
The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation - petilon
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html
======
torpfactory
I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in
the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now.

We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where
little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners)
by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by
willing politicians of short-sighted vision.

What will it mean to work and contribute to society in the future of machines?

~~~
edblarney
"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where
little human labor is required"

Yes we do.

The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this
mysterious AI will ever have.

The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of
people per unit.

Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century
- UK citizens were _multiple_ times more productive than citizens of any other
nation. It was an astonishing explosion.

Imagine how many people a single train unemployed?

Or the weaving machines that did the work of hundreds.

The impact on labour was definite, direct and measurable - unlike a lot of the
'soft' impact that today's technology has (did MS Word really unemploy
'secretaries' \- or was it a host of factors?)

But what happened during the industrial revolution?

Unemployment went down, wages went up. In fact the cost of human labour rose
dramatically.

The surpluses from the machines went into the economy, basically providing the
foundation for the modern consumer economy.

95% of folks back then worked on farms, mines - or did manual labour/service.

The industrial revolution created the middle class: lawyers, entertainers,
restaurants, mass market clothing, design etc.. Electricity created massive
new industries (think of what you could not do without electricity!).

The economy has been diversifying rapidly since the start of the 19th century
in the UK, and everywhere else about 50 years later.

We will continue to do this.

In 1960 there were 3 channels. In the 1990's 50. Now it's 100's + online
offerings.

There were no 'pro athletes' in 1930. Now we have massive industries around
pro sports.

Working/middle class people did not travel much back in the day. Now they can
travel around the world.

There were no consumer electronics past the radio in 1940. Now the are
zillions of devices.

In the 1920's cars were made by people - now automated assembly lines.

And FYI - for the last 25 years and for at least the next little while - China
(or rather, Mexico, China, India and other low-cost places) are by far and
away bigger job killers than automation.

'Automation' as we understand it is not as fast a process as we think it is
and the days of 'robot replaces x people' are long gone, it's a more complex
and nuanced equation.

Try this one: tell me which people you know, in which industries, have
outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? Not so many. Customer
service? Possibly. Some banker analysts? Possibly. But even in the later,
there are other things for them to do, and the bulk of the staff on both sides
have more to fear form India than Microsoft. In fact, this is happening right
now all over North America: people training dudes in India to do their jobs,
after they've been told they've been outsourced ... (train your replacement if
you want your severance!) ...

Also - since 1900 - the size of government has expanded dramatically. I'm not
'against government' or anything, but many gov. agencies are abhorrently
inefficient. I have a distant family member who's friend, a low-level thug
dealer who was recently arrested. The RCMP (Can. police) spent zillions
tracking, investigating this guy. Two years of surveillance, bureaucratic
justice issues, lawyers - yada yada. So it's not so nice, but we find ways to
'distribute the surpluses' of the new economy in ways, even if they are not
very efficient.

The trick is to 'find things for people to do' in a manner that is reasonably
efficient and fair.

Check out GDP/capita during 19th century:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#/media/File:B...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence#/media/File:Biaroch_European_GDP_per_capita_1830-1890.svg)

Were there was more automation, wealth exploded. (This chart does not address
wages, but there are others that do :) )

~~~
wvenable
> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost
> their jobs' due to some AI or machine?

As software developers, it's literally our jobs to put people out of work. My
software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the
company crows. In my industry, legal, entire departments (like night word
processing) no longer exist.

The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years of human history and say
everything will continue on. People just a few hundred years before that could
not have predicted anything about modern employment.

~~~
cm2187
It is your work to increase productivity. As tedious tasks are automated, you
can deploy people doing new things. As you lower the cost of the product you
manufacture or service you provide, you enable more people to afford it.
That's how new industries are created. I am not to worried about the amount of
work available as a whole. I am more worried about the nature of the work
available, which will be increasingly skilled.

