalist system basically requires people to work (if they want to live), but doesn't require people for work (to be done). It's contradictory.
BjoernKW 13y ago
This article tries to answer the wrong question. It just iterates the Industrial Age 'You got to have a proper job to be a valuable member of society.' meme. That's the same fallacy most socialists succumb to. Because their ideas are so deeply rooted in the concept of jobs and employment they can't even envision a future in which most people make do without a proper job. The real question isn't: "How will we still be able to keep employees chained to their jobs in the future?" but: "How will we manage to liberate people from doing meaningless bullshit jobs?" The answer to the former question would be: "Of course: Have them buy even more useless trinkets and gadgets so they still have to work their asses off." An answer to the latter could be some sort of basic income. I'm not saying at all that luxury goods are inherently bad. However, the value of time has to be put into perspective. While time is the most valuable luxury good many people frivolously spend it on the ability to buy essentially useless consumer goods. Currently, most people simply can't say 'Look boss, I don't need so much money anyway so I'd much rather work for 20 hrs / week. OK?' so they just spend their disposable income for things they don't actually need. The income's at your disposal anyway so why not just spend it on gadgets in order to make up for the time lost while earning this income? In my opinion, this is a vicious circle humanity in the long run needs to break out of if we want to be truly free.

21 points by Libertatea 13y ago

"This is because new technologies also increase demand for products and services. Consumers will demand more product if new technologies add desirable features or decrease the price, thanks to the smaller amount of labor needed to produce the product." Consumers, on the other hand, will not demand more of diddly if the have no job and no money.

growupkids 13y ago
Demand creates jobs. And businesses try to get ahead of demand so they can cease the market, creating those jobs sooner.
- sixbrx 13y ago
  Creates jobs for robots, is the argument.
nfoz 13y ago
That will last for a while, but I know a lot of people who choose to live simple lives. You can make shiny gadgets, and I'll probably buy them, but we'll increasingly find people who are content not to have them.
a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
What's already happening now is the wealthy are consuming more and the middle class is shrinking. The top 20% does 60% of personal spending. http://www.parapundit.com/archives/009383.html http://www.parapundit.com/archives/009383.html I see no reason for the trend of the disappearing middle class to stop. The future is Brazil: A wealthy elite alongside impoverished masses. There's less and less business need for a large middle class. http://www.thecollectiveint.com/2013/03/favelas-of-brazil-boundary-between.html http://www.thecollectiveint.com/2013/03/favelas-of-brazil-bo...

sharemywin 13y ago

Just because demand went up in the past doesn't mean it will in the future. That Tax service argument is ridiculous. People did their own taxes in the past now they use tax software so in the future they will use tax perparers? not seeing it. The middle class was propped up by unions plain and simple. With out government intervention society trends toward the rich and the exploited.

growupkids 13y ago
How did government intervention create the technology industry?
- smartbuttcute 13y ago
  ARPANET was created by DOD. The Internet evolved from that.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  Not really sure what you mean, but civilian computing technology is the product of military (think ENIAC and the Internet, GPS, and more) and other government uses (think Hollerith machine's use in census).
- Nursie 13y ago
  Errr... not sure if serious. DARPA, military and civilian projects etc etc. Might have come about anyway, sure, but the early days of the computer industry point to a lot of Gov money flowing in and a lot of spinoffs from government-funded research.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sharemywin 13y ago
  Without copyright and patent law their is no high tech industry. Facebook, instagram, intel, microsoft, google all protected by copyright and/or patents. even on network effected businesses you could build screen scrapers and such that would by pass advertising without laws.

yoha 13y ago

I still don't get why there is so much worry about keeping the same amount of jobs. When people imagine future, they like to think of robots doing chores for them and having time to work on personal projects or take leisure time. It means that the first thing we are expecting from automation is not more productivity but less work. Of course, it can be socially explained because the current way of thinking about economy does not allow for a gradual change to less work. I guess one of the topic that will have to be discussed here at some point is the concept of basic income [1]. Its advocates think that it will help such a transition by helping reducing the amount of existing jobs while making sure that everyone can sustain oneself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income

