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Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

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Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#71

Post by ska »

marknutter wrote: post #64
ska wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for the Luddites. This is one of the most consistently misunderstood and misused historical lessons I run into in tech circles. The true lesson of the Luddites isn't that "things will turn out better than you thought", it is that "there will be casualties". The Luddites were basically correct - they were trading "good jobs" for fundamental unemployment. Demographically speaking the families involved did not on av…

Technological advancements displace jobs at a relatively slow pace. It doesn't happen overnight. And as those jobs get replaced, the demand for the remaining people who can do those jobs goes up because not all companies can afford to automate initially. The "casualties" you mention are more likely the future workers for a particular profession, but they're unlikely to care much having, y'know, not been born yet.

No, that is not at all what happened with the Luddites.

Which is the point, really. This is exactly the sort of assertion that is often made ... and often the Luddites are trotted out as an example. But they are a better counterexample to what you assert than an example.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#72

Post by toomuchtodo »

bdavisx wrote: post #60
tomjen3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the population having access to most of the worlds knowledge in the palm of their hand is a gigantic boon to society. What we should accept is that the time is approaching where a) it is possible for skill and lucky people to make many millions of times more money than those who are neither and that b) the cost communication has decreased so much that in many cases it no longer makes sense to employ people, i…

I think we need to be careful about what "tolerable lives" means too. I've seen "guaranteed income" proposals talking about something in the $25,000 USD range or similar. That's basically poverty level - and while that's better than nothing, it probably won't work as more and more jobs go away. Imagine a world (or the US) where 75% of the people are at the poverty level and 25% are "rich". How long do you think that'…

> Imagine a world (or the US) where 75% of the people are at the poverty level and 25% are "rich". How long do you think that's going to last?

Only as long as it takes for those 75% to make it to the pitchforks.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#73

Post by ryandrake »

mapt wrote: post #41
netcan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP, but I think he means this: A bookkeeper/accountant might be manually entering invoices into a system, emailing managers to approve payments and such. It takes 3 hours per day. This work is "routine" in the relevant sense (it can be automated) but our young, congenial and soon-to-be-replaced-by-robots accounts payable woman (her name's Lynne) also does and is capable of doing "non-routine" tasks. She c…

"Generally when technology creates efficiencies, the unemployment rate does not just increase by the number of people that did that work yesterday" Perhaps not, but it does increase. Because somebody else was calling suppliers and having lunch with the manager yesterday.

Not necessarily. As a stereotypical "knowledge worker" my current work activities can be classified very broadly into two buckets: 1. Low-value routine grunt work that I am required to do and 2. High-value non-routine work that is ultimate optional but the more of it I do the better results I get at my job. I try to spend at least 10-20% of my work time figuring out ways to automate more and more of bucket 1 so that I have more and more time to do bucket 2. There's an unending amount of bucket 2 work available for me to do should I have time for it (trust me).

And here's the magical thing! Once all of bucket 1 is automated, a lot of my bucket 2 tasks start becoming routine--patterns emerge and I can imagine ways to even chip away at them with automation, allowing me to do even more high-value work, in theory making me more valuable to my employer.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#74

Post by simonh »

gphil wrote: post #59
tomjen3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the population having access to most of the worlds knowledge in the palm of their hand is a gigantic boon to society. What we should accept is that the time is approaching where a) it is possible for skill and lucky people to make many millions of times more money than those who are neither and that b) the cost communication has decreased so much that in many cases it no longer makes sense to employ people, i…

I was with you until the last sentence: > This means tax cuts but above all simplifications of the relevant law. How do you pay for the poorest to have tolerable lives with tax cuts? Or are you talking about cutting out regressive taxes on the working poor?

The people have spoken, and with one voice they have demanded increased government spending and lower taxes.

It's a quote, but I forget where from.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#75

Post by hnal943 »

mapt wrote: post #41
netcan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP, but I think he means this: A bookkeeper/accountant might be manually entering invoices into a system, emailing managers to approve payments and such. It takes 3 hours per day. This work is "routine" in the relevant sense (it can be automated) but our young, congenial and soon-to-be-replaced-by-robots accounts payable woman (her name's Lynne) also does and is capable of doing "non-routine" tasks. She c…

"Generally when technology creates efficiencies, the unemployment rate does not just increase by the number of people that did that work yesterday" Perhaps not, but it does increase. Because somebody else was calling suppliers and having lunch with the manager yesterday.

