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Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

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Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#21

Post by jddjdbdbd3 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #13
Animats wrote: post #9

Actual OECD study: [1] The study says that, for the US, 9% of people are at "high risk" of automated out of a job. (That probably means "replaceable right now".) But 38% of people are potentially replaceable. There's an assumption in the OECD report that the entire job of a human must be replaced. But that's not how automation works. We're seeing this in the more advanced law firms. What used to take a senior attorne…

One for one replacement is a truly strange standard to hold to. After all, even trucking automation will not be a 100% loss - if nothing else, we'll see a rise in full-service highway gas stations to fuel driverless trucks. On the other hand, even 10% replacement of an industry (9 workers doing what 10 workers do now) is a big deal, and there are a lot of careers (legal, HR, document handling) that should expect to s…

It's only strange if you consider the report to have no political motivation. Allow yourself to consider that the report may have been influenced by overt political pressure, or more occult "group think" and it makes sense. Scraps of truth are hard to find in this world.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#22

Post by BJBBB »

"However, low qualified workers are likely to bear the brunt of the adjustment costs as the automatibility of their jobs is higher compared to highly qualified workers. Therefore, the likely challenge for the future lies in coping with rising inequality and ensuring sufficient (re-)training especially for low qualified workers."

Would seem that the 'low qualified' worker is the prevailing demographic. So that alone should make the risk, as an overall percentage, much higher than 10.

FWIW, my employer has been targeting all levels of workers for past several years. HR is gone, warehouse people down 65%, engineering down 40%, logistics down 30%, production down 35%. Mostly through process automation, some through robotics, and some through out-sourcing. And there has been a careful and selective 'firing' of customers. Both Net and Gross have significantly increased for three years. As for me, just sit here and write the code to do some of this. Am I evil?

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#23

Post by Shivetya »

arcticfox wrote: post #16
Bartweiss wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One for one replacement is a truly strange standard to hold to. After all, even trucking automation will not be a 100% loss - if nothing else, we'll see a rise in full-service highway gas stations to fuel driverless trucks. On the other hand, even 10% replacement of an industry (9 workers doing what 10 workers do now) is a big deal, and there are a lot of careers (legal, HR, document handling) that should expect to s…

If driverless trucking takes off, why would the gas station need to be full service (staffed with humans)? Compared to building an autonomous truck, autonomous refueling seems like the easy part.

Until the automate the process of inspection and refueling it would be a good job to place people. Treat it like an airplane coming in from a flight. Support crew go out to verify the condition the truck thinks its in, fix minor things the truck called out, and refuel it. Sign off on the paperwork stating truck meets all acceptable Federal and State laws.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#24

Post by rhino369 »

daveguy wrote: post #5

Hm. The subtitle is "Destruction of large numbers of jobs unlikely, says new OECD Study", but the very first table gives a list of percent of jobs automatable by country. It ranges from 7-12%. That is a HELL of a lot of jobs. The argument is, "have no fear! it won't be 47% of jobs automated!" -- only 10%. 10% job loss is a labor crisis. Of course if you have all of those retrainable as other jobs (including automatio…

Something like 70% of Americans worked in agriculture in 1850, and like 5% did in 1950 (many of whom were probably migrant workers from Mexico).

We've gone through radical change before.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#25

Post by marcosdumay »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #4

This piece is utter trash founded on baseless assumptions. >Arntz, et al. argue that the estimated share of “jobs at risk” must not be equated with actual or expected employment losses from technological advances for three reasons. So in other words, the title is false. Actual employment loss is what is at issue here. >The utilisation of new technologies is a slow process, due to economic, legal and societal hurdles,…

> Asinine assertion #2. People will just get new jobs when robots take their jobs!

There's something to be said about this.

If there is unmet demand for something those people can do [1], and automation makes them more productive, and does not completely replace them; then reducing the price of those people work (by increased productivity) will make more jobs appear.

Note there are 3 "if"s there. I doubt many workers will see those three met for them.

[1] That means, people want more of it. Economists normally take this fact from granted, but it is not.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#27

Post by marcosdumay »

Zigurd wrote: post #8

Let's see if a deep learning system outperforms OECD economists on this question.

Judging by the number of times I saw OECD economists getting any prediction right, I'd say a two headed coin will at a minimum even them.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#28

Post by amatic »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #15

Sigh. It doesn't matter. People have this bizarre conception of the economy as an exact lock-fit between jobs and work that needs doing, and they have a hard time imagining changes to that fit, even though throughout human history there has been constant change. In truth there is a nearly infinite amount of work that needs doing. We just get by with most of the work not being done. Just go back in time and think abou…

That is all true. Still, try pointing that out to truck drivers (for example) when they start getting laid off because the company can't handle the automated competition. Economy-wide, there will always be jobs for people to do, it is the large number of individual workers who will be scared for their particular jobs.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#29

Post by zacharycohn »

Bartweiss wrote: post #13
Animats wrote: post #9

Actual OECD study: [1] The study says that, for the US, 9% of people are at "high risk" of automated out of a job. (That probably means "replaceable right now".) But 38% of people are potentially replaceable. There's an assumption in the OECD report that the entire job of a human must be replaced. But that's not how automation works. We're seeing this in the more advanced law firms. What used to take a senior attorne…

One for one replacement is a truly strange standard to hold to. After all, even trucking automation will not be a 100% loss - if nothing else, we'll see a rise in full-service highway gas stations to fuel driverless trucks. On the other hand, even 10% replacement of an industry (9 workers doing what 10 workers do now) is a big deal, and there are a lot of careers (legal, HR, document handling) that should expect to s…

Refueling of long haul trucks is already automated.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#30

Post by Grishnakh »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #15

Sigh. It doesn't matter. People have this bizarre conception of the economy as an exact lock-fit between jobs and work that needs doing, and they have a hard time imagining changes to that fit, even though throughout human history there has been constant change. In truth there is a nearly infinite amount of work that needs doing. We just get by with most of the work not being done. Just go back in time and think abou…

>No matter how much we automate there will always be work for people to do. The more important question is how equitably they'll be compensated for that work and whether or not our education system is adequate for the world as it exists.

And if it isn't, then those people who've been automated out of a job will find something to do, such as crime.

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