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No Recent Automation Revolution

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Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#151

Post by phkahler »

tuatoru wrote: post #69

An independent line of evidence looks at the formation of new occupations over time. If automation were taking over jobs, or jobs were being refactored because some tasks are automated, then we'd expect to see new job titles appearing in employment advertising and classifications such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics's. This does happen, as it has happened since the start of the Industrial Revolution. "Social Media…

Automation eliminates jobs. Sometimes lower costs in one area allow more activity in another, but that does not change the fact that the automation eliminates jobs and should not be expected.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#152

Post by throwaway092837 »

krapp wrote: post #140
bildung wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I's say work being part of people's identity is much older than Christianity.

If we're talking about the Western world, and in particular, the politics and culture of class (of which "work being part of people's identity" is a part) then Judeo-Christian influence is the only influence that matters. And memes like the dignity of labor, the just world fallacy (that wealth and poverty have inherent moral dimensions) and welfare (or leftist/secular ideology) breeding laziness definitely have their…

There is no "west" and there is no "Judeo-Christian" culture.

There are, and has been, hundreds of different cultures. Some have similarities, some are profoundly different.

(I'm not trying to dismiss your whole point: I agree with everything else you wrote)

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#153

Post by eeZah7Ux »

raducu wrote: post #27
Swizec wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The revolution won't be the automation. It'll be in us accepting that the job wasn't who we were/are and it's okay to let it go This is perhaps the only thing socialism got right. At least the flavor we had in Yugoslavia and the remnants it left on the psyche of my parent's generation. You do your job, then you go home and live your actual life. The job exists as a way to "pay your dues" in society, but it isn't yo…

"Money doesn't buy happiness" is just something we tell the poor so they don't revolt -- this also applied to communism -- the communist elites lived a much better life materially and socially. Sure, average Ivan was "happy" because his neighbors had just as crappy flat, just as crappy car, just as crappy job, just as crappy food and so on and there was no way for him to "better" his life because money was meaningles…

It should be obvious that money prevents the sorrow of poverty.

"Money doesn't buy happiness" refers to happiness, which is not simply the lack of sadness.

It means that once all the typical material needs are provided, simply having more money does not make people visibly HAPPY all the time, and most people tend to focus on other goals.

This has been proven again and again by scientific research.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#154

Post by taneq »

pg-gadfly wrote: post #128
dgudkov wrote: post #110

Automation happens not where many expect it (including the media). It is frequently expected that automation will come as replacement for humans, while it actually is coming in the form of better tooling and assistance to humans. This theoretically should be reflected in work productivity, not in employment numbers.

It should be noted that as efficiency increases, the company can compete and lower prices, meaning people don't _have to_ go to work as much to achieve the same level of living. Provided there is competition

Yep. Except that instilling and maintaining institutional knowledge in an employee represents a sunk cost, which means the fewer employees you need for a job, the less it costs, even if the actual number of hours spent doing the job is the same. This is why instead of everybody working 3-day work weeks, we have 40% of people underemployed or unemployed and 60% of people being worked to death.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#155

Post by taneq »

dgudkov wrote: post #110

Automation happens not where many expect it (including the media). It is frequently expected that automation will come as replacement for humans, while it actually is coming in the form of better tooling and assistance to humans. This theoretically should be reflected in work productivity, not in employment numbers.

This is true, but better tooled, equipped humans do more work and so you need fewer of them.

When your landscaping company buys an excavator, one person can now move as much earth as 15 people used to. You don't keep the other 14 on the payroll.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#156

Post by throwaway38235 »

Err_Eek wrote: post #90
raducu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Money doesn't buy happiness" is just something we tell the poor so they don't revolt -- this also applied to communism -- the communist elites lived a much better life materially and socially. Sure, average Ivan was "happy" because his neighbors had just as crappy flat, just as crappy car, just as crappy job, just as crappy food and so on and there was no way for him to "better" his life because money was meaningles…

My dad was salty during communism that he didn't get more "respect" for his labor (highschool teacher) than your run of the mill factory worker. I remember during the early 90s how he was hopefully saying that once the country exits the "transition" phase, we will all have the dignified life of middle class westerners. Meanwhile the country still does the same in international rankings as it did during the time of ou…

> he didn't get more "respect" for his labor (highschool teacher)

> we will all have the dignified life of middle class westerners

What a sad irony. If he was a highschool teacher in the US as now he could be struggling to pay rent and medical bills and get more or less the same "respect".

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#157

Post by credit_guy »

Automation has been progressing for at least three hundred years now, from the era of the Jacquard loom and the cotton gin. I was born in a country where when I was little there still were telephone operators. Those thousands of jobs disappeared long ago, around the time when rotary phones disappeared. Nothing to do with AI.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#158

Post by partingshots »

I imagine automation will result in the creation of entirely new industries and jobs like with self-driving cars for example.

Though, on second thought I guess self-driving does end up taking away a lot of taxi driver / trucking jobs. Nevermind...

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#159

Post by 6510 »

taneq wrote: post #155
dgudkov wrote: post #110

Automation happens not where many expect it (including the media). It is frequently expected that automation will come as replacement for humans, while it actually is coming in the form of better tooling and assistance to humans. This theoretically should be reflected in work productivity, not in employment numbers.

This is true, but better tooled, equipped humans do more work and so you need fewer of them. When your landscaping company buys an excavator, one person can now move as much earth as 15 people used to. You don't keep the other 14 on the payroll.

What I've seen is that the competitor buys the excavator and the 15 people have to do the work for similar pay. The salaries go down, amount of work per worker goes up and the competitor makes exotic profits.

I've seen one fascinating example where pay per unit eventually boiled down to 40 cents per hour. That was the point where the automatons simply could no longer keep up. Some would decline to do the manual work. Those who did got the less frequent better paid contracts that paid up to 20 euro per hour. (for which no machine exists)

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#160

Post by 6510 »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #139
pg-gadfly wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that as efficiency increases, the company can compete and lower prices, meaning people don't _have to_ go to work as much to achieve the same level of living. Provided there is competition

Right - and we have enough capacity / productivity now to feed, clothe and shelter the global population. The challenge is really how to distribute resources in a "fair" way whilst incentivizing growth in productivity to keep increasing quality of life for all.

The challenge is to get people to even consider it. In reality it is not hard to pay people to follow courses, pay people to tutor/helpdesk or pay people to be available when they are needed.

Imagine a gig economy where 100 employees are on call the year round, ready to jump in when you need them for as long as you need them, complete with training to make this absurd level of scaling possible. We could do a kind of fire drill to test your corporate scale-ability. Then we get valuable information: Your corp atm make 100 widgets per day but you can scale to 50 000 in 2 weeks.

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