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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

#71

Post by HillaryBriss »

maxxxxx wrote: post #48
HillaryBriss wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the first time one of those trucks crushes and kills a toddler, the liability is going to rise tremendously Human driven trucks kill people now and have done so for decades. IMHO, the liability comparison that will matter, the one that regulators, insurance companies, the courts and the market will eventually embrace will instead be: are automatic trucks as safe or just a little bit safer than human driven trucks?

It's not that easy. The whole legal system is based on finding the party to blame. With human drivers it's the driver or maybe the company but if something with an automated truck happens who do you blame? I am sure companies would love to be able to hide behind an automated system.

Maybe this will turn out false, but I predict the legal system will blame whoever has the deepest pockets, just like when there's an accident with human driven trucks. And the suits will be settled in a way that does raise the cost of doing business, to your point. But I predict it won't be severe enough to kill the business outright.

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

#72

Post by NeedMoreTea »

andrenth wrote: post #49
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply not true, and impressively so. Despite the growth of car sales worldwide it takes far fewer employees to run a car factory than it did in say the fifties or sixties - probably 90% fewer. I find it just about impossible to believe there's been over a ten fold increase in number of plants to compensate for each factory's reduction of staff. UK's Ford Dagenham - mainly an engine plant - once used to employ…

Compare these numbers from the 80s-90s to current data. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1999/sept/wk5/art02.htm?view_fu... https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm

Interesting. I'm really surprised that auto parts don't track vehicle assembly more closely.

But, in your second reference, see the "back data" graph links for 1990-2019, in any of the manufacturing categories.

I would expect that figures for the sixties and seventies would be much higher still, as much of the automation and de-industrialisation was through the eighties. The seventies perhaps, as a pure guess, the maxima, and a crash from the oil crisis. It's a shame the data goes back no further. I suspect the eighties, where their graph in the first link starts may have set the minima after decline, with slow growth since.

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

#73

Post by vorg »

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…

> jobs that could be automated with a few days or weeks of programmer effort

Governments don't want the workers in their countries to not have a job, even when there's plenty of wealth to go around. Such people will actively demonstrate against all sorts of abuse by government employees and property owners, and even cause socialist revolutions at home and create terror abroad.

Even better for governments are when the workers in the country have heavily mortgaged houses and children with medical expenses. That's the main reason for BS jobs, high house prices, and fast food.

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

#74

Post by wvenable »

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…

While the software I've written hasn't caused anyone to lose their job, my software has certainly kept new people from being hired. The people doing "mundane" processes are now handling considerably more transactions than they were 10 years ago and even more than 20 years ago. We keep automating more and more of the process and less people are ultimately needed. It will almost certainly always require someone but they'll be doing the job (but not necessarily the same work) that used to take 5 people.

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

#75

Post by lowdose »

pault wrote: post #63
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you roll over like you suggest and let your boss tickle your belly, what do you say to yourself when you look in de mirror?

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

#76

Post by stevesimmons »

maxxxxx wrote: post #60
count wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key bit that companies that shift hard to software seem to figure out: How many of those corner cases are actually worth bothering with? Is the net loss associated with a corner case greater than the significant gain of dropping an FTE or FTEs? Sometimes it is (safety related things, etc.), but many times, it's not...just because you CAN handle something doesn't mean it's worth it do so.

It’s something the organization needs to decide. If you automate a process it means you are setting it in stone and lose flexibility . Maybe that’s a good thing or not but something people need to be aware of and accept.

> "If you automate a process it means you are setting it in stone and lose flexibility"

If you automate a process, you can in future build in variations, and gain flexibility.

And because you automated the process, your code shows how it works, and so you can quickly see what needs to be changed.

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

#77

Post by neffy »

influx wrote: post #53
ihm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is a really good idea to start accumulating capital, even at today’s valuations. This is an interesting take. The alternative to individually trying to each become capitalists, is grouping together and making sure we all have access to the proceeds of automation.

Becoming a capitalist has a long history of being successful. The other way not as much.

Becoming a capitalist is the long history of learning to group together and work on common goals.

The other way just doesn't scale.

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

#78

Post by jotm »

ww520 wrote: post #23

Haven't Mechanical Turks been there for a while? I wonder how much impact it has had on the white collar work force.

I used it for a while... Found it really sad what some people in the US will do for 50 cents (~20min of work)...

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

#79

Post by AndrewKemendo »

crazygringo wrote: post #36
nosianu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay... so now also include in your statement the quality of those new jobs. Not how many electronic gadgets people can buy compared to 50 years ago, but how stressed they are and how they fit into greater society. Also include how useful many jobs feel to those working in them - reference to "Dilbert jobs" (or Wally jobs, if you like and how common the feeling seems to be that ones job is useless (I myself certainly…

Sorry, but you should look at what jobs used to be like. Back-breaking work on the farm. Mind-numbing and body-destroying assembly line work that could cut off your hand. Construction work without any of the safety standards we now have. Alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking was sky-high. Any way you slice it, the quality of jobs today is tremendously higher than in the past, and people are not being paid less. Tru…

The argument you make isn't wrong but it's also irrelevant to the currently displaced because they weren't doing "back breaking dangerous manual work." As the article points out, a big chunk of the shift is from white collar predictable work, to unstable, no benefit gig work.

So the argument falls apart the same way as the "People in Africa are starving so be lucky you have food" argument to your 4 year old does. You might be right, but it's an argument that doesn't actually address the lived reality of the person.

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

#80

Post by TACIXAT »

I'm curious how long the world will take to normalize all nations. China cannot be the world's factory forever. China seems to be setting Africa up for a similar position as it rises. What happens when we run out of poorer countries to make stuff? Do we bring that home? Prices will surely need to go up in the case of domestic labor. I'm super curious how this will unfold.
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