
What the Industrial Revolution Tells Us about the Future of Automation - rbanffy
https://cacm.acm.org/news/220768-what-the-industrial-revolution-really-tells-us-about-the-future-of-automation-and-work/fulltext
======
Nokinside
>specifically the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries –
did not lead to major social upheaval or widespread suffering.

Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries led to massive social
upheaval. Average height of Englishman decreased before started to increase
(based on military records). Workers started to organize, skulls were cracked.
People were shot in the streets. Armies were ordered to kill workers. There
were bloody civil wars and revolutions.

Industrial revolution was not possible without massive social change that
created, land reforms, working class, middle class and increased private
consumption and accumulation of capital. It was at times bloody, but in the
Western Europe and North America continuity of government was maintained. Not
so in Soviet Union or China.

Anti-Union violence, Union violence (union busting) communist violence,
anticommunist violence was pretty intense at time even when the society as
whole worked.

Let's use US as an example of well managed industrialization and social
upheaval with small number of casualties. We can still list numerous conflicts
with 10-100 deaths: The Molly Maguire trials (20 workers executed), Battle of
Virden, 1898 Colorado labor war,Italian Hall disaster, Ludlow massacre,
Thibodaux Massacre, Pullman Strike, West Virginia Coal Wars, Rock Springs
massacre, 1905 Chicago Teamsters' strike, Steel Strike of 1919, The Herrin
Massacre, 1922, Battle of Blair Mountain, Hanapēpē massacre, Harlan County
War, Memorial Day massacre of 1937.

Future of Automation will create wealth and prosperity beyond all our dreams,
but it requires massive political struggle that settles issues like privacy,
rent seeking, ownership of personal information.

Violence in the street may be positive sign that automation is finally
changing our society.

~~~
aswanson
Yeah, I struggle with this squaring this disruption with a generally
libertarian economic stance. If we truly are at the edge of a disruption that
will make the vast portion of workers under or unemployed, what does that mean
in terms of social stability and survival for those people?

~~~
narrator
The libertarian would say that if the general public gets access to advanced
robotics then there will be enormous prosperity. For example, imagine if you
could buy a robot that would survey your backyard, order equipment from
amazon, start planting food, set up irrigation, harvest and deliver it to a
neighbors automatically? Free locally grown food for everyone. Now, isn't that
awesome? You could also rent a robot that would find water, dig wells, trench,
put in pipes, etc. The possibilities are endless to take PRODUCTION of goods
out of the hands of specialized highly capitalized organizations and into the
hands of anybody who can rent a robot.

The problem is is that a robot this advanced could also be used for very
sophisticated bad purposes, so you're going to have lots of regulation and big
corporations will only be able to use these robots and you'll have to buy
things they produce with whatever meager wages they let you have.

~~~
JBlue42
How do you pay for the robot if you're not working?

~~~
narrator
Just take out a loan. The food cost savings and excess production will pay for
the loan and they can repo the robot if you don't pay. The robot will even be
able to tell you if it's likely to be cash flow positive.

~~~
gloverkcn
Only people working would qualify for a loan. Those people would have more
prosperity until the robots cratered all wages and prices, being free labor
and flooding the market with excess.

When the prices crash a large number of people with robots will be unable to
pay back the loan. Their robots will be repossessed. They will now be out of a
job and with no robot.

The poor would get left over food from the kindness of people with robots?
They'll certainly never work again.

~~~
narrator
The robot will properly buy futures contracts so that the borrower will be
insulated from any food price fluctuations. If the numbers don't add up the
lender will not make the loan. There will not be any "overproduction". The
robots will instead recommend another line of business where the robots
production will be profitable given the price of market futures for those
products.

I have an American friend who lives in Argentina who works online. The cost of
living is such that he can work two months and pay his living expenses for two
years. Those horribly low prices in Argentina are totally killing him. Not!

So what you are saying is the disaster is there will be so much food that
people won't be able to eat it all and the prices will crash? Imagine if
everybody had unlimited amounts of everything they wanted! How would we
support prices?

This kind of thinking reminds me of the great depression where they would
destroy food to keep up prices even as people were starving.

BTW, The novella "Manna" by Marshall Brain is kind of a good take on the
future with robots and everything, though I don't really like his "happy"
future.

