The brave new world of robots and lost jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#51

Post by Noseshine » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:10 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #39

Noseshine wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has that worked the last few decades? And don't just count "job yes/no", look at the actual job - prestige, quality, income.

The proportion of people in full time work is much higher than it was when people worried about mechanization eliminating all those not-very-prestigious jobs in the post-WWII period...

My comment was pretty short - yet you managed to ignore a major part? Looking at statistics telling you that now both adults in the family have to work to home ownership to private debt levels doesn't support your story. Look at the number of dual-income families, for example.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#52

Post by Noseshine » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:11 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #47

Noseshine wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, yet I don't see the connection between your reply and the comment you replied to? Nor even to the parent-parent comment. I'm baffled. Similarly for maxerickson's comment here. "Living" is about using resources, if "saving" them is the goal a dead planet is the best solution, or at least removal of all consumers of the resource in question. I don't see any "robot vs. worker" component in that statemen…

Living is about converting resources to utility. The argument assumes that you care about overall efficiency of such conversion.

js8's comment wasn't about efficiency.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#53

Post by grondilu » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:12 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

> Unless you're willing to kill the worker

Talk about black and white reasoning. The loss of his job is supposed to reduce his income, making him poorer, thus forcing him to consume less resources.

But you're right in the sense that being poor increases chances of dying, thus contributing to solving the problem of dealing with useless workforce.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#54

Post by wangchow » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:13 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

Hence the communist manifesto dropped 200 years too early. Countries that use communism are far too early at adopting the philosophy because it requires production to exceed consumption on a massive scale. The hybrid model in mixed capitalist/welfare doesn't work so well because we're introducing a labour force (robots) that doesn't fit our economic model.

Edit: What we'll probably see is an introduced free basic income to help the economy along (and the people who lost those jobs) at the expense of other tax payers. And that, my friends is gravitation toward the end of capitalism. If we're talking 60% of the labor force.. Seems like it anyway

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#55

Post by simonh » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:13 PM UTC

neuromancer2701 wrote: post #9

My current theory is that this “automation bomb” won't really happen in the sense that 5 million Truckers are going to get laid off all of a sudden. Especially in the case of Truckers the average age is getting higher and higher every year because Millennials have said that is not a job they want. So my theory is that as Baby Boomer/Early Gen Xers retire automation will step in and fill the employment gap. So there w…

There's also the economy of truck stops, diners and motels that depends on all those truckers. They're going to be hit hard.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#56

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:13 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

I think the counterargument here is that if you don't need to move humans to work and back home again every day, and if you don't need to optimize workplace conditions for humans - by providing creature comforts and safety equipment - your unemployed human is using much less resources than a working human, and the robot is also using much less resources than a working human, so the sum of unemployed human + working robot may add up to less than working human alone.

That, and also resources are here to be burned for our comfort. We should, by all means, burn the minimum amount of resources required for said comfort. But still, there are here to be burned. Otherwise, to minimize resource usage, let's all give up on civilization and go back to caves.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#57

Post by cousin_it » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:13 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #48

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

I fail to see how it's the employer screwing anyone over. Should automation be outlawed? What kinds of automation? It's a problem that society needs to deal with, sure, and some of that might involve some regulation of automation, or some social support for manual jobs, but there's nothing inherently immoral about automation. If a company reduces it's work force through automation there's nothing immoral about that.…

How does outlawing automation make employers biased against hiring new workers?

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#58

Post by Noseshine » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:15 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #25

the underlying message from the top is rather brutal (or with a healthy dose of realism?): "No matter if you're farmer, factory worker or good with your hands, learn to code or be prepared to get swept away." Obama's message to the kids about learning to code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XvmhE1J9PY

But the only reason for having vastly more people with coding abilities is to lower the price of coding. There is no need for so many coders. Every app, every piece of code has to be written just once, then replication is free - that's even worse than in industry, where everything needs to be developed just once too but at least production required people.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#59

Post by d4nt » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:15 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

If the worker now gets to stay at home and pursue a hobby they enjoy, while the economy is still producing the same amount of goods, isn't that a net win?

The problem is (a) people feel bad about being on welfare, and (b) we stop paying welfare again the moment that worker makes any money, creating a disincentive to engage in any form of small scale productive activity.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#60

Post by sverige » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 12:15 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #43

usrusr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more for the huge but reliably fruitless pile of good arguments for an unconditional basic income: with an UBI, it becomes possible for the worker to outprice the robot even at a rate below the survival minimum. E.g. to consume 1.5x resources total compared to bare survival, which would still be less than the nearly 2x of unemployed+robot. (edit:typo)

I guess it's more of an argument for a universal wage subsidy, but I'd be happy with UBI as well.

I've been thinking about UBI a lot. Who's going to pay for it? Certainly not the big tech companies. They barely pay any taxes now, and they're the ones who stand to gain the most with automation.