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Great article that seems to leave the question unresolved. If technological unemployment is not a large factor; but inequality within advanced economies is rising, then what other factors are at play? Are the changes necessary to deal with those causes the same changes that would be needed to deal with an all-knowing AI in 2150?
It feels like we're moving away from jobs that are purely productive, to jobs that are more creative. I don't mean arts etc, but 50 years ago a company like Facebook/Snap/Gaming/Any digital entertainment really, could not exist because people were occupied work that was required for society to function. Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also…
And Facebook complicates the matter even more. They do not make money by "building things for the entertainment of others". They make money by building one of the most effective datamining and human profiling systems in existence, enabling companies to pay money access the product of this by precisely targeting individuals to compel them to either buy things or be influenced by their brand. It doesn't really answer the question of where money is being spent. Those companies are giving Facebook money because you give those companies your money. What is the distribution and gross effect of that spending?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It was largely used to employ cheap labor to produce crap. The luddites produced higher value artisinal goods. The luddites weren't reactionaries intent on destroying technology any more than strikers are protesting against the concept of 'work', they were just saboteurs trying to improve the…
Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.
In 2011, for instance, amid a period of labor unrest, Hong hai announced to the world with much fanfare that they were going to soon eliminate 1 million jobs with robots. They subsequently created about 400,000 jobs. Nobody noticed.
And the really surprising thing is that even the U6 is reaching record lows [1]. If the current trends with unemployment continue we'll have the lowest 'real' unemployment rate since the U6 started being recorded, 24 years ago. The one 'zinger' I'd add here is that even the U6 does not account for underemployment. Many of the jobs created in recent years have been McJobs and if somebody has e.g. a STEM degree and is serving coffee, then they should probably count as unemployed. Perhaps it's time for a U7. On the other hand, I do not think this would meaningfully change the numbers.
I still do think automation is going to be disruptive since I simply don't see how transportation automation, which is an enormous industry that offers relatively good wages, can end up otherwise. But I've also become less cynical since we've undoubtedly been sending productivity up, and even with the outsourcing of desirable jobs or bringing in workers to fill those roles domestically for lower wages, our economy seems to be doing phenomenally. And that's something I certainly would not have predicted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.
Well actually, we're not all still here! Those shifts - i.e. the industrial revolution - were enormously disruptive! Assuming that this is happening; or going to happen, how can we smooth it out a bit? And of course; that is on the basis that this is not a science fiction AI special; in which case an even more thoughtful approach might be required to minimise the damage and maximise happiness; or whatever variable yo…
Like, let's say we know factory workers will be laid off, so we need to allocate resources to retrain them.
Very likely the resources will not be enough for all the workers. So who gets them and who doesn't will become a political battle, with the left-out group resenting everyone in society and society ignoring their needs because it reminds them that they left them behind.
And then you build a society where one group's triumph is based on another's suppression, and you can see where this is going...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.
I absolutely agree. I think that the whole notion of automation being responsible for job losses is also lies and misdirection. The man behind the curtain is telling us to avoid paying too much attention to austerity, outsourcing, offshoring and union busting. In 2011, for instance, amid a period of labor unrest, Hong hai announced to the world with much fanfare that they were going to soon eliminate 1 million jobs w…
It feels like we're moving away from jobs that are purely productive, to jobs that are more creative. I don't mean arts etc, but 50 years ago a company like Facebook/Snap/Gaming/Any digital entertainment really, could not exist because people were occupied work that was required for society to function. Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also…
I walk by a twitter building every day. Probably about 500 people, maybe more. What are they doing in there? They sell ads, manage ad accounts, moderation, data protection audits... stuff that David Graeber wold call BS jobs. Now... I'm not in the same camp as him entirely. I think it's rash to just write off 70% of modern, white collar work as "paperwork" that could just go away.... but I'm not entirely not in his camp too.
Either way, that building is full of "marketing and social media" graduates doing stuff that doesn't need to be done for twitter to be twitter. Twitter was twitter before they had all those people.
You could call what twitter does creative work. That resonates with me. They invented a communication method with all sorts of cultural impact and value. That's creative. But, extending that to the median employee... I think we might divert here.
I think you have your finger on an interesting point, even if I don't know how to articulate it. A generation ago, a lot of the ecoomy could be measured in stuff with value that one could reason about. Cars, tothbrushes, haircuts, podiatrists.... You can count and weigh and value that stuff. Media was always more abscure. The tv viewer mightn't be the customer. The purpose of a paper might be do get a classifieds insert into your hands.
Once you throw in social/user-generate services make the picture more messy. Once you go to Google/FB territory, it's all very obscure. Half of what they do doesn't have any direct economic benefit to them, it's more a way of keeping them in a massively powerful position.
I'm not sure creative is the right word, but here's somethign going on. Ever increasing (already majority) sections of the economy are producing very ethereal things, with obscure business models...
One thing I wonder though, and it's a general concern for such analyses - just how reliable are the official statistics? Given the unreliability at every level (which I sometimes personally observed) - from people reporting bogus data, data entry people faking it to make their job easier, to bogus statistical analysis and biased reporting at the top - just how much faith we can put in all of this? I get that it's the only thing we have, but I wonder if someone tried to analyze those issues.
The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. I don't see that in the current wave of "AI"-based automation. There's an emphasis on speed, accuracy, and working with more unknowns, but there isn't any talk of getting more work done. That makes it scary.
>The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. I guess I also just don't see much difference. All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily aut…
Mechanisation of the textile industry led to vast increases in the quantity of production. Prior to the industrial revolution, most peasants would have owned only one set of clothes and replaced them only when they were entirely beyond repair. Cheap cloth created demand for wardrobes and dressers, because a lot of people were now in the peculiar position of owning more clothes than they could wear at once.
The luddites were ultimately wrong because of Jevons paradox - labour efficiencies in the textile industry vastly increased the demand for their product, and with it their demand for labour. Hand-loom weavers didn't lose their livelihoods to the power loom, they just made ten times as much cloth for twice the wage.
Automation and mechanisation in other manufacturing sectors likewise stimulated vastly increased consumer demand, contributing to a virtuous cycle of increasing profit, wages and living standards. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the efficiencies of mass-manufacturing gave ordinary people secure employment and access to a dizzying array of consumer goods. The more stuff we made, the more stuff we could afford to buy.
I don't see AI/ML following the same pattern. A lot of tech-heavy businesses seem to be startlingly close to zero-sum. Uber has decimated the taxi industry, but it doesn't seem to have vastly increased overall ridership - the most generous figures I've seen suggest perhaps a 40% increase in some markets. Google and Facebook have become multi-billion dollar companies through advertising revenue, but the overall growth of ad spending across all media has barely outpaced inflation, with the newspaper industry being the most obvious casualty. I can't think of many major tech companies that didn't kill an industry.
I'd love to be proven wrong.
It feels like we're moving away from jobs that are purely productive, to jobs that are more creative. I don't mean arts etc, but 50 years ago a company like Facebook/Snap/Gaming/Any digital entertainment really, could not exist because people were occupied work that was required for society to function. Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also…
> Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also choosing careers based on what they feel is fun/satisfying for themselves. How long before we get to a situation where this is a realistic proposition for many people? Most people on HN live in a comfortable bubble. The reality right now is that the vast majority of jobs are not creative, fun, or sati…
As we continue down this road to a winner takes all society, I'm not so sure this is what I'd call progress, and I'm easily in the top 20% of income.