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Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

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Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#91

Post by seangrant »

btbuildem wrote: post #89

Assisting or caring for others is not a low-skill job! It may not require a doctorate in theoretical physics, but it requires a lot of emotional intelligence, stamina and ability to be present with other people. It's far from routine! This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people…

I think it was a poor choice of words. "Caring for others" can include things like making food, washing cars, and cleaning. Essentially another way of saying "labor for others."

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#92

Post by maxerickson »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #79
maxerickson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

That's fair, but that's a problem we have to solve regardless of whether a basic income is installed or not.

(At least, if we means the US and we keep providing Medicare and similar)

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#93

Post by carleverett »

FilterSweep wrote: post #47
savanaly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. Isn't that more properly regarded as exciting than scary? The long term benefits to automation have rarely failed to outweigh the temporary costs. I would personally be very happy if my own current job- software developer- were somehow automated out of existence. Not only would it allow me to put my money where my mouth is rega…

> but it would mean huge gains for the human race. This entirely depends on the model the human race is running off of. With the current state of mass-centralization in tech (see, again, the big 3), you will never get to experience such gains. In fact, you would quickly grow dependent on someone else to feed and shelter you, considering you can no longer provide a benefit to society that puts food on the table. In fa…

> In fact, most people wouldn't provide value anymore.

History has shown this not to be true. The labor force has evolved several times in the relatively short history of the US. Markets are able to adjust these changes pretty efficiently: people whose skills become obsolete learn new ones, and higher unemployment winds up encouraging companies to find uses for cheaper labor.

Sure, it's not in your best interest to tell your boss you found a way to automate your job, but it's definitely in everyone else's.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#94

Post by Dain42 »

btbuildem wrote: post #89

Assisting or caring for others is not a low-skill job! It may not require a doctorate in theoretical physics, but it requires a lot of emotional intelligence, stamina and ability to be present with other people. It's far from routine! This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people…

I completely agree. My grandmother is in the Alzheimer's wing at her local nursing home, and I cannot begin to understand how the staff can do their jobs day after day. It's almost like running a daycare for elderly people.

They are so kind, and helpful, both to residents and their families, and they are just so superb at what are really difficult jobs. They deserve much more than most of them are making. They're some of the higher-paying jobs in the town, but relatively speaking, they're not high-paying.

Back when I was in middle and high school, my other grandmother was in the same home, though not in the Alzheimer's wing, and they seemed to take really good care of her, too. I wasn't as cognizant of it at the time, but talking to my parents and looking back, I can see that it's the case.

I know that I couldn't do their job.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#95

Post by jsprogrammer »

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…

>An AR (or whatever) info delivery thingy tells him exactly how to install or remove parts. etc

Once you have exact replication steps, automation is easy.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#96

Post by gutnor »

nostrademons wrote: post #90
FilterSweep wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it would mean huge gains for the human race. This entirely depends on the model the human race is running off of. With the current state of mass-centralization in tech (see, again, the big 3), you will never get to experience such gains. In fact, you would quickly grow dependent on someone else to feed and shelter you, considering you can no longer provide a benefit to society that puts food on the table. In fa…

The assumption that the "current model" (I assume you mean capitalism) makes is that people, when placed in a position where they no longer provide a benefit to society and yet must in order to put food on the table, will find a way to provide a benefit to society. In my experience, this is true over longer (1-2 year) timescales, even if it's not obvious how at the outset. Most people, when made redundant, find new w…

> but the outcome often results in a lot more lucrative and fulfilling career than they had before

Not sure about that, that's not at all my experience coming from a poor area which has gone through several mass-scale outsourcing. ( i.e. a whole vertical slice of the economy just moves away )

You need an set of positive circumstances in order to make yourself relevant again. Access to appropriate education/resources, capability to identify a new opportunity, capacity to actually take it ( i.e. money, flexibility, ... ) If you miss any of that, you just enter a vicious circle that drags you down.