~~~
otakucode
Even better, as you have automated tools available, no one needs you any more.
'You' being the company, that is. As factories replaced craftsmen, and
distribution chains replaced individual travelling merchants, I think there is
a very good chance that the very structure of centralized companies with
offices and on-staff employees will dissolve. You were replying to someone
working in the legal field, for example. Why does the person putting together
my will or litigating a suit for me need to be backed by an organization with
an office building, expensive executives, etc? An individual with the right
knowledge and tools, that's all that's actually NEEDED. Much of economics
centers around assuming that the market will eventually pare away
inefficiencies and competition will strip away all but what is actually
needed.

~~~
wvenable
There is a plan to start deploying Watson-like AIs in the legal field to
automatically data mine for precedents and other legal resources.

> Why does the person putting together my will or litigating a suit for me
> need to be backed by an organization with an office building, expensive
> executives, etc?

These exists because they are currently necessary (they are the "tools" you
speak of) but they're a pure business cost and constantly under pressure to
not exist. Computers have already reduced this back-end cost immensely. For
example, lawyers these days all use dictation software rather than having a
secretary write out shorthand. If all the tools can be automated, they
eventually will.

~~~
otakucode
The legal field in particular is an interesting one as far as automation is
concerned. Several states have passed laws which make illegal the creation of
software systems that do simple easily-automatable tasks like generating
boilerplate documents and filling in legal forms. They have variously
considered either the creation or use of such software "practicing law without
a license." Lawyers see the writing on the wall and are in the perfect
position to do the most terrible thing possible - invent an artificial
marketplace for services which should be being done by a machine.

This isn't a terribly novel idea. Companies which produce phonebooks have been
suing the hell out of municipalities which wish to discontinue the practice of
automatically giving a phonebook to their residents for years now. And, by the
way, they win those cases. Even in municipalities where they simply want to
change receiving a phonebook into an opt-in service, they're suing. That their
product actually now goes beyond being worthless directly into the territory
of actively destroying value, requiring the munis to put out special dumpsters
so that the residents can immediately throw away the useless things, doesn't
seem to bother them. They want their money and they don't care how or why they
get it.

There was an article about the issue with writing software which does legal
things in the Communications of the ACM a year or so ago. I haven't kept up
with the topic, but at that time several states had adopted the laws and they
were being considered in others. Having lawyers pushing new laws is a pretty
easy sell, though, as most legislators come from law in the first place. Some
of the states have a nice exemption that just really hammers the intent home -
you can run a software service that lets people fill forms, get generated
documents, etc... if you pay a lawyer for each thing it does. They don't have
to be involved in any way. They don't have to review the documents and put
their name on them or anything like that. They just have to get a check.
Honestly though, I think that is better than only making it legal for lawyers
to use the software. I fear a future where everyone is yolked and herded into
a cubicle to sit there and push a single button mindlessly, prodding the
automated system to do its thing simply because society and management want
people to have to do a job.

------
jganetsk
This is exactly wrong. Automation happened already, 200 years ago. It upended
society. It was called the Industrial Revolution. Things changed dramatically,
and nothing remotely of that scale is occurring now.

We are suffering today not because of technological progress, but rather the
contrary: the rapid technological progress of the 20th century that brought
tremendous economic prosperity to humanity has finally come to a grinding
halt. Let's stop denying this. The stream of lifechanging breakthrough
inventions of the 20th century, from A (antibiotics) to Z (zippers), have
ended. As a result, we now suffer from secular stagnation. [1]

This is why people can't get jobs. The answer is Keynesian spending, and the
most fair kind of Keynesian spending is basic income. Call it a "Keynesian
dividend".

[1] [http://larrysummers.com/2016/02/17/the-age-of-secular-
stagna...](http://larrysummers.com/2016/02/17/the-age-of-secular-stagnation/)

~~~
mdorazio
I disagree that it's "exactly wrong", though I at the same time agree with the
secular stagnation concept. It's important to remember that past revolutions
in automation have destroyed one field of labor while creating another. For
example, the industrial revolution destroyed hand and muscle-driven labor and
replaced it with factory labor. In the US we then went from an industrial
economy driven by factory jobs to a service economy driven by knowledge-based
labor.

Automation today is now destroying service economy jobs, but it's not clear,
at least to me, what new sector is ramping up to pick up the displacement
slack. The tech sector isn't going to have enough jobs for everyone getting
automated away, and this time around automation is unique in that it's
attacking pretty much everything all at once. Human drivers are going to be
displaced by autonomous vehicles at the same time as financial advisers are
being displaced by wealth allocation algorithms at the same time as warehouse
workers are being displaced by picker robots, etc.

