6 ms·

Robots and the Future of Unemployment

16 points by msluyter 17y ago

kiba 17y ago
When there's scarcity, there's alway work. The only issue is what prices you are willing to accept or is allowed to accept for your labor. If there are no scarcity, then there are no need for the existence of jobs and we all live happily in a utopian society.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  There is always scarcity of time and aesthetics.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Neither of which can be provided by unskilled workers.
    - ivankirigin 17y ago
      Huh? What is a maid but an unskilled laborer who saves me time?
      - ovi256 17y ago
        And do not underestimate a good maid. She may not have a PhD but she is more skilled, faster or efficient than you imagine.
        ivankirigin 17y ago
        Certainly. You get good at doing something if you do it all day. But it isn't a requirement.
  - bsaunder 17y ago
    Ironically, how much of the scarcity of time is caused by the need to work?
- msluyter 17y ago
  The problem, however, is that somewhere along the way to that utopian society, there's a point where our traditional economy collapses because too many people are structurally unemployed. How do we handle that? What replaces our traditional economy? That's the interesting question, IMHO.
  - bsaunder 17y ago
    I think the trick is to automate the production/maintenance of our basic needs (food, housing, transportation(?), energy(?)). Seems like we will have a lot of free time in our future (making it less scarce, perhaps but still finite).
  - timwiseman 17y ago
    Good question. One possible, partial answer is through making it easier to gain the new skills needed. The unskilled labor market can die relatively peacefully so long as there is a proper glid path to skilled labor for those people being displaced.
    - yalurker 17y ago
      There is a limit to how many people can be trained to do skilled labor though. We may like to imagine that everyone could, given the opportunity, do "skilled labor", but reality will be that automation will continue to slide the bar up as to how talented a person needs to be to be better than their automated replacement. Right now, maybe less than 1 percent of the population can't do something better than a machine could. Fast forward 50 or 100 years, and maybe half the population genuinely cannot do anything that a machine couldn't do better.
      - timwiseman 17y ago
        I both hope and sincerely think you are wrong. People improve with practice. Give them enough training to get that practice and they will improve. Yes, the bar of what the machines can do is high, and rising, but there are a lot of things they will not be able to do for the forseeable future such as program, write, do most repairs, or pick heads of lettuce. At least for the immediate future, anything that is not repetitive and fixed in task will be hard to automate, but relatively easy to train a normal person for.
modeless 17y ago
I don't expect this to be a problem within my lifetime. As we get more efficient we can easily reverse the trend toward 2-income families, and then start shortening the work week. Who could say no to a 32 hour week, or even shorter? At some point we may have to switch to an alternative economic system not based on labor (perhaps Cory Doctorow's "Whuffie", and I recommend "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" for anyone interested), but that will be a long time from now and I suspect by then the choices will be more obvious and incremental.
- natrius 17y ago
  The problem is that today's unskilled workers aren't going to be the robot owners of the future. Increases in productivity will allow us to produce more with less work, but access to those gains won't be equal. You can't just start making everyone work less and have the numbers magically work out to support everyone. You would have to force those who own the means of production to share their wealth with those who don't. How old are you? If you're less than 40, I wouldn't be so sure about this not being a problem in your lifetime.
  - modeless 17y ago
    "today's unskilled workers aren't going to be the robot owners of the future" Careful with your crystal ball there; you might end up sounding like the people who predicted similar things about computers. Robots will become very cheap in the future; they won't be exclusive to the "bourgeoisie". "You can't just start making everyone work less" Who said anything about making? That's far too authoritarian for my liking. People will choose to work less when they can achieve the lifestyle they want with less work. It will take a while for this to become socially acceptable, but I think it will happen. I am less than 40, and I would be happy indeed if this became a problem during my lifetime, but I'm still skeptical.
    - pyre 17y ago
      The 'price' of robots as well as computers could be greatly affected by increased scarcity in materials. A lot of the base materials in today's electronics aren't exactly abundant. I think this is one of the problems with a lot of technological 'forward-thinking'. Issues like this tend to be swept under the rug as if supplies of crucial building materials were not a concern at all. I would say it's a very real possibility that we could run out of a particular material with no replacement/alternative, especially as the march of progress causes us to consume more and more and more of these source materials.