CEyzaguirre 13y ago
I worry because I don't see our safety net radically changing before mass unemployment. But I agree that should be more of the focus rather than holding onto to an antiquated notion of full unemployment.
marcosdumay 13y ago
That kind of article is what people say when they don't want anybody to talk about basic income.
chebum 13y ago
Basic income and increased progressive taxes are a good idea to solve mass unemployment. However, as proofed by recent London riots, they increase crime rates. People just have too much spare time they cannot fulfill with meaningful activities. We always want more money than we have today. The only way to increase income when there are no jobs is to take them from somebody around. Forcefully or silently.
- CEyzaguirre 13y ago
  Do Londoners have basic income? It seems like unemployment, police brutality and perceived social exclusion were major factors rather than "spare time." All those factors are why we should be concerned with the creation of an adequate safety net because exclusion and unemployment fostered by extreme income inequality create the conditions for violence, although we should be concerned about alleviating suffering regardless of the of potential for it to affect rich folk.

neals 13y ago

At some point in our Utopian future of mastering every form of science and technology, don't we all just get to sit around, plugged into our virtual worlds, living an endlessly happy simulation until we die of old age at 500? Wouldn't robots be keeping the simulation running, no jobs required for infinity? Or am I just an optimist?

CEyzaguirre 13y ago
Once we solve this whole scarcity problem, sure.
- tostitos1979 13y ago
  In a virtual world, they need be no scarcity :D Edit: I thought it was interesting that in Marshall Brain's manna story, a class of people in the utopian world decide to live their entire lives in the virtual world. Their bodies are kept healthy and they get a longer lifespan as I recall. I'm not a fan of such existence but it is an interesting idea. Also see: Matrix, 13th floor.
  - neals 13y ago
    Matrix? What is this movie you speaketh of? :)
ballard 13y ago
And eventually converge to various degrees implanted tech, worn tech, other improvements and "improvements."
prestadige 13y ago
>Or am I just an optimist? Yes, the future can be bright providing we work to ensure that civilisation isn't destroyed, which itself requires optimism.

drakaal 13y ago

I am working on Natural Language Processing. I am a bad person. My stated goal is to make it so you never have to call a company (like expedia) and talk to someone in a foreign country (Like the Philippines). I have a very nice demo of doing a Cable modem tech support call where you only talk to a machine. It works well. Is faster than a human can be, and if it got adoption would cost a few Million jobs. What are those people going to do? I don't know. Do I think that the savings that Comcast, Cox, or Expedia will have will be passed on to consumer so that they can buy more stuff? Not likely. Do I think that my tech might end up increasing the divide between the upper and middle class (global not domestic classification [middle class on a global scale include people in call centers in India, Philippines and such who by US standards live at poverty levels])? Yes. Do I think that it will raise the quality of living for the those living at the poverty level? Yes. The lowering of the cost of things like Internet, Cellphones, and such will help those at the lowest income levels. So am I a bad guy or a good guy? -Brandon Wirtz CTO PlexiNLP http://www.PlexiNLP.com http://www.PlexiNLP.com Feel free to tell me why I'm a bad guy as a comment. I do have this discussion in my own head on a regular basis.

CEyzaguirre 13y ago
Someones going to push technology forward inevitably, so I think it's not productive (or correct) to point the finger at those working on these innovations as "bad people." Rather, we should direct our energy towards those that oppose the creation of a safety net to support the unemployed affected by such innovations.
yardie 13y ago
Everytime I've had a problem with my cable I just say cancellation and it takes me directly to a human. NLP isn't bad but most of my problems are with billing, something that should have been easily solvable by an early 80s mainframe. Yet every few months the cable company managed to screw it up and I'm fairly sure they were doing it on purpose.
talmand 13y ago
There's a contradiction in there. It is thought that the savings that Comcast, cox, or Expedia will have will not be passed down to consumers but the quality of life at poverty level will be better because Internet, Cellphones, and such will cost less? Anyway, that's not enough information to determine if you are a bad guy or good guy. I would say you're just a guy working on something with little idea of what the future holds. Much like the rest of us.

transfire 13y ago

BZZZ! WRONG ANSWER! First and foremost this article totally disregards technological acceleration. Its conclusions draw on a past that will look as quaint as the 1700s do today, and in only a few more decades. Secondly, the tax example is the perfect demonstration of the fallacy of the argument. Those jobs have only managed to grow b/c the government keeps creating ever more complex tax regulations. Which is exactly what happens when a society puts the "jobs numbers" and "full employment" above actual economic efficacy -- They have to create bullshit work to keep people busy.

ballard 13y ago
The other point is we have to look at a way that somehow voluntarily redistributes some gigawealth for necessities of those that are struggling to survive. There is so much wealth now that survival is pretty much assured, but it's the degree of pleasantness and dignity where a little can go a long ways.

