51–60 of 67 posts
Yes, but if we continue down our current path, they will not be directed at automation itself. Instead, advanced propaganda and bot networks will organize discontent against whichever targets allow the protesters to feel temporarily empowered, but that pose no actual threat to entrenched powers. The Russians are far further down this road than the US. Go read about how Surkov simultaneously creates Neo-Nazi movements…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't think of a single industry that has been able to completely decouple production from labor. Even something as simple as subway ticketing machines or vending machines require technicians to deploy and maintain them. Sure, most people that sold tickets lost that job, but economies have always found a new occupation for most. Seems to me most have exaggerated expectations of the impact of automation.
No, most have underestimated the effect. A factory that used to have hundreds of workers and a few engineers and technicians, now has just a few engineers and technicians. That's effectively a decoupling of production from labor, however you want to look at it. Automation of production has been explosive in the last few years. Companies that automate factories have a critical shortage of practical Engineers (no don't…
I get your point and I do agree that if a revolution like automation happens too fast, there is potential for social shocks such as high levels of unemployment and worse. But, as you state, the decoupling of the production from labor is actually being naturally throttled down by a scarcity of... labour. And that may buy enough time for society to adjust since education and training are taking longer and longer these days and no shortcut has been created for human learning.
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It's more inefficient than Capitalism, which is its Achilles heel. Socialism works when there is 'free' production to fuel it. Like in the Netherlands. It fails when the money stops pumping in, like Venezuela. Automation may provide the free input that makes a more humane (more Socialist) system work for everybody?
There is no such thing as free production because resources are not unlimited.
Also, value can increase in a finite resources environment. For example, my iphone is worth a lot more, and is a lot more useful, than the materials it's made of.
Perhaps some countries (kinda like France at the moment) will take action to strengthen job security by legislation, those countries will lose out economically though.
(gotta append this with stating this is guesswork)
Yes, but if we continue down our current path, they will not be directed at automation itself. Instead, advanced propaganda and bot networks will organize discontent against whichever targets allow the protesters to feel temporarily empowered, but that pose no actual threat to entrenched powers. The Russians are far further down this road than the US. Go read about how Surkov simultaneously creates Neo-Nazi movements…
Oh my. In the future it's not rogue internet devices which will cause only trouble - it's fallible individuals who will create critical mass for social proof for any random idea.
Soon we can buy actual online cults as easily as stolen credit card numbers :). But I suppose this is already happening at a nation state scale, but only in the mechanical turk sense of automation. Who will be the first automated propaganda unicorn ...
I'm not just talking about your three letter agency direct dragnet surveillance type programs, I'm also talking about stuff like cloud-based voice & speech recognition that is only one FISA warrant away from being the NSA's very own voice-print database. I don't even think many of the people implementing these systems intend them to be used as systems of mass control. But they will, and they will be used very intentionally to stifle any kind of popular 'neo-luddite' movement.
Why? Because automation will result in massive concentration of wealth (remembering the 'auto-pilot' assumption). Production will become extremely capital-intensive (i.e. people replaced with machines), and the few people who are not owners of capital yet still 'employed' will probably be paid astronomical salaries due to their similarly astronomically high 'labor factor productivity'. So you will have a handful of extremely wealthy 'neo-capitalists' with much greater scope for 'free political speech' (i.e. buying politicians with their mountains of money).
Last time we had a huge jump in the amount of capital used in production (the industrial revolution), while I wouldn't call it a 'fair fight', workers at least had a fighting chance, because:
- Capitalists had relatively less resources than future neo-capitalists will. To analogise, if 'industrial revolution capitalists' could employ professional strike-breakers and private security forces, future neo-capitalists will have the resources to field entire armies. With laser rifles.
- Society hadn't, just prior to the industrial revolution, constructed massive and intricate systems of total social control. We're doing this right now, in many cases not realising it.
- The state was at least sort of impartial in most cases. In some historical periods the state even sympathised with workers' concerns, due the formation and mainstream success of political parties representing 'labor'. Even now, these 'labor' parties seem totally adrift, like rebels without a cause. And the effect of money (er, I mean 'political speech') in politics will only get exponentially worse as capitalists become exponentially richer (er, more eloquent and verbose).
- There were clearly identifiable groups of people (i.e.'the workers at factory x', 'the workers in industry y', etc.) with identifiable and specific common goals and interests (i.e. 'get industry y to share more of its profit with labour', 'get factory x to build fire escapes so we all don't burn to death next time' etc.). In the context of future automation, this simply will not exist. Good luck organising a strike at, say, googles robot factory, when you're not actually an employee (as you're not employed at all).
Under the 'auto-pilot' assumption, the only power we will truly have is as consumers. Even just typing that last sentence makes me feel a little ridiculous. Because of the factors outlined above, there will be no counter-revolution. There will be no Karl Marx. There will be no new 'extreme opposites' (like communism), nor will there be new 'moderate balancing forces' (like labor unions). They will be killed off in their infancy or, ideally, never conceived to begin with.
So if you don't want this future, the time for action is right now.
We are destroying the natural world, without respect or harmony with nature. Itsn't the automation the real problem, its our relations with others people or kind of life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, most have underestimated the effect. A factory that used to have hundreds of workers and a few engineers and technicians, now has just a few engineers and technicians. That's effectively a decoupling of production from labor, however you want to look at it. Automation of production has been explosive in the last few years. Companies that automate factories have a critical shortage of practical Engineers (no don't…
My parents used to own a textile factory that employed at one point over 100 people. The business stopped being competitive and eventually was closed down with production moving to places like Eastern Europe, India and China. So I think a lot of those production jobs have already been destroyed in Europe and North America. Automation is an opportunity for manufacturing to move back closer to the creative and consumer…
Its growing geometrically. In shockingly fewer years than we think, there will be essentially no 'labor' jobs left. America will never again employ labor; its an obsolete idea. Our civilization is leaping forward, and we should plan on a humane response.
However I want to push back against the idea that current protests against, for example, lack of manufacturing jobs are totally misdirected or will be in the future (if they are not against automation). While I think blaming NAFTA and outsourcing for a loss of jobs is ridiculous at least people are recognizing that the problems are structural and public rather than technological.
What would protesting automation even look like? Stop the machines? The last movement to do that was small, ineffectual, and was perceived to be ridiculous.
Some kind of safety net or redistribution of wealth is needed in my opinion. The classic response to redistribution is to say that it's paternalistic, but if automation doesn't make up for the jobs it destroys what are the alternatives?
If modern civilization survives climate change ours and the next few generations are going to be judged with a very heavy hand and rightly so. There is no dearth of knowledge or critique in our culture, but there is an exceptional amount of inaction and passivity.