How Technology Is Destroying Jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#31

Post by nickthemagicman » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 2:15 PM UTC

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #13

The problem is not technology. The problem is that technology is being centralized by a few owners. A computer in every pocket, 3d printers and CNC machines are very near to us. Companies grow bigger and bigger, not because they are more efficient, on the contrary, but because they could black mail society to sustain it. Too big too fail became the motto of the new era, banks and industry companies so inefficient wit…

Technology could be making EVERYONE's lives better and decrease all of our work hours, however the average American's work hours are not decreased because instead of using technology to make everyone's work easier, the rich guy uses tech to replace workers and pockets the profits from that.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#32

Post by unono » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 2:15 PM UTC

Hackers can solve this problem

- cloud labor, mechanical turk style. Hackers need to turn the tasks done in businesses into small bite size chunks that can be done by masses of unskilled workers. This is purely a software task that hackers relish.

- training workers cheaply and effectively, khan academy/udacity/coursera style.The business model for this should not be charging students (an evil practice carried out by colleges) but instead charging businesses for access to those workers.

- decentralizing production. Making what is produced by large factories produceable in the home. 3d printers, home robots, and so on. These are also mostly software problems of controlling mechanical parts.

That there is joblessness is mostly because hackers are not thinking creatively and working hard enough. Help will not come from other segments of society, they are incapable of doing so because they lack the key skill of which we hackers are famous for - inventiveness.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#33

Post by rondon » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 2:16 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #30

While you cannot view technology as some kind of force of nature, immune to ethics, blaming the misery of joblessness on technology is beside the point. When is the last time the minimum wage was raised? The last time the work week shortened? Those laws are in place because of technology eliminating human labor. Those legal changes were the solution to a problem technology created. But they have not been updated whil…

If you raise the US Minimum wage to $20 an hour you will immediately see people move their companies to Mexico,China,etc.. So that will only make the problem worse. Instead of making $10 an hour those employees will be making $0.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#34

Post by jiggy2011 » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 2:27 PM UTC

unono wrote: post #32

Hackers can solve this problem - cloud labor, mechanical turk style. Hackers need to turn the tasks done in businesses into small bite size chunks that can be done by masses of unskilled workers. This is purely a software task that hackers relish. - training workers cheaply and effectively, khan academy/udacity/coursera style.The business model for this should not be charging students (an evil practice carried out by…

Services like Mechanical Turk/TaskRabbit/eLance etc emphasize workers as commodities leading to a race to the bottom in prices and the most profit for the platform vendor.

Looking at the average earnings on these sorts of platforms it would seem like a challenge to eek out even a meagre existence in a first world country.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#35

Post by fiesycal » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

rondon wrote: post #33

Zigurd wrote: post #30

While you cannot view technology as some kind of force of nature, immune to ethics, blaming the misery of joblessness on technology is beside the point. When is the last time the minimum wage was raised? The last time the work week shortened? Those laws are in place because of technology eliminating human labor. Those legal changes were the solution to a problem technology created. But they have not been updated whil…

If you raise the US Minimum wage to $20 an hour you will immediately see people move their companies to Mexico,China,etc.. So that will only make the problem worse. Instead of making $10 an hour those employees will be making $0.

Honest question which companies? Which companies that currently pay workers minimum wage are able to move overseas? Mcdonalds, Walmart etc cannot move their service jobs overseas.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#36

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #27

Technology has destroyed jobs for hundreds of years. It means we as a species are continually releasing human labour resources to tackle newer, more exciting challenges. The difficulty is transitioning these labour resources from tasks now mechanized, to new endeavours that society is interested in solving.

Long term, there's potentially a point where we can repurpose mechanization faster than we can repurpose people. I certainly don't make the claim that we're there yet, though.

Short to medium term, one angle is figuring out how to actually get people paid for the new stuff - there is a lot that creates value that is difficult to capture.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#37

Post by unono » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #34

unono wrote: post #32

Hackers can solve this problem - cloud labor, mechanical turk style. Hackers need to turn the tasks done in businesses into small bite size chunks that can be done by masses of unskilled workers. This is purely a software task that hackers relish. - training workers cheaply and effectively, khan academy/udacity/coursera style.The business model for this should not be charging students (an evil practice carried out by…

Services like Mechanical Turk/TaskRabbit/eLance etc emphasize workers as commodities leading to a race to the bottom in prices and the most profit for the platform vendor. Looking at the average earnings on these sorts of platforms it would seem like a challenge to eek out even a meagre existence in a first world country.

The reason for that is because there's far too little work being placed in them. These types of places need to scale 1000x and you'll see wages rise to middle class level.

This is also a much bigger opportunity for startups than traditional eyeballs model. A startup that can pull it off could easily be worth a -trillion- dollars. Apple, Microsoft, Google grew large just by taking $100-200 a year from a billion users. Imagine a mechanical turk that grew to a billion users - it could be taking $500 a month from users while paying them $5000 a month. Truly immense potential.

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#38

Post by anonymfus » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 3:04 PM UTC

rondon wrote: post #33

Zigurd wrote: post #30

While you cannot view technology as some kind of force of nature, immune to ethics, blaming the misery of joblessness on technology is beside the point. When is the last time the minimum wage was raised? The last time the work week shortened? Those laws are in place because of technology eliminating human labor. Those legal changes were the solution to a problem technology created. But they have not been updated whil…

If you raise the US Minimum wage to $20 an hour you will immediately see people move their companies to Mexico,China,etc.. So that will only make the problem worse. Instead of making $10 an hour those employees will be making $0.

Why not regulate work week trough WTO, UN or other international organisation?

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#39

Post by hardwaresofton » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 3:05 PM UTC

While I didn't quite read this article (I skimmed), I talk (read argue) about this subject very often with some friends.

I think in the end, the inventor of a technology is somewhat responsible for figuring out what the people he/she will displace can do.

For example, if I'm about to put a whole industry out of work ('disrupt'ing it), I think it would be reasonably responsible for me to offer training or some kind of conversion for the workers of that industry (so they can use /license the tool I have made).

Re: How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

#40

Post by nopinsight » Sat, Sep 07, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #30

While you cannot view technology as some kind of force of nature, immune to ethics, blaming the misery of joblessness on technology is beside the point. When is the last time the minimum wage was raised? The last time the work week shortened? Those laws are in place because of technology eliminating human labor. Those legal changes were the solution to a problem technology created. But they have not been updated whil…

It is most likely that raising minimum wage will lower demand for employees. How? For one, there will be more deployment of previously unviable technology to compensate for human labor. There are many other unintended consequences as well.

Unless we were to subsidize companies when they hire more workers, raising minimum wage would increase un- or under-employment.