Ask HN: What happened to robots taking all our jobs?

1. Most, and I am willing to even state 99% of tech ( where tech nowadays means Software ) people working in Silicon Valley doesn't have a clue how the outside world works. Along with Tech VCs which is why you get those fundings to Cloud Kitchens Robots taking over Restaurants. They clearly have never worked in a restaurants before.

2. The cost of developing Chips, Robotics is still ridiculously high. If Robotics ( which really is nothing more than Automation 2.0 ) did make cost savings, I can assure you, you will see it first being tested and deployed in the likes of McDonalds where they get an economy of scale. And it is happening, but no way near ready yet.

3. Tech people, or mostly Silicon Valley Tech people have vastly underestimated human being. How flexible we are and how quickly we could adopt to different task and needs, while giving comparatively little wages.

4. This is the same with Foxconn.

5. You should take a look at Car manufacturing and Amazon Warehouse on Automation or Robotics.

>>When can I expect robots to take our jobs?

Cost will still need to come down. And it is going to be a long and gradual path. Steve Jobs wanted a Giant Machine that makes the machines. That was in the 90s.

I thought at that time the main reason the nation backed out of the universal income was not racism, but a statistical error:

> Even former Nixon advisor Daniel Moynihan stopped believing in basic income, following a fatal discovery upon publication of the final results of the Seattle experiment. One finding in particular grabbed everybody’s attention: The number of divorces had jumped more than 50%. Interest in this statistic quickly overshadowed all the other outcomes, such as better school performance and improvements in health.

> Ten years later, a reanalysis of the data revealed that a statistical error had been made; in reality, there had been no change in the divorce rate at all.

From https://thecorrespondent.com/4503/the-bizarre-tale-of-presid...

I have my doubts about how often those machines really break down.

If you ever want a fun adventure try to get a milkshake in Phoenix at 3AM in the middle of summer. All the machines are conveniently “broken”.

> It turned out Luddites are still wrong after 200 years.

it's not that they're wrong - they're just arguing that automation is destroying _their_ livelihood.

The argument isn't that automation is bad - it's great...for the rest of society, at least in the medium-to-long term. It's poor for those being displaced.

3 things to note

1) I think it really depends on how you define "robots". If you defined robots to include servers, many jobs have already been taken.

2) Transitions are slow. Jobs our parents knew don't exist any longer. But it won't happen faster than that.

3) People move on and learn new things. It's great to get rid of receptive tasks that a computer/robots can do. It is liberating. No one wants to wash their dishes or clothes by hand these days.