More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production • Hacker News Board

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#41

Post by flyingfences » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #29

crusso wrote: post #19

Wasn't there an article the other day on HN[1] regarding how we're nearing "Full Employment"? How does that comport with the notion that somehow our increased automation is eliminating jobs? Shouldn't we see a trend of higher unemployment as we continue to automate? The Bloomberg article seems to focus more on the impact in localized areas, but at the national level, there are reallocations of jobs to new industries.…

The jobs are mostly temp jobs not full time jobs. Bush changed how jobs are defined obama continued that with the result that 95% of jobs created since the financial cricis are temp jobs. This is a big deal in the us as it cuts of access to ex healthcare. Its very grim whats going on.

Jobs are still jobs, though. If people are still employed then that means that there are still jobs for people to do.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#42

Post by rukittenme » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

Everything old is new again. We have thousands of years of documented history describing our ancestors using highly advanced, labor-saving machines -- human beings and animals. I wonder why this situation is any different from the rest of recorded human history.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#43

Post by VLM » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:37 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #29

crusso wrote: post #19

Wasn't there an article the other day on HN[1] regarding how we're nearing "Full Employment"? How does that comport with the notion that somehow our increased automation is eliminating jobs? Shouldn't we see a trend of higher unemployment as we continue to automate? The Bloomberg article seems to focus more on the impact in localized areas, but at the national level, there are reallocations of jobs to new industries.…

The jobs are mostly temp jobs not full time jobs. Bush changed how jobs are defined obama continued that with the result that 95% of jobs created since the financial cricis are temp jobs. This is a big deal in the us as it cuts of access to ex healthcare. Its very grim whats going on.

The BLS government definition ends unemployment status at one year.

There's a classic Micheal Moore movie (or, someone else?) where he discussed the closure of the Janesville Wisconsin General Motors assembly plant which historically employed between 10% and 1% of the city. In December 2008 when it closed the number of unemployed increased by 1200 people. In December of 2009 the number of unemployed auto workers legally officially dropped to zero. Obviously all 1200 people didn't get jobs... Thats where SSDI comes into play, because unemployment is a state funded program but SSDI is federally funded. SSDI has been roughly doubling in size every 5 years since the 80s, very roughly. Currently there's about 14 million under 65 getting federal disability benefits. Its increased from about 2 percent to about 4 percent of the population this century, and shows no indication of leveling off or decreasing, LOL. So the current unemployement rate of 4.7% is realistically about 8.7%

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#44

Post by zdragnar » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

j2bax wrote: post #30

With the looming take over of the robots, why is the fast food industry still largely meat powered? I would think these establishments at their scale, would be ripe for automation, yet they aren't. Are humans still cheaper in this particular industry?

meat power has one advantage in the customer service industry (including fast food): robots aren't great at customer service. People are accustomed to being able to talk to another person.

With the rise of the $15 minimum wage movement, a number of chains are experimenting with replacing some or most of their employees with automated kiosks and other devices. As they become less novel, and as wages continue to rise, expect there to be fewer fast food jobs available.

It is a minor inevitability; I've seen burger assembly robots that will make, from raw ingredients (including the ground meat) burgers in a handful of minutes. The only human intervention needed is refilling ingredient hoppers and cleaning. Once people get used to not seeing so many other humans behind the counter, and the capital outlay to buy / rent / install the machines goes down (at least, relative to wages) they are likely to be much more widespread.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#45

Post by chroem- » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

rukittenme wrote: post #42

Everything old is new again. We have thousands of years of documented history describing our ancestors using highly advanced, labor-saving machines -- human beings and animals. I wonder why this situation is any different from the rest of recorded human history.

Because only a select few have access to these new machines, and everyone else is at their mercy. If everyone had the capital to buy their own industrial robots and automation technology, then this would be a non-issue. However the reality is that we have to cross our fingers that the captains of industry will play nice.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#46

Post by bduerst » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

lurker10000 wrote: post #17

paulpauper wrote: post #8

Detroit lost so many jobs, not because of robots, but due to the decline of the domestic auto manufacturing industry. The modern auto assembly line, which uses human-assisted robots, existed a couple decades before Detroit's precipitous decline. The Detroit riots during the 60's and 'capital flight' also didn't help. The argument of robots destroying jobs, imho, has a lot of holes ..the hysteria seems overblown http:…

Many people (including me) believe the problem isn't overblown. A common counterargument to your point is that humans have always had the ability to do work at higher abstraction levels than the machines replacing them. Scribes become unemployed but can retrain as typographers, press operators, digital layout artists and so on. The problem comes when robots begin to perform these higher order tasks. What happens to i…

Jobs are not zero sum - the demand for labor is a function of supply. People will begin to fill more niche and variable-demand jobs where capital investments don't make sense, i.e. a shift towards a consultant economy.