BTW, thanks for giving me a hard time on this. I am getting to the point where
this is going to be a bit of a manifesto and you're helping me flesh things
out.

~~~
gloverkcn
I'll be interested to see if any manifesto can plot a path through societies
looming issues. I don't see a scenario where we can maintain our current style
of capitalism without things breaking down in one way or another.

You're friend in Argentina:

* has the ability to get a job from home, which means it's probably a tech/outsourcing job in a first world country. That doesn't take care of 95% of the population. That doesn't fix the issues.

* In the robot scenario where robots are smart enough to understand markets/futures and can decide a completely different line of work, and then do that work, those remote jobs are gone. Your friend is out of work. He doesn't get a robot.

* the company that hires him has to compete for resources in their country of origin. Their local pay requirements determine what they think a "good deal" on labor is. That country would have robots as well and their wages would crater. Again your friend's cush life would disappear, unless he could buy a robot.

>what you are saying is the disaster is there will be so much food that people
won't be able to eat it all and the prices will crash? Imagine if everybody
had unlimited amounts of everything they wanted! How would we support prices?

Now you are getting to the root of the issue.

We produce enough food in the US that nobody should go hungry, yet we have
swaths of kids that don't know where their next meal is coming from.

We have enough abandoned houses that nobody should be homeless, but people
still live on the streets.

In capitalism, a private person/entity produces and someone else has to PAY to
use what's produced. The issue isn't that there won't be enough to go around.
The issue is that our current system will allow lots of people to starve and
do without even when there is excess.

You used the term libertarian. That might be why you're getting all the push
back. Maybe I'm misinformed on the topic. Libertarians believe an unregulated
market and human morality will make everything better. Those two things
combined gave us the triangle trade, raw goods (America) --> manufactured
goods (Europe) --> slaves (Africe). We also got child labor, poisonous food
being sold, no education, life threatening work conditions, etc.

>This kind of thinking reminds me of the great depression where they would
destroy food to keep up prices even as people were starving

Being against this strategy is the antithesis of capitalism. If I give away
food, prices drop. If I reduce the supply then prices will go up.

During the great depression, prices dropped so low that all farmers were going
to go bankrupt. Farmers themselves were dumping crops and rioting to keep
crops off the market to try and increase prices. Farmers were marching on
courts because they were demanding that foreclosures stop.

If you let farmers flood the market with goods (lowering prices), while
allowing them to refuse to pay their debts, then what kind of economy do you
have? It's not capitalism.

My concern is that the coming wave of automation will recreate the great
depression x10. The population at large doesn't see it coming, and maybe I'm a
chicken little. 30% of the US population think poor people are just lazy, and
that if they just worked harder they'd be better off.

When automation comes full force, then our economic and political system will
change. The question is what will it change to, and what will the transition
look like. There's a happy path and a bloody path.

~~~
JBlue42
>When automation comes full force, then our economic and political system will
change. The question is what will it change to, and what will the transition
look like. There's a happy path and a bloody path.

This is what I keep harping on with folks. I think automation will hit and hit
hard and our current economic/political structures are not ready for it or
won't be able to adapt fast enough (hence your depressionx10 or just a massive
inequality gap).

We already have 'more productive' economies but we have stagnant wage growth,
increasing rental/housing costs due to people leaving for cities since there
are little/no economic prospects in rural areas now, and, as you said,
logistical problems in fulfilling basic necessities. Not to mention mental
models that say that these 'unemployed' folks are bad and should just
retrain/go to bootcamp/move elsewhere.

Consumption-wise, we can buy whatever we want. Shitty food is cheap,
electronics, etc, all cheap. But some of the base foundations in Maslow's
hierarchy don't come very cheap anymore and it's harder and harder to get to
the higher reaches.

------
ThomPete
It's amazing how this keeps coming up and people keep try to make these
arguments that there isn't really much to worry about in the long run, without
looking at this from the right perspective.

18th and 19th century didn't replace humans it replaced either animals or
mechanisms (water-mills) or laborious human physical processes.

The replacement we are looking at today is about replacing not just the
solutions of the 18th and 19th century but about replacing human laborious
intellectual processes.

In the 18th and 19th century you could still point to the human mind and say
well at least they can't do that.

But this is now an argument that is becoming less and less true.

What a lot of people who try to claim automation isn't doing anything to jobs
forget that most jobs doesn't actually require the whole human being they only
require parts of what a human can do. A job is a function in a process even
some of those who seem to require the whole human (like experts)

The real way to look at this is too look at what types of jobs requires
general human intelligence and which ones require specialized human knowledge
or intelligence and what we find is that the cleaning lady is more likely to
keep her job for a while while the radiologis function in the process of
detection can be compressed into much fewer (and almost none in the long run)
people.

And compression is IMO the right way to think about the job market and why
it's going to be less and less an area that humans are going to have any
dealing with.

In other words automation is about replacing higher and higher levels of
abstractions. I don't know of any level beyond human intellect and that is why
you can't make comparison with 18th or 19th century progress.

