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Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

economist.com

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Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#21

Post by [deleted] »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #6
geogra4 wrote: post #4

So where will the low wage jobs run to? Perhaps African nations will pick up the slack. What happens to the unemployed chinese laborers then? Marx is still relevant after all these years....

Automation. Does NOT. Destroy. Jobs. Is the economy smaller today than in 1911? Are there fewer jobs today? Are there less worthwhile jobs today? Exactly the opposite in every case. Automation may eliminate A job in the near-term but in the long-term it creates and enhances wealth. Ultimately every dollar spent makes its way from one person to another person. Robots don't have bank accounts.

[deleted]

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#22

Post by lallysingh »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #6
geogra4 wrote: post #4

So where will the low wage jobs run to? Perhaps African nations will pick up the slack. What happens to the unemployed chinese laborers then? Marx is still relevant after all these years....

Automation. Does NOT. Destroy. Jobs. Is the economy smaller today than in 1911? Are there fewer jobs today? Are there less worthwhile jobs today? Exactly the opposite in every case. Automation may eliminate A job in the near-term but in the long-term it creates and enhances wealth. Ultimately every dollar spent makes its way from one person to another person. Robots don't have bank accounts.

Well, there is one fix to that:

Automation does not destroy skilled jobs.

Unskilled jobs, however, are hit by automation.

For theUS, the problem is how off-track our education system has gotten in terms of job preparedness.

We have lots of people who worked hard, got lots of student debt, and have no jobs. Which is actually still small (the unemployment rate for people with college degrees is what, 4-5%?). We have lots of unskilled labor who went through our public school system. That's a problem.

We need to bring trade schools back.

Also, did anyone else notice the use of the verb "hire" when talking about robots?

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#23

Post by Groxx »

natfriedman wrote: post #18

At Foxconn in the last five years there have been 17 reported suicides out of ~1 million workers. The US rate in 2007 was, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 11.5 suicides per 100,000 people, or ~35x higher than the Foxconn rate. Foxconners are not unusually predisposed to kill themselves. It's a jingoistic myth.

How many of those 11.5/100k have been done at work, though? The 17 and this quote seem to imply those are just the ones happening at the buildings themselves:

>To pacify its increasingly restive workers, Foxconn has repeatedly bumped up their wages, improved facilities, provided counselling and swathed its factories with nets to catch anyone leaping from a window.

And, for comparison, the WHO gives numbers that are closer to each other, though still surprising individually: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicider...

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#24

Post by zizee »

jacques_chester wrote: post #7

Automation is bad for the economy. Think of the tens of millions of phone operators put out of work by rotary pulse dialling exchanges. Where are they now? Those 100 or 200 million phones worldwide won't connect themselves!

This won't last forever though. Once true strong AI is created we will be able to automate everything. It might not happen for centuries but eventually we will be forced to rethink the way society functions.

Perhaps people will pay a premium for a "human made" sticker on the side?

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#25

Post by felipemnoa »

geogra4 wrote: post #4

So where will the low wage jobs run to? Perhaps African nations will pick up the slack. What happens to the unemployed chinese laborers then? Marx is still relevant after all these years....

Automation gives you more bang for your money. Consider the wrist watch, only the rich could own one. Now is a throw away item. Even the poor can own such advanced technology. Except that instead of the wrist watch now is a smart phone.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#26

Post by ebiester »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #10
realize wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine a future where most of the menial and factory tasks that are now jobs are performed by robots? In this case it certainly does eliminate jobs, with no guarantee that others will be created. The wealth created goes to the company that made the robot, and the one that utilizes the robot. The people who used to have jobs get left out of the wealth transfer. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, just tha…

Companies become more dependent on automation in order to increase efficiency. In the near-term this leads to higher profits. However, because automation reduces overhead, competition will result in lower prices. The end result is that increased profits are only temporary, ultimately the main result is merely cheaper goods. And cheaper goods mean increased amounts of discretionary income. That money ultimately goes e…

Fine, but we're to the point, or almost there, where nearly every job that can be done by someone of IQ 85 or below will be automatable. Intelligent people will be in demand for a while.

But what about below average intelligence people? People who are sub-literate and can't jump from job to job, learning skills quickly? Diligent, hard working people who just can't outwork a robot?

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#27

Post by zizee »

Xlythe wrote: post #11
realize wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine a future where most of the menial and factory tasks that are now jobs are performed by robots? In this case it certainly does eliminate jobs, with no guarantee that others will be created. The wealth created goes to the company that made the robot, and the one that utilizes the robot. The people who used to have jobs get left out of the wealth transfer. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, just tha…

Job creation for the sake of jobs is wasteful. And these are crummy jobs being replaced by robots; just look at the suicide rates. Regardless, robots still need to be maintained, they increase energy consumption, and they lower costs. Workers will be needed. Just elsewhere. The wealth goes to the people creating the robots and the people maintaining the robots. Automation is a great thing. I'm still waiting for an ec…

I'm still waiting for an economic model to be put into place where (decent) food, shelter, and health insurance are provided free of cost because of automation.

I think socialism might be the economic model you are looking for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Job creation for the sake of jobs is wasteful.

I used to think this (and still do) but it is important to make sure people have something that fills in their time otherwise you'll end up with all sorts of societal problems like drug abuse, vandalism etc. Some people get a bit weird if they have too much time on their hands.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#28

Post by ebiester »

felipemnoa wrote: post #20
zizee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it eventually happens, society will have to change. viva la revolution baby!

This. You do not want to have too many poor people or somebody will take advantage of this and use them to overthrow whomever is in power and put himself in power.

Tanks make this a difficult proposition.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#29

Post by zizee »

ebiester wrote: post #28
felipemnoa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. You do not want to have too many poor people or somebody will take advantage of this and use them to overthrow whomever is in power and put himself in power.

Tanks make this a difficult proposition.

Only if you have brainwashed the tank crews (which admittedly does happen in the military).

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#30

Post by burgerbrain »

pilgrim689 wrote: post #13

Rodney Brooks stressed how the first nation that embraces new robot technology in their industries will have huge economic advantages over other nations. (he's a highly influential roboticist, MIT AI researcher, co-founder of the company that makes the Roomba and other robots (military mostly)). He stated in a conference (2009) that for robots to be successful in manufacturing, they needed : 1- object recognition ski…

Surely robots are already successful in manufacturing. Just look at.. well.. just about anything you own that has a weld in it..

I guess that's not the cool sort of robotics though.

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