10 ms·

From Poverty to Prosperity: A conversation with Bill Gates [pdf]

111 points by mikeevans 12y ago

Kenji 12y ago
"Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots." We already have. It's called the 8.5h day where you're simply present in your office, paid to be off the street, employed by the state, browsing facebook and doing mundane jobs once in a while.
withdavidli 12y ago
Looking forward to mass automation. Free up a lot of time and hopefully we'll create better things instead of doing mindless chores. Predictions about mass automations are at opposite sides of the spectrum. Either most of the population is poor without a job, or it's a utopia where no one has to work (everything is provided) and concentrate on bettering ourselves.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I don't see how Gates' recommendations do anything to push us toward the latter.
  - johnward 12y ago
    "This means eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also scrapping the minimum wage so that businesses will feel comfortable employing people at dirt-cheap wages instead of outsourcing their jobs to an iPad." That kind of sounds like a bunch of broke people on the bottom end. They might be able to save their jobs if they take much less than minimum wage which isn't a livable wage to start with. I'm all for a utopian future where people can spend time doing things they are good at or love instead of working but that will require a major change in the mindset of the people (especially in the US). Right now there is an anti-welfare movement and they say the alternative is to get a job. There aren't enough jobs for everyone and there will be less jobs and more people in the future.
- tachyonbeam 12y ago
  It has the potential to be good for humanity. All the most dangerous/degrading jobs accomplished by robots. Allow people shorter work days and allow people to do "less essential" jobs. More artists, more psychotherapists, more people building affordable housing, more nannies and helpers, people working on just improving life for everyone else out there. But then, unrestrained capitalism isn't compatible with this. The way it's been going in America for the past 40 years, productivity has gone up but salaries have gone down relative to inflation and work hours have stayed the same or gone up. Many people need 2-3 minimum wage jobs just to feed the kids and pay the rent, no free time. The rich, the corporations, are trying to milk the people for all that they're worth, to try and maintain the elite at absolutely insane levels of wealth. The predictable outcome, in the next few decades, is that we'll get worse jobs, higher rents, smaller apartments, more cost increases on food and electricity, longer work hours. The middle class will keep getting squeezed until things reach some kind of breaking point. The rich will have to provide the rest of us with enough distraction and a minimum level of comfort required to prevent famine, disease, civil war, and revolution from happening. We could have some kind of utopia, we have the technology, but the wealthiest capitalist are too near-sighted, it seems, to understand that it would be in everyone's best interest to make sure that everyone is comfortable and safe. Rampant poverty, hunger and crime aren't going to make their lives better. Being some rich elite living in a world filled with miserable, diseased, violent and uneducated masses doesn't sound all that fun.
  - yaur 12y ago
    Assuming that we aren't living in a Culturesque post scarcity society how do you allocate stuff if economic output is no longer important? I don't think that there is an easy solution to this, but my gut feeling is that the world is going to get a whole lot uglier if we don't figure it out.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  The problem is that the worker who is going to be out of a job doesn't own the company that buys the robots to replace him/her. Ever heard of a lights out factory that has all the former assembly line workers at home with full salary? Didn't think so. What Gates is describing will only make those that have the money stronger.
- fragsworth 12y ago
  I do not predict a utopia. People in the bottom 50% survive because they are an economically valuable resource - the elite can profit off of them from labor and taxes, while giving them barely enough money to purchase food and shelter to survive. Once people are entirely useless, and machines can do everything better and cheaper, there will be economic pressure to purchase and/or take any assets the poor folks might have (to create more machines), and to let them waste away and starve. Revolution will be out of the question, because machines fight your wars for you.
  - sp332 12y ago
    But hey, once all the poor people die off, the average life expectancy and GDP per capita figures will be way up!
GFischer 12y ago
If he thinks accountants and the like will be put out of jobs, he's not taking into account the power of unions and luddites. Here in Uruguay we have a lot of jobs that could be replaced by today's tech, which will probably last for decades due to unions pushing for inefficiency (and they introduce incredible bureaucracy and friction). For example, to buy and sell a car in my country, you need an "escribano" (closest US equivalent is notary), a specialized lawyer that has to "witness" and certify that you actually own the good being sold, with a staggering amount of paperwork, which is only legal if it's affixed with the proper amount of seals and signatures, and the paperwork itself costs more than an used car in the U.S. :P . There are lots of incredibly useless paperwork, one of my former teachers was put in charge of the IT department of the Judiciary Branch, and he was thwarted at every corner by unions and obsolete laws, he was unable to automate anythign and ended up resigning. The real estate agents' experience is also very bad, I've had some that actually removed value, I hope something puts them out of work soon. Commercial pilots might be a concern, but I worry about truck and bus drivers... those have very powerful unions - see in Argentina where the most powerful lobby is the truck drivers' union led by Hugo Moyano, same here in Uruguay, some truck drivers make the same money as a software developer (at least the same or better than I do).
- coldtea 12y ago
  >Here in Uruguay we have a lot of jobs that could be replaced by today's tech, which will probably last for decades due to unions pushing for inefficiency (and they introduce incredible bureaucracy and friction). Yeah, same for those people wanting jobs to feed their families... If you didn't understand the gist of what Jobs said, here it is: new jobs WONT replace the majority of the old automated jobs. People would literally have NO jobs.
  - sup 12y ago
    *Gates
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Damn, yes! I typo-ed it by focusing on "jobs"!
wcarss 12y ago
Here is a link to the actual video of the talk: http://www.aei.org/events/2014/03/13/from-poverty-to-prosperity-a-conversation-with-bill-gates/ http://www.aei.org/events/2014/03/13/from-poverty-to-prosper... And the transcript: http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transcript_082217994272.pdf http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transc... I think this might be considerably more enriching than a link to yahoo news that got it from bgr that got it from businessinsider that reported on the talk.
- GFischer 12y ago
  Thanks for the links, hopefully dang will change the story link :)
- abledon 12y ago
  The Yahoo article reads like it was yanked from the Onion
- jt2190 12y ago
  The point in the video when he talks about labor and automation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qYS9lOpNWTo#t=2681 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qYS9l...
- sologoub 12y ago
  Thank you for posting these! Reading the transcript, Gates is really talking about a very similar concept to what the "helicopter" reference Ben Bernanke made talks about - maintaining demand and levels of consumption. The idea of a universal income has been widely discussed on HN in the past. Gates is simply proposing to start rolling this out via a larger earned income credit, while funding it via a progressive consumption tax. It's less controversial than the universal income, but personally, I'm not sure that creating useless work just to make sure consumption is propped up makes sense. If we are reaching the end of scarcity in basic needs, it seems to be more efficient to provide a baseline and then let people truly compete for the extra-ordinary lifestyle.
  - kristianp 12y ago
UnethicalHacks 12y ago
Good. We need to get away from this notion that x hours per day at a job = value. i say bring on the robots.
psbp 12y ago
His recommendations seem ridiculous. Why force employment when it offers no real return except keeping an anachronistic standard of 40 hr/week employment?
- joshstrange 12y ago
  I am likewise confused by this, I would think that something like universal income would be the logical response to this but removing minimum wage just seems like a way for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer. I'm just a developer so I don't know if removing the minimum wage would be good for the economy in fact IIRC raising the minimum wage helps the economy (Again I am not an economist). Could someone smarter in these areas expand on this?
- smacktoward 12y ago
