Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky • Hacker News Board

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#81

Post by fleitz » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:18 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #3

Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this would work is often ignored. > Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they're paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts. No, the workers are now fired. They don't get a raise. > The advanced robo-res…

In 1900 there were 1.6 billion people, and we had a lot less technology, with many people living in poverty.

In 2016, there are 7 billion people, we have a lot less technology, only about 1 billion still live in poverty. If technology 'killed' jobs we shouldn't have more than about 400 million people employed in the world.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#82

Post by jonesb6 » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:19 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #41

cornholio wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are essentially making the luddite case. The counterargument usually goes like this: yes, people would be fired and there will be serious pain in the short run; however the machines will drastically improve productivity, therefore reduce prices, so real wages will go up along with demand and the extra income not spent on, say, buying feed stock for your horse, will go in creating other jobs and economic sectors t…

> You are essentially making the luddite case. I'm not, I'm just countering some "don't worry, everything will be fine" idealism. I don't think we should halt progress, but I do think we should be more intentional about how we go about it. There is not currently a solution on the table to address mass un/under-employment caused by near-term automation. Basic income is thrown around, but even if enacted, does not chan…

The opposite side of idealism is cynicism. Further more if there's one thing humanity has proven itself bad at, it's the ability to make economic predictions.

I'm not saying your comment isn't a valuable counter-weight, just that we have a ways to go in this discussion still.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#83

Post by icebraining » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:20 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #54

seabee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True in a monopoly situation, but if you have competition and they can automate like you, there will be a race to the bottom.

Now suppose the automation technology is thoroughly patented and the inventor effectively has a government-granted monopoly on the right to use it or anything similar to it.

That might delay things, but (1) patents expire and (2) there are often ways around them.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#84

Post by pessimizer » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:26 PM UTC

danielrhodes wrote: post #73

pm24601 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this would only net them an extra $450/mo. at most, which doesn't seem like it would be enough to have a big impact on somebody's life. It absolutely would have a big impact. You are talking food for a money, a monthly bus pass and cell phone cost.

Yeah admittedly that judgement largely depends on where you live and the cost base. In my opinion, that wouldn't buy you much in SF or NY. For somebody located outside of a city, it could have a much bigger impact.

3% of the country live in SF or NYC.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#85

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:28 PM UTC

cornholio wrote: post #22

oconnore wrote: post #3

Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this would work is often ignored. > Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they're paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts. No, the workers are now fired. They don't get a raise. > The advanced robo-res…

You are essentially making the luddite case. The counterargument usually goes like this: yes, people would be fired and there will be serious pain in the short run; however the machines will drastically improve productivity, therefore reduce prices, so real wages will go up along with demand and the extra income not spent on, say, buying feed stock for your horse, will go in creating other jobs and economic sectors t…

And you are essentially repeating the "wealth inequality does not exist" mantra. But it does not matter how many times people repeat, it does not become real.

Inequality exists. Those people fired will be out of places to go. Yes, overall people will become richer, those people are an exception.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#86

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:29 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #54

seabee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True in a monopoly situation, but if you have competition and they can automate like you, there will be a race to the bottom.

Now suppose the automation technology is thoroughly patented and the inventor effectively has a government-granted monopoly on the right to use it or anything similar to it.

In this case, the inventor gets rich, and everything still gets cheaper (just not as much as in the alternative).

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#87

Post by Chinjut » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:32 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #41

cornholio wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are essentially making the luddite case. The counterargument usually goes like this: yes, people would be fired and there will be serious pain in the short run; however the machines will drastically improve productivity, therefore reduce prices, so real wages will go up along with demand and the extra income not spent on, say, buying feed stock for your horse, will go in creating other jobs and economic sectors t…

> You are essentially making the luddite case. I'm not, I'm just countering some "don't worry, everything will be fine" idealism. I don't think we should halt progress, but I do think we should be more intentional about how we go about it. There is not currently a solution on the table to address mass un/under-employment caused by near-term automation. Basic income is thrown around, but even if enacted, does not chan…

The solution I'd like to see: Enact basic income AND change the fact that our culture views work ethic (narrowly defined in terms of market income) ~= value.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#88

Post by karmacondon » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:33 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #31

Retra wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "good argument" for having a minimum wage is that without it, wages will be pressured down , because every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible, and they generally have the means to achieve this. It has nothing to do with job creation: it's about having jobs that are not basically slavery. It's for job quality, not quantity. Besides, you're just assuming people should be employed at "fair market…

True, every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible. This is, of course, correct. On the other hand, every employee on the planet wants her wage to be as high as possible. This is also obviously true. This creates law of supply and demand. Google can't hire a decent software engineer for, say, $30000/year, because other companies will immediately offer more, and supply of talented software engineers is…

Why do you think minimum wage laws exist? It's because at one point in our nation's history, businesses implicitly colluded to set wages low. They have more power in wage negotiations than workers do, because there are generally people who can afford to do unskilled labor for very small amounts. Businesses got greedy and took that too far, offering people wages far beyond a minimum standard of living. So in response, the people voted to set a minimum that would prevent corporations from being outright exploitative.

The same thing could happen today. Google engineers will always be paid a lot of money, but the average McDonalds workers could see their income fall way below the national average cost of living. Whether the minimum should be $5/$10/$15 is up for debate, but without businesses would have an unfair amount of bargaining power.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#89

Post by _delirium » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:34 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #63

Robotic fast food restaurants have been built. Check out AMFare, from American Machine and Foundry, deployed in 1964.[1][2] Automatically produced a range of meals (burgers, hot dogs, chicken, fries, shakes) comparable to most of McDonalds' business. This worked, and served real customers for a year, but was never deployed beyond one test location. Apparently it wasn't cost-effective. AMF returned to their more succe…

I think that's roughly right. The big-picture trajectory of automation is also, from where I see things in AI, not that sensitive to minimum wage levels, at least if we're talking anything near the levels that have been proposed so far.

California, for example, is proposing to raise the minimum wage from $10 to $15 by 2022. That annualizes out to 7% a year, or probably around 5% in real terms, assuming current ~2% inflation rates persist. That's just fiddling at the margins with the economics of automation, not a revolutionary change. Tech improvements are looking for orders of magnitude cost and productivity improvements, not +/- 5%. A wage floor going up 5% a year will, at most, move up projects which were already a sure thing, making them economically feasible a few years earlier than they would have otherwise been. But it's not going to make things feasible that are currently an order of magnitude on the wrong side of economic feasibility, or that are currently too unreliable to deploy at all. And those are the kinds of changes that major progress in automation is driven by.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#90

Post by protomyth » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 11:39 PM UTC

bradleyprice wrote: post #13

oconnore wrote: post #3

Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this would work is often ignored. > Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they're paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts. No, the workers are now fired. They don't get a raise. > The advanced robo-res…

This was my thought as well. I'm not even sure how to judge this article. It seems very misinformed with making assumptions without any supporting evidence on how we get there. It's true that automation would bring in new jobs, but not the jobs that the people affected would be able to jump into. As far as the whole child care and home health jobs go, I'm not sure there would be a mass influx of opportunities there.…

Daycare is a hard industry to pay decent wages since it's basically a replacement for an adult to stay home and the child to staff ratio is a factor (infants were 3 to 1 staff). Also, about 1/2 the population (males) are heavily discriminated against (85+% women). I did budgets for a group of daycares serving 45 families in the 90's and we did not pay well even for ND.