While the title says "Automation Is a Myth," the description immediately retreats to "full autonomy" and "universal automation" are mythical. Those are very different propositions. That motte and bailey maneuver turns the title into clickbait and damages the credibility of the book from page one.
I'm not sure I understand this. You read that title and thought the book was going to argue that the literal concept of automation is a myth?
I for one did. Or at least that it was going to make the argument that "automation creates more jobs than it destroys" that you sometimes hear.
There's a lot of work that hasn't been done yet in studying what causes automation from an economics point of view. A common thought experiment is "Why hasn't fast food been automated?" We certainly have the technology to make burgers automatically, to the same quality that MacDonalds does. This technology is at least 40 years old. Yet we still have kids running these stores. The reason seems to be: kids are cheaper…
Is your conclusion here not something that is already established? (Outside of Marxist theory, which would quite emphatically affirm the point, with the addendum that it is a fundamental "contradiction" within capitalism).
I think it seems obvious though, not only the fact that profit seeking would override productivity when they are at odds, but also that the economy needs to sustain unskilled worker reserves.
Also, I bet even teenagers still do a better job than robots for kitchen work, but your point still stands.
There's a lot of work that hasn't been done yet in studying what causes automation from an economics point of view. A common thought experiment is "Why hasn't fast food been automated?" We certainly have the technology to make burgers automatically, to the same quality that MacDonalds does. This technology is at least 40 years old. Yet we still have kids running these stores. The reason seems to be: kids are cheaper…
Is your conclusion here not something that is already established? (Outside of Marxist theory, which would quite emphatically affirm the point, with the addendum that it is a fundamental "contradiction" within capitalism). I think it seems obvious though, not only the fact that profit seeking would override productivity when they are at odds, but also that the economy needs to sustain unskilled worker reserves. Also,…
Productivity is defined as output ($$) per unit of input ($$), you seem to be confusing output maximization with productivity. If it’s cheaper to pay laborers to produce instead of machines, then it is both more productive as well as profit maximizing.
And yes, this is already well established theory within mainstream economics.
Some HNers might be interested in the book below, which is coming out in a couple weeks with Stanford, and which can be pre-ordered now. It uses a provocative claim to push against the myths of automation but also develop a messier and more interesting portrait of the 'future of work'. Happy to field any questions. ----- For some, automation will usher in a labor-free utopia; for others, it signals a disastrous age-t…
Why do you feel politicians and tech executives like to say automation threatens to do all these things? How do they benefit from this narrative that has zero evidence to support itself?
In the tech case, there's a definite trend of overpromising, which wins funding, contracts, and so on, and then underdelivering. There's a few different examples in the book where half-baked 'automated' systems are rolled out, and then humans are placed under increased pressure to fill in the gaps and make things work.
In the politicians case, I think there's probably a mix of motives - being seen to be aware of technological change, forward-thinking, etc. But this gives too much credence to industry promises. The threat creates initative to study the effects of automation, but often at a 10,000 foot view, overlooking the specifics of labor conditions, technological adoption, and the workers themselves (race, gender, etc).
While the title says "Automation Is a Myth," the description immediately retreats to "full autonomy" and "universal automation" are mythical. Those are very different propositions. That motte and bailey maneuver turns the title into clickbait and damages the credibility of the book from page one.
Yes the title is provocative, and can only be so long. The introduction chapter articulates more precisely what I'm arguing. Chapter summaries are available here: https://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=34899&i=Contents.htm - I've pasted a section below that might help sharpen the claim.
Automation is a myth, a long-running fable about the future of work that needs to be reconsidered. Whether embraced as dream or cautioned as nightmare, automation is ultimately a fiction, a fantasy. "Myth" does not imply that automated technologies do not exist or that there have not been technically driven transformations in the nature of work over the past century. But these transformations have been piecemeal rather than total. They have taken place differently within different cultures and locations. And they have impacted particular races and genders rather than a generic humanity.
While the title says "Automation Is a Myth," the description immediately retreats to "full autonomy" and "universal automation" are mythical. Those are very different propositions. That motte and bailey maneuver turns the title into clickbait and damages the credibility of the book from page one.
Yes the title is provocative, and can only be so long. The introduction chapter articulates more precisely what I'm arguing. Chapter summaries are available here: https://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=34899&i=Contents.htm - I've pasted a section below that might help sharpen the claim. Automation is a myth, a long-running fable about the future of work that needs to be reconsidered. Whether embraced as dream or caution…
You're repeating "Automation is a myth" now in a context where there is no space constraint to writing "Full automation is a myth", or "AGI is a myth", either of which is supportable. To me that crosses over from provocative to misleading, as it doesn't fairly represent the far less provocative thesis.
Automation has its limits. I've tried to automate many processes at work but only the simple ones will work over time. Once you put a bit of complexity to it then it starts to fall apart. It's impossible to account for everything so eventually something happens and things fail.
We can take a hint from our current industrial automation where it's common for a process to stop and have to be reviewed by someone before it can be restarted. The stop-and-go's are worth it since the cost can be spread out over millions of units.
Also, it has been proven that the more automation you put in, the least likely it is for the whole process to work consistently.
The idea that you can put raw material in one end and have a finish product at the other end without human help is mostly a myth. But you can simplify the process and automate parts and have a great impact on the product's cost and speed of production.
There's a place for it but what gets automated has to be a very simple process and it has to impact a large number of units.
Yes the title is provocative, and can only be so long. The introduction chapter articulates more precisely what I'm arguing. Chapter summaries are available here: https://www.sup.org/books/extra/?id=34899&i=Contents.htm - I've pasted a section below that might help sharpen the claim. Automation is a myth, a long-running fable about the future of work that needs to be reconsidered. Whether embraced as dream or caution…
You're repeating "Automation is a myth" now in a context where there is no space constraint to writing "Full automation is a myth", or "AGI is a myth", either of which is supportable. To me that crosses over from provocative to misleading, as it doesn't fairly represent the far less provocative thesis.
Of course, as the author, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this. :-) The first chapter establishes what is and isn't being claimed and the rest of the book fleshes those arguments out. The idea here is not some massive 'debunking' exercise, but rather pushing against automation rhetoric to explore actually existing work conditions and technological fallout. Certainly that's harder to see from a summary on a webpage though, without having the full book in front of you.
Automation has its limits. I've tried to automate many processes at work but only the simple ones will work over time. Once you put a bit of complexity to it then it starts to fall apart. It's impossible to account for everything so eventually something happens and things fail. We can take a hint from our current industrial automation where it's common for a process to stop and have to be reviewed by someone before i…
Lucky for us then that good design makes complex problems simple.
Automation failures may be telling us we're trying to automate a something badly designed.
Automation has its limits. I've tried to automate many processes at work but only the simple ones will work over time. Once you put a bit of complexity to it then it starts to fall apart. It's impossible to account for everything so eventually something happens and things fail. We can take a hint from our current industrial automation where it's common for a process to stop and have to be reviewed by someone before i…
Yes, the promises of full automation have been around for at least a century, where we can go back to texts in the 20s, 30s, 40s, etc and see these claims of technical systems taking over work. In a lot of that rhetoric, the only problem is what happens to the superfluous human when that core block of identity - work - is removed. Of course, those promises have not materialized. There are many issues here in attempting to automate that huge constellation of tasks, gestures, roles, etc under the umbrella of 'work'. One growing area of work, as a quick example, is personal services - child care, elderly care, etc. This work is highly context sensitive, and often requires relational and affective labor, rather than repetitive, standardized, physical gestures. Many kinds of labor are non-trivial from a technical perspective.