What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like • Hacker News Board

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#51

Post by phkahler » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #32

phkahler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Less People. Most of the worlds problems would be reduced with fewer people. This is only a partial solution if you think about it.

Ok. You first. Go on... You see now why this is not a viable solution. At least, it isn't until planetary emigration becomes possible.

No, birth control is an option. Make it available to anyone who asks for it (permanent kinds included). China has a rather more authoritarian approach. I prefer voluntary methods (without incentives). It isn't a complete solution because: 1) there will always be variation in skills among people even if the population is reduced. 2) With few enough people (extreme case) mass production of goods is not necessary. 3) I think there's an old argument that with robots providing everything, eventually there is no incentive for people to even become smart enough to maintain them and the system falls into disrepair. I'm not sure when or what equilibrium might be reached. I am sure that less people would help the problem and does not require planetary emigration. It is a viable partial solution. It is not a complete solution.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#52

Post by 6d0debc071 » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 4:47 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

6d0debc071 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The manufactured goods will also need buyers, there's no end game where someone replaces all the workers with machines and then try to sell the output to... machines? If I were an evil factory owner, then I would replace my workers with machines and sell the produce of my factory to those providing the raw materials and to those owning other factories that produced goods that I wanted. It wouldn't be a matter of se…

A closed market system that will likely get smaller in time, or even eventually devoid of humans altogether. It's not hard to imagine that at some point the feedback loop will close over the automated economy and it will be able to function on its own, without any input from humans.

Indeed, one seemingly plausible outcome is that the 1% starts complaining about the .1% . That the trend is uncapped given sufficient production multiplication ability... until one person ends up with a robot army and ownership over everything.

We won't get there overnight, but how far we might get towards that extreme is worrying.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#53

Post by phkahler » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

YokoZar wrote: post #50

phkahler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way I've found to explain the lie is this: The business owner is not stupid. He knows that TCO (total cost of ownership) of automated production systems is cheaper than manual labor. This means that the total cost of paying for design, installation, operation, and maintenance is lower than manual production labor. Got that? It costs less to pay the "high skilled" workers than the lower skilled ones - because…

The first industrial revolution was entirely about replacing high-skilled manual laborers with relatively low-skilled factory workers. There's no inherent economic law requiring such a shift to be a net drain on employment - sometimes 100 people manning power looms can do something cheaper than 90 skilled weavers. Sometimes not, though: the clothes end up just being cheaper as a result and net employment in the cloth…

>> There's no inherent economic law requiring such a shift to be a net drain on employment -

Yes, there is. I just presented it with the TCO thing. What has been happening so far is that the displaced workers were offered jobs somewhere else because there was another need they could fill. The net drain does happen. It happens within the set of people working at a company, and the industry. Only if there is unmet demand in the overall economy does it not affect unemployment by having people do something else entirely - and I don't mean maintaining the machines, I already showed that to require fewer people.

>> sometimes 100 people manning power looms can do something cheaper than 90 skilled weavers.

The human labor per item still went down. You just threw a capacity expansion on top of the efficiency increase. That just means a competitor will be out of business soon meaning fewer people employed, not more.

See this parking lot: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.441312,-83.043004,80m/data=!...

It's full of product (all same model). Decades ago, prior to automation it was full of employee vehicles, and so was the overflow lot across the street to the west. The neighborhoods around there were thriving and now are quire run down.

We've been lucky in finding new things for people to do outside of industries where this happens. People can only consume so much in a day though, and as the labor hours required to fill human-need-hours goes down there will be a problem.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#54

Post by bostonpete » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

> This is a lie.

It's a prediction about the future. The fact that you have a contradictory prediction about the future (layoffs and a new wave of unemployment) doesn't mean that people who put forth the opposing view are lying. Unless you have a functioning crystal ball, only time will tell which view is correct.

There have been plenty of examples of such innovations over the past century or more (dating back at least to the cotton gin) which have obviated certain manual labor and arguably have ultimately (directly or indirectly) freed up workers for more creative/skilled tasks. But somehow you're able to confidently assert that such a prediction in this case is a lie?

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#55

Post by hellameta » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

First, as a prediction, it cannot be a 'lie'. Second, it's a prediction that actually makes sense. If menial jobs are reduced - the only way to earn money will be to perform less trivial tasks, or, to put it another way, 'more creative, skilled tasks'. It's either that or we're all going down the drain. Which option do you think is more likely?

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#56

Post by Infinitesimus » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

hellameta wrote: post #55

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

First, as a prediction, it cannot be a 'lie'. Second, it's a prediction that actually makes sense. If menial jobs are reduced - the only way to earn money will be to perform less trivial tasks, or, to put it another way, 'more creative, skilled tasks'. It's either that or we're all going down the drain. Which option do you think is more likely?

Was that not the same story preached in the 1900's though? What will make this different?

