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The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#31

Post by Noseshine »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #11
cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

Hopefully the worker gets another job so now you have a productive robot and a productive worker doing something else.

Has that worked the last few decades? And don't just count "job yes/no", look at the actual job - prestige, quality, income.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#32

Post by Noseshine »

cousin_it wrote: post #17
js8 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does he think that having high living standard is about, other than burning resources? By his definition of efficiency, a dead planet is the most efficient.

The burning of resources by robots doesn't by itself contribute to a higher living standard, unless you're measuring the living standard of robots :-)

You are correct, yet I don't see the connection between your reply and the comment you replied to? Nor even to the parent-parent comment. I'm baffled. Similarly for maxerickson's comment here. "Living" is about using resources, if "saving" them is the goal a dead planet is the best solution, or at least removal of all consumers of the resource in question. I don't see any "robot vs. worker" component in that statement.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#33

Post by formula1 »

fsloth wrote: post #19
formula1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think through the eyes of idealism. Consider this You are the owner of a fortune 500 company You need to hire enough people to fullfill 1600 hours a day, 14 days per paycheck. You want to hire the people as cheaply as possible. If the individual knows they only have to work 20 hrs per week to survive, they have the power to negotiate. If the individual believes that they have to work two jobs for 60 hrs per week…

Sorry, I don't understand your point in the historical context. Original labour conditions in factories were horrible. The conditions did not improve through economic rationalization but because society recognized it as wrong and forced factory owners to employ better working conditions.

Its slso possible they werent sustainable. Worker strikes snd unions will definitely put a hamper on your production. If people cant support children or they know a job is a death sentence, when an opening comes up due to a strike they may not be too eager to work

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#34

Post by neuromancer2701 »

humanrebar wrote: post #18
neuromancer2701 wrote: post #9

My current theory is that this “automation bomb” won't really happen in the sense that 5 million Truckers are going to get laid off all of a sudden. Especially in the case of Truckers the average age is getting higher and higher every year because Millennials have said that is not a job they want. So my theory is that as Baby Boomer/Early Gen Xers retire automation will step in and fill the employment gap. So there w…

> So my theory is that as Baby Boomer/Early Gen Xers retire automation will step in and fill the employment gap. So there won't massive amounts of laid off Truckers sitting around. Young workers used to take those jobs, though. The young (especially men) are underemployed right now. If you're right, they are the ones hurt the most in the long run by automation.

I think the better question is why don't/haven't Millennials taken those jobs as previous generations did. This is a problem that has occurred outside of the technology debate.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#35

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

akerro wrote: post #21
adrianN wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Why would you pay them the same for less work? 2) Once a machine can do the job, why would you hire a human at all?

>2) Once a machine can do the job, why would you hire a human at all? Because we need a point in our lives, otherwise we will make up some gods and start killing each other. Jobs keep us busy, keep revolts down. Most frustrated and aggressive people are those without jobs and daily schedules.

True in theory, but Spain has been in a state of mass unemployment (>20% unemployment rate, >40% youth unemployment rate) since 2010, and it still is among the top 25 safest countries in the world ( http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/safest-countries-in-the-w... ). Portugal has been over 13% unemployment rate since 2011, and it's the 5th country in the world by that same index.

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#36

Post by cousin_it »

superswordfish wrote: post #30
cousin_it wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think about money, that only confuses things. Think about resources instead. Imagine that the worker burns oil to survive, and the robot also burns oil to function. Now replacing the worker with the robot makes the economy burn twice as much oil for the same amount of production (assuming the worker goes on welfare). If you think in terms of money and pockets, the picture will be more complicated, but the end r…

This logic is full of holes. A robot can, by not needing to rest, be vastly more productive than the same person. The robot can be designed to never make a mistake too. Indeed, automation of all aspects of bread production would increase the bread supply. And the person needed bread either way, so unless you're saying that their death is the alternative, what they do with their day is irrelevant. And about fuel, I gu…

The argument is talking about the marginal case [1] where the robot is about as cost-effective as the worker it's displacing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_concepts

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#37

Post by Noseshine »

superswordfish wrote: post #30
cousin_it wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think about money, that only confuses things. Think about resources instead. Imagine that the worker burns oil to survive, and the robot also burns oil to function. Now replacing the worker with the robot makes the economy burn twice as much oil for the same amount of production (assuming the worker goes on welfare). If you think in terms of money and pockets, the picture will be more complicated, but the end r…

This logic is full of holes. A robot can, by not needing to rest, be vastly more productive than the same person. The robot can be designed to never make a mistake too. Indeed, automation of all aspects of bread production would increase the bread supply. And the person needed bread either way, so unless you're saying that their death is the alternative, what they do with their day is irrelevant. And about fuel, I gu…

    > This logic is full of holes.
I don't agree. The commenter said that now both the robot and the worker use resources. It's gotten better if you only look at the business and ignore the laid-off worker.

Note that I'm always for such improvements, the solution for a broken system should not be to let people do useless jobs (like the road workers whose sole job it is to hold up a "Stop" sign in a construction zone).

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#38

Post by ldp01 »

yalooze wrote: post #27

Can any one recommend any recent books or articles on this topic? I'm particularly interested in what the current suggestions are for solutions (if any), which this article doesn't tackle.

I highly recommend Yanis Varoufakis: The ex Greek finance minister who was in office during the Grexit crisis. He advocates basic income as a solution.

This is a speech rather than an article, but I found it pretty relevant and compelling (He starts talking about AI at 7:50) [Yanis Varoufakis: Basic Income is a Necessity] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#39

Post by notahacker »

Noseshine wrote: post #31
JulianMorrison wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully the worker gets another job so now you have a productive robot and a productive worker doing something else.

Has that worked the last few decades? And don't just count "job yes/no", look at the actual job - prestige, quality, income.

The proportion of people in full time work is much higher than it was when people worried about mechanization eliminating all those not-very-prestigious jobs in the post-WWII period...

Re: The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

#40

Post by baq »

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Simon Funk [1] makes a great point that in a mixed capitalist/welfare state, automation decreases efficiency. Imagine a worker, earning the bare minimum to survive, who gets replaced by a robot with slightly lower operating cost. Now the robot is consuming slightly fewer resources that the worker would have, but the worker doesn't stop consuming resources in turn! Unless you're willing to kill the worker, he goes on…

that's easily(?) fixed with a flat tax on efficient robots.
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