That's an unfounded assumption. There's lots of work that goes undone because it's cost prohibitive. Technology in this case increased overall value because it allowed Lynne to do something that no one was doing before.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#76

Post by a_humean »

tomjen3 wrote: post #65
mrrrgn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress implies moving toward a goal. What goal are we moving toward? Our society and economy aren't optimized for scenarios involving large scale unemployment. What use is automation if it only leads to mass human suffering?

Please look out the nearest window that overlooks a street. Then compare with the next couple of minutes of this video ( https://youtu.be/uYmbyOrM4gs?t=543 ). Compare the amount of human suffering. The difference is 116 years of the automation you so hate. Unfortunately I can't show you what life was like before the industrial revolution, because we don't have images or movies from that time, suffice to say that life…

I'm afraid you have completely misunderstood him/her. I'm pretty certain that he believes the industrial revolution eventually brought about amazing social change and genuine life improvements for everyone that made life much much less 'short, brutish, and hard'.

The point wasn't that automation is bad (it clearly is not), but that if we continue to automate without a plan for how we deal with mass unemployment, then automation will lead to mass human suffering of a different kind.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#77

Post by chimeracoder »

netcan wrote: post #29
kristianc wrote: post #8

I'm interested by the classification here. Many backend jobs involve routine work from people who could be doing non-routine work if the CRUD routine job was automated. Within an industry or a profession it seems like there could be a mix of routine and non-routine work. Similarly, how many people's jobs have changed from being routine jobs to non-routine jobs through either retraining or automation allowing them to…

I think you've hit on the right point. I'm also always curious about how far these definitions can and should be pushed. Talking in terms of "automation of routine tasks" sounds reasonably descriptive of how the spread of technology works. But, technology is a concept that is notoriously elusive in economics. That's because it's hard to clearly define in concrete terms useable in the context of economic theories, whe…

> But, technology is a concept that is notoriously elusive in economics. That's because it's hard to clearly define in concrete terms useable in the context of economic theories, whether they're mathematical conceptual

That's not true. The word "technology" is quite precisely defined in economics, and the definition is generally agreed upon by economists. This definition does indeed lend itself to useful economic theories.

The challenge is that the economic term "technology" does not map 1-1 with the colloquial use of the word "technology", which leads to an abundance of confusion for people unaware of this distinction when they interpret economic analyses.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#78

Post by gphil »

tomjen3 wrote: post #69
gphil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until the last sentence: > This means tax cuts but above all simplifications of the relevant law. How do you pay for the poorest to have tolerable lives with tax cuts? Or are you talking about cutting out regressive taxes on the working poor?

I meant tax cuts and simplifications for the poor. Mostly the tax cuts would come as a result of the simplifications (eg if you import something with small import duties we can just do away with them, which will make them a little more money but mostly saves them time in not having to fill the paperwork and figure out which laws they fall under). Large companies can afford the complexity but small companies typically…

OK, then I agree with you completely now that I understand. I concur we should incent small and family businesses.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#79

Post by paulryanrogers »

maxerickson wrote: post #68
bdavisx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to be careful about what "tolerable lives" means too. I've seen "guaranteed income" proposals talking about something in the $25,000 USD range or similar. That's basically poverty level - and while that's better than nothing, it probably won't work as more and more jobs go away. Imagine a world (or the US) where 75% of the people are at the poverty level and 25% are "rich". How long do you think that'…

$25,000 is a very reasonable existence for a single person, as long as it's present buying power and after tax. You can rent for less than $1000 and should be able to do utilities for ~$300. That leaves about $200 a week, which is certainly not the lap of luxury, but it's plenty for food and necessities (I've done 2 people eating well enough for ~$100 a week so I really don't feel full of shit saying that). There's n…

For the young and healthy that may be true. But we're all going to get old, and most of us will need medical care that could easily exceed that.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#80

Post by paulryanrogers »

ryandrake wrote: post #73
mapt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Generally when technology creates efficiencies, the unemployment rate does not just increase by the number of people that did that work yesterday" Perhaps not, but it does increase. Because somebody else was calling suppliers and having lunch with the manager yesterday.

Not necessarily. As a stereotypical "knowledge worker" my current work activities can be classified very broadly into two buckets: 1. Low-value routine grunt work that I am required to do and 2. High-value non-routine work that is ultimate optional but the more of it I do the better results I get at my job. I try to spend at least 10-20% of my work time figuring out ways to automate more and more of bucket 1 so that…

My guess is this varies widely depending upon the business. Some are more compatible with automation than others.
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