~~~
roryisok
Even jobs in the tech sector are likely under threat. Remember that guy a few
weeks ago showing an AI platform be built to design logos for customers? We're
not far from having AI build our web pages, and then simple web apps, and then
probably native apps, and before long, finding and patching bugs in software,
and eventually writing the software itself

~~~
hshhdshdh
We already are automated. It's called C. Python. Java. Go.

How many programmers would it take to write Windows in Assembly?

~~~
roryisok
It's automated to a certain level, sure - but it's silly to assume we've
reached maximum amount of automation possible in the space.

------
tmnvix
One upside to automation is that comparative advantage with regard to labour
costs becomes much less important. This means that manufacturers can more
easily afford to keep production in high wage economies.

There are other considerations of course, such as proximity to resources,
transport hubs, and markets.

Ultimately though, this doesn't change the fact that automation is mostly
beneficial to capital owners and not the wider workforce, so capitalism's
tendency toward inequality (as described by Piketty) still applies.

~~~
hamandcheese
> This means that manufacturers can more easily afford to keep production in
> high wage economies.

But this doesn't really bring jobs back, since they'll just be automated.

That's not to say there aren't other benefits aside from job creation, though.

~~~
blackguardx
Someone has to service the machines. Also, big machines are expensive to
transport, so it makes sense to make them closer to where they will be used,
leading to more service jobs.

There are also a lot of engineering jobs designing the hardware and software
of these automated factories.

~~~
wott
The whole point of automation is to increase benefit by increasing
productivity, i.e. by either increasing the production output for the same
amount of jobs, or decreasing the amount of jobs needed for the same
production.

Since we already produce about everything in the amount we need (and sometimes
much more than we need), there is no point in increasing production (it would
not be sold, consumed), so productivity gains will translate into cost
reduction, i.e. less jobs.

~~~
blackguardx
No one is arguing that. The argument is if we should have automated factories
in high paying regions (like the US). I'm arguing that having automated
factories here is better than no factories here.

------
jobu
This was one of the more frustrating parts of this past election cycle:

 _" No candidate talked much about automation on the campaign trail.
Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico, there is no
clear way to stop it, and many of the technology companies are in the United
States and benefit the country in many ways."_

A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that
won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this
seems painfully obvious to me, and I would hope most politicians are
intelligent enough to see it as well. Unfortunately none of them have even
talked about it, much less proposed solutions to help displaced workers.

~~~
crdoconnor
>Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico

Technology is a MUCH more convenient villain. You can roll back 1% friendly
trade agreements with China and Mexico. You can point pitchforks at the 1%.
You can't roll back technological advancement and it's pointless to try.

You achieve nothing by being against technology except looking like an idiot,
which is _precisely_ why articles like this are trying to convince everybody
that technology _is_ the "villain".

Because god forbid Lloyd Blankfein and _his_ cronies start being seen as
villains.

>A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that
won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this
seems painfully obvious to me,

Funny. As a software developer it seems painfully obvious to me just how far
off we are from this supposed goal. All around me I see developers who shirk
at even automating their own tests while getting excited over vaporware.

------
2sk21
Its not just automation. There have been many more applications of
optimization to reducing operating margins. At my company, there was, for
example, a project aimed at identifying the optimal service intervals for
heavy mining equipment. As a result of this work, it was possible to
substantially reduce the amount of preventative maintenance that was being
done on the machinery. It was found that not all of the preventive maintenance
was cost effective.

~~~
Delphiza
This is a missing part of long stories about AI and automation. I too work in
servicing of industrial equipment that is now being connected. The algorithms
can be simple - after _n_ running hours a component needs servicing. No fancy
AI or automation, no over-hyped 'predictive maintenance' machine learning,
just a 'connected machine'. As a result, the number of service engineers can
be reduced significantly because they no longer over-service. This is not a
robot taking someone's job, but a 10% efficiency gain in servicing equipment
is a lot of people. It's across a skills range too - we have customers that
range from minimum wage floor cleaners to PhD-level scientific equipment
engineers.

