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Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

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Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#41

Post by aodin »

munherty wrote: post #5

I stopped reading after the author mentioned that Yang thinks that Ubi will solve issues. Have you actually read into some of the things he said, Ying explicitly says he does not think it will solve everything. Rather it gives people a bit of leeway in the short-term to focus on other things. With the hope that it will lead to more entrepreneurial things, but knows more likely it will go towards random things in each…

I think the best summary of Yang's view of UBI comes from his own FAQ [1]:

> We are experiencing the greatest economic and technological shift in human history, and our institutions can’t keep up. Without the Freedom Dividend, we will see opportunities shrink as more and more work gets performed by software, AI, and robots. Markets don’t work well when people don’t have any money to spend. The Freedom Dividend is a vital step to helping society transform through the greatest automation wave in human history.

[1] https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#42

Post by PakG1 »

mikedilger wrote: post #39

This complaint about robots and AI taking all our jobs is hundreds of years old. Still hasn't happened. US is at record levels of employment. Humans are terrible at predicting the future. Let's just wait and see and react when it actually happens. My guess... there will be plenty of jobs for humans for thousands of years to come. Ever since the industrial revolution jobs have gone by the wayside. We no longer have wa…

If you just look at the jobs going away, you're missing the other side of the picture, the jobs being created.

I don't think Yang is missing the other side of the picture. He's saying that society sucks at getting displaced people to the other side in a humane manner.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#43

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

PakG1 wrote: post #3

In a 2018 paper, UC–Berkeley sociologist Steve Viscelli suggested that in the most likely scenario, long-haul truckers, who tend to make middle-class wages, will be replaced by poorly paid drivers tasked with steering autonomous vehicles through tricky city streets, which onboard navigation systems handle less well than highways. That’s not all jobs disappearing. It’s jobs changing. I'm not sure if the author is clai…

Why would the new jobs be lower pay? If a truck driver can operate one truck while an autonomous truck operator can operate say 10, then the latter's marginal revenue is 10x more. Technology makes people more productive, which leads to greater wealth and higher pay.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#44

Post by colejohnson66 »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #43
PakG1 wrote: post #3

In a 2018 paper, UC–Berkeley sociologist Steve Viscelli suggested that in the most likely scenario, long-haul truckers, who tend to make middle-class wages, will be replaced by poorly paid drivers tasked with steering autonomous vehicles through tricky city streets, which onboard navigation systems handle less well than highways. That’s not all jobs disappearing. It’s jobs changing. I'm not sure if the author is clai…

Why would the new jobs be lower pay? If a truck driver can operate one truck while an autonomous truck operator can operate say 10, then the latter's marginal revenue is 10x more. Technology makes people more productive, which leads to greater wealth and higher pay.

Technology does make people more productive, but the claim that it’ll increase their pay is dubious. We’ve seen many times that companies will choose to keep the money rather than paying their employees more if they provide more value than their position requires.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#45

Post by dao- »

losvedir wrote: post #21

Since I like Yang and have Googled him before, Google thinks I should know about every article written about him and keeps prompting me about them as they come up. This one, like so many lately, all have been hammering me with this idea that Yang is predicting a dystopian horrible future. On the contrary, I think Yang is fundamentally optimistic about the future and technology. He predicts that we will lose a lot of…

Agreed. If we're honest about it, labor sucks for most people. You have to get up early, spend the day doing something you don't really care about, and get home too burnt out to enjoy even the rest of your day. It's absurd to think that liberating people from that labor regime through technology and a new social contract must be dystopian.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#46

Post by grecy »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #16
PakG1 wrote: post #3

In a 2018 paper, UC–Berkeley sociologist Steve Viscelli suggested that in the most likely scenario, long-haul truckers, who tend to make middle-class wages, will be replaced by poorly paid drivers tasked with steering autonomous vehicles through tricky city streets, which onboard navigation systems handle less well than highways. That’s not all jobs disappearing. It’s jobs changing. I'm not sure if the author is clai…

Yeah, honestly I don't really understand the article's point. Is it that say McDonalds switching to electronic kiosks to order your burger is going to create as MANY tech jobs as it took away? Because that doesn't pass the smell test.

> Yeah, honestly I don't really understand the article's point

To discredit Yang's main running ideal.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#47

Post by mac01021 »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #16
PakG1 wrote: post #3

In a 2018 paper, UC–Berkeley sociologist Steve Viscelli suggested that in the most likely scenario, long-haul truckers, who tend to make middle-class wages, will be replaced by poorly paid drivers tasked with steering autonomous vehicles through tricky city streets, which onboard navigation systems handle less well than highways. That’s not all jobs disappearing. It’s jobs changing. I'm not sure if the author is clai…

Yeah, honestly I don't really understand the article's point. Is it that say McDonalds switching to electronic kiosks to order your burger is going to create as MANY tech jobs as it took away? Because that doesn't pass the smell test.

Perhaps the article's reason for being is simply that, if you publish a headline with a professional-looking article behind it, then large swaths of people will have their opinions swayed without actually reading through.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#48

Post by trhway »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #27

The article's most compelling point for me is the graph it links to showing all U.S. manufacturing jobs from 1939 to 2009. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP There's a big, sudden drop in 2000. It also cites a paper that says that the number of factories in the U.S. has been dropping (between 2000 and 2014)...

>There's a big, sudden drop in 2000.

actually it is in 2001. Also in 2008. The years of big busts.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#49

Post by SomeOtherThrow »

kadoban wrote: post #8

"[...] Long-haul truckers, who tend to make middle-class wages, will be replaced by poorly paid drivers tasked with steering autonomous vehicles through tricky city streets, which onboard navigation systems handle less well than highways. That’s not all jobs disappearing. It’s jobs changing." Uhm, that's halfway decent careers turning into far fewer and shittier jobs. That's jobs disappearing. And it ignores that eve…

Meanwhile what will demonstrate Yang wrong—conveniently for him—is just waiting a decade.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#50

Post by defen »

theferalrobot wrote: post #4

> Following the debate, a “fact check” by the AP claimed that Yang was right... “Economists mostly blame [manufacturing] job losses on automation and robots, not trade deals,” it stated. But this was incorrect. No such consensus exists So they claim AP and Yang are incorrect but also state there is no consensus. This piece seems more like it is trying to justify the warren gaffe in the last debate by muddying the wat…

I would like to know which mainstream economists blame trade deals. Ideally stuff that was published more than 5 years ago.
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