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Thoughts on AI and Jobs

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Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#31

Post by k1m »

FromTheFirstIn wrote: post #29
k1m wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that, and that's what I was trying to get at with the post. That an AI future which can take away jobs, doesn't have to be a bad one if the paycheck is replaced with something else. The Rutger Bergman piece I linked to argues for Universal Basic Income. Many people assume jobs are the only way.

No one is confused by this, though. “Work sucks” might be the most universally agreed to statement. It seems like you take talk of jobs too literally when most of the time people are excited not to starve, not excited to have their job.

Believe it or not, many people genuinely don't see an alternative to having a job. So when AI threatens jobs, rather than call for measures to ensure people can live without jobs, they call for jobs to be protected.

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#32

Post by k1m »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #18

There's meaning in the pain. I retired last year and for the first six months I felt lost and empty inside, like there was no meaning or purpose to my life. It wasn't until I started doing volunteer work that I found meaning again but for a while it was rough. I don't know if its an evolutionary side effect but humans need structure and goals in life which work provides.

I agree, but I think it's a shame that this purpose to life is tied to jobs. It's understandable, because pretty much everyone's path in life is schooling, then a job. So the job becomes our purpose and identity. Job loss can then create a void that people don't know how to fill, because it's all they've had.

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#33

Post by FromTheFirstIn »

k1m wrote: post #31
FromTheFirstIn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is confused by this, though. “Work sucks” might be the most universally agreed to statement. It seems like you take talk of jobs too literally when most of the time people are excited not to starve, not excited to have their job.

Believe it or not, many people genuinely don't see an alternative to having a job. So when AI threatens jobs, rather than call for measures to ensure people can live without jobs, they call for jobs to be protected.

If you write something for public consumption and get criticism, take the criticism.

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#34

Post by k1m »

LastTrain wrote: post #21

The whole “guiding hand” of our government is done through the lense of job creation. Tax incentives. Protectionist trade policies. War. IP law. It all imperfectly comes down to job creation, because jobs are fucking important and necessary. Beware people who now come along and say “oh jobs aren’t that great” because they are warming you to accept a certain reality. That is to say, this essay is not just complete rub…

> because jobs are fucking important and necessary

Why are they important and necessary, and for whom?

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#35

Post by k1m »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #15

"I struggle to sympathise with the idea that jobs themselves are something sacred we should be fighting for." I struggle to take what is ultimately an unintentional display of the author's privilege seriously. There is no political will to reverse course on 70-odd years of redbaiting that would be a required first step toward any of the changes to resource distribution that would be required to avoid the economy coll…

> There is no future in which they willingly submit to the kind of redistribution that would be required to finance a society where work is optional.

Do they ever willingly submit to anything that results in less money for them? Too early to know if AI will actually reduce the need for jobs, but if it does, are they going to be forced to create positions for roles they don't need, so that there are no job losses? And what will people do in those roles?

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#36

Post by estearum »

roenxi wrote: post #12
estearum wrote: post #3

Like every single productivity improvement before it, the bulk of the gains of AI will be piled into land rents, which then gets diffused into the cost of everything that happens upon land (which is everything). Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" and somehow not realize that the only thing in our economy where its inputs have not increased in pri…

> Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" Historically we've said "our standard of living goes up if we keep working!" and kept working. If you're happy to live to a 1700s standard life today you can probably get away only doing a little work every year. In practice people value free time less than improving their material circumstances. > Yet somehow…

These are not incompatible with each other. If not for growth in land rents (which has no reason to exist given the complete lack of input costs), then each unit of labor would produce a more substantial improvement to their material circumstances.

Land rents are a very aggressive tax on all activity.

> There is an official government policy in all the English speaking countries I know about that every year prices should rise exponentially. I'd tag that as the most likely reason prices keep rising. It is surprising people don't point at it more often when prices rise.

Sure but this is an economic necessity to prevent an extremely perverse incentive (to not spend money as its value is expected to grow). The rise in land rents, or more specifically its capture by private individuals, is not an economic necessity and is itself a perverse incentive (to not utilize land as its value is expected to grow).

