Are jobs obsolete? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#61

Post by jebblue » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:35 AM UTC

>> What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff.

Sounds like a campaign speech writer for Obama. Regardless any other analogies, everyone needs to pull their fair share unless they either already have (elderly or injured or medically incapable) or have enough wealth to hire those of us who are willing to pull our fair share.

In the latter case, workers don't need Union boss thugs to protect us from you; we just need your respect.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#62

Post by jerrya » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:42 AM UTC

hpvic03 wrote: post #47

jerrya wrote: post #10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era is a non-fiction book by American economist Jeremy Rifkin, published in 1995 by Putnam Publishing Group.[1] In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminates tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and servic…

It's not so impossible to believe. The objection I often hear (and I recall that this is PG's stance as well) is that as old jobs disappear new ones will take their place. For example, as the article mentioned, the former toll booth operator could now repair the automated toll booth system. So far this general idea has been true. Before computers existed as we know them, "computers" were people who did lengthy comput…

I agree.

In the Star Trek economy (afaik), the inwention of the replicator was key to the end of money and the end of a scarcity based economy.

Well, we already have a replicator for much of the economy

    $ cp

And it looks as though soon we'll have some very advanced robots that will be able to automate most mundane jobs.

So maybe this is good and we can all become Platos, relaxing, philosophizing, self-actualizing at the top of Maslow's pyramid. If so, it should be reasonable to convince everyone to go the Star Trek way and jettison money.

What will be dangerous, is dangerous, is the transition periods like now, where jobs that are lost, never come back, not just because they have been automated away, but also because the owners would rather pay more for automation and less human involvement because they find humans to be a big pain. At that point (which is sort of like now) it is hard to convince others that it is reasonable to distribute resources to the masses.

I would certainly like to see a single payer, universal health care system implemented that separates health care from monolithic employers. That, and I'd love to see actual real encouragement and incentivization of small business entrepreneurship.

Remove the barriers that big companies have on us. Make it easy and rewarding for people to create their own jobs, form their own companies, on a semi-permanent or even ad-hoc way.

Oh well, pie in the sky.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#63

Post by socrates1024 » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:47 AM UTC

maxs wrote: post #30

A relevant short sci-fi novel about robotics, economic and societal change brought about from change in value of labor: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

I love this novella. Also on Marshall Brain's site are a handful of essays/articles on this topic, e.g.: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm

His suggestion is very simple: provide an annual stipend of about $25,000 to each citizen.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#64

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 4:54 AM UTC

I think this is just hysterical nonsense. Remember, it used to be not that long ago that 95% of the labor force worked on farms, and still famine was a regular occurrence. Now only 1 or 2 percent work on the farms.

I can't imagine people running out of productive things to do. After all, can making movies be automated? How about becoming a professional dancer or athlete? Writing books? Building a custom car? Making art of any sort? Elder care (a booming business as baby boomers age)? Research? Tutoring?

There have never been greater opportunities for productive work than now.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#65

Post by nradov » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 5:01 AM UTC

femto wrote: post #42

Jare wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we could: replace 'work' with 'contribute' and it makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't believe in the mid- and long-term viability of a society that supports its members without requiring them to participate in its existence, development and improvement. Without some form of obligation, it would stagnate into a world of (so to speak) couch potatoes too easily. If I had a home, food and health care as a basic right, w…

The last paragraph suggests a new organisation for a company: one where people can job share high value jobs, in return for an average salary. Here's an example. Let's say I am capable of earning $160,000 a year, if I work 5 days a week in a role that is optimally suited to my skills. The problem is that this role leaves me with little time for my family (or other projects) and an excess of money. What I really want…

The problem with your proposal is that employee time does not scale down linearly. There is a certain fixed amount of time needed for each employee to do training and administration, whether that employee works part time or full time. Let's say that takes 2 hours per week. If you drop from 40 hours per week to 16 then your actual productive time is only 37% as much. Plus there is additional fixed overhead for HR, computing resources, software licenses, personal equipment, etc.