------
twblalock
It's interesting that many politicians, including Trump and Sanders, want
policies to prevent jobs from leaving the US, but have no policy proposals
around automation.

If you want manufacturing jobs to stay in the US, regulating automation would
be far more effective than trying to prevent companies from outsourcing jobs.
(Incidentally, a lot of jobs that have been outsourced probably would have
been automated if outsourcing had not been possible, and that's what opponents
of outsourcing are missing.)

I'm very much against a policy to restrict automation, but it's worth pointing
out.

~~~
cnnsucks
You know what else is interesting? The same part of the political spectrum
that cites automation as the real cause of working class decline does not
hesitate to rationalize mass immigration as necessary to fill the demand for
labor. If automation is the problem then what are all the unskilled immigrants
for?

~~~
twblalock
What part of the political spectrum are you referring to? It certainly isn't
part of the mainstream.

------
Animats
It's about time for fruit picking to be automated. There are prototype
systems, but they come from SRI International, not John Deere, and they're too
fragile and too complicated mechanically. The vision system isn't the problem
any more; that's simpler than a smartphone.

Once that works, California loses jobs about 2.1 million illegal immigrants.

------
alkonaut
I'm not sure what everyone is so afraid of? There will be tensions and a
political problem about redistribution if "simple" jobs dry up, sure, but
isn't automation a good thing regardless? It means we make more stuff withuot
putting in more effort.

Automation and industrialization over the last 150 years already meant we went
from 120h weeks on farms to 40h weeks in offices and factories, while living
standards increased. Measured in 40h/week jobs per person that means we lost 2
of 3 jobs in the industrialization! The world didn't end. And now everyone is
worried that if we go from 40 to 30h or 20h weeks that will be a disaster?

We can't afford to have a large fraction of the people unemployed and the rest
still working 40h weeks in ever fewer jobs of course, but that's a problem
societies will hopefully solve.

~~~
dvtv75
Four years ago, I was working full time. That job was automated away, but I
found another part-time job that paid minimum wage for fewer hours, so my
income dropped dramatically. That job was automated away, and I was very lucky
to find a job (that ended up being around double full-time hours, but only
paid for half of them, so legally I was paid about half of minimum wage),
which went away. Now, I'm working one third of a full time job, for minimum
wage. That doesn't even cover living costs, and it's looking like it'll be
automated away in the next few months.

As working hours drop and wages tend toward minimum, we do indeed end up in a
bad situation.

~~~
shostack
Sorry to hear about your job troubles. Can you share what you do that has been
automated away? Were all these jobs in the same industry? If so, what are your
plans to shift to jobs that are less prone to automation (if you don't mind my
asking)?

------
JoachimS
I can recommend the book The Second Machine Age that discuss this topic
thoroughly: [https://www.amazon.com/Second-Machine-Age-Prosperity-
Technol...](https://www.amazon.com/Second-Machine-Age-Prosperity-
Technologies/dp/0393350649)

There is also a (imho) great SF short story by Marshall Brain about this:
[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
codecamper
I guess we in tech have seen this coming for the past oh.. 25 years? Now it is
really starting to hit home.

Another big thing that drives automation is the stock market. The stock market
provides a bunch of money to companies that can show earnings growth. Used to
be you could just expand globally. Well, all the big brands have done that
now. So the next step is to cut costs. How?

Automate.

Without the stock market this might also happen but at a slower pace.

------
ultim8k
We have finally reached the age where humans can only do creative jobs. Humans
are not good enough in doing heavy and repeating stuff. Robots on the other
side are perfect for that. So the problem imho is not technology but lack of
education.

------
gooseus
Surprised I haven't seen CGP Grey's Humans Need Not Apply[1] video posted up
in any of these automation discussions.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

Anyone who thinks that automation isn't a big deal want to respond?

I'm also curious how we assume with such confidence that everything will be
fine since we survived the Industrial Revolution when there was an order of
magnitude less people on the planet in the 19th century?

------
carsongross
Whatever.

In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can build
up the automation expertise ourselves, and, while we wait for the End of Work,
stop making the middle of our IQ bell curve compete with countries that don't
give a shit about their environment, the concept of intellectual property or
the safety of their workers.