  For the same reason we in America force people to buy private health insurance rather than having a national health service, which all the evidence suggests would be both more cost-effective and provide an overall better quality of service: it allows The System to adapt to changing times without anybody having to admit that anything has actually changed. People fear change -- a lot. So proposals that start with "first, admit that sweeping change is necessary" tend to get less support than do those that let the old forms be preserved, even if they've become completely meaningless.
  - sp332 12y ago
    A centralized system could (on paper) be cheaper, but I don't trust the federal government not to screw it up. I'm not even saying I like the current system - or the pre-ACA system either - but I am not convinced that our government is corruption-free enough to be any good at handling that much money.
    - Joeri 12y ago
      Is the US government so much worse than governments of other countries which have nationalized healthcare? Why would you trust them to run the biggest military in the world, including a large military healthcare system, if they are that incompetent?
Symmetry 12y ago
If we really do get to the point where society doesn't need low skilled workers we ought to start giving out a guaranteed minimum income. If we don't care about the potential disemployment effect the case for it becomes a lot stronger.
- psbp 12y ago
  I kind of agree, but providing a poverty threshold was probably the worst thing to happen to our welfare system. It's a completely exploitable concept and is much less equitable than other (perhaps more invasive) quality standards.
  - _pferreir_ 12y ago
    Does the fact that it is exploitable make it bad? What is worst? Having N people living off society, half of them without having the need to; or let N/2 starve? > much less equitable than other (perhaps more invasive) quality standards. Such as?
- johnward 12y ago
  I saw a post in the past that suggested a minimum income where the amount of assistance reduce as you got paid more. So if the minimum was $40k a year and you made $20k working some job you'd get $20k in subsidies. This help give some incentive to people to get jobs. In some cases if you stay on welfare you'll make more money than if you get a minimum wage job. If you made $60k you'd get no subsidy. We're definitely going to have to change the model we have now once we get to a point where a large number of people don't need to work. I'd say we're close to that now. If everyone in the US wanted to work would we have enough jobs to support that?
  - dbpatterson 12y ago
    This still has a flaw that it makes low wage jobs pretty unappealing. Why work fulltime for 50k a year when you can make 40k without working? Or even worse, who would ever work fulltime for 40k a year? Perhaps this means that there won't be low wage jobs, but this seems somewhat odd, as the taxation structure would be strange (need to tax enough for basic income, but companies would need to be paying probably 60k or greater on any job just to get someone to fill it). Better to give a guaranteed income to everyone, and then let wages get as low as they want. The upside is that it changes the incentives so that work that is necessary (but undesirable) becomes more highly compensated, whereas work that is desirable becomes less compensated (and/or working for free becomes something that isn't just the domain of the wealthy).
lukeschlather 12y ago
It's funny that they pick out the part where Bill Gates says we shouldn't have a minimum wage, but skip the parts where he says we should have a basic income and a progressive consumption tax.
- otibom 12y ago
  That sounds interesting. Do you have a source about him supporting basic income?
  - gregschlom 12y ago
    The closest I found in the transcript of the talk was this piece: MR. BROOKS: So something like a guaranteed minimum income for people who are working full time through an expansion on the EITC or a wage subsidy seems like the right way to go. MR. GATES: Yeah, one of my favorite AEI papers – I didn’t get time to look it up last night Source: http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transcript_082217994272.pdf http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transc... Edit: after re-reading it, I think this has nothing to do with basic income since it's for people who are working full time.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Right, he seems to be saying that instead of a minimum wage that corporations have to pay, there should instead be something that looks like a minimum wage to employees, but where employers can pay as little as they like and the government will make up the difference between that and the minimum, but if you don't have an "employer" or they don't certify that you've "worked" sufficient hours, you don't get the subsidy, either. So, like a basic income, except that you have to swear fealty to an employer to get it. I see one of two possibilities: (1) Either the restrictions on qualifying employment are tight enough that it serves as a subsidy for select existing operations and a competitive disadvantage to new business with smaller scale (because of compliance costs) or new models (because of regulatory assumptions), or (2) The restrictions on qualifying employment are so loose that this is basically unconditional basic income with a whole lot more administrative costs and failure modes that exist just to satisfy the desire to create an illusion that it has something to do with "work".
DasIch 12y ago
Actually I don't think low paying jobs will be replaced at all, they are actually often fairly difficult to replace. All those middle class people working in offices though whose jobs in some way exist merely as a way to outsource tasks software isn't good at or can't really do? These jobs are going to be eliminated with better AI etc. pretty much entirely. If anything software in the 21st century might reproduce the social effects of the industrial revolution. It won't necessarily harm the people who are already poor, it will simply create a lot more of them, shifting power to the people with the means to get a significant stake in the companies that will survive before that happens.
- stormbrew 12y ago
  Do you have some examples of low paying jobs you think are hard to replace? There are definitely some service jobs that aren't paid a very high wage, but are in some intangible way preferred to be performed by a human, but they tend to just be the customer facing tip of a business that employs a lot of low wage people behind the scenes as well. Ie. the person on the till at McD's might last longer than the person who listens for a beep and then raises the burger griller (they don't even flip burgers anymore, they just cook both sides at the same time in a contraption) and moves them to the warming tray, but that's only about 3 people in a 10 person shift.
  - altcognito 12y ago
    Oh man, you couldn't be any more wrong. They are already moving kiosks and mobile purchasing into fast food restaurants. http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen-kiosks-to-replace-cashiers http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen... This is from 2011, so it doesn't seem like it's going terribly well. It's difficult to automate the remaining steps in food prep (though it's possible and they are working on it) for a host of reasons. Food prep involves insuring that the food is properly loaded, set at the right temperature. There is a visual inspection of the food itself by the line cooks that probably would still need to be done. It's cooked on no less than 2 grills, and 3 vats (fries, fish, nuggets are all usually kept separate), an oven, a microwave, bun toaster and pancake grill. That doesn't get into the host of drink machines, salads and non-grill items being made. Now theoretically, you can get rid of the warmers as there won't be a need to queue things (even this is not certain as margins are tight to be wasting money on idle machines just to handle peak hours). Also all of this equipment must be completely cleaned top to bottom -- in particular between the switchover from breakfast to lunch and vice versa. Vats of oil and grease must be dealt with. Right now, minimum wage employees are pretty cheap compared to design and implementation of machines that can handle the breadth of most fast food restaurants. Most of the work of automation of cooking has been to do the work prior to sending it to the restaurant (precooked fries is one example). Lots of that simply can't be done without seriously sacrificing quality. I realize people think that McDonalds doesn't care, but they know boundaries they can push, and things like precooking meats apparently hasn't taken off much because it makes a terrible product and they lose sales. It will be a while until you say goodbye to the two (maybe three!) cooks working for 9 or 10 dollars an hour making food. It will happen, but it's more likely to happen first at restaurants that offer a much, much smaller menu than the big fast food restaurants have right now.
jqm 12y ago
I agree with Bill Gates on what will happen. I disagree very strongly with his solution. Governments begging corporations to employ people doing very little and paying the minimum wage (oh wait, minimum wage gets eliminated...so presumably paying them less than minimum wage)? When have corporations responded to begging? Why is this good for anyone? Who is going to buy the stuff produced when people are bringing home less than minimum wage huh Bill? You? How many plastic spaghetti strainers do you need in all your many houses? Hmm? No, the answer is not corporations in full control and paying whatever they wish. That will never work. The system will break down all together. It must stay balanced. The balance can be achieved by corporations and individuals paying their fair share. My opinion is that land/resource taxes are the way to achieve this. Not payroll or corporate taxes which serve to punish innovation and hard work.