16 points by msluyter 17y ago

kiba 17y ago

When there's scarcity, there's alway work. The only issue is what prices you are willing to accept or is allowed to accept for your labor. If there are no scarcity, then there are no need for the existence of jobs and we all live happily in a utopian society.

ivankirigin 17y ago
There is always scarcity of time and aesthetics.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Neither of which can be provided by unskilled workers.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    Huh? What is a maid but an unskilled laborer who saves me time?
    - ovi256 17y ago
      And do not underestimate a good maid. She may not have a PhD but she is more skilled, faster or efficient than you imagine.
      - ivankirigin 17y ago
        Certainly. You get good at doing something if you do it all day. But it isn't a requirement.
- bsaunder 17y ago
  Ironically, how much of the scarcity of time is caused by the need to work?
msluyter 17y ago
The problem, however, is that somewhere along the way to that utopian society, there's a point where our traditional economy collapses because too many people are structurally unemployed. How do we handle that? What replaces our traditional economy? That's the interesting question, IMHO.
- bsaunder 17y ago
  I think the trick is to automate the production/maintenance of our basic needs (food, housing, transportation(?), energy(?)). Seems like we will have a lot of free time in our future (making it less scarce, perhaps but still finite).
- timwiseman 17y ago
  Good question. One possible, partial answer is through making it easier to gain the new skills needed. The unskilled labor market can die relatively peacefully so long as there is a proper glid path to skilled labor for those people being displaced.
  - yalurker 17y ago
    There is a limit to how many people can be trained to do skilled labor though. We may like to imagine that everyone could, given the opportunity, do "skilled labor", but reality will be that automation will continue to slide the bar up as to how talented a person needs to be to be better than their automated replacement. Right now, maybe less than 1 percent of the population can't do something better than a machine could. Fast forward 50 or 100 years, and maybe half the population genuinely cannot do anything that a machine couldn't do better.
    - timwiseman 17y ago
      I both hope and sincerely think you are wrong. People improve with practice. Give them enough training to get that practice and they will improve. Yes, the bar of what the machines can do is high, and rising, but there are a lot of things they will not be able to do for the forseeable future such as program, write, do most repairs, or pick heads of lettuce. At least for the immediate future, anything that is not repetitive and fixed in task will be hard to automate, but relatively easy to train a normal person for.

modeless 17y ago

I don't expect this to be a problem within my lifetime. As we get more efficient we can easily reverse the trend toward 2-income families, and then start shortening the work week. Who could say no to a 32 hour week, or even shorter? At some point we may have to switch to an alternative economic system not based on labor (perhaps Cory Doctorow's "Whuffie", and I recommend "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" for anyone interested), but that will be a long time from now and I suspect by then the choices will be more obvious and incremental.

natrius 17y ago
The problem is that today's unskilled workers aren't going to be the robot owners of the future. Increases in productivity will allow us to produce more with less work, but access to those gains won't be equal. You can't just start making everyone work less and have the numbers magically work out to support everyone. You would have to force those who own the means of production to share their wealth with those who don't. How old are you? If you're less than 40, I wouldn't be so sure about this not being a problem in your lifetime.
- modeless 17y ago
  "today's unskilled workers aren't going to be the robot owners of the future" Careful with your crystal ball there; you might end up sounding like the people who predicted similar things about computers. Robots will become very cheap in the future; they won't be exclusive to the "bourgeoisie". "You can't just start making everyone work less" Who said anything about making? That's far too authoritarian for my liking. People will choose to work less when they can achieve the lifestyle they want with less work. It will take a while for this to become socially acceptable, but I think it will happen. I am less than 40, and I would be happy indeed if this became a problem during my lifetime, but I'm still skeptical.
  - pyre 17y ago
    The 'price' of robots as well as computers could be greatly affected by increased scarcity in materials. A lot of the base materials in today's electronics aren't exactly abundant. I think this is one of the problems with a lot of technological 'forward-thinking'. Issues like this tend to be swept under the rug as if supplies of crucial building materials were not a concern at all. I would say it's a very real possibility that we could run out of a particular material with no replacement/alternative, especially as the march of progress causes us to consume more and more and more of these source materials.