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#57

Post by scrumper » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 7:30 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43

scrumper wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to engage with this but I'm having a hard time getting past: the internet almost certainly improved the viability of social economic systems by a factor of 10 or so Certainly for me, arbitrary, dimensionless quantification of an essentially unmeasurable factor casts the rest of your post in a bad light. Still, basic income isn't entirely good: it denies people the ability to meet a basic need - that of being…

> In other words, it replaces the good feeling of doing honest work with a kind of glorified unemployment benefit. While it would be good culturally (by allowing those of an artistic bent to pursue their craft, for example), it's not going to do much for the mental well-being of most of those laid-off factory workers. We need to move away from the meme that your 'honest work' determines your worth. It was very instru…

This is a great point but it's not orthogonal to mine. Basic income doesn't provide a framework for self worth; it simply replaces a need to toil for money with a state-provided guarantee of a reasonable standard of living. If you have some side project or external, monetarily low-valued way of spending your time (full-time parenthood, art, a cottage business) then you've solved the worth problem on your own. If you're a displaced factory worker, you now have a new (admittedly nicer) problem.

To your coda, I think a lot of contemporary angst comes from precisely that - a sense that jobs really are basically worthless. Most of us behind a desk have felt that at some point. Even my frontline public servant friends in the military, healthcare, and police report similar feelings from time to time.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#58

Post by scrumper » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 7:43 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #47

scrumper wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to engage with this but I'm having a hard time getting past: the internet almost certainly improved the viability of social economic systems by a factor of 10 or so Certainly for me, arbitrary, dimensionless quantification of an essentially unmeasurable factor casts the rest of your post in a bad light. Still, basic income isn't entirely good: it denies people the ability to meet a basic need - that of being…

> Still, basic income isn't entirely good: it denies people the ability to meet a basic need - that of being valued for their contribution to society or some other enterprise. No, it doesn't. Basic income does not prohibit people from working and being paid for their work; in fact, one of the arguments for BI is that it among the things it can replace is the minimum wage, allowing work that has positive value but whi…

That feels like an artificial distinction. Probably I misunderstand BI, but doesn't it play out like this:

No BI scenario: Company pays 50 groats a year to a worker to create TPS reports based on its sense of the value of having those reports completed. 100 groats annually, maybe.

BI scenario: State pays everyone 10 groats a year. Company now pays 40 groats to its TPS writers (or maybe 35, plus 5 groats extra in tax to help pay for BI.)

The net for the worker is, optimistically, the same. Therefore, it's basically a livable cushion for those who don't have jobs. Basically, unemployment protection without the conditions.

I can see significant benefits for small nonprofit organizations who might not be able to pay staff to do necessary things; in these cases, BI covers payroll and people can work on altruistic activities and find their self worth that way. BI creates a level playing field, so now those nonprofits can choose the most passionate or skilled people for any given position. The flip side of that is that you now have full funding for all the agitators and malcontents who want to create all kinds of nasty pressure groups, something ordinarily limited by most people's need to put food on the table.

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#59

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

You're thinking wrong. You're thinking that people can only be employed to do stuff of a certain level. That's false.

Instead, you should think in terms of a society spending people. Take farming, for instance. We had about 35% of our people working on farms. Then mechanization came to agriculture, and now we have maybe 2% of our people working on farms. What will all the poor farmhands do? Starve? Well, it turns out that farmhands could do a lot more than just farm. But the mechanization of agriculture freed us from wasting an unnecessary 33% of our workers on farms. They went on to do a lot of useful stuff, from which society as a whole benefited.

Don't waste your workers in jobs that aren't necessary. It holds your society back.

Now, the problem comes when you expect that people "deserve" or "need" a job in a factory. That's false, too. They need/deserve a decent job. They may need training to get there. But if you think they need a factory job because they can never be competent to do anything more, I think you are selling people short...

Re: What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

#60

Post by oliveira12345 » Tue, Apr 14, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

bostonpete wrote: post #54

oliveira12345 wrote: post #5

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled…

> This is a lie. It's a prediction about the future. The fact that you have a contradictory prediction about the future (layoffs and a new wave of unemployment) doesn't mean that people who put forth the opposing view are lying. Unless you have a functioning crystal ball, only time will tell which view is correct. There have been plenty of examples of such innovations over the past century or more (dating back at lea…

I did not intended to address the people with opposing views - I meant to addressed the arguments and tried to do so. I believe in respecting all opinions, the article is very interesting and the discussion spinning around it is a sign of its relevance.

There are contradictions in the prediction (even if it becomes true or not in the future)

* Why would a factory, built upon a big number of low-skilled workers, would need a big number of creative-skilled workers ?? Why would the factory pay the extensive formation necessary to transform "low-skilled" into "high-skilled" workers ?? Would they all become proeficient new professionals, or possess the necessary educative background and personal vocation to become skilled workers in a different career path ?? What would they do in their new role ??

It seems a contradiction, and contains the illusion that there will be better jobs for all the workers, when there is a serious and (most) probable risk of ending up with the opposite effect: a new wave of unemployment.

With that clear, I do hope your prediction becomes true and all jobs do become better. I just have a have a hard time imagining the world going down that path.

    > There have been plenty of examples of such innovations over the past century

Could you share some info about them? Would help understand your point of view