atmosx 12y ago
In another thread a user argued that "technology is what drives society to a more mature state". I wish that was true, but to me technology and society's advancement at social/human level are disconnected. I really hope that the decline of the average working hours per week in the "western world" becomes a central point of discussion, the next decade. We don't need to work many hours to get the essentials to live a comfortable life. We have all the technology we need to produce food and shelter at extremely LOW prices. Of course if someone wants to be Elon Musk ( I wish I was), he should be free to pursue his interests, but average Joe who only wants to support his family and enjoy friends and baseball, should be working a lot less when we will have robots, not feel threatened by unemployment.
- deeviant 12y ago
  I think are more accurate quote would be "Technology is what allows a society to achieve a mature state." Just like freedom and basic human rights don't necessary make one happy, they do set the conditions to allow happiness to exist. I think technology has a similar "enabling but not guaranteeing" property for various societal metrics. The challenge, perhaps, is to make sure technology serve the majority, not just further the select few whole control and horde it.
- NhanH 12y ago
  With the full risk of generalization, average Joe also want bigger car,bigger lawn and more bedrooms than average Bob, and that's where the problem arises.
  - vram22 12y ago
    Good point.
  - atmosx 12y ago
    Hm, there is Maslow's pyramid that could be seen as a general model[1] along with the human rights[2]. The problem is not the car. The problem (in the US and now in Europe too) is healthcare, food and shelter (own home). These things, given the tech, should come for almost free IMHO, for any individual who lives in a "civilized country". Of course, there are many problems: illegal immigration[3], health care costs, etc. But technology should be used to do all these things cheaper for the masses, leading to a higher average standard of life. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights
jgmmo 12y ago
I wrote a short essay about this the other day -- Robots are taking our jobs, so what... http://softwarebyjoe.com/essays/robots-are-taking-our-jobs-so-what.html http://softwarebyjoe.com/essays/robots-are-taking-our-jobs-s...
forinti 12y ago
I don't think governments will have to beg for anything. The less people businesses employ, the less power they will have. So either they'll employ people or they'll have to put up with whatever solution governments come up with (higher taxes, guaranteed minimum income, etc.). Either way, they'll still need customers, right? This reminds me of a story about a new Ford factory full of robots. The manager invites the union boss for a guided tour then asks him if he can convince the robots to join the union. The union guy then asks if the manager can get the robots to buy Fords.
- mtbcoder 12y ago
  Did the manager reply, "Does not compute." to the last question?
curlyquote 12y ago
I think a little bit of wisdom from one of my favorite writers might be appreciated here: """We have created a lifestyle that makes injustice permanent and inescapable. We have created a world where robots produce robots. Where capital breeds capital with very little need for the Eastenders of the world. Tell me what will happen when the majority of mankind has become technologically superfluous. At the same time rebellious with hunger and economically unimportant. What will then stop a final solution of the world problem? In People of the Abyss the Eastenders already saw it coming. They are, Jack London wrote, “encumbrances”, of no use to anyone, not even to themselves. “They clutter the earth with their presence and are better out of the way”.""" Taken from http://www.svenlindqvist.net/text_only.asp?cat=1&lang=2&id=241 http://www.svenlindqvist.net/text_only.asp?cat=1&lang=2&id=2...
- brightsize 12y ago
  I can't recommend People of the Abyss highly enough. Read it for free on Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688 "The Day of Judgment! More than he want it. From all the land rises the hunger wail, from Ghetto and countryside, from prison and casual ward, from asylum and workhouse—the cry of the people who have not enough to eat. Millions of people, men, women, children, little babes, the blind, the deaf, the halt, the sick, vagabonds and toilers, prisoners and paupers, the people of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, who have not enough to eat. And this, in face of the fact that five men can produce bread for a thousand; that one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, and boots and shoes for 1000."
_pferreir_ 12y ago
Am I the only one thinking that begging business to keep employing people will, if anything, only worsen the social issues caused by this change? Scraping the minimum wage? Cheap labour? Is that what we're developing machines for? Is that civilisational progress? What next? I hope Bill Gates is as right about this as he was about the "famous"[1] 640KB, but can't we, as a civilisation, think of better solutions? Like e.g. not working and using automated means in order to provide a minimum of food/resources to everyone? Am I dreaming,does this idea seem as unreasonable as a self-driving car did a century ago? [1]: and possibly apocryphal
jqm 12y ago
The solution to this problem may be a massive increase in insurance salespeople and HR department employees. And lawyers. Stuff like that. I can hardly wait.
yodsanklai 12y ago
> And it’s not just “low-skilled” workers who will have to worry about automation. If it weren't for some political ideology, automation would be a blessing for every one and not something to worry about.
nkozyra 12y ago
Pft, I'll get concerned when robots can act as surly, smarmy and as entitled as I can. Until then my job is safe.
tikhonj 12y ago
To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee or a negative income tax. If we don't need people to work, why should the government bend over backwards and "get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms"? The whole point of automation is to make less work. But in the immediate past it hasn't meaningfully translated to less work for most people. We're even afraid of it! I think that's a structural issue with society, which we can only really fix with broad changes and a completely different attitude. The broad fetishization of work and the obsession that everyone has to work is really standing in the way of progress. We have more and more technology. It's time to start taking advantage of it. Unemployment should be a goal, not a menace.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work. > If we don't need people to work, This is at the heart of the confusion. There is no "we". Other people do not need the workers. Those workers? They need to work.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Where will the money come from? Taxes. > The math doesn't work. If automation is really more efficient than employing workers, than letting firms automate instead of employing workers, taxing the firms, and providing goods to the non-workers with the taxes will actually be more efficient than any form of make-work labor-based economy. > Those workers? They need to work. They don't need jobs, they need goods and services. To the extent that their labor is an efficient method of production, its socially useful for them to work to get it. To the extent that it is not, however, it is socially costly to require them to do make-work to get it.
  - voidlogic 12y ago
    >> To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee >Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work. I'm assuming the OP is funding basic income from the businesses since they are replacing the human labor with automation. This could be a direct tax on businesses or a tax on dividends or something. I'm not arguing for or against this here. The math does in fact work out if the cost of basic income is less than the productivity increase created by the increased automation.
rdmcfee 12y ago
People fear change. This revolution will require adaption and there will be pain involved, but mass automation will create vast wealth. Prehistorically we spent our entire lives simply collecting enough food to survive. Since then we've gradually been able to devote a smaller and smaller portion of our lives to fulfilling the requirements of survival. Mass automation will continue to reduce this. There will be growing pains but the trend certainly continues in the right direction.
trhway 12y ago
we are at least a second time through that - first being the Industrial Revolution - and still at loss what to do and with the same luddites and the same other cast of characters in the show... I guess 3rd time will be a charm... for the AI/robots that will completely replace our species.
chaostheory 12y ago
Yes robots have been gradually taking away jobs since the 1970s.
Lendal 12y ago