The last people to listen to IMO are the economist as they treat technology as
an externality when it's really at the core the job market discussion.

Sure we might end up in some post scarcity society but getting there needs
serious attention as it affects how we tax, where we tax, who we tax and to
what extent.

Currently politicians listen to economist, they need to listen to technologist
way more.

~~~
snowwrestler
The importance of human intelligence to a functioning economy is overrated.

Humans are social animals; we are each interested in ourselves, and interested
in each other. It was true before we developed intelligence and it remains
true today. We want to be healthy, socially connected, and entertained; we can
never get enough of those. And they can't be automated--a robot can't be
healthy for you, or feel emotions for you.

There is no reason to doubt that an economy that is 30% health care, 30%
social communications, 30% entertainment, and 10% everything else, can work.
Or even an economy that is 99% entertainment, and 1% everything else.
Comparing today to even just 200 years ago, we're already well on our way.

~~~
edanm
"[...] a robot can't be healthy for you, or feel emotions for you."

You're right of course, but you're not addressing an actual argument. No one
is saying that.

What people are talking about are AI's replacing _doctor 's_ and other health
care professionals, replacing _Hollywood_ and the rest of the entertainment
industry, etc.

We as consumers could still be consuming all of these things, but that says
nothing about who is producing it.

~~~
snowwrestler
You can't replace Hollywood with AI because the whole point of entertainment
is that it is about humans. You have to have humans making entertainment or it
is not entertaining.

I'll give you an example: people still watch bicycle racing. We all know a
motorcycle is more advanced technology that could easily beat any human on a
bike. So what did we do? We invented rules out of thin air that exclude
motorcycles, just so that we can keep watching humans agonizingly grind their
way up a mountain on a bike. Because we find that entertaining.

There's motorcycle racing too of course but again--who's on the back of the
motorcycle?

A long-held concern is that we'll get rid of all the old jobs, but no new jobs
will be created. My point is that even in an economy in which all physical
needs are provided for free, there will still be plenty of reasons to create
new jobs.

~~~
ThomPete
You are mixing two things together. Entertainment is not a job its largely
based on its ability to entertain and fewer and fewer make money in the
industry.Already today large parts of hollywood has been and is being
replaced. The bicycle sport is there because humans like to compete but it has
nothing to do with a job, people will do it for free.

------
cs702
Quoting from the OP:

 _Many economists say there is no need to worry. They point to how past major
transformations in work tasks and labor markets – specifically the Industrial
Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social
upheaval or widespread suffering. These economists say that when technology
destroys jobs, people find other jobs. ...

As one economist argued: "Since the dawn of the industrial age, a recurrent
fear has been that technological change will spawn mass unemployment.
Neoclassical economists predicted that this would not happen, because people
would find other jobs, albeit possibly after a long period of painful
adjustment. By and large, that prediction has proven to be correct." ...

These economists are definitely right about the long period of painful
adjustment! The aftermath of the Industrial Revolution involved two major
Communist revolutions, whose death toll approaches 100 million. The
stabilizing influence of the modern social welfare state emerged only after
World War II, nearly 200 years on from the 18th-century beginnings of the
Industrial Revolution. ...

Today, as globalization and automation dramatically boost corporate
productivity, many workers have seen their wages stagnate. The increasing
power of automation and artificial intelligence technology means more pain may
follow. Are these economists minimizing the historical record when projecting
the future, essentially telling us not to worry because in a century or two
things will get better?_

The author's answer is, WE SHOULD WORRY, because the adjustment _already is_
and _in the near term will continue to be_ painful. It's hard to disagree with
him.

This article brings to mind John Maynard Keynes's most famous quote:
"Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous
seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is
flat again."[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes)

~~~
dv_dt
One interpretation would be that civilization needn't worry over the large
scale, but people born into an certain time periods certainly do need to worry
- particularly when it appears that the economy might veer off course with a
correction not apparent within their own or their children's lifetimes.

------
mikejharrison
I used to design and build high speed packaging machinery. When I started my
apprenticeship in the late 90's I saw machine lines running at 6000 units per
minute with 3-4 operators per line and regular maintenance performed by a team
of skilled engineers. Mid 2000's it was 10,000 units per minute, 2 operators
per line and periodic maintenance performed by a skilled engineer. In 2012 I
visited a factory with row upon row of machines running at 20,000 units per
minute, fully automated lorry loading for dispatch and the machines diagnosed
their own preventative maintenance. There was a guy wandering around with a
broom. Two years later I jumped and changed industry.

