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Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

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Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#61

Post by phkahler »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

> Q: Several studies show technology will disrupt jobs, but they also argue that almost as many jobs will be created. > A: There’s a mismatch of job displacement and job creation. Job displacement is being driven at the speed of digital technology, which is explosive at this moment. And displacement is the business model for the AI geniuses and all those companies. All of them are hoping to get rich by displacing wor…

Automation eliminates jobs. Period. There is a need for people to build and maintain the automation systems, but those jobs typically pay more. Whomever is paying the higher value person would not be doing so if it wasn't a net savings, so we can rightly conclude that it takes fewer people overall even if the pay were the same. But it's not, so even fewer jobs. You may say that the automation frees up people to do other things - latent unmet demand. But if those opportunities were already present, they must have been inferior from the employee point of view or people would have switched already.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#62

Post by pault »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #32
ZhuanXia wrote: post #2

I remember reading Average is Over and A Fairwell to Alms just when I first started working. They convinced me that labour power was going to decline precipitously. I stared saving 60+% of everything I made and putting it into index funds. Anyone making a good salary should attempt the same. Much of white collar work is extremely amenable to automation, much more than even truck driving: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi…

Being a consultant with clients in a wide range of industries I concur. Most of the employees I come into contact with have jobs that could be automated with a few days or weeks of programmer effort. They are one successful software project from losing their jobs. Lucky for them their companies are terrible at shipping software. Conversely, automating the work of a plumber would require a massive investment in AI and…

> They are one successful software project from losing their jobs.

Maybe. However, consider how successful Google has been at automating customer service.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#63

Post by pault »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35
bastawhiz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a large tech company that had an enormous finance department. They did everything in Excel. Our job was to automate their work. The tools we built were routinely more accurate and faster than the finance people were. When our work was less accurate, it was because the input was bad. The input came from the finance team. The only reason they didn't disappear entirely was because they'd convinced management…

People are already fighting back against this. I'm a SWE and my EX worked at the finance department in a huge robotics company. Their department did everything by copying and pasting stuff in excel in a painfully slow and cumbersome way. She told me their challenges, so I wrote some python scripts to automate their work. When she showed it to her boss, hoping to get a positive response, his reaction was "Put that awa…

The solution is to keep your scripts private, automate your job, and work on whatever you want while making sure you always look busy when your boss walks by.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#64

Post by invalidOrTaken »

ZhuanXia wrote: post #2

I remember reading Average is Over and A Fairwell to Alms just when I first started working. They convinced me that labour power was going to decline precipitously. I stared saving 60+% of everything I made and putting it into index funds. Anyone making a good salary should attempt the same. Much of white collar work is extremely amenable to automation, much more than even truck driving: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi…

I think saving is an essential part of it, but not the whole story.

I recently took a job at a university. I had a bit of leverage (extensive clojure experience ftw), and I spent it on negotiating for 20 hrs/week. This gives me much more time to do "the other stuff" that's part of a career---networking, learning, interviewing, starting soon-to-be-aborted businesses. I've also been trying (with a group of friends) to figure out if there's any way we can make some sort of co-op work.

I do think "jobs are over," at least as we know them for the middle class, but I don't think that needs to mean that the middle class is over. What form it will take, though, I'm still not sure. I suspect things will keep getting weirder.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#65

Post by balt_s »

> Globalization always means more opportunities for the nation’s most competitive citizens, but more competition for the least competitive citizens. The trouble is that in the services sector there are a lot of uncompetitive people.

This will end well.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#66

Post by orev »

duality wrote: post #57

I stopped reading when he said IBM Watson was somehow key in this "globotics" revolution. Even IBM seems to have stopped advertising Watson.

Given where Watson is now, the fact that systems mostly only get better, and all the other advances in AI, I think it’s safe to say that it will get better. He could also be using Waston as a general example of AI that might be relevant to a wider audience.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#67

Post by crazygringo »

phkahler wrote: post #61
crazygringo wrote: post #3

> Q: Several studies show technology will disrupt jobs, but they also argue that almost as many jobs will be created. > A: There’s a mismatch of job displacement and job creation. Job displacement is being driven at the speed of digital technology, which is explosive at this moment. And displacement is the business model for the AI geniuses and all those companies. All of them are hoping to get rich by displacing wor…

Automation eliminates jobs. Period. There is a need for people to build and maintain the automation systems, but those jobs typically pay more. Whomever is paying the higher value person would not be doing so if it wasn't a net savings, so we can rightly conclude that it takes fewer people overall even if the pay were the same. But it's not, so even fewer jobs. You may say that the automation frees up people to do ot…

So by your logic, 99% of existing jobs are inferior to being a farmer?

Obviously not. You're completely ignoring that entirely new job categories are being created every year, and that the attractiveness of a job depends on many things which can constantly change, including salary, working conditions, geography, hours, etc.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#68

Post by cosmodisk »

maxxxxx wrote: post #43
ryanmarsh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a consultant with clients in a wide range of industries I concur. Most of the employees I come into contact with have jobs that could be automated with a few days or weeks of programmer effort. They are one successful software project from losing their jobs. Lucky for them their companies are terrible at shipping software. Conversely, automating the work of a plumber would require a massive investment in AI and…

"Most of the employees I come into contact with have jobs that could be automated with a few days or weeks of programmer effort." After looking at some of the business processes at my company I am not so sure about this anymore. There are a lot of jobs that are pretty mundane but when you look a little closer most of the processes have a lot of exceptions where the employee makes decisions that don't follow the proce…

This is often a process issue more than anything else. For instance, our finance team spends insane amounts of time dealing with a variety of invoices with varying information and structure.There are a number of exceptions, rules and etc. However what's often ignored,is the fact that we are much bigger than any of our supplier and it would be pretty easy to convince them to invoice us the way we want instead the way they want. With some clever automations, I could easily replace a couple of my colleagues with software, however I would not be in a better situation at all,so no point of doing it.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#69

Post by Balgair »

orev wrote: post #66
duality wrote: post #57

I stopped reading when he said IBM Watson was somehow key in this "globotics" revolution. Even IBM seems to have stopped advertising Watson.

Given where Watson is now, the fact that systems mostly only get better, and all the other advances in AI, I think it’s safe to say that it will get better. He could also be using Waston as a general example of AI that might be relevant to a wider audience.

Watson is, essentially, just the code name for their consulting services.

Re: Richard Baldwin on the “inhumanely fast” next phase of globalization

#70

Post by pfdietz »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35
bastawhiz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a large tech company that had an enormous finance department. They did everything in Excel. Our job was to automate their work. The tools we built were routinely more accurate and faster than the finance people were. When our work was less accurate, it was because the input was bad. The input came from the finance team. The only reason they didn't disappear entirely was because they'd convinced management…

People are already fighting back against this. I'm a SWE and my EX worked at the finance department in a huge robotics company. Their department did everything by copying and pasting stuff in excel in a painfully slow and cumbersome way. She told me their challenges, so I wrote some python scripts to automate their work. When she showed it to her boss, hoping to get a positive response, his reaction was "Put that awa…

Every story like that is a company with a bullseye on its back, just waiting for a lean and mean competitor to put it out of business.
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