I'm an industrial automation engineer. Everyone from middle-managers up to CEOs think that robots are these magical things that just take care of everything so you can fire all your line workers. Doesn't work that way. It's incremental, methodical and excruciatingly slow work. You cannot simply throw money at it. It's expensive because it requires many experienced automation engineers ($$$) to do all this automation, but first you have to find and train those engineers. What is automation exactly? It's learning a process so well that you know every single possible thing that might go wrong with a machine and then have some other machine to fix all those things automatically on the fly. Building self-diagnosing and self-repairing machines is very complex. The end goal of all those machines is to produce and ship a product. If the product changes, now you have to build a machine that can automate the process of on-the-fly SKU changes which further complicates an already complex machine. In other words, automation is basically the flying car that futurists of a century ago predicted we would have today. So, where is my flying car? In a hundred years automation will definitely have made massive strides, yes. Some jobs can be automated today, some tomorrow, but the numbers we're talking about are not significant compared to the entire workforce of a nation and compared to the massive capital investment it takes to accomplish that automation. A century from now the CEO's of the world will still be asking, "Where are the autonomous robots I was promised that can automate my entire workforce?" It's not as simple as they think.
- CoffeeDregs 12y ago
  From what I've heard, automation is actually, really on-the-way. I've forgotten the exact conversation and this is certainly hearsay, but a friend of mine was describing a conversation with a upper level person (VP, CxO or board member) and was hearing about how 2014 was the year Starbucks would start to get rid of the "barristas". [Yeah, they used to be icons of Starbucks...] >then have some other machine to fix all those things automatically >on the fly. Building self-diagnosing and self-repairing machines is very complex. So only do the first part of the automation: automate the garbage collection truck and have the truck pull over when it's sick... That captures 95% of the value; we can leave self-repairing for later. >So, where is my flying car? 1) waiting on a suitable power source; 2) waiting on automated driving. It'll probably still be waiting on (1) and not (2) in 10 years.
- 12y ago
tboyd47 12y ago
The need for employers in society overstated here. Anyone can buy and sell for a living without being employed, and now with the internet it's even easier to do that. True, you may not be able to fulfill all of your needs by buying and selling. People who do that usually experience some level of poverty. But it is and always will be an option available to unemployed people. How many stories are there of people starting at flea markets and yard sales and ending up with investments worth thousands of dollars? Folks got along fine without corporations and 9 to 5 jobs for many centuries. Individuals and families still became as rich as Gates is, relatively speaking, or even richer. I'm confused that he doesn't seem to know this. But I think he's mostly right in what he says about automation, and he of all people certainly would know.
homulilly 12y ago
Oh look, more asshole libertarian scare tactics. The solution isn't to force people to work shitty jobs for even less pay. If our productivity is high enough people don't need to work we should provide basic income, not artificially force people to work so they don't starve to death.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > If our productivity The word "our" is misplaced in this sentence. The companies that purchase the labor own the productivity of the labor. If their productivity is high enough, they will simply buy less labor. Do you have anything to sell other than labor? > we should provide basic income No matter how you slice it, there's not enough money. You end up being able to give each adult in the US a couple thousand a year. If you try for more, you strangle the economy so effectively that it can't afford the robots that are supposed to pay for everything.
  - JetSpiegel 12y ago
    How does giving money to people, no strings attached "strangles the economy"? What do they think they will do with basic income? They will buy things, which by definition is an economic stimulus.
  - homulilly 12y ago
    > The word "our" is misplaced in this sentence. wat. I don't buy the idea that increased efficiency automatically means lower quality of life. That's a pretty narrow (not to mention twisted) worldview. > No matter how you slice it, there's not enough money. A basic living wage would be cheaper than all our other low-efficiency, high overhead social programs with the added bonus of giving the recipients money to put back into the economy. I don't agree that there's not enough money. On the other hand, making workers so poor that can't afford to actually buy anything is pretty much the worst thing you can do for an economy.
parfe 12y ago
What does an economy that deprecates most of humanity look like? What happens when the economy doesn't demand people? I do not see a future like Star Trek with its Utopian ideal of every person choosing to follow their dream pursuit. Large parts of society already receive no access to opportunity ensuring a lifetime sentence of poverty. When robots prepare meals, drive cars, pave roads, fix power lines, haul cargo, process paperwork, educate students, harvest crops, and enforce peace you may think you have a uniqueness to prosper. Perhaps, and good luck.
zcarter 12y ago
I think a useful conversation to have is, "how quickly we can replace politicians with robots?" A political discourse addressing the topic would necessarily acknowledge the radical changes most technology enthousiasts expect to take place in our lifetimes. The most common response to hearing that a machine can do your job is disbelief (http://kk.org/thetechnium/2011/09/the-7-stages-of/ http://kk.org/thetechnium/2011/09/the-7-stages-of/). Fertile ground for dismissing the imminently possible as science fiction.
DigitalSea 12y ago
Who maintains the machines? Who produces the replacement parts and sources the materials for the machines? What happens when the power goes out? So many flaws in the plan of a completely or even almost robot/algorithm based job future I don't know if it'll really happen. We've had automation in the automotive industry for how long now and look at the amount of people required to ensure the process works along the way? Having said that, I am all for automating things. As a developer, I've seen a dramatic shift in the last 5 years alone with tools for handling tasks and automating things are a dime a doze. Automation definitely has a place, but I think it's too far to suggest that robots will take everyone's jobs, just a few. You're not going to be served coffee from a Starbucks robot barista any time soon. A future where everyone doesn't have to work sounds nice in theory, in practice it cannot and will not work.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Robots in the car industry have removed very many jobs! Sure, you need people to build, sell, deliver, install, program, operate and maintain those robots but those jobs are still fewer than the numbers of people who ised to be on the production lines. You still find many people in electronics factories, but surface mount pick and place machines are throwing 30,000 components per hour onto PCBs. These machine shave replaced benches of people stuffing components onto PCBs with one or two people operating the machine. Barista work is low pay low status. Social interaction is the reason we don't see barista robots in coffee shops, although we do see them beginning to enter supermarkets and roadside service stations. (Often with foul coffee). And job descriptions change. "Baker" used to mean someone who used recipes to make breads. Now it appears to mean someone who takes presupplied gloop out of the tub, shapes it; and bales it for the time specified.
31reasons 12y ago
"If we don't need people to work, why should the government bend over backwards and "get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms"?" I respect Bill Gates' ideas but this one is totally wrong. His solution is neither practical nor logical. The same solution could have been presented 100 years ago when people were being laid off due to the industrial revolution. We would not have progressed this far if we had given people's employment priority over power and efficiency of machines. In many cases algorithms are simply better and faster over humans and they are just going to get even better and faster. They will not only get things done safely but also reduce human errors and reduce energy consumption.
bequanna 12y ago
I personally enjoy work. I wouldn't say that what I do from 9-5, M-F defines me as a person, but I enjoy solving problems and exerting myself. If software 'eats' my job, I'm not going to simply stop working, I am going to learn how to be good at something else. I can't imagine my life without some challenges and struggles.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  Quotin Calvin (the Bill Watterson one), work is what someone else makes you do.
  - bequanna 12y ago
    And I think that is OK. I have worked on (other people's) projects, and been pulled into learning/doing something I otherwise would have shied away from. It doesn't always work out this way, but sometimes having someone else push you out of your comfort zone can be ultimately beneficial.
lukasm 12y ago
Chrome for a past few days was crashing I dunno why, but I know it's pdfs :(
kimonos 12y ago
This is one of the most interesting posts I've read. Thanks for sharing!