~~~
swalsh
Looks like each time they took a person out of the loop the machines got
faster, and the factory increased in capacity. I think this is the true
benefit of automation. The cost reductions from 4-1 operators is pretty
minimal. The increase from 6,000 units a minute to many lines with 20,000
units a minute is where the money is.

~~~
mikejharrison
Quite right. The production facilities do tend to shift to less expensive
regions for labour too though, which does increase the impact. The first
factory was in the UK, the second Poland, the third was in China. The UK one
doesn't exist anymore.

------
TheRealDunkirk
In the past 15 years, the labor force participation rate has dropped 4%. I
would argue that this is an indicator that we are already permanently losing
jobs to automation, and this trend will rapidly increase going forward, as
automation gains momentum. I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues,
but I am adamant that we're going to need a "living wage" stipend for the
people who simply don't have enough skills to participate in the future job
market. I would further argue that unemployment and various entitlements are
bridging the gap for now, but what's happening will become explicit in the
near future, because it will soon be too obvious to hide.

For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but
we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care, so
why should we let a budget hold us back from things like a living wage and
free higher education and a single-payer insurance system and any other
entitlement you want to tack on?

~~~
isostatic
> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues,

Aren't they opposites?

> For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but
> we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care,

One mistake that people make is believing that no deficit is a good thing.
Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college.

Another is that money is worth something. If as a generation all the wealth
was owned by rich retired unproductive people, but the only way that food is
generated is from poor working people, the elderly are screwed. Savings are
not value, they are a hope that the future generations as a whole will be kind
enough to work for old people based only on how much old people did when they
were productive.

If future generations decide they will not pay any attention to old people's
money, what happens then? What do I care that in 1960 you worked 60 hour weeks
saving $500,000 in assets. Why shouldn't my generation decide "lets reduce the
value of the dollar to 10% of it's current value, and lets put a massive tax
on assets to redistribute to working people (say swapping income tax for an
asset tax). That way I only owe rich people 1 year's salary in debt, not 10,
my wage would simply have a zero added to the end (as would prices). The tax
relief would mean a real wage increase too.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
>> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues,

>Aren't they opposites?

It's sad that everything about American politics casts every issue in black
and white, either/or, polar-opposites mentality, and must be labelled. I was
just trying to "get on paper" for context with my post.

> Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college.

That may have been the most unfortunate example you could have used, since so
many people are not seeing the value of their education in the marketplace pay
off that investment in a reasonable period. Regardless, I understand what
you're saying, but if you're trying to tell me that the deficit that the US
federal government consistently runs is a planned, strategic effort, I'm not
buying it. ;-)

~~~
ianai
The government is either going to have a cash outlay or cash influx as a
direct mirror of its deficit or surplus, respectively. If the government runs
a surplus then entities outside the government are, on balance, giving it
cash. That's like a bribe from foreign entities. But a deficit is like the
government outlaying cash. This is necessary, btw, for the US dollar to be the
defacto currency of the world. Believe me, if you want the US government to
succeed or at least be stable then you want it to keep its status as the
defacto world currency.

------
ska

       >Many economists say there is no need to worry ... specifically the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social upheaval or widespread suffering. 
    

The fact that many economists state this is, if true, a pretty strong
condemnation of the current state of that field of endeavor.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> _Until very recently, the global educated professional class didn 't
> recognize what was happening to working- and middle-class people in
> developed countries. But now it is about to happen to them._

but economists don't foresee job losses in their own ranks

------
EternalData
If the Industrial Revolution is any analogue, there will be plenty of inter-
state wars, revolutions within states and competing ideologies within a few
decades...

The optimist in me says that there's been a period of 70 years or so without
major wars between different state powers, and maybe MAD will hold up -- but
in the theme of prologues repeating themselves...

~~~
subwayclub
The saying goes, "history never repeats itself but it often rhymes".

If there's a threat on the horizon, it's probably the one we discuss the least
right now.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I prefer Marx's version, "history repeats itself... first as tragedy, then as
farce"[1]

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eighteenth_Brumaire_of_Lou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eighteenth_Brumaire_of_Louis_Napoleon#.22History_repeats_..._first_as_tragedy.2C_then_as_farce.22)

------
harshreality
[http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-
apply](http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply)

> This time is different

~~~
soberhoff
To me this entire argument "woe us if we run out of work to do" is directly
self-contradictory. If people are miserable because they don't have the
necessities of life, then, by definition, there's work left to do. On the
other hand if there really is no work left to do, then everybody should be
perfectly content with their material wealth.

