Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 258 posts

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#181

Post by Joker_vD »

shiroiuma wrote: post #175
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the particularities, but there are overall issues with placing in EU as well. There's a big discrepancy in general practice availability between large cities / capitals and smaller cities / country side. And it's not necessarily a lack of "living wages" nor is it poor conditions (often they'll have strong support from local municipalities w/ things like clinic space, local community support, etc) but it's simpl…

Yep, this is the same almost everywhere. You're not going to find many young people who will go to a university to get the qualifications to be a medical professional, and then willingly move back to their middle-of-nowhere small town to do that job, even if it pays more.

The Soviets would attempt to solve it by requiring the graduates to work off about 3 years in the place chosen by the joint commissions from Gosplan/Ministry of Labour/Ministry of Higher Education (those same commissions determined the number of students to enroll in the first place, so...). And this system (called "distribution", as in, "distributing the graduates to the workplaces") was widely unpopular for obvious reasons.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#182

Post by shiroiuma »

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #127
akudha wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. From: https://x.com/AuthorJMac/status/1773679197631701238 As a species, we need to evaluate our attitudes to work. The quote above resonates at some level, but maybe there are some people who enjoy doing dishes and laundry, who knows. Most people are just surviving. It is…

The funny thing is that dishes and laundry are already automated and people are still complaining about them. Do we need a humaniform robot to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer? Maybe we just need smarter appliances.

Not for that task, you don't. Just get a washer/dryer. They're very common where I live: the machine both washes and dries your clothes, and uses a heat pump system on the dryer side for high efficiency.

What's missing is a robot that will take the clothes out of your washer/dryer, fold them up, and put them away for you.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#183

Post by shiroiuma »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #180
shiroiuma wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society cannot function without garbage people. It must be done or society will collapse quickly, so society better find a pay rate that gets the job done.

This thread feels like it went off the rails given that every locale I've ever lived in (many across the US) had fine, working garbage collection, and plenty of competent garbage men who worked for what I'm guessing was decent pay, certainly less than $10 million a year.

I think in reality, it shouldn't be hard to find people willing to take out garbage by simply paying a little better than other manual-labor jobs. There's always going to be people who can't work other jobs for some reason, so if they're choosing between manual labor jobs, the one that pays more is going to be more attractive. They don't need to pay enough to hire a doctor, because not that many people can do high-value work like that competently.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#184

Post by TurdF3rguson »

shiroiuma wrote: post #182
TurdF3rguson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is that dishes and laundry are already automated and people are still complaining about them. Do we need a humaniform robot to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer? Maybe we just need smarter appliances.

Not for that task, you don't. Just get a washer/dryer. They're very common where I live: the machine both washes and dries your clothes, and uses a heat pump system on the dryer side for high efficiency. What's missing is a robot that will take the clothes out of your washer/dryer, fold them up, and put them away for you.

Yeah, that's Rosie from the Jetsons. Still a few years away unfortunately.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#185

Post by stonekyx »

alex43578 wrote: post #115
canpan wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some other signs you think may indicate it rising as a powerhouse? Living in Japan, I am interested what others see. Regarding immigration, Japan is actually making it a lot stricter now. Not sure how that will play out.

[flagged]

Sure, take that stricter immigration control. But if people assume upfront that immigrants are intrinsically the source of problems and it takes stricter and stricter controls to filter them down to only those that bring value, this strengthening of filtering will never end.

Remember that one does not _either_ bring value or cause problems. I expect a typical human being to bring some value and cause some problems at the same time. And you can never measure which one is bigger.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#186

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #85
senordevnyc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this guy googled it and apparently there are 18% of Japanese people not working, so obviously their entire society pivoting towards automation is wrong.

Yep. In a society with an aging population and a low birth rate, people who would prefer to be full-time parents staying home and raising their kids ought to instead be doing undesirable, monotonous, easily-automatable jobs that robots can do. Or at least two families could agree to pay each other to raise the other's children, so that it counts as employment, rather than raising their own. Yes, maximizing labor forc…

That's how you ensure the birth rate stays low.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#187

Post by saithound »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #180
shiroiuma wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society cannot function without garbage people. It must be done or society will collapse quickly, so society better find a pay rate that gets the job done.

This thread feels like it went off the rails given that every locale I've ever lived in (many across the US) had fine, working garbage collection, and plenty of competent garbage men who worked for what I'm guessing was decent pay, certainly less than $10 million a year.

The thread started out off the rails. Contrary to the claims of youre-wrong3, garbage collection is not a particularly high paying job and has no real trouble getting new hires.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#188

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

daedrdev wrote: post #169
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, basic income for parents is absolutely a policy that Japan should enact. And the question of how much the payment should be has a straightforward answer: adjust until the birth rate reaches replacement. If the payment ends up high enough that some mothers or fathers opt to leave the labor force to focus on raising their kids, then so be it; that's probably healthier for society in the long term. It would be expe…

There is no guarantee people with no wants will have kids, in fact I expect the opposite

Those people can work for their income then; the policy I was discussing only relates to the government paying parents an income, ideally on a per-child basis (up to some maximum, maybe four; you need to have some people having bigger families to balance out the ones who don't have any children at all, but you also don't want people farming kids for money).

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#189

Post by ghaff »

upsuper wrote: post #117
thfuran wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee you that a lot more people would be willing to put up with it for $10 million a year.

You would probably need to face voters questioning whether that's the best way to use their money.

In many places, garbage collection is done by competing private firms.

Re: In Japan, the robot isn't coming for your job; it's filling the one nobody wants

#190

Post by gkanai »

alephnerd wrote: post #22
7373737373 wrote: post #20

If Universal Basic Income was a thing, this would probably happen much faster globally

Japan doesn't have UBI, but it's welfare system is extremely expansive as Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees a minimum standard of living through livelihood, housing, education, and medical assistance. Additonally, Japan has spent decades thinking about this eventuality (at least since the 1970s), which is why Japan worked on the "Flying Geese" paradigm where Japanese public-private ventures would end up becom…

> "Flying Geese" paradigm

Can you name any one of these that are successful or prominent? I am not aware of this paradigm.

Post reply on HN