111 points by mikeevans 12y ago

Kenji 12y ago

"Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots." We already have. It's called the 8.5h day where you're simply present in your office, paid to be off the street, employed by the state, browsing facebook and doing mundane jobs once in a while.

withdavidli 12y ago

Looking forward to mass automation. Free up a lot of time and hopefully we'll create better things instead of doing mindless chores. Predictions about mass automations are at opposite sides of the spectrum. Either most of the population is poor without a job, or it's a utopia where no one has to work (everything is provided) and concentrate on bettering ourselves.

dllthomas 12y ago
I don't see how Gates' recommendations do anything to push us toward the latter.
- johnward 12y ago
  "This means eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also scrapping the minimum wage so that businesses will feel comfortable employing people at dirt-cheap wages instead of outsourcing their jobs to an iPad." That kind of sounds like a bunch of broke people on the bottom end. They might be able to save their jobs if they take much less than minimum wage which isn't a livable wage to start with. I'm all for a utopian future where people can spend time doing things they are good at or love instead of working but that will require a major change in the mindset of the people (especially in the US). Right now there is an anti-welfare movement and they say the alternative is to get a job. There aren't enough jobs for everyone and there will be less jobs and more people in the future.
tachyonbeam 12y ago
It has the potential to be good for humanity. All the most dangerous/degrading jobs accomplished by robots. Allow people shorter work days and allow people to do "less essential" jobs. More artists, more psychotherapists, more people building affordable housing, more nannies and helpers, people working on just improving life for everyone else out there. But then, unrestrained capitalism isn't compatible with this. The way it's been going in America for the past 40 years, productivity has gone up but salaries have gone down relative to inflation and work hours have stayed the same or gone up. Many people need 2-3 minimum wage jobs just to feed the kids and pay the rent, no free time. The rich, the corporations, are trying to milk the people for all that they're worth, to try and maintain the elite at absolutely insane levels of wealth. The predictable outcome, in the next few decades, is that we'll get worse jobs, higher rents, smaller apartments, more cost increases on food and electricity, longer work hours. The middle class will keep getting squeezed until things reach some kind of breaking point. The rich will have to provide the rest of us with enough distraction and a minimum level of comfort required to prevent famine, disease, civil war, and revolution from happening. We could have some kind of utopia, we have the technology, but the wealthiest capitalist are too near-sighted, it seems, to understand that it would be in everyone's best interest to make sure that everyone is comfortable and safe. Rampant poverty, hunger and crime aren't going to make their lives better. Being some rich elite living in a world filled with miserable, diseased, violent and uneducated masses doesn't sound all that fun.
- yaur 12y ago
  Assuming that we aren't living in a Culturesque post scarcity society how do you allocate stuff if economic output is no longer important? I don't think that there is an easy solution to this, but my gut feeling is that the world is going to get a whole lot uglier if we don't figure it out.
bjelkeman-again 12y ago
The problem is that the worker who is going to be out of a job doesn't own the company that buys the robots to replace him/her. Ever heard of a lights out factory that has all the former assembly line workers at home with full salary? Didn't think so. What Gates is describing will only make those that have the money stronger.
fragsworth 12y ago
I do not predict a utopia. People in the bottom 50% survive because they are an economically valuable resource - the elite can profit off of them from labor and taxes, while giving them barely enough money to purchase food and shelter to survive. Once people are entirely useless, and machines can do everything better and cheaper, there will be economic pressure to purchase and/or take any assets the poor folks might have (to create more machines), and to let them waste away and starve. Revolution will be out of the question, because machines fight your wars for you.
- sp332 12y ago
  But hey, once all the poor people die off, the average life expectancy and GDP per capita figures will be way up!

GFischer 12y ago

If he thinks accountants and the like will be put out of jobs, he's not taking into account the power of unions and luddites. Here in Uruguay we have a lot of jobs that could be replaced by today's tech, which will probably last for decades due to unions pushing for inefficiency (and they introduce incredible bureaucracy and friction). For example, to buy and sell a car in my country, you need an "escribano" (closest US equivalent is notary), a specialized lawyer that has to "witness" and certify that you actually own the good being sold, with a staggering amount of paperwork, which is only legal if it's affixed with the proper amount of seals and signatures, and the paperwork itself costs more than an used car in the U.S. :P . There are lots of incredibly useless paperwork, one of my former teachers was put in charge of the IT department of the Judiciary Branch, and he was thwarted at every corner by unions and obsolete laws, he was unable to automate anythign and ended up resigning. The real estate agents' experience is also very bad, I've had some that actually removed value, I hope something puts them out of work soon. Commercial pilots might be a concern, but I worry about truck and bus drivers... those have very powerful unions - see in Argentina where the most powerful lobby is the truck drivers' union led by Hugo Moyano, same here in Uruguay, some truck drivers make the same money as a software developer (at least the same or better than I do).

coldtea 12y ago
>Here in Uruguay we have a lot of jobs that could be replaced by today's tech, which will probably last for decades due to unions pushing for inefficiency (and they introduce incredible bureaucracy and friction). Yeah, same for those people wanting jobs to feed their families... If you didn't understand the gist of what Jobs said, here it is: new jobs WONT replace the majority of the old automated jobs. People would literally have NO jobs.
- sup 12y ago
  *Gates
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Damn, yes! I typo-ed it by focusing on "jobs"!

wcarss 12y ago

Here is a link to the actual video of the talk: http://www.aei.org/events/2014/03/13/from-poverty-to-prosperity-a-conversation-with-bill-gates/ http://www.aei.org/events/2014/03/13/from-poverty-to-prosper... And the transcript: http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transcript_082217994272.pdf http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transc... I think this might be considerably more enriching than a link to yahoo news that got it from bgr that got it from businessinsider that reported on the talk.

GFischer 12y ago
Thanks for the links, hopefully dang will change the story link :)
abledon 12y ago
The Yahoo article reads like it was yanked from the Onion
jt2190 12y ago
The point in the video when he talks about labor and automation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qYS9lOpNWTo#t=2681 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qYS9l...
sologoub 12y ago
Thank you for posting these! Reading the transcript, Gates is really talking about a very similar concept to what the "helicopter" reference Ben Bernanke made talks about - maintaining demand and levels of consumption. The idea of a universal income has been widely discussed on HN in the past. Gates is simply proposing to start rolling this out via a larger earned income credit, while funding it via a progressive consumption tax. It's less controversial than the universal income, but personally, I'm not sure that creating useless work just to make sure consumption is propped up makes sense. If we are reaching the end of scarcity in basic needs, it seems to be more efficient to provide a baseline and then let people truly compete for the extra-ordinary lifestyle.
- kristianp 12y ago

UnethicalHacks 12y ago

Good. We need to get away from this notion that x hours per day at a job = value. i say bring on the robots.

psbp 12y ago

His recommendations seem ridiculous. Why force employment when it offers no real return except keeping an anachronistic standard of 40 hr/week employment?

joshstrange 12y ago
I am likewise confused by this, I would think that something like universal income would be the logical response to this but removing minimum wage just seems like a way for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer. I'm just a developer so I don't know if removing the minimum wage would be good for the economy in fact IIRC raising the minimum wage helps the economy (Again I am not an economist). Could someone smarter in these areas expand on this?
smacktoward 12y ago
For the same reason we in America force people to buy private health insurance rather than having a national health service, which all the evidence suggests would be both more cost-effective and provide an overall better quality of service: it allows The System to adapt to changing times without anybody having to admit that anything has actually changed. People fear change -- a lot. So proposals that start with "first, admit that sweeping change is necessary" tend to get less support than do those that let the old forms be preserved, even if they've become completely meaningless.
- sp332 12y ago
  A centralized system could (on paper) be cheaper, but I don't trust the federal government not to screw it up. I'm not even saying I like the current system - or the pre-ACA system either - but I am not convinced that our government is corruption-free enough to be any good at handling that much money.
  - Joeri 12y ago
    Is the US government so much worse than governments of other countries which have nationalized healthcare? Why would you trust them to run the biggest military in the world, including a large military healthcare system, if they are that incompetent?