Monetary inflation adds more money to circulation which creates more production and eventually is economically neutral. The "increased prices" do not get captured by anyone. This is not how land rents work. The increased prices of land do not increase production whatsoever – the land already exists – and the increased prices are captured exclusively by landowners even though they get infused into and distributed across every price in the economy.

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#37

Post by estearum »

early_exit wrote: post #25
estearum wrote: post #3

Like every single productivity improvement before it, the bulk of the gains of AI will be piled into land rents, which then gets diffused into the cost of everything that happens upon land (which is everything). Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" and somehow not realize that the only thing in our economy where its inputs have not increased in pri…

I'm not so convinced on the land rent thesis. Fewer jobs, less money --> people less willing to pay for anything more than bare minimum --> downward pressure where being cheap is the biggest selling point.

The thesis (pre-AI) is not "fewer jobs, less money."

It's "more productivity, more money → higher land rents → upward pressure on everything → higher floor of economic productivity required for someone to earn a plot of land to live or work upon"

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#38

Post by estearum »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #8
estearum wrote: post #3

Like every single productivity improvement before it, the bulk of the gains of AI will be piled into land rents, which then gets diffused into the cost of everything that happens upon land (which is everything). Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" and somehow not realize that the only thing in our economy where its inputs have not increased in pri…

Georgism is the only good leftwing economic system. I wish we had a modern version of him with more popularity than Andrew yang

It's really not even leftwing. It's the purest form of capitalism, but it would move us closer to the leftwing utopia than any idea the Yangs of the world have ever proposed.

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#39

Post by NoOn3 »

roenxi wrote: post #12
estearum wrote: post #3

Like every single productivity improvement before it, the bulk of the gains of AI will be piled into land rents, which then gets diffused into the cost of everything that happens upon land (which is everything). Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" and somehow not realize that the only thing in our economy where its inputs have not increased in pri…

> Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" Historically we've said "our standard of living goes up if we keep working!" and kept working. If you're happy to live to a 1700s standard life today you can probably get away only doing a little work every year. In practice people value free time less than improving their material circumstances. > Yet somehow…

People often say that things only get better and cheaper with tech progress, but it doesn't always seem so straightforward to me. Does the average(median) citizen own more land, houses, or cars/vehicles than he did ~50 years ago for example?...

Re: Thoughts on AI and Jobs

#40

Post by roenxi »

estearum wrote: post #36
roenxi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" Historically we've said "our standard of living goes up if we keep working!" and kept working. If you're happy to live to a 1700s standard life today you can probably get away only doing a little work every year. In practice people value free time less than improving their material circumstances. > Yet somehow…

These are not incompatible with each other. If not for growth in land rents (which has no reason to exist given the complete lack of input costs), then each unit of labor would produce a more substantial improvement to their material circumstances. Land rents are a very aggressive tax on all activity. > There is an official government policy in all the English speaking countries I know about that every year prices sh…

Ok, well you've transitioned from "Yet somehow the prices keep rising." to "[prices rising] is an economic necessity to prevent an extremely perverse incentive". You don't seem to regard this state of affairs as suspicious so much as good policy.

> The rise in land rents, or more specifically its capture by private individuals, is not an economic necessity

Make your mind up, are prices going up something you want to happen or not? You can't expect land prices to drop relative to everything else for no reason if nothing else is changing in real terms. Obviously if prices going up generally is an economic necessity then prices of every particular thing are going to go up on average. You complained that people need to work to cover the cost of living, then simultaneously believe that people not having to work to cover the cost of living is a perverse incentive.

I'll give you a hint - prices going up isn't an economic necessity and the thing you're calling a "perverse incentive" is actually the same thing that you wanted to happen a few posts up. It is a lot easier for people to work less if they save some money. If people make a habit of spending literally all their money then they tend to discover that they need to work full time. If you have people earning and not spending all their money then taking a year off work starts looking quite attractive.

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