Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data • Hacker News Board

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#11

Post by kristofferR » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:25 AM UTC

obrero wrote: post #7

If this is true (and I take these things with an enormous grain of salt), it is an unfortunate thing. Tools are created to get rid of jobs, yet they create yet more work? In a rational society, more jobs being destroyed would be something to be celebrated. It is a sign of a sick culture in which it would be seen as a bad thing.

Totally agree. Many people seem to believe that having to give away the majority of our most valuable non-renewable resource in life, time, in order to actually enjoy the remainder of our time, is a fantastic system that can't be improved upon.

Sure, having to work was (and still largely is) a necessity, but we should make it unneccessary as soon as technologically possible.

We act like being forced to do something is a right/privilige instead of a burden.

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#12

Post by adrianN » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:27 AM UTC

danielbarla wrote: post #5

I have no real doubt this is true, but what may be different in today's situation is that something akin to true "artificial general intelligence" is not completely unfeasible (or something close enough to it that there's no practical difference). This is quite different to previous technological revolutions, where it was primarily manual labour that was automated. We seem to have in general conceded that many of tho…

Yes, the article clearly shows that technology killed one kind of job already: "muscle power workers". That's because what technology mostly did the last 140 years (and the 10000 years before that) is aiding our physical strength. However technology now is trending towards aiding our mental strength. It seems rational to me to assume that this means that technology will replace "mental power workers" over the next 140 years.

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#13

Post by Super_Jambo » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:31 AM UTC

A large and growing % of the economy works to create demand through marketing & advertising. It seems like the number of jobs is more driven by the number of potential employees than the natural demands of consumers.

I also find it interesting they highlight the decrease in professional cloth washers something technology has allowed us to DIY. Next to an increase in professional hair cutters something we previously DIYed with little technology. If someone makes a good hair cutting robot what will we outsource next besides food cooking and drink serving?

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#14

Post by asgard1024 » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:32 AM UTC

Creating jobs is easy - you can always add more people monitoring if other people are following the rules - add more security guards, inspectors and managers.

AFAICT the article doesn't make this distinction, and it is difficult - we don't have a standard way to consider this problem.

The question is if it's worth it, and if it wouldn't be more useful to just let people work less and have more free time (for example through basic income).

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#15

Post by asgard1024 » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:38 AM UTC

pliny wrote: post #10

tim333 wrote: post #2

I'm not sure the number of jobs is that related to the amount of work needing to be done. It's more people like doing something and so will tend to do so. Otherwise as the number of people employed in agriculture dropped from like 70% to 2% over a couple of centuries it would of led to 68% sitting about. But instead they invent new things to do - say interior design or computer game design. Whether the person designi…

>It's more people like doing something and so will tend to do so You're putting the cart before the horse (or I misunderstood you). People have less they are required to do and use time they would have spent tending to their farm to ensure their survival, to pursue novelty and comfort instead. But people aren't great at entertaining themselves, so a lot of people are employed in the business of entertaining others. C…

> People have less they are required to do and use time they would have spent tending to their farm to ensure their survival, to pursue novelty and comfort instead.

Are you sure? Maybe what they are actually pursuing is trying to convince other people that some new job is sorely needed in the "new economy"?

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#16

Post by jaawn » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:41 AM UTC

Not all technology has an equal ability to displace human workers. I'd argue that the most displacing technology is just now being developed. Sure, some technology has a neutral impact on the job market, but some!=all

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#17

Post by alwaysdoit » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:42 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #3

Even if you accept that the trend of more jobs being created by technology than are being destroyed will continue indefinitely, fretting over technology replacing you if you're taxi driver is very justified. Having to learn a completely new trade is not easy.

Society as a whole benefits, but there are high individual costs. We ought to figure out a way to smooth out those costs for the individuals.

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#18

Post by pliny » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:49 AM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #15

pliny wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's more people like doing something and so will tend to do so You're putting the cart before the horse (or I misunderstood you). People have less they are required to do and use time they would have spent tending to their farm to ensure their survival, to pursue novelty and comfort instead. But people aren't great at entertaining themselves, so a lot of people are employed in the business of entertaining others. C…

> People have less they are required to do and use time they would have spent tending to their farm to ensure their survival, to pursue novelty and comfort instead. Are you sure? Maybe what they are actually pursuing is trying to convince other people that some new job is sorely needed in the "new economy"?

Dereference 'they' for me.

*People in what you quoted was intended to mean "anybody who would have been a farmer", so that's the 68% that have to find alternative employment.

I live in an apartment building, my rooms have air conditioning units, and I have a bed and a sofa and a refrigerator and lots of other things that improve my quality of life, and people had to build all of those things (including the building I live in and the rooms in the building and the power plant that runs all the stuff in my apartment and the buses and trains I use to get to places and the roads and track those drive on etc.), the labor and ingenuity required for all those things to exist comes from (I think) that 68%+ of people who were unemployed by technology, and those people also have their own things (homes and food and furniture and transportation), which they use to entertain themselves or make themselves more comfortable.

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#19

Post by minthd » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:51 AM UTC

Looking at current uk employment numbers[1] , it seems that healthcare , education accommodation and food services count as 23% of the economy.

But :

1. Will they grow under new conditions ?

These sectors historically didn't enjoy more productivity due to technology. Economists called this "baumol's disease". But this is changing. We're seeing higher education and maybe some lower education being automated. In japan we saw a robotic hotel, there's plenty of efforts to automate the food industry(both making and serving food), and in healthcare we're on the way to become much more effective at a fast rate with many(hundreds of genetic treatments in clinical trials,great improvements in targeted cancer therapies, artificial pancreases and continuous glucose monitoring are on the way to solve diabetes , etc ,etc) .

2. How much more can they grow ? Will said growth be enough to stop job decline in other sectors ?

All those sectors grew due to stuff like cheap credit, degree inflation, more expandable income, growing country budgets, etc.

But will those conditions continue to be true in a world with a lot of unemployment in other sectors - much more than we saw in the past ?

Also - all those three sectors are 23% of the economy. We're talking about 40% of jobs at risk due to automation in 20 years. So those sectors would have to double/triple themselves to compensate. Is this realistic ?

[1]http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/bus-register/business-register...

Re: Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data

#20

Post by kristjankalm » Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 9:53 AM UTC

can anyone find the link to the original paper? it seems to be by Deloitte but I have found nothing on their website nor just googling authors' names.