The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation • Hacker News Board

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#161

Post by jganetsk » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:28 PM UTC

This is exactly wrong. Automation happened already, 200 years ago. It upended society. It was called the Industrial Revolution. Things changed dramatically, and nothing remotely of that scale is occurring now.

We are suffering today not because of technological progress, but rather the contrary: the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally come to a grinding halt. Let's stop denying this. The stream of lifechanging breakthrough inventions of the 20th century, from A (antibiotics) to Z (zippers), have ended. As a result, we now suffer from secular stagnation. [1]

This is why people can't get jobs. The answer is Keynesian spending, and the most fair kind of Keynesian spending is basic income. Call it a "Keynesian dividend".

[1] http://larrysummers.com/2016/02/17/the-age-of-secular-stagna...

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#162

Post by padobson » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #160

padobson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything old is new again. It's going to be some damn thing when everyone in the South takes your idea and they build up their civilization around free robotic labor, and then when we hit AI sentience and start ensuring the civil rights of robots the entire South has to be burned to the ground again to free the sentient robots from their owners.

You don't have to make machines sentient, you know. Some people seem to think the goal of AI and robotics should be to make more humans, but we already have plenty of humans. We should make machines that do our work more efficiently so we don't have to do it anymore. We can still do the fun stuff of course, like writing and art, and get famous and all that.

I agree, I'm just not sure we'll be able to convince everyone with the capability of making sentient robots that they shouldn't make sentient robots before they make sentient robots.

Human labor has solved a lot of problems. The obvious shortcut to solving lots of problems is mimicking human labor. Given the opportunity to take a shortcut to solve a problem (especially at a profit) some manager in some business will do it.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#163

Post by Eridrus » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #159

torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

Exactly. The problem is that automation is the problem. Automation should be the solution. The goal of automation should not be to save labor costs for corporations and make people unemployed, it should be to increase productivity and make people have to work less, so they get more time to enjoy life. Best way to accomplish this, I think, is to have a Basic Income. Give everybody enough to live, and increase that the…

Is job displacement really different from large productivity gain? Both of them result in you needing fewer employees for the same amount of output, and in the end automated systems still need supervision, and someone has to make them.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#164

Post by shostack » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

otakucode wrote: post #138

torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

I have done a lot of thinking about this. There are 2 things that keep sticking out to me: First, history. History does not make our future look good. Humanity has gone through a few disruptive changes in the way society viewed work and societal contribution. The most recent was with the spread of factories and assembly-line production. The result of the adoption of those structures/technologies was not good. Society…

How was the New Deal sold in to owners of capital who presumably controlled the press and political system? Would a similar approach work today?

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#165

Post by Eridrus » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #160

padobson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything old is new again. It's going to be some damn thing when everyone in the South takes your idea and they build up their civilization around free robotic labor, and then when we hit AI sentience and start ensuring the civil rights of robots the entire South has to be burned to the ground again to free the sentient robots from their owners.

You don't have to make machines sentient, you know. Some people seem to think the goal of AI and robotics should be to make more humans, but we already have plenty of humans. We should make machines that do our work more efficiently so we don't have to do it anymore. We can still do the fun stuff of course, like writing and art, and get famous and all that.

It used to be a stupid question to me since how could rules have consciousness.

But most modern AI is learnt from data, not programmed, how will we know if our AI in conscious?

We're not there yet and may never be, but since we do not know what consciousness is or what leads to it, we may stumble into it...

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#166

Post by mcv » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #163

mcv wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The problem is that automation is the problem. Automation should be the solution. The goal of automation should not be to save labor costs for corporations and make people unemployed, it should be to increase productivity and make people have to work less, so they get more time to enjoy life. Best way to accomplish this, I think, is to have a Basic Income. Give everybody enough to live, and increase that the…

Is job displacement really different from large productivity gain? Both of them result in you needing fewer employees for the same amount of output, and in the end automated systems still need supervision, and someone has to make them.

The only difference is in what you do with it. Does it mean more profits for the owners and no money for the unemployed workers? Or does it mean workers get the same money for less work, now that machines can do it for them.

In our current economic system, we get the former. We need to change the system so it turns into the latter.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#167

Post by james-watson » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

whybroke wrote: post #107

edblarney wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The period you describe was marked by revolutions, civil wars and world wars not stabilized until after WWII." No - the late 19th century was relatively peaceful. "But unfortunately we are just at the beginning" Just at the beggining of the longest period of peace and economic prosperity in history. Donald Trump, Brexit - this kind of 'nationalism' and 'demagoguery' is not even remotely in the league of anything in…

In the 1800s after even after Napoleon there were sporadic uprisings scattered through Europe and around the world, especially in the 1830s and 40s. The Franco-Prussina war was a prelude to WWI. Brits fought Russians, Turks fought Russians, Spain had multiple civil wars, Germans fought each other constantly. Even the US had a civil war. And the seeds for 1914's WWI did not suddenly appear in the 14 years of the 20th…

Usurious leaders who savagely exploit the majority of the population to the benefit of their oligarch friends are the single most dangerous threat to peace.