saintgimp 13y ago

As computers/robots get better and more versatile, they inevitably "compete" for jobs and provide downward wage pressure the same as if the skilled human labor pool (but not the human consumer pool) had drastically increased. Fundamentally it's all about who can do the job better and/or cheaper. If you aren't the one at the top of the "better" or "cheaper" list in some category, you don't have a job. Period. As a simple thought experiment, imagine a world in which a computer or robot could do literally any job a human could do better and cheaper than a human could do it. In such a world, the only reason a human would draw a salary would be due to charity, not good business sense. Of course, in such a world you don't have an economy as we know it either, which is kind of the point. Our current social contract won't survive in that kind of a world. We'll need a new one. You might argue that such a day will never come; that there will always be a large class of jobs that humans can do better or cheaper than machines. Perhaps that's true. But that's what this conversation is really about: do machines have fundamental limitations due to physics that will keep them below the level of a large majority of humans forever? I think that's a strange position for most of us at HN to be arguing. Even software development will someday be automated to a large extent, I expect (yes, not anytime soon), and then where will we be?

TelmoMenezes 13y ago

An important distinction that this sort of "there will be jobs forever" rhetoric never seems to address is that of basic necessities vs. other stuff. Through automation, the basic necessities of all of Humanity can be produced/met by an increasingly smaller proportion of the human population. The new jobs are moving to the "other stuff" category. At some point, someone is bound to notice that "basic necessities" are now potentially dirt cheap, and that we can all be free from work we do not desire. We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit, but they are necessary purely to distribute wealth. This is a horrible and absurd system which forces people to be prisoners for a good chunk of their lives for no good reason whatsoever. Also: I really can't stand "Here's why..." titles. They come across as arrogant and cliché at the same time. If you're going to be arrogant, make sure you're also brilliant.

kfk 13y ago
We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit You are either extremely arrogant or you are trolling. I can't believe you can say things like this and nobody is pointing you how absurd and how bad this sounds. What now? The only real "job" is typing letters in a text editor? Didn't they cut a lot of those jobs already? I mean, things like frameworks must cut a lot of programming jobs, right? They were bullshit jobs before they were cut? Most of those "bullshit" jobs are in companies that create massive wealth. You are either saying that such companies are complete idiots, or I don't know what you are saying, nobody, nobody, hires for the sake of hiring.
- null_ptr 13y ago
  If not bullshit, how else would you describe driving long commutes each day and night, only to park your ass in a cubicle for 10 hours and shuffle PowerPoint reports for some dick that doesn't even know what he needs them for in the first place? A lot of white collar jobs are adult busy work. A lot of blue collar jobs are wasting away people's potential and creativity all the same, burning them out and making them bitter. The sooner people are free and confident to pursue their genuine interests the better off we'll all be.

jla32 13y ago

I don't agree fully with this since a lot of research is already going into this.

mcv 13y ago

We should get rid of the idea that people need to have jobs. People need to have food, shelter, and the opportunity to develop themselves. The more stuff gets automated, the less we need people to work. Of course that requires a totally different economic system. Our capitalist system basically requires people to work (if they want to live), but doesn't require people for work (to be done). It's contradictory.

BjoernKW 13y ago

This article tries to answer the wrong question. It just iterates the Industrial Age 'You got to have a proper job to be a valuable member of society.' meme. That's the same fallacy most socialists succumb to. Because their ideas are so deeply rooted in the concept of jobs and employment they can't even envision a future in which most people make do without a proper job. The real question isn't: "How will we still be able to keep employees chained to their jobs in the future?" but: "How will we manage to liberate people from doing meaningless bullshit jobs?" The answer to the former question would be: "Of course: Have them buy even more useless trinkets and gadgets so they still have to work their asses off." An answer to the latter could be some sort of basic income. I'm not saying at all that luxury goods are inherently bad. However, the value of time has to be put into perspective. While time is the most valuable luxury good many people frivolously spend it on the ability to buy essentially useless consumer goods. Currently, most people simply can't say 'Look boss, I don't need so much money anyway so I'd much rather work for 20 hrs / week. OK?' so they just spend their disposable income for things they don't actually need. The income's at your disposal anyway so why not just spend it on gadgets in order to make up for the time lost while earning this income? In my opinion, this is a vicious circle humanity in the long run needs to break out of if we want to be truly free.