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Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

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Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#101

Post by JeremyNT »

btbuildem wrote: post #89

Assisting or caring for others is not a low-skill job! It may not require a doctorate in theoretical physics, but it requires a lot of emotional intelligence, stamina and ability to be present with other people. It's far from routine! This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people…

> This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people to 40h/wk routine boredom?

Sure, it's great that we are gaining this capability, and the people working towards it should be lauded for their progress. The issue is that many people rely on the ability to exchange 40h/wk of routine boredom for the basic necessities of living.

Our society assumes that most people will contribute enough value from their "work" that they can exchange for the things they need in life. If their work loses all value, then we need to figure out what else we can do for/with these people.

At this point, it seems as if our engineering ability is advancing beyond the pace of our social structures and legal system.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#102

Post by nly »

JeremyNT wrote: post #101
btbuildem wrote: post #89

Assisting or caring for others is not a low-skill job! It may not require a doctorate in theoretical physics, but it requires a lot of emotional intelligence, stamina and ability to be present with other people. It's far from routine! This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people…

> This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people to 40h/wk routine boredom? Sure, it's great that we are gaining this capability, and the people working towards it should be lauded for their progress. The issue is that many people rely on the ability to exchange 40h/wk of routine b…

> If their work loses all value, then we need to figure out what else we can do for/with these people.

Global warfare would solve this problem on all fronts. You know, if the prospect of war these days didn't stand a good chance of ending the species.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#103

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

btbuildem wrote: post #89

Assisting or caring for others is not a low-skill job! It may not require a doctorate in theoretical physics, but it requires a lot of emotional intelligence, stamina and ability to be present with other people. It's far from routine! This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people…

what if you want a mind-numbing dead-end job so you can spend your mental energy before/after work learning something else? Plenty of stories of people working a crappy job for a few years and after hours going to school or writing a book or learning a trade or starting a music career.

What happens if "crappy jobs" are not available anymore and all the available jobs require 1) non trivial credentials and 2) enough mental energy that after work you are "done" and can't do anything else? And what happens to people that are only capable of dealing with a routine task job?

Until there is something like universal income routine jobs seem to be the lesser evil, because the odds of universal income coming into being in our lifetimes seem pretty low, and having something to fall back on to pay the bills while you figure out what to do with your life can be quite helpful.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#104

Post by romaniv »

vonmoltke wrote: post #54
amelius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming in the internet age is 1% intellectual and 99% plumbing.

Programming CRUD apps in the internet age may be 1% intellectual and 99% plumbing (though don;t really buy that). Programming outside the web/enterprise bubble is far less about connecting existing black boxes.

> web/enterprise bubble

That's 99% of all programming.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#105

Post by abakker »

nostrademons wrote: post #100
abakker wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you owned the product of your labor (i.e. the automation of your job) then it should make no difference. The trouble is, then when you create an automaton that replaces a $100K/year employee, then the creator gets f *ed. Put another way, if you could create a way to automate your job entirely, then there also has to be a guarantee that doing so will not result in you getting fired. Alternatively, if you automate s…

Or you could automate yourself out of a job and get a new job. There's nothing that says that jobs are sacred. Indeed, most folks born since 1980 believe that they'll have to switch jobs every few years to a.) stay relevant and b.) get paid what they're worth.

Jobs are not sacred, but salaries are. Your automation has a certain NPV on it, just like your job, and just like the "value" of not working. So, there are really 3 scenarios.

a) do your job, same as always b) automate your job, and either end up unemployed, or find a new job, still working xx hours/week. c) don't tell anyone you automated your job, don't work, collect the money.

If you are capable of automating your job (you have the skills, the know-how etc.) then all of these options have different moral and economic tradeoffs.

a) if you like your job, you get to keep doing it, but, by not automating it, you are maybe not doing your job as well as it could be done, and/or are costing the company money which could be reallocated. As an employee, you maybe have a responsibility to automate your job and by not doing it, you are shirking your duties (its a stretch) b)You automate your job, get a new job, and take everyone else who was doing the same job as you and automate their jobs as well. You end up ok, because you're talented enough to automate your job. the other people who weren't talented enough just get fired and have no shiny new credential. c)You are definitely dodging the obligation to your employer, but at the same time, they don't know the difference. If the work is unchanged, then you are free to use your time for an alternative economic benefit. It seems unfair, since you get to double-spend your time.

In my mind, B is the choice most people worry about. There are fewer people who can automate a job than there are people currently doing that job, and that doesn't even touch the problem that few low-skill jobs are filled by the people that can self-automate their jobs. So, more worrying is that someone invents the roomba of floor waxers, or the self cleaning toilet stall and then we don't need janitors anymore.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#106

Post by romaniv »

nostrademons wrote: post #100
abakker wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you owned the product of your labor (i.e. the automation of your job) then it should make no difference. The trouble is, then when you create an automaton that replaces a $100K/year employee, then the creator gets f *ed. Put another way, if you could create a way to automate your job entirely, then there also has to be a guarantee that doing so will not result in you getting fired. Alternatively, if you automate s…

Or you could automate yourself out of a job and get a new job. There's nothing that says that jobs are sacred. Indeed, most folks born since 1980 believe that they'll have to switch jobs every few years to a.) stay relevant and b.) get paid what they're worth.

