Does automation kill jobs in China?
Countries where manufacturing makes up a big proportion of their economy are likely to suffer most because manufacturing is the low hanging fruit for automation.
The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
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Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Exactly, we're already beyond the limits of what we can consume. " No, because in 1960 everyone had the same thing. Now - you get programming for your niche, which is different than that of the dude next door. Take clothing: even in the year 2000 people did not really wear fashion. We had 'the Gap' and not much more. Everything else was expensive. 'Fast fashion' has changed the world. Young people can now afford an…
But a lot of that is subsidized through globalization, which nearly every colonizing country is eschewing. Without it, 80℅ of your users and customers can't afford clothes or phones or apps. It's all subsidized through foreigners plights and profited upon wildly. Watch what happens if that goes away. The neoliberal idea of the world was born to stop a revolution in the western world - instead of paying people fairly,…
"But a lot of that is subsidized through globalization, which nearly every colonizing country is eschewing."
"It's all subsidized through foreigners plights and profited upon wildly"
This is highly speculative, and I don't think in any way substantiated.
"they just exploited other countries through capitalist guises instead of barbaric colonisation."
Borderline racist.
American consumers are fuelling a massive wealth creation boom in places like China and India, where 100's of millions are coming out of poverty.
Trade is generally good for both sides, and it has benefited China/India etc. massively.
It's funny what you call 'exploitation' is 100's of millions of people with massively increasing wealth.
If you want to see China and India desperately poor again, we can 'turn off globalization'. A few more Americans will have jobs, but it will be back to the dark ages for many economies.
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required" Yes we do. The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have. The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit. Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were mu…
The period you describe was marked by revolutions, civil wars and world wars not stabilized until after WWII. Things did indeed come out well eventually but that better world most definitely did not emerge serenely and rationally. It took the utter annihilation of the pre-WWI world order through decades of enormous violence. Indeed, the egalitarian socialist plan and the response of populist fascist to crush it emerg…
"The period you describe was marked by revolutions, civil wars and world wars not stabilized until after WWII."
No - the late 19th century was relatively peaceful.
"But unfortunately we are just at the beginning"
Just at the beggining of the longest period of peace and economic prosperity in history.
Donald Trump, Brexit - this kind of 'nationalism' and 'demagoguery' is not even remotely in the league of anything in the past. Not even close.
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
Up until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?
Agree, I sometimes wonder how much of this is just a manifestation of our fear of the unknown.
Consider, the world before the internet when the postal services was doing all the heavy lifting for communication. Once we got internet, a huge chunk communication was replaced by email etc. But, it also gave rise to eCommerce, on demand delivery services etc. And, the same postal services companies are doing better than ever before.
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#85I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…
"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required" Yes we do. The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have. The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit. Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were mu…
I agree with your main point (that this is a small increment to the industrial revolution), but two objections:
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine
Right now AI is still a future technology. The current AI algorithms are the equivalent of the early GSM phones, which looked like car batteries, very far from modern smartphones. But it is reasonable to expect that they will get better, and it is reasonable to expect that we will be able to emulate the brain with transistors and on a much bigger scale some days.
The second objection is that the demand for unskilled workers keeps shrinking. Our society has adapted to the industrial revolution by having a much larger skilled worker base, pretty much everyone can now read and write, college degrees have become the norm, etc. But there are brick walls to how skilled a society can be. A not insignificant share of the population just cannot become skilled. And even among skilled workers, only a fraction will always be capable to satisfy the demand for the "hotest" skills (engineering, software development, etc).
So I think that as that imbalance develops, we are bound to live with a structurally unequal society. And it doesn't have much to do with capitalism, it has more to do with the evolution of the technology outpacing the biological evolution of our species.
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
Up until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?
Because the population density was much lower back then.
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
Up until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?
[deleted]
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required" Yes we do. The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have. The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit. Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were mu…
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? As software developers, it's literally our jobs to put people out of work. My software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the company crows. In my industry, legal, entire departments (like night word processing) no longer exist. The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years…
It is your work to increase productivity. As tedious tasks are automated, you can deploy people doing new things. As you lower the cost of the product you manufacture or service you provide, you enable more people to afford it. That's how new industries are created. I am not to worried about the amount of work available as a whole. I am more worried about the nature of the work available, which will be increasingly skilled.
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really hope we end up with something much closer to socialism than we do either the future from "The Time Machine" or perpetual cycles of Viva-La-Revolution.
Up until global trade took off, cities, villages and even individual farms were almost self sufficient. Why couldn't people be self sufficient with automation?
How will we get our iPhone 17s?
Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required" Yes we do. The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have. The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit. Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were mu…
I agree with your main point (that this is a small increment to the industrial revolution), but two objections: > tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine Right now AI is still a future technology. The current AI algorithms are the equivalent of the early GSM phones, which looked like car batteries, very far from modern smartphones. But it is reason…
" But it is reasonable to expect that they will get better, and it is reasonable to expect that we will be able to emulate the brain with transistors and on a much bigger scale some days."
No, it's not reasonable to assume they will emulate brains.
Not even the experts are saying that.
They're not trying to emulate brains at all.