Economists Say Newest AI Technology Destroys More Jobs Than It Creates (2014)

> When the University of Chicago asked a panel of leading economists about automation, 76 percent agreed that it had not historically decreased employment.

> But when asked about the more recent past, they were less sanguine. About 33 percent said technology was a central reason that median wages had been stagnant over the past decade, 20 percent said it was not and 29 percent were unsure.

These two statements are distinct - the first is about employment, the second is about wages.

It seems like the author is making a leap of logic and not the words of economists to connect them.

Re: Economists Say Newest AI Technology Destroys More Jobs Than It Creates (2014)

#7

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

Of course it does. That's kind of the point of technology.

Take farm equipment, for example. One combine replaces hundreds of people with sickles. All those people can't find jobs in the combine factory, either.

So what happened? Mass unemployment? No, those people got jobs making automobiles and refrigerators and washing machines and ten thousand other things. The only reason society could do that is because they weren't wasting all those people working on farms.

For a society, jobs cost people. The society can only have the level of material culture it can create with the people it has to spend. If in some area, we can get by with fewer people, that's progress. We can now spend those people on something else, and our society will be richer for it.

That's the high-level view. In the short term, however, if we can't figure out what to spend those people on, it can get bumpy...

Re: Economists Say Newest AI Technology Destroys More Jobs Than It Creates (2014)

#8

Post by oregontechninja » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

This is the point. Make computers do work, then sit back and drink a mojito ( or your drink of choice ). Get a new hobby if you want to work.

Re: Economists Say Newest AI Technology Destroys More Jobs Than It Creates (2014)

#9

Post by legostormtroopr » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:18 PM UTC

oregontechninja wrote: post #8

This is the point. Make computers do work, then sit back and drink a mojito ( or your drink of choice ). Get a new hobby if you want to work.

How do you pay for the mojito? Society has been conditioned to the idea that "if you work, you get stuff". In fact the current system is rigged to ensure that, so if jobs go away instead of mojito, you get nothing, and instead of hobbies you get to beg.

I'd love nothing more than a post-scarcity world where everyone get enough to live on, and people who do more get more. However there are X things that will stop that:

1. We have the resource to do this for everyone, but it means some people will have to reduce their quality of life

2. People like to work, they need to have meaning - some people will find hobbies, but some people just aren't creative thinkers and need some direction from society or otherwise. Here is education and basic wage, now go away won't suit everyone

3. It means the people at the top end need to sacrifice some. That isn't going to happen.

Re: Economists Say Newest AI Technology Destroys More Jobs Than It Creates (2014)

#10

Post by kmkemp » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:18 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #7

Of course it does. That's kind of the point of technology. Take farm equipment, for example. One combine replaces hundreds of people with sickles. All those people can't find jobs in the combine factory, either. So what happened? Mass unemployment? No, those people got jobs making automobiles and refrigerators and washing machines and ten thousand other things. The only reason society could do that is because they we…

At what point should society decide that robots have provided sufficient work that people should have the choice to work or not? This is why Universal Basic Income needs to become a mainstream concept ASAP.