We can figure the automation problem out later.

~~~
Ironchefpython
> In the meantime, let's bring the manufacturing chain back here so we can
> build up the automation expertise ourselves

How? There's obvious long term financial value in having local supply chains
and manufacturing expertise. Therefore state capitalist systems will subsidize
local manufacturing in the short term, while anarcho-capitalist systems will
flock to set up shop there to capture convert those short-term subsidies into
short-term profit.

Do you have a solution that will work to build high-tech manufacturing
infrastructure in the United States with no corporate incentives and no US
government intervention? (I mean besides tweeting brags about job creation)

~~~
adventured
Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially
reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy. Check out the various
regulation registries at the Federal level, the US is choking to death on
thousands of unnecessary regulations (growing rapidly for decades) that are
almost always written solely for the benefit of protectionism or for fake the-
government-is-doing-something purposes (which happens at all levels).

The US corporate income tax rate has been a bad joke for a long time.
Countries like Sweden at 22%, understood decades ago that it was bad economic
policy to have a high rate. You tax the income of the wealthy as the offset.
The US for example already has an extremely progressive personal income tax
rate. For several decades the corporate income tax rate has been falling
around the world; the world's average rate has fallen from near 30% to 22% in
the last 12 years. The US isn't competitive, you see that in how we've been
bleeding pharma & biotech companies off to Ireland. Over time, you start
seeing R&D & operations offshoring because of that. Give it time and you've
artificially created a lot more global competition through bad policy.

If you're a small to mid size manufacturer in the US, paying a 30% effective
income tax rate is brutal if you want to compete globally while everyone else
is paying far lower rates. Germany for example lowered their top rate by about
9 points a decade ago. Finland and Iceland have a 20% rate. Korea is at 24%
and China at 25%. The European average is about 20%.

~~~
smallnamespace
The US effective tax rate for corporations is pretty much comparable to other
developed countries' effective rates [1], because the US has more deductions,
write-offs, and tax holidays.

If you're talking about cutting the statutory rate while also eliminating
deductions and simplifying the code, I'm all for that (ditto for personal
income taxes). A huge complicated tax code benefits big corporations more than
your small business owner, because tax lawyers and accountants are largely a
fixed cost.

But let's not keep repeating the misguided fact that US corporations pay
unusually high taxes -- they simply don't.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/03/25/the-
truth...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/03/25/the-truth-about-
corporate-tax-rates/#f29735920a54)

~~~
usrusr
When looking at effective tax rates, one might want to include the cost for
all the experts employed to get to the difference between nominal and
effective tax rate, and the brain drain these careers impose on more
productive disciplines. But you will have a hard time finding a country where
people are not convinced that their tax system is the worst, so maybe the US
is not particularly bad in that way either.

The observation that a complicated makes the big guy part a lower effective
rate than the small guy should be much more popular, I wish someone
established a good name for it.

------
xbmcuser
The global market was still expanding so all efficiency gains from industrial
revolution and the internet revolution were absorbed. Where as today the
global economy is stagnating. The efficiency gains in the next decade are
expected to be a few times the rate of market growth which would put many
people out of work making the global market contract further. This cycle could
accelerate very quickly.

------
1982734234
I think we have to deal with reality first, rather than delving into
hypothetical situations where robots control the world. Currently, many
countries are growing their population despite the reduction in jobs.
Secondly, corruption in the government, and businesses that manipulate the
government, is funneling money into a small group of people.

These are two issues that will actually help with both creating jobs and
ensuring decent pay. Nobody really knows what will happen in the future. If
there are robots that can do all of our work, who says that only extremely
rich people will be able to afford them? Which technologies have stayed
permanently unaffordable where there is consumer demand? Not that many.

------
dfabulich
(I posted this on another thread this week where it was less relevant, so I'll
just repost it here and see if anybody notices.)

Mass automation is undermining our democracy in a very specific way: it's
acting as the ultimate "resource curse."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse)

"Countries with an abundance of natural resources, specifically non-renewable
resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth, less
democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural
resources."

Scholars debate the causes of the resource curse, but one popular theory has
to do with the way autocrats fund themselves relative to democracies.