Keep in mind that the specifics of this is very hard to predict. A large number of the jobs we have today would have seemed absurd 20-40 years ago, but to us they feel like they were inevitable.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#47

Post by j2bax » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #44

j2bax wrote: post #30

With the looming take over of the robots, why is the fast food industry still largely meat powered? I would think these establishments at their scale, would be ripe for automation, yet they aren't. Are humans still cheaper in this particular industry?

meat power has one advantage in the customer service industry (including fast food): robots aren't great at customer service. People are accustomed to being able to talk to another person. With the rise of the $15 minimum wage movement, a number of chains are experimenting with replacing some or most of their employees with automated kiosks and other devices. As they become less novel, and as wages continue to rise,…

>I've seen burger assembly robots that will make, from raw ingredients (including the ground meat) burgers in a handful of minutes.

Exactly this. A machine could make a far superior product in a fraction of the time for less money (at quantity). I worked at McDonalds through college, and I remember people (including myself) letting the pre-cooked hamburgers sit in the warming bins for hours passed the time they were supposed to. Gross! At a minimum, I can't see why everything in the prep-area wouldn't already be automated. I imagine there'd be far less waste as well with everything being stored in a pre-cooked temperature controlled manner until the customer orders it.

I wonder how long it would be before McDonalds followed suit if someone with the capital built a competing shop that automated to the max and made a superior product for a competitive price.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#48

Post by IIIIIIIIIIII » Mon, May 08, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

colorint wrote: post #35

dv_dt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And hoisting ever-increasing debt on workers only works for so long. I think you are underestimating the capacity for greed as well as the effect of globalization. Even if whole nations of workers are eviscerated, it is possible to sit in comfort and growing your wealth and power with little regard to the balance or even efficiency of the overall system.

I do question the capacity for greed, in the broader sense of, what can happen before a system enters some sort of catastrophic negative feedback? In the immediate term, private debt build-up provokes financial crises. In the long run, there's another balancing factor you're forgetting about: revolution. Workers can safely ("safely") be eviscerated somewhere else, because it's very hard for them to take arms to dista…

Revolutions require organisation - very good organisation. All you'll get from ordinary workers is, possibly, a riot, quickly subdued.

You are also up against an extremely well-organised and well-armed government, but that may not even be the most salient point:

A lot of people for very good reasons do not want to see the government overthrown. They know the result will only be worse. Our societies are far too organised and interconnected over large distances, with all their widely distributed and interconnected creation of everything from basic food to almost all goods except for the most primitive ones.

Only if you can fully replace a government with a new one could you have a "revolution". So, elections and parties still are the best option. I think they actually work too, it's just that there is very little successful effort in organizing something better. Yes of course there have been plenty of attempts, but they all fail even more than the current system: None of those attempts manages to get enough people "on board", and they scream and insult everybody they don't like - so they are no improvement at all (not even mentioning the wild and unrealistic ideas they usually have).

For example, I think an alternative new movement would have to start calmly instead of yelling loudly. The latter only attracts the crazies, while the thinking people are pushed away. So, no mass demonstrations against this or that, "being against" is not a good start for the alternative. Instead work on what and how things should/could work instead of working on how to best insult and score points against the "political opponent". Or, if you start talking about revolutions I will assume your main goal is destruction.

By the way, I would posit that many people who are "greedy" are that way because of the environment, not because "that's what they are". Soooo many people, with advancing age, grow disillusioned. In particular, I know quite a few medical doctors who got into the profession with idealism - but now they actually sell "BS" to people who want it. From homeopathy to network marketing stuff like (branded) vitamins or "energy mats". Of course they don't believe in any of it, it's just that they have given up and now go with the flow.

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#49

Post by Chathamization » Mon, May 08, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #33

60654 wrote: post #4

Glad to see they're framing as a capital/labor question, because there are additional important considerations about robots replacing labor, in addition to increased productivity: 1. Robots are capital, and therefore investment, while labor is a pure expense. Capital will generate income that can be reinvested back into more capital etc, generating more wealth for the owner, and they can sell those robots later to tu…

Robots are a depreciating capital investment, just like a lathe or forklift. They don't last forever and require a lot of maintenance. And there's very little standardization. If you try to sell a used robot expect to take a huge loss; it's not even remotely a liquid investment.

Indeed. Robots aren't intrinsically different from, say, combines. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth looking at disruptions caused by productivity growth, but I think we'd be better off looking at what kinds of disruptions were seen in the past. This not only gets us away from the robots narrative (which seems to muddle things a bit as it feeds into present day hype), but it also allows us to look at the impact of much higher productivity growth (current productivity growth is fairly low).

Re: More Robots, Fewer Jobs: capital vs. labor in production

#50

Post by robotresearcher » Mon, May 08, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

This seems to be a popular concern right now. But consider that right now we have:

1. Employment very near record highs.

2. More automation than ever before.

Automation has been increasing monotonically since the Industrial Revolution. Employment levels go up and down, but have been very low, particularly in the US, for the last hundred years.

Maybe something very new is happening. But it usually isn't.