Earlier quoted context omitted.
My job didn’t exist 20 years ago. Did yours?
Yes Were you in the workforce 20 years ago?
I was barely born 20 years ago
Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
71–80 of 80 posts
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#72According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1), the most common jobs in the US are retail sales, cashier, food prep and serving, office clerk, registered nurse, customer service rep, waiter / waitress, laborer, secretary, janitor.
It’s worth reviewing the actual list for yourself to see what these common jobs really are. And thinking about at what point you would rather be dealing with a robot (let’s call them that) than a person.
Truck driving is #15. It gets a lot of attention because it’s a good paying job for a high school education.
Taxi driver is #173. Seems low for all the attention that Uber’s disruption of that industry gets.
1. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/mobile/retail-salespersons...
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent is referring to the how people cannot lower their wage (below the minimum) when automation starts competing against them. The truck driver may make three times minimum wage right now, but the truck driver will be prevented, by law, from offering to drive a truck for 1/3 minimum wage when driverless trucks cost 1/2 minimum wage to operate. Humans may want to sharpen their pencils and outcompete automation o…
And my point is that what the minimum wage is doesn't matter anyway. You can't lower your minimum wage by law, but you also can't live on that, either. What does it matter if your salary is competitive with that of a machine if you can't afford food, shelter, or any other of life's necessities? Minimum wage is, by all accounts, a success. It prevents employers from creating jobs that prevent a person from ever being…
> You can't lower your minimum wage by law, but you also can't live on that, either.
But, given the context of discussion, the only other alternative is to have no wage at all. Being able to buy some things allows you to live better than being able to buy no things. We're not talking about the real world where automation creates more jobs than it destroys, we're talking about a hypothetical world where your only choice is to go directly head-to-head with automation. You have no hope of winning if the law forces you to charge more than the competition.
> It prevents employers from creating jobs that prevent a person from ever being successful.
You're slightly off on that. Minimum wage prevents employees from competing against each other once the price reaches the defined minimum. It's to protect you from other workers, not the employer. Minimum wage exists precisely because people have proven over and over again that they will sharpen their pencils and figure out how to do job for less than you in order to get the job over you.
If there was nobody to undercut you, employers would be forced to pay you whatever you want. This is why software developers, who are limited in availability relative to the jobs available to them, are generally able to charge significantly larger amounts of money. Jobs at the minimum have such an overabundance of labour that they're all fighting for the limited number of spots, and thus there is always someone willing to work for less to get the job.
> Who does the OP think this person is that can live on $5/hr or lower? Minimum wage _as it is_ is arguably too low.
Although it seems kind of silly to compare the needs of our current situation to some hypothetical future where everything is automated. If humans were doing all the work that automation currently does today, the current minimum wage wouldn't just be arguably too low, it would be but a tiny fraction of what would be necessary to survive. Food, for instance, would easily be 10x more expensive than it is now if we didn't have all of the efficient automation keeping the costs down. Imagine trying to live on the current minimum wage while paying an order of magnitude more for your groceries. With automation taking over in this hypothetical future, the cost of living will have no relationship to what we're accustom to in this current reality.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#74> These changes are coming, and we need to tell the truth and the whole truth. We need to find the jobs that AI can’t do and train people to do them. We need to reinvent education. These will be the best of times and the worst of times. If we act rationally and quickly, we can bask in what’s best rather than wallow in what’s worst. Saying "find the jobs that AI can't do" like it's this obvious thing; we haven't the s…
It's pretty easy to guess. I just did my laundry and folded my clothes. Something "ai" can't even think about doing, not even close.
Actually it can but the cost to build it currently is not worth the return. In 5-10 years I don't think that will be true. First such machines will be adopted by large hotels etc where laundry which for them is usually bedsheets and towels as the tech gets smaller and better adopted by motels and over time by common people. I don't think it will be very long from when laundry room in a building or laundromats/dry cleaners will be automated where you drop off your clothes and collect them back washed dried and ironed.
Almost all work in the end can be automated the biggest hurdle currently is the cost building a specialised robot for a specific task is not cheaper than humans doing it specially for housework but for how long.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#75Mechanization 'destroyed' millions of jobs, when people were replaced by mechanized equipment replaced farm workers, horse breeders/tenders, folks in the transportation business, etc. Electronic computers 'destroyed' jobs when they replaced human computers. Motorized street sweepers 'destroyed' jobs when they replaced people with brooms sweeping debris off of streets (except in Beijing where, as of 2015, this is stil…
It will take time for the new jobs to appear and people to be retrained, just as it did during those past instances of great change. Meanwhile people will be unemployed.
Yes, they will. Do you have a proposal for how to simultaneously provide for efficient progress and smooth transitions? I mostly see people either lamenting the suffering that big changes often cause, or brushing it aside as inevitable. It'd be interesting to see ideas for how we could have disruptive developments without so much disruption.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are China & India really the issue? I mean, McDonalds only just committed to automation of ordering at a minimum wage much higher than that in China or India. I think we over estimate where and by how much automation will strike. Poor to middle income people in rich countries are most at risk. Question is, can we pivot the country to find gainful employment for the dispersed peoples?
What? McDonalds had automated ordering kiosks in China long before the US. The one near my apartment in Beijing got them in late 2015.
Yeah was really not thinking McDonalds. They also have those kiosks all over EU locations.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#77While China’s use of data has a lot fewer restraints than US/EU, another interesting question to consider is how the government will react when the jobs of their population start to go away and unrest set in. If we are sitting on a powder keg, then China’s and India’s are the biggest ones. Policy will be a huge wildcard and also criteria for long term success.
Are China & India really the issue? I mean, McDonalds only just committed to automation of ordering at a minimum wage much higher than that in China or India. I think we over estimate where and by how much automation will strike. Poor to middle income people in rich countries are most at risk. Question is, can we pivot the country to find gainful employment for the dispersed peoples?
China and India have the biggest populations, so based on the articles reasoning they stand to have the biggest problems because of loss of jobs.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of people said that about the minimum wage in the UK before it was introduced, it turned out to be far from the truth.
I dont know the specific claims you are referring to, but the effects of price floors are well known and theoretically easy to understand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_floor
As I said, those arguments were put forward when the UK government introduced a minimum wage and they turned out to be wrong.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty easy to guess. I just did my laundry and folded my clothes. Something "ai" can't even think about doing, not even close.
Uh huh? https://foldimate.com/ https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/10/16865506/laundroid-laundr... (and yes these are buggy and expensive now, but 5 years?)
5 yrs is not that long of a time. Foldmate example you linked supports my case not yours.
Re: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not really the same as for horses. Horses in society lost control of their own reproductive rights. Horses existed to fill jobs because people bred them to meet a demand. As demand for horses declined, fewer horses were bred. We have the opposite situation with humans. Individual humans retain their reproductive rights. Most of them don't decide to reduce the supply to meet a reduced demand. For a time, China di…
I'm not sure having reproductive rights has any bearing on weather or not we can find jobs people are exclusively more qualified to do.
The point is that the supply of humans doesn't track with the demand for them like it does for horses.
We will find something to do with humans because we'll be forced to. Humans are exclusively more qualified for existence.