Autocrats, it turns out, need a lot of wealth to pay their cronies. No
dictator rules alone; they need someone to run the military, someone to
collect the taxes, and someone to enforce the laws. Those people have to be
paid, and handsomely, or they'll overthrow the dictator (or just allow the
dictator to be overthrown). This is called "selectorate theory" and this video
is a great introduction.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

Oil wealth, specifically, undermines democracy because when autocrats have
access to oil wealth, they don't need to depend on their citizens very much.
(Indeed, many oil-rich autocratic countries just allow other countries to come
in and drill it, keeping local labor entirely out of the loop.)

Resource-cursed autocracies tend to democratize when the oil wealth runs out
and they need to rely on the people's productivity to deliver wealth to
cronies. When autocrats are forced to allow people to educate themselves and
communicate with one another, democracy ensues.

It can work the other way, too. In every democracy, there's a group of folks
asking themselves a question: is now the time to try a coup, to replace
democracy with an autocracy? As the value of capital increases and the value
of human labor decreases, the advantages of staging a coup become more and
more enticing.

For years we've thought of human labor as the "ultimate resource." But it
turns out that human labor isn't the ultimate resource. Robot labor that's
just as good if not better than human labor is a resource beyond any we've
ever seen.

But that means that we're discovering/inventing the ultimate resource curse.

We _might_ use automation to fund universal basic income, or a class of elites
could use it to undermine "unnecessary" citizens (the "unnecessariat"),
establishing a corporate fascism.

When the government depends on human productivity for our tax base, the
government needs to keep us all well-educated and healthy. But soon,
government won't depend on human labor.

"Is now the time?" they're asking. And, increasingly, the answer is "yes."

~~~
mcv
Interesting perspective!

The biggest worry here is the automation of law enforcement. Once we're
policed by robots, there's nobody to rise up against the dictators.

Maybe we should ensure that every person has one robot to do their work for
them, and that's it. No robots for governments and corporations.

------
remir
Self-driving cars and robots replacing factory workers are obviously just the
beginning. How about computers that can program themselves? How about machines
that can _think_ and create like we do (and better)?

We approach 2017, we know climate change is a real threat, we know automation
is going to be a big problem, we know we're consuming the world's resources at
an alarming rate and there's 7.5 billion people on this rock...

I get the feeling the future won't be this Utopian scenario that some people
are dreaming of.

~~~
dispose13432
>How about computers that can program themselves

We've done that. Starting with the first language after Assembly.

------
agumonkey
Automation, which is rooted in all of our brains.

We'll have to solve that paradox and change our mindset on life. Philosophy
time.

------
xwowsersx
Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness" is relevant here.

[http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html)

------
logicallee
No kidding! Based on early nineteenth century trends, automation will result
in most people being completely unable to do work of any kind by the middle of
the twentieth century :( :(

------
tcbawo
Once productivity increases through bio hacking becomes possible, we may see
the day when hacking yourself to be competitive for employment becomes an
ethical problem.

~~~
usrusr
Ever heard of a guy called Lance Armstrong? How many people routinely mess
with their brain chemistry to fulfill self-imposed (via career expectation)
performance expectations?

------
SFJulie
The long term job killer is UNFAIR access to automation decided by the costs
of automation or political decision.

The revolt in late XIXth century in Europe were based on the generalisation of
the steam engine that were favoring without any other merits than birth the
wealthy and ripping the craftsmen of their jobs.

Diesel made an engine so craftsman could compete vs steam engine. The german
government pre-empted his invention so that it would not disrupt the dominant
position of big corporations...

Automation is not the problem, it is unfair access to automation decided by
capital.

------
Pica_soO
The final stage are fully automated factory's on ships, going to where the
resources are the cheapest. Receiving machinery from other ships, selling
Kalashnikov and cellphones, to a mankind at war over boredom.

Good thing is though, machines dont need CEOs - so the last rat on the ship,
might have the flagpoles cotton as towel.

That is unless they can invent so many boolshit jobs, that the hamster wheel
keeps on churning.

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iamgopal
we not only need accelerated minimum wages consensus and field trials, but
also defined way to remove wealth from the top few using such creative ways,
that wealth still become desirable pursuit.

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known
Does automation kill jobs in China?

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badsock
Yes.
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966)

~~~
Animats
That's Foxconn, and they're just getting started with replacing workers.
Foxconn has 1.3 million employees. Hon Hai CEO Terry Gou: "Hon Hai has a
workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals,
to manage one million animals gives me a headache."