Symmetry 12y ago

If we really do get to the point where society doesn't need low skilled workers we ought to start giving out a guaranteed minimum income. If we don't care about the potential disemployment effect the case for it becomes a lot stronger.

psbp 12y ago
I kind of agree, but providing a poverty threshold was probably the worst thing to happen to our welfare system. It's a completely exploitable concept and is much less equitable than other (perhaps more invasive) quality standards.
- _pferreir_ 12y ago
  Does the fact that it is exploitable make it bad? What is worst? Having N people living off society, half of them without having the need to; or let N/2 starve? > much less equitable than other (perhaps more invasive) quality standards. Such as?
johnward 12y ago
I saw a post in the past that suggested a minimum income where the amount of assistance reduce as you got paid more. So if the minimum was $40k a year and you made $20k working some job you'd get $20k in subsidies. This help give some incentive to people to get jobs. In some cases if you stay on welfare you'll make more money than if you get a minimum wage job. If you made $60k you'd get no subsidy. We're definitely going to have to change the model we have now once we get to a point where a large number of people don't need to work. I'd say we're close to that now. If everyone in the US wanted to work would we have enough jobs to support that?
- dbpatterson 12y ago
  This still has a flaw that it makes low wage jobs pretty unappealing. Why work fulltime for 50k a year when you can make 40k without working? Or even worse, who would ever work fulltime for 40k a year? Perhaps this means that there won't be low wage jobs, but this seems somewhat odd, as the taxation structure would be strange (need to tax enough for basic income, but companies would need to be paying probably 60k or greater on any job just to get someone to fill it). Better to give a guaranteed income to everyone, and then let wages get as low as they want. The upside is that it changes the incentives so that work that is necessary (but undesirable) becomes more highly compensated, whereas work that is desirable becomes less compensated (and/or working for free becomes something that isn't just the domain of the wealthy).

lukeschlather 12y ago

It's funny that they pick out the part where Bill Gates says we shouldn't have a minimum wage, but skip the parts where he says we should have a basic income and a progressive consumption tax.

otibom 12y ago
That sounds interesting. Do you have a source about him supporting basic income?
- gregschlom 12y ago
  The closest I found in the transcript of the talk was this piece: MR. BROOKS: So something like a guaranteed minimum income for people who are working full time through an expansion on the EITC or a wage subsidy seems like the right way to go. MR. GATES: Yeah, one of my favorite AEI papers – I didn’t get time to look it up last night Source: http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transcript_082217994272.pdf http://www.aei.org/files/2014/03/14/-bill-gates-event-transc... Edit: after re-reading it, I think this has nothing to do with basic income since it's for people who are working full time.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Right, he seems to be saying that instead of a minimum wage that corporations have to pay, there should instead be something that looks like a minimum wage to employees, but where employers can pay as little as they like and the government will make up the difference between that and the minimum, but if you don't have an "employer" or they don't certify that you've "worked" sufficient hours, you don't get the subsidy, either. So, like a basic income, except that you have to swear fealty to an employer to get it. I see one of two possibilities: (1) Either the restrictions on qualifying employment are tight enough that it serves as a subsidy for select existing operations and a competitive disadvantage to new business with smaller scale (because of compliance costs) or new models (because of regulatory assumptions), or (2) The restrictions on qualifying employment are so loose that this is basically unconditional basic income with a whole lot more administrative costs and failure modes that exist just to satisfy the desire to create an illusion that it has something to do with "work".

DasIch 12y ago

Actually I don't think low paying jobs will be replaced at all, they are actually often fairly difficult to replace. All those middle class people working in offices though whose jobs in some way exist merely as a way to outsource tasks software isn't good at or can't really do? These jobs are going to be eliminated with better AI etc. pretty much entirely. If anything software in the 21st century might reproduce the social effects of the industrial revolution. It won't necessarily harm the people who are already poor, it will simply create a lot more of them, shifting power to the people with the means to get a significant stake in the companies that will survive before that happens.

stormbrew 12y ago
Do you have some examples of low paying jobs you think are hard to replace? There are definitely some service jobs that aren't paid a very high wage, but are in some intangible way preferred to be performed by a human, but they tend to just be the customer facing tip of a business that employs a lot of low wage people behind the scenes as well. Ie. the person on the till at McD's might last longer than the person who listens for a beep and then raises the burger griller (they don't even flip burgers anymore, they just cook both sides at the same time in a contraption) and moves them to the warming tray, but that's only about 3 people in a 10 person shift.
- altcognito 12y ago
  Oh man, you couldn't be any more wrong. They are already moving kiosks and mobile purchasing into fast food restaurants. http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen-kiosks-to-replace-cashiers http://www.neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen... This is from 2011, so it doesn't seem like it's going terribly well. It's difficult to automate the remaining steps in food prep (though it's possible and they are working on it) for a host of reasons. Food prep involves insuring that the food is properly loaded, set at the right temperature. There is a visual inspection of the food itself by the line cooks that probably would still need to be done. It's cooked on no less than 2 grills, and 3 vats (fries, fish, nuggets are all usually kept separate), an oven, a microwave, bun toaster and pancake grill. That doesn't get into the host of drink machines, salads and non-grill items being made. Now theoretically, you can get rid of the warmers as there won't be a need to queue things (even this is not certain as margins are tight to be wasting money on idle machines just to handle peak hours). Also all of this equipment must be completely cleaned top to bottom -- in particular between the switchover from breakfast to lunch and vice versa. Vats of oil and grease must be dealt with. Right now, minimum wage employees are pretty cheap compared to design and implementation of machines that can handle the breadth of most fast food restaurants. Most of the work of automation of cooking has been to do the work prior to sending it to the restaurant (precooked fries is one example). Lots of that simply can't be done without seriously sacrificing quality. I realize people think that McDonalds doesn't care, but they know boundaries they can push, and things like precooking meats apparently hasn't taken off much because it makes a terrible product and they lose sales. It will be a while until you say goodbye to the two (maybe three!) cooks working for 9 or 10 dollars an hour making food. It will happen, but it's more likely to happen first at restaurants that offer a much, much smaller menu than the big fast food restaurants have right now.

jqm 12y ago

I agree with Bill Gates on what will happen. I disagree very strongly with his solution. Governments begging corporations to employ people doing very little and paying the minimum wage (oh wait, minimum wage gets eliminated...so presumably paying them less than minimum wage)? When have corporations responded to begging? Why is this good for anyone? Who is going to buy the stuff produced when people are bringing home less than minimum wage huh Bill? You? How many plastic spaghetti strainers do you need in all your many houses? Hmm? No, the answer is not corporations in full control and paying whatever they wish. That will never work. The system will break down all together. It must stay balanced. The balance can be achieved by corporations and individuals paying their fair share. My opinion is that land/resource taxes are the way to achieve this. Not payroll or corporate taxes which serve to punish innovation and hard work.

