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China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

nytimes.com

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Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#51

Post by saiya-jin »

EGreg wrote: post #30
anabis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have the workers own the robots I am pretty sure that workers are free to buy publically traded stock. I also would probably not invest if I were in their position.

That was Karl Marx's whole solution. Make the workers own the factories. We have a better way of socializing wealth. It's called the public stock market. Workers can buy shares of any corporation on it, not just their own, and they are protected by regulations. Having said that, I think that we should tax the machines. We are building a cage for ourselves with machines empowering organizations to monitor and control…

not that i completely disagree with your vision of future, there are many +- lovely fantasy projections out there. but let's get back from utopia to this harsh real world we live in. People like you always point to just things that are wrong with this system (and let's agree on this, there are plenty) and come up with star trekkish almost perfect world where all is nice and super cool, without thinking a bit (or at least sharing with rest of us), HOW THE HECK DO YOU WANT TO GET THERE? FROM HERE?

I mean from this, current world, that is not only, but also thanx to US command-and-conquer approach burning, and that fire will hurt many of us for generations to come? Some iterative, realistic steps please, that could be voted through on various parts of this planet, by populations with vastly different mentality than yours (and mine).

> I want them to have a check coming so they can educate themselves or just go consume things they need.

How do you know that McDonald workers want just this and don't have higher aspirations? And btw I am not aware of any country that has McDonald franchise open that people are dying from hunger on streets, there are always options for survival. In many of those, people can reach practically all human knowledge with a tap on screen of a phone. What if they want a brand new ferrari and feel like they really need it? or "only" BMW? who will decide what is good or not? YOU??

Many doomsday stories here don't reflect fuildity of our existence - things really don't change overnight, more like over generation. politicians have a lot of power, and last time i checked they still got voted by humans. so for example why don't you consider this slight possibility, that when situation will come worse, something will change in our system and we won't continue same direction blindly? I for one have +- confidence that, with some oscilations, will move in proper direction, whatever that will be.

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#53

Post by [deleted] »

saiya-jin wrote: post #49
vidarh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism "eating itself" by getting too efficient to continue to provide work for everyone was Marx central thesis for why a socialist revolution would be inevitable, so nothing "neo" about it.

yeah, and having real world socialism with vastly underperforming economy, forcing everybody to have a job, creating pointless jobs to to fill this criteria (and unleashing state terror on those who don't fit in). if you think i'm joking, unfortunately no. had lived in socialist country and i can still see the damage on people 20 years after we switched to democracy. people went to jail if they refused to work. if th…

[deleted]

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#54

Post by tormeh »

viola11 wrote: post #48
tormeh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body/mind is still valuable because it belongs to a human and humans like seeing other humans do shit for them. Makes them feel important. The future jobs lie in artisanal goods and various kinds of prostitution. Automation won't decrease the total amount of jobs, but I'm worried about inequality.

That's a great comment! I am in awe of the cynicism and misanthropy it contains. Machiavelli himself would go "Dang, that's dark dude". - Man, Uber just perfected self driving cars and closed my account with them, what am I gonna do now? - I hear prostition is still around. - Shit, some kid in Senegal just released a database server that can create a sensible schema from an excel sheet, even creating translation laye…

I was using a slightly more encompassing definition of prostitution, though. Basically people whose primary job is to kiss ass for money, whether metaphorically, literally or both.

Greeters, for example, can't be replaced by machines. The economy has been shifting in this direction for decades.

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#55

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

EGreg wrote: post #30
anabis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have the workers own the robots I am pretty sure that workers are free to buy publically traded stock. I also would probably not invest if I were in their position.

That was Karl Marx's whole solution. Make the workers own the factories. We have a better way of socializing wealth. It's called the public stock market. Workers can buy shares of any corporation on it, not just their own, and they are protected by regulations. Having said that, I think that we should tax the machines. We are building a cage for ourselves with machines empowering organizations to monitor and control…

I disagree with your bald assertion that the stock market is either intended to or efficient at socializing wealth.

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#57

Post by deelowe »

nugget wrote: post #45
deelowe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would phrase it as mechanization becomes a better investment than human capital. It's the tipping point where humans, more often than not, no longer provide value. I can't help but feel we are VERY close.

When this tipping is reached then society may reorganize itself around concepts like basic income and so forth. It seems like a safe bet that a single, cohesive society could survive this transition without a huge amount of chaos. But what happens when you have hundreds of countries with opposing interests who all hit this wall at about the same time?

Maybe, but I suspect the change will happen so fast that we won't be able to adjust in time. We've got a few new auto plants that were either just built or are soon to be built near where I live. First off, they are almost completely automated these days. Secondly, it only takes a couple of years to get one built. Most of that is politics and negotiations. When the new plant is built, the old one is mothballed. Point is, it happens VERY quickly.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, auto manufacturing is a relatively small industry in terms of labor force. What happens when this transition happens to the logistics industry, which is one of the top employers globally? Can we adapt quickly enough if land (including farming), sea, and possibly air are all automated within a decade? I'm not sure.

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#58

Post by kjs3 »

muddyrivers wrote: post #27
functional_test wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the article? Here's the most relevant quote: > The reality, however, is that China has struggled to create enough white-collar jobs for its soaring population of college graduates. In mid-2013, the Chinese government revealed that only about half of the country’s current crop of college graduates had been able to find jobs, while more than 20 percent of the previous year’s graduates remained une…

I think this statement is not completely accurate. First, it doesn't factor in the expansion of higher education in the last 20 years. I don't have the statistics at hand, so I will just use my hometown as an example. Exactly 20 years ago, ~120 high school students from my hometown were enrolled into colleges (including both 4- and 3-years colleges). This year, approximately ~1400 will enter colleges this fall semest…

Nothing you wrote shows the parent as being "not completely accurate", and you don't refute objective statistics with "I think".

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#59

Post by anigbrowl »

bduerst wrote: post #4
nugget wrote: post #3

If you think structural unemployment due to automation will be a problem in the US, just wait until 500 million Chinese factory workers are put out of work. A generation ago they may have been content to remain in poverty and ignorance but now, like the sans-culottes of 18th century Paris, they know what else is out there. There's a reason many wealthy Chinese desperately want to expatriate and it's not because they…

China has had a rising middle class for a while now, and just like with the agricultural automation brought on by the combustion engine, their manufacturing laborers will shift into service, skilled, technical, and professional positions.

I disagree. You can automate away factory jobs faster than you can train factory workers the news kills they need to prosper in the service economy, and automation is happening in the service sector as well.

Re: China’s Troubling Robot Revolution

#60

Post by anigbrowl »

cbd1984 wrote: post #28
knz42 wrote: post #25

Have the workers own the robots, not the elite of company executives. Then redistribute the profits made by the robots to their new owners. The idea of having the workers own the means of production is hardly new, it's just not very popular in the West. Not surprising that the NYTimes missed mentioning that entirely. It would be deliciously ironic if socialist China was the nation that would show the rest of the worl…

> Have the workers own the robots How do you prevent them from getting bought out?

Astute question. The west's answer seems to be inaccessible but privately-managed pension funds.
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