Over the course of a generation, what you say is true. Most of the youth has moved away from that poor area I came from, including me.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#97

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

carleverett wrote: post #93
FilterSweep wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it would mean huge gains for the human race. This entirely depends on the model the human race is running off of. With the current state of mass-centralization in tech (see, again, the big 3), you will never get to experience such gains. In fact, you would quickly grow dependent on someone else to feed and shelter you, considering you can no longer provide a benefit to society that puts food on the table. In fa…

> In fact, most people wouldn't provide value anymore. History has shown this not to be true. The labor force has evolved several times in the relatively short history of the US. Markets are able to adjust these changes pretty efficiently: people whose skills become obsolete learn new ones, and higher unemployment winds up encouraging companies to find uses for cheaper labor. Sure, it's not in your best interest to t…

I'm sorry but the notion the the Labor force will evolve because it has in the past is just an over simplification of a complex process and presupposes most humans are capable of being retrained for a job not slated for obsolescence. Technology can only be useful to those who can use it, if we're honest with one another and looking at the futures for the uneducated masses of the planet most of them aren't necessary going forward. Like it or not seismic shifts in technology have often been coupled with massive reductions in human population, and this will most likely be the case as below replacement birthrates in first world nations sets us on a collision path in the next decade, which will be exacerbated by automation of repetitive task jobs.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#98

Post by abakker »

nostrademons wrote: post #90
FilterSweep wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it would mean huge gains for the human race. This entirely depends on the model the human race is running off of. With the current state of mass-centralization in tech (see, again, the big 3), you will never get to experience such gains. In fact, you would quickly grow dependent on someone else to feed and shelter you, considering you can no longer provide a benefit to society that puts food on the table. In fa…

The assumption that the "current model" (I assume you mean capitalism) makes is that people, when placed in a position where they no longer provide a benefit to society and yet must in order to put food on the table, will find a way to provide a benefit to society. In my experience, this is true over longer (1-2 year) timescales, even if it's not obvious how at the outset. Most people, when made redundant, find new w…

If you owned the product of your labor (i.e. the automation of your job) then it should make no difference. The trouble is, then when you create an automaton that replaces a $100K/year employee, then the creator gets f*ed.

Put another way, if you could create a way to automate your job entirely, then there also has to be a guarantee that doing so will not result in you getting fired. Alternatively, if you automate someone else's job, then the company needs to be responsible for training them to do a new job. Even if this is not practical or possible in all cases, it needs to be the case more often. Right now, corporations pay the government to solve this problem (not voluntarily), but the government does a pretty bad job of helping. Ideally corporations interested in any social responsibility need to solve this problem themselves. When the automation revolutions becomes real enough to threaten executive jobs, I suspect they'll solve it pretty quickly.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#99

Post by nostrademons »

gutnor wrote: post #96
nostrademons wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that the "current model" (I assume you mean capitalism) makes is that people, when placed in a position where they no longer provide a benefit to society and yet must in order to put food on the table, will find a way to provide a benefit to society. In my experience, this is true over longer (1-2 year) timescales, even if it's not obvious how at the outset. Most people, when made redundant, find new w…

> but the outcome often results in a lot more lucrative and fulfilling career than they had before Not sure about that, that's not at all my experience coming from a poor area which has gone through several mass-scale outsourcing. ( i.e. a whole vertical slice of the economy just moves away ) You need an set of positive circumstances in order to make yourself relevant again. Access to appropriate education/resources,…

What are outcomes like for the people that did move away and retrain? A key point of the "redundant workers will find new work" hypothesis is that they make rational decisions to find & take advantage of opportunities elsewhere. These rational decisions can often be emotionally wrenching - like giving up your home, your identity, and your social support network - but I'm curious what happens to the folks who are willing to make those decisions.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#100

Post by nostrademons »

abakker wrote: post #98
nostrademons wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that the "current model" (I assume you mean capitalism) makes is that people, when placed in a position where they no longer provide a benefit to society and yet must in order to put food on the table, will find a way to provide a benefit to society. In my experience, this is true over longer (1-2 year) timescales, even if it's not obvious how at the outset. Most people, when made redundant, find new w…

If you owned the product of your labor (i.e. the automation of your job) then it should make no difference. The trouble is, then when you create an automaton that replaces a $100K/year employee, then the creator gets f *ed. Put another way, if you could create a way to automate your job entirely, then there also has to be a guarantee that doing so will not result in you getting fired. Alternatively, if you automate s…

Or you could automate yourself out of a job and get a new job.

There's nothing that says that jobs are sacred. Indeed, most folks born since 1980 believe that they'll have to switch jobs every few years to a.) stay relevant and b.) get paid what they're worth.

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