atmosx 12y ago

In another thread a user argued that "technology is what drives society to a more mature state". I wish that was true, but to me technology and society's advancement at social/human level are disconnected. I really hope that the decline of the average working hours per week in the "western world" becomes a central point of discussion, the next decade. We don't need to work many hours to get the essentials to live a comfortable life. We have all the technology we need to produce food and shelter at extremely LOW prices. Of course if someone wants to be Elon Musk ( I wish I was), he should be free to pursue his interests, but average Joe who only wants to support his family and enjoy friends and baseball, should be working a lot less when we will have robots, not feel threatened by unemployment.

deeviant 12y ago
I think are more accurate quote would be "Technology is what allows a society to achieve a mature state." Just like freedom and basic human rights don't necessary make one happy, they do set the conditions to allow happiness to exist. I think technology has a similar "enabling but not guaranteeing" property for various societal metrics. The challenge, perhaps, is to make sure technology serve the majority, not just further the select few whole control and horde it.
NhanH 12y ago
With the full risk of generalization, average Joe also want bigger car,bigger lawn and more bedrooms than average Bob, and that's where the problem arises.
- vram22 12y ago
  Good point.
- atmosx 12y ago
  Hm, there is Maslow's pyramid that could be seen as a general model[1] along with the human rights[2]. The problem is not the car. The problem (in the US and now in Europe too) is healthcare, food and shelter (own home). These things, given the tech, should come for almost free IMHO, for any individual who lives in a "civilized country". Of course, there are many problems: illegal immigration[3], health care costs, etc. But technology should be used to do all these things cheaper for the masses, leading to a higher average standard of life. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights

jgmmo 12y ago

I wrote a short essay about this the other day -- Robots are taking our jobs, so what... http://softwarebyjoe.com/essays/robots-are-taking-our-jobs-so-what.html http://softwarebyjoe.com/essays/robots-are-taking-our-jobs-s...

forinti 12y ago

I don't think governments will have to beg for anything. The less people businesses employ, the less power they will have. So either they'll employ people or they'll have to put up with whatever solution governments come up with (higher taxes, guaranteed minimum income, etc.). Either way, they'll still need customers, right? This reminds me of a story about a new Ford factory full of robots. The manager invites the union boss for a guided tour then asks him if he can convince the robots to join the union. The union guy then asks if the manager can get the robots to buy Fords.

mtbcoder 12y ago
Did the manager reply, "Does not compute." to the last question?

curlyquote 12y ago

I think a little bit of wisdom from one of my favorite writers might be appreciated here: """We have created a lifestyle that makes injustice permanent and inescapable. We have created a world where robots produce robots. Where capital breeds capital with very little need for the Eastenders of the world. Tell me what will happen when the majority of mankind has become technologically superfluous. At the same time rebellious with hunger and economically unimportant. What will then stop a final solution of the world problem? In People of the Abyss the Eastenders already saw it coming. They are, Jack London wrote, “encumbrances”, of no use to anyone, not even to themselves. “They clutter the earth with their presence and are better out of the way”.""" Taken from http://www.svenlindqvist.net/text_only.asp?cat=1&lang=2&id=241 http://www.svenlindqvist.net/text_only.asp?cat=1&lang=2&id=2...

brightsize 12y ago
I can't recommend People of the Abyss highly enough. Read it for free on Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688 "The Day of Judgment! More than he want it. From all the land rises the hunger wail, from Ghetto and countryside, from prison and casual ward, from asylum and workhouse—the cry of the people who have not enough to eat. Millions of people, men, women, children, little babes, the blind, the deaf, the halt, the sick, vagabonds and toilers, prisoners and paupers, the people of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, who have not enough to eat. And this, in face of the fact that five men can produce bread for a thousand; that one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, and boots and shoes for 1000."

_pferreir_ 12y ago

Am I the only one thinking that begging business to keep employing people will, if anything, only worsen the social issues caused by this change? Scraping the minimum wage? Cheap labour? Is that what we're developing machines for? Is that civilisational progress? What next? I hope Bill Gates is as right about this as he was about the "famous"[1] 640KB, but can't we, as a civilisation, think of better solutions? Like e.g. not working and using automated means in order to provide a minimum of food/resources to everyone? Am I dreaming,does this idea seem as unreasonable as a self-driving car did a century ago? [1]: and possibly apocryphal

jqm 12y ago

The solution to this problem may be a massive increase in insurance salespeople and HR department employees. And lawyers. Stuff like that. I can hardly wait.

yodsanklai 12y ago

> And it’s not just “low-skilled” workers who will have to worry about automation. If it weren't for some political ideology, automation would be a blessing for every one and not something to worry about.

nkozyra 12y ago

Pft, I'll get concerned when robots can act as surly, smarmy and as entitled as I can. Until then my job is safe.

tikhonj 12y ago

To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee or a negative income tax. If we don't need people to work, why should the government bend over backwards and "get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms"? The whole point of automation is to make less work. But in the immediate past it hasn't meaningfully translated to less work for most people. We're even afraid of it! I think that's a structural issue with society, which we can only really fix with broad changes and a completely different attitude. The broad fetishization of work and the obsession that everyone has to work is really standing in the way of progress. We have more and more technology. It's time to start taking advantage of it. Unemployment should be a goal, not a menace.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work. > If we don't need people to work, This is at the heart of the confusion. There is no "we". Other people do not need the workers. Those workers? They need to work.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Where will the money come from? Taxes. > The math doesn't work. If automation is really more efficient than employing workers, than letting firms automate instead of employing workers, taxing the firms, and providing goods to the non-workers with the taxes will actually be more efficient than any form of make-work labor-based economy. > Those workers? They need to work. They don't need jobs, they need goods and services. To the extent that their labor is an efficient method of production, its socially useful for them to work to get it. To the extent that it is not, however, it is socially costly to require them to do make-work to get it.
- voidlogic 12y ago
  >> To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee >Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work. I'm assuming the OP is funding basic income from the businesses since they are replacing the human labor with automation. This could be a direct tax on businesses or a tax on dividends or something. I'm not arguing for or against this here. The math does in fact work out if the cost of basic income is less than the productivity increase created by the increased automation.

rdmcfee 12y ago

People fear change. This revolution will require adaption and there will be pain involved, but mass automation will create vast wealth. Prehistorically we spent our entire lives simply collecting enough food to survive. Since then we've gradually been able to devote a smaller and smaller portion of our lives to fulfilling the requirements of survival. Mass automation will continue to reduce this. There will be growing pains but the trend certainly continues in the right direction.

trhway 12y ago

we are at least a second time through that - first being the Industrial Revolution - and still at loss what to do and with the same luddites and the same other cast of characters in the show... I guess 3rd time will be a charm... for the AI/robots that will completely replace our species.

chaostheory 12y ago

Yes robots have been gradually taking away jobs since the 1970s.