Also consider that adding more people to a team increases communication overhead, regardless of whether they are part time or full time: n*(n-1)/2. So there's a further loss of efficiency with replacing a small number of full time workers with a larger number of part time workers.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#66

Post by hpvic03 » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 5:05 AM UTC

jerrya wrote: post #62

hpvic03 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so impossible to believe. The objection I often hear (and I recall that this is PG's stance as well) is that as old jobs disappear new ones will take their place. For example, as the article mentioned, the former toll booth operator could now repair the automated toll booth system. So far this general idea has been true. Before computers existed as we know them, "computers" were people who did lengthy comput…

I agree. In the Star Trek economy (afaik), the inwention of the replicator was key to the end of money and the end of a scarcity based economy. Well, we already have a replicator for much of the economy $ cp And it looks as though soon we'll have some very advanced robots that will be able to automate most mundane jobs. So maybe this is good and we can all become Platos, relaxing, philosophizing, self-actualizing at…

You make a good point about the transition period.

I'm a fan of Kurzweil and am convinced that many of his predictions will come true. However, he paints a rosy picture of the future and glosses over any potential conflict in the transition between between now and when he predicts that humans will merge with machines, which he pegs at 2099.

There is definitely going to be conflict as we move to a post-scarcity world.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#67

Post by eldavido » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 5:07 AM UTC

Whether a human being or a machine is doing a task, value is being created; the overall economy isn't worse off.

The issue is value capture -- who derives the benefit of this value creation, and how?

If a human being does a job, they're compensated through wages. Machines have owners, which earn income in exchange for the productive output of their machines.

There are a lot of ways to earn income besides having a job. The sooner people realize this, the sooner we'll get beyond this absurd "job creation" mentality around which so much of modern politics revolves.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#68

Post by femto » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 5:16 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #65

femto wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last paragraph suggests a new organisation for a company: one where people can job share high value jobs, in return for an average salary. Here's an example. Let's say I am capable of earning $160,000 a year, if I work 5 days a week in a role that is optimally suited to my skills. The problem is that this role leaves me with little time for my family (or other projects) and an excess of money. What I really want…

The problem with your proposal is that employee time does not scale down linearly. There is a certain fixed amount of time needed for each employee to do training and administration, whether that employee works part time or full time. Let's say that takes 2 hours per week. If you drop from 40 hours per week to 16 then your actual productive time is only 37% as much. Plus there is additional fixed overhead for HR, com…

And those are precisely the problems that the proposed start-up would have to solve: how to reduce the fixed cost of an employee to as close to zero as possible!

I think the problems are solvable and what's more, I think that whoever cracks the problem will be able to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage, and that is worth money.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#69

Post by mcantelon » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 6:01 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #64

I think this is just hysterical nonsense. Remember, it used to be not that long ago that 95% of the labor force worked on farms, and still famine was a regular occurrence. Now only 1 or 2 percent work on the farms. I can't imagine people running out of productive things to do. After all, can making movies be automated? How about becoming a professional dancer or athlete? Writing books? Building a custom car? Making a…

Largely due to globalization, nearly half of Americans are poor or low income.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/census-shows-1-2-people-103940...

There is, of course, no shortage of productive work, but getting paid for that productive work is another matter.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#70

Post by andr3w321 » Mon, Mar 19, 2012, 6:09 AM UTC

The idea of this has been around for a LONG time and is not a new one. I think the term for this type of society is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism or a socialist utopia.

New jobs always pop up though. The problem with this logic is that because all of today's jobs will likely be automated in the future you think everyone will be unemployed, but in reality you just can't fathom what the jobs of the future will look like. Can you imagine trying to describe to someone that lives in 1900 your job description? You write code for a living? You're a computer scientist? Wtf is that? They pay you to just sit there all day and press buttons?