He means it. He brought in the director of the Tapei Zoo for advice on how to
manage animals with different temperaments.

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credit_guy
I think it's likely that automation will be a huge creator of jobs. And I'm
not talking about creation of high skill jobs at the expense of destruction of
low skill jobs. I'm talking about a net creation of both low and high skill
jobs.

Allow me to explain. Here's a youtube movie of some robots in a Mercedes
factory

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VreG1iC65Lc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VreG1iC65Lc)

There are thousands of movies like that. Lots of robots doing a lot of work,
and apparently displacing lots of jobs. But there are some jobs in the
background. Someone has programmed those robots. But aren't those programmers
(super-)highly skilled?

I don't know for sure, but it feels to me a robot is programed like an Excel
macro: you record the moves, and then edit what you recorded. For an Excel
macro, both parts are done (generally) by the same person, but for industrial
robots, they are probably done by different people. The person who is being
recorded needs only know how to manipulate a mechanical arm with a controller,
that is probably not very different from a PS4 controller. The person who
edits the macros, creates procedures, then combines them, optimizes them,
creates tests, etc, etc, that person is a highly skilled individual. The other
one not so much. The difference here is the capacity for abstraction.

Now, one could say that both these jobs happen only once, and then the robot
performs the jobs thousands of times, so you have 2 new jobs (one high skill,
one low skill) displacing thousands others. Alas, the programming,
maintenance, re-programming, upgrading, not to mention construction of the
robots still needs a small army of people. But overall, I agree that it's
possible that introducing these robots resulted in a net job destruction for
Mercedes and its suppliers (but not entirely sure; Mercedes was most likely
more concerned with the quality of their cars rather than their cost of
production).

However, not every manufacturer is similar to Mercedes. A lot of manufacturers
produce things in smaller batches for example. And now you start to look at
the trade-off of putting the automation in place:

[https://xkcd.com/1205/](https://xkcd.com/1205/)

If a batch is small enough, the initial investment in automation is not
recouped. If the batch is huge, the automation is a no-brainer. But there's a
huge middle ground where only some partial automation makes sense. And part of
that automation that makes sense is to do things using some mechanical arms
moved by some PS4-type controller.

I think in the near future, a lot of the "mechanical" type of work (welding,
cutting, soldering, hammering) will become remote-controlled. It might look
like high-skilled now, but the job of a machinist was considered high-skilled
50 years ago, and essentially they are the same.

Now, the farther you are from the moving or hot or electricity-conducting
parts, the farther you are from danger, and the more people can try something
as a hobby. More importantly, the barrier of entry for a given (low-skilled)
trade goes down, so people will be able to retrain themselves more quickly.
And these people will be able to create more quickly.

Just like blogging has created millions of (unofficial, but money making)
jobs, the advent of remote-controlled machines will create millions of new
(low-skilled) jobs. And these remote-controlled machine will show up exactly
because of the need for automation.

~~~
wvenable
> Alas, the programming, maintenance, re-programming, upgrading, not to
> mention construction of the robots still needs a small army of people.

If automation doesn't result in absolutely _massive_ savings on employment, it
just won't happen. You're army of people is more like a small platoon -- the
army being entirely displaced.

But I think there is something to be said about automation allowing for
creation to become more accessible. It might make entire categories of small-
scale products designed by small teams possible in ways that were not possible
before.

~~~
Animats
Right. Kiva warehouse robots are a particularly striking example. Before
Amazon bought Kiva, they gave out info about operating costs. All the little
mobile robots are interchangeable, so if one fails, it's just sidelined. You
have somebody on site to replace batteries and wheels; anything non-trivial
goes back to the factory. The entire Kiva company, which was servicing about a
dozen big Internet retailers before Amazon bought them, was 600 people. A
single warehouse automated with Kiva loses at least half its staff.

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JustSomeNobody
Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.

We're going to have to find ways to help people stay busy/occupied. Otherwise,
society will just turn nasty.