Lendal 12y ago

I'm an industrial automation engineer. Everyone from middle-managers up to CEOs think that robots are these magical things that just take care of everything so you can fire all your line workers. Doesn't work that way. It's incremental, methodical and excruciatingly slow work. You cannot simply throw money at it. It's expensive because it requires many experienced automation engineers ($$$) to do all this automation, but first you have to find and train those engineers. What is automation exactly? It's learning a process so well that you know every single possible thing that might go wrong with a machine and then have some other machine to fix all those things automatically on the fly. Building self-diagnosing and self-repairing machines is very complex. The end goal of all those machines is to produce and ship a product. If the product changes, now you have to build a machine that can automate the process of on-the-fly SKU changes which further complicates an already complex machine. In other words, automation is basically the flying car that futurists of a century ago predicted we would have today. So, where is my flying car? In a hundred years automation will definitely have made massive strides, yes. Some jobs can be automated today, some tomorrow, but the numbers we're talking about are not significant compared to the entire workforce of a nation and compared to the massive capital investment it takes to accomplish that automation. A century from now the CEO's of the world will still be asking, "Where are the autonomous robots I was promised that can automate my entire workforce?" It's not as simple as they think.

CoffeeDregs 12y ago
From what I've heard, automation is actually, really on-the-way. I've forgotten the exact conversation and this is certainly hearsay, but a friend of mine was describing a conversation with a upper level person (VP, CxO or board member) and was hearing about how 2014 was the year Starbucks would start to get rid of the "barristas". [Yeah, they used to be icons of Starbucks...] >then have some other machine to fix all those things automatically >on the fly. Building self-diagnosing and self-repairing machines is very complex. So only do the first part of the automation: automate the garbage collection truck and have the truck pull over when it's sick... That captures 95% of the value; we can leave self-repairing for later. >So, where is my flying car? 1) waiting on a suitable power source; 2) waiting on automated driving. It'll probably still be waiting on (1) and not (2) in 10 years.
12y ago

tboyd47 12y ago

The need for employers in society overstated here. Anyone can buy and sell for a living without being employed, and now with the internet it's even easier to do that. True, you may not be able to fulfill all of your needs by buying and selling. People who do that usually experience some level of poverty. But it is and always will be an option available to unemployed people. How many stories are there of people starting at flea markets and yard sales and ending up with investments worth thousands of dollars? Folks got along fine without corporations and 9 to 5 jobs for many centuries. Individuals and families still became as rich as Gates is, relatively speaking, or even richer. I'm confused that he doesn't seem to know this. But I think he's mostly right in what he says about automation, and he of all people certainly would know.

homulilly 12y ago

Oh look, more asshole libertarian scare tactics. The solution isn't to force people to work shitty jobs for even less pay. If our productivity is high enough people don't need to work we should provide basic income, not artificially force people to work so they don't starve to death.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> If our productivity The word "our" is misplaced in this sentence. The companies that purchase the labor own the productivity of the labor. If their productivity is high enough, they will simply buy less labor. Do you have anything to sell other than labor? > we should provide basic income No matter how you slice it, there's not enough money. You end up being able to give each adult in the US a couple thousand a year. If you try for more, you strangle the economy so effectively that it can't afford the robots that are supposed to pay for everything.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  How does giving money to people, no strings attached "strangles the economy"? What do they think they will do with basic income? They will buy things, which by definition is an economic stimulus.
- homulilly 12y ago
  > The word "our" is misplaced in this sentence. wat. I don't buy the idea that increased efficiency automatically means lower quality of life. That's a pretty narrow (not to mention twisted) worldview. > No matter how you slice it, there's not enough money. A basic living wage would be cheaper than all our other low-efficiency, high overhead social programs with the added bonus of giving the recipients money to put back into the economy. I don't agree that there's not enough money. On the other hand, making workers so poor that can't afford to actually buy anything is pretty much the worst thing you can do for an economy.

parfe 12y ago

What does an economy that deprecates most of humanity look like? What happens when the economy doesn't demand people? I do not see a future like Star Trek with its Utopian ideal of every person choosing to follow their dream pursuit. Large parts of society already receive no access to opportunity ensuring a lifetime sentence of poverty. When robots prepare meals, drive cars, pave roads, fix power lines, haul cargo, process paperwork, educate students, harvest crops, and enforce peace you may think you have a uniqueness to prosper. Perhaps, and good luck.

zcarter 12y ago

I think a useful conversation to have is, "how quickly we can replace politicians with robots?" A political discourse addressing the topic would necessarily acknowledge the radical changes most technology enthousiasts expect to take place in our lifetimes. The most common response to hearing that a machine can do your job is disbelief (http://kk.org/thetechnium/2011/09/the-7-stages-of/ http://kk.org/thetechnium/2011/09/the-7-stages-of/). Fertile ground for dismissing the imminently possible as science fiction.

DigitalSea 12y ago

Who maintains the machines? Who produces the replacement parts and sources the materials for the machines? What happens when the power goes out? So many flaws in the plan of a completely or even almost robot/algorithm based job future I don't know if it'll really happen. We've had automation in the automotive industry for how long now and look at the amount of people required to ensure the process works along the way? Having said that, I am all for automating things. As a developer, I've seen a dramatic shift in the last 5 years alone with tools for handling tasks and automating things are a dime a doze. Automation definitely has a place, but I think it's too far to suggest that robots will take everyone's jobs, just a few. You're not going to be served coffee from a Starbucks robot barista any time soon. A future where everyone doesn't have to work sounds nice in theory, in practice it cannot and will not work.

DanBC 12y ago
Robots in the car industry have removed very many jobs! Sure, you need people to build, sell, deliver, install, program, operate and maintain those robots but those jobs are still fewer than the numbers of people who ised to be on the production lines. You still find many people in electronics factories, but surface mount pick and place machines are throwing 30,000 components per hour onto PCBs. These machine shave replaced benches of people stuffing components onto PCBs with one or two people operating the machine. Barista work is low pay low status. Social interaction is the reason we don't see barista robots in coffee shops, although we do see them beginning to enter supermarkets and roadside service stations. (Often with foul coffee). And job descriptions change. "Baker" used to mean someone who used recipes to make breads. Now it appears to mean someone who takes presupplied gloop out of the tub, shapes it; and bales it for the time specified.

31reasons 12y ago

"If we don't need people to work, why should the government bend over backwards and "get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms"?" I respect Bill Gates' ideas but this one is totally wrong. His solution is neither practical nor logical. The same solution could have been presented 100 years ago when people were being laid off due to the industrial revolution. We would not have progressed this far if we had given people's employment priority over power and efficiency of machines. In many cases algorithms are simply better and faster over humans and they are just going to get even better and faster. They will not only get things done safely but also reduce human errors and reduce energy consumption.

bequanna 12y ago

I personally enjoy work. I wouldn't say that what I do from 9-5, M-F defines me as a person, but I enjoy solving problems and exerting myself. If software 'eats' my job, I'm not going to simply stop working, I am going to learn how to be good at something else. I can't imagine my life without some challenges and struggles.

JetSpiegel 12y ago
Quotin Calvin (the Bill Watterson one), work is what someone else makes you do.
- bequanna 12y ago
  And I think that is OK. I have worked on (other people's) projects, and been pulled into learning/doing something I otherwise would have shied away from. It doesn't always work out this way, but sometimes having someone else push you out of your comfort zone can be ultimately beneficial.

lukasm 12y ago

Chrome for a past few days was crashing I dunno why, but I know it's pdfs :(

kimonos 12y ago

This is one of the most interesting posts I've read. Thanks for sharing!