It's all fine and well, as long as all "non-routine" jobs don't require a Master's degree and 10 years of hands-on experience.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#107

Post by iamcurious »

ktRolster wrote: post #81
iamcurious wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still need management as a way of reducing communication costs. Without any management you need (n!) communication channels in the worst case. With proper management you can achieve (n*C ~).

You don't need to have a person working full-time as a communicator. Your team can have a 'designated communicator,' and that role can even be swapped around so everyone learns to do it.

Then you are dynamically creating (and cutting I suspect) lots of communication channels. My suspicion is that for any large group something like that would require an extremely strong institution and lots of paper trail. This is a noble objective, but I'm not sure if it is always an option.

By the way, what is the largest organization you can think that follows that swaps 'designated communicators' roles with no management?

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#108

Post by mapt »

hnal943 wrote: post #75
mapt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Generally when technology creates efficiencies, the unemployment rate does not just increase by the number of people that did that work yesterday" Perhaps not, but it does increase. Because somebody else was calling suppliers and having lunch with the manager yesterday.

That's an unfounded assumption. There's lots of work that goes undone because it's cost prohibitive. Technology in this case increased overall value because it allowed Lynne to do something that no one was doing before.

If it was cost-prohibitive yesterday, why isn't it still cost-prohibitive today?

Maybe it would be doable at a lower salary. Let's pay Lynne half as much as yesterday for this new job.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#109

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

nostrademons wrote: post #99
gutnor wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the outcome often results in a lot more lucrative and fulfilling career than they had before Not sure about that, that's not at all my experience coming from a poor area which has gone through several mass-scale outsourcing. ( i.e. a whole vertical slice of the economy just moves away ) You need an set of positive circumstances in order to make yourself relevant again. Access to appropriate education/resources,…

What are outcomes like for the people that did move away and retrain? A key point of the "redundant workers will find new work" hypothesis is that they make rational decisions to find & take advantage of opportunities elsewhere. These rational decisions can often be emotionally wrenching - like giving up your home, your identity, and your social support network - but I'm curious what happens to the folks who are will…

You keep using the word willing instead of the word you should be using capable. Case in point old manufacturing towns like Detroit and Flint where the literacy rate hovers around 50% graduation rates in the 20s and the likelihood that a graduate from the school district did not receive the same education as someone from a functioning school district(Standardized Tests Provide this Measure).

So how do these people "will" their way past illiteracy, plummeting home values (Makes it quite difficult to sell and start somewhere new), and the need to suddenly compete with all of their former co-workers? Economic data suggests these people simply become "Disassociated" from the Labor Force and are no longer counted as unemployed whether they found employment or not.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#110

Post by gutnor »

nostrademons wrote: post #99
gutnor wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the outcome often results in a lot more lucrative and fulfilling career than they had before Not sure about that, that's not at all my experience coming from a poor area which has gone through several mass-scale outsourcing. ( i.e. a whole vertical slice of the economy just moves away ) You need an set of positive circumstances in order to make yourself relevant again. Access to appropriate education/resources,…

What are outcomes like for the people that did move away and retrain? A key point of the "redundant workers will find new work" hypothesis is that they make rational decisions to find & take advantage of opportunities elsewhere. These rational decisions can often be emotionally wrenching - like giving up your home, your identity, and your social support network - but I'm curious what happens to the folks who are will…

The main problem is not the emotional aspect. After all the majority of the people affected had left their country only 1 generation before.

The real problem is that you don't know what is the rational decision at the time you need to take it, only in hindsight. It is not in the business owners to share their 10 year strategy with their employees. Everything is positive, all green, until the very day you have 2 weeks to pack. You don't necessarily know the big picture. Is your company having trouble or is the whole region is going to be in ruin. You can make the rational decision to start a local business and have your market vanish way before you have benefitted. Same thing with the local politician, we are always at the end of the tunnel.

Same problem with training and moving. How much do you leverage your current competence. As a DevOps, do you learn development, or plumbery ? How far do you need to move. It is even worse here as you have even less information about the target sector or region.

So what happened to people that made the right decision, they did alright of course. But there have been a lot of people that trained in using newer better technology of their field and that did not help them when the job moved to India. Some moved to Spain and France, but the crisis started a few years later there. A lot opened businesses, and failed as new businesses do, but also because the whole region went under. Same outcome for people that moved to different field in the same region, they were caught in the ripple effects. None of those decision were irrational, or necessarily easy. They were just not the right decisions when you have perfect information.

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