I wonder why people have such a hard time understanding this? The unholy alliance of elite finance, elite academia, and elite multinationals have ground the average citizen into nothingness. Nationalists, protectionists and populists are a very predictable and rational response.

I understand that HN's population skews heavily elite, but I am constantly perplexed by the confusion of the commenters regarding basic causality. Massive institutional collusion leads to populist uprisings. The sun also rises in the east.

Perhaps the elites truly believed their own propaganda about how they are the job creators, the messiahs, the shepherds of the lowlife scum that clean their sewers and take out their garbage? It is indeed the case that the best liars are the best at lying to themselves.

The elites needed a wake up call. Trump was the first, but he will not be the last. If he doesn't reverse the fate of the downtrodden electorate, he will be tarred and feathered along with the rest of his oligarch friends.

Piketty and countless others have written ad nauseam about this very issue, but few of the elite are willing to part with their precious billions. So we get what we have today.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#168

Post by king_magic » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:01 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #158

king_magic wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but have you ever really witnessed firsthand the difficulty of being forced "to reconsider one's career, move to another more promising industry, or move to another city or another country"? The economy might adapt to change, but people aren't able to nearly as well. You say "capitalist's creative destruction", but it's really "greed-driven devastation".

But are you suggesting we should keep people employed doing manual tasks to spare them the unpleasant experience of reconsidering their career? Are you suggesting that industrialisation or automation is greed? You can reverse a lot of technological advance that way. And we see that in many socialist economies, where zombie-like industries have been subsided well after they should have disappeared (like mining in the…

I'm not really suggesting anything. I literally have no answers.

But I do think we (humanity) do ourselves a massive disservice when we push for automation for the sole purpose of reducing costs/boosting profits.

I also think that we need to remember it's real people being affected here. You say "spare them the unpleasant experience" - that's an almost comically insulting way to phrase it - it's really more like "spare them the emotionally traumatic and devastating experience of watching their future evaporate". You say "creative destruction", but you're really talking about lives being literally destroyed. And the key difference here is that (unlike previous time periods), there is no obvious future for these people who are losing their jobs to automation.

You rail against bankers not being willing to reconsider their careers, but what about cashiers at fast food restaurants? What about truck drivers? Train engineers? Miners? etc...

You say it's not something we should feel particularly bad about, but it absolutely is. I can't tell you how hard my eyes roll when I hear people talking in the almost kumbaya-esque way that I'm talking now, but we are all really in this together, and if we can't figure out a way to help people through the transition that is coming, well, what good are we as people?

Speaking so clinically about people's lives being destroyed does no one any favors. That's really all my point is.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#169

Post by usrusr » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:02 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #37

credit_guy wrote: post #17

I think it's likely that automation will be a huge creator of jobs. And I'm not talking about creation of high skill jobs at the expense of destruction of low skill jobs. I'm talking about a net creation of both low and high skill jobs. Allow me to explain. Here's a youtube movie of some robots in a Mercedes factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VreG1iC65Lc There are thousands of movies like that. Lots of robots do…

> Alas, the programming, maintenance, re-programming, upgrading, not to mention construction of the robots still needs a small army of people. If automation doesn't result in absolutely massive savings on employment, it just won't happen. You're army of people is more like a small platoon -- the army being entirely displaced. But I think there is something to be said about automation allowing for creation to become m…

There is an interesting precedent for small scale production through automation, and it already played out twenty years ago: the possibilities of CNC-machining aluminium parts created a huge amount of diversity of offerings in the market of mountain bike parts. At the height of this wave you would have been able to equip a whole club of riders with different brake designs in funky anodized colors. Very few of those manufacturers survived, because mass production methods involving casting and forging still had (and have, and will likely continue to have) an edge in price and performance. It's nice to see the premium required for low volume production shrink, but I doubt that it will ever disappear.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#170

Post by sqldba » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

jganetsk wrote: post #161

This is exactly wrong. Automation happened already, 200 years ago. It upended society. It was called the Industrial Revolution. Things changed dramatically, and nothing remotely of that scale is occurring now. We are suffering today not because of technological progress, but rather the contrary: the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally co…

Thank you! Finally someone who gets it.

IMHO these articles are fake news, journalists love beating the Automation is killing jobs drum.

IT certainly is changing and outsourcing is swings and roundabouts. But there's more work than ever.