~~~
smelterdemon
The problem is automation could conceivably create a (sufficiently) closed
system wherein a capitalist class can fulfil their desires for material wealth
with minimal need for labor, while the masses lack access to the means of
creating wealth (i.e. the tools of automation) or even fulfilling the basic
necessities of life.

~~~
soberhoff
What's to stop the masses from working for each other?

~~~
milcron
Creating food how?

------
tehchromic
"We should listen not only to economists when it comes to predicting the
future of work; we should listen also to historians, who often bring a deeper
historical perspective to their predictions."

We should also listen to ecologists.

~~~
danharaj
And anthropologists, who uniquely understand the wide breadth of possibility
in human societies.

------
methodover
> In the U.S., for example, income of production workers today, adjusted for
> inflation, is essentially at the level it was around 1970.

I have a legitimate question about the usefulness of this statistic.

Everyday living has dramatically improved since the 1970s. There's been
massive improvements in medical care, for starters. Communication and finding
information has never been better thanks to computers, the Internet, search
engines, wikipedia, etc. Entertainment has never had more options, and the
options have never been this good. There's smartphones, of course: They made
the internet accessible everywhere, and provide a platform for some incredibly
useful apps (e.g., Uber/Lyft). There's been dramatic innovation since 1970,
including: microwaves, GPS, home video, text messaging, MRIs, HIV treatment,
smoke detectors, and on and on and on.

These technological improvements are not reflected in income statistics, but
they're extremely important to every-day living.

Are there statistics that try and encapsulate technological improvement along
with the normal measures of economic improvement? It's totally possible that
wages are stagnant, but you get triple the utility out of your money than you
would've in the 1970s.

~~~
randcraw
I think the prevailing view on living standards is that they're no longer
rising for those who enter the workforce at the bottom. If your parents can
send you to college, you'll probably do well. But If not, since tuition costs
have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, you'll no longer able to send yourself
to college, so your prospects will be limited.

Likewise, for those at the bottom of the job market, employers offer far more
modest benefits to further your development (like tuition reimbursement),
thereby closing yet another door to upskilling and advancement.

~~~
methodover
> I think the prevailing view on living standards is that they're no longer
> rising for those who enter the workforce at the bottom.

Hmm, how is "living standards" defined exactly?

It seems like many of the technological advancements of the last 40 years have
become cheap and affordable by almost everyone. Even smart phones are
relatively inexpensive and widely used. 64% of individuals making less than
$30k a year own a smart phone, for example [1].

Life seems to be getting better for all income levels. Though, this isn't easy
to track statistically. The citation I was originally responding to (an
article on stagnating income vs inflation [2]) uses CPI as the measure of
inflation. But the CPI only tracks the prices of basic commodities like food
and fuel. It misses a huge part of our lives.

1\. [http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-
sheet/mobile/](http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/) 2\.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eUHS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eUHS)

------
crdoconnor
>>Many economists say there is no need to worry. They point to how past major
transformations in work tasks and labor markets – specifically the Industrial
Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social
upheaval or widespread suffering.

Nonetheless, the "economist consensus" is that there "is need to worry" and
the article linked to is a (well written!) exception to the current
groupthink.

This is in spite of the inconvenient fact that labor productivity is down.

As for the "widespread suffering caused by automation" \- I don't see ANY
evidence that it was caused by unemployment caused by "too much automation".
The industrial revolution induced more suffering primarily because of new
weaponry that presaged industrial-scale slaughter.

As before, the real job stealer isn't a robot, it's a man in a suit executing
a trade deal with countries that still practise literal slavery, blaming your
lack of a job paying > 5¢ an hour on a robot.

------
thisisit
It's a no brainer that the coming change will cause people fear for their
livelihood. And fear is a great motivator. It will not matter if the fear of
automation is true or not, there will be a lot unrest.

------
jpm_sd
Maybe instead of UBI, we need to think more Star Trek. How about universal
basic health and universal basic food?

~~~
SapphireSun
And universal basic housing and universal basic education. Then everyone would
really be free to be entrepreneurs, but they wouldn't have to fixate on profit
seeking at the expense of all else.

------
ChemicalWarfare
I must be missing something here. Unemployment rate right now is barely above
4% despite the significant push for automation in manufacturing, drastic
downsizing in retail, accounting, movie rental, newspaper industries etc
without that much global impact.

What is it that's new and so threatening automation-wise that is going to have
drastic effect on ppl's lives comparable to the industrial revolution?

~~~
petra
movie rentals and newspapers are small industries, with slow change. i don't
think accounting has seen large scale downsizing.

As for retail, i got curious, so: "Stores are closing because of the rise of
e-commerce and shifts in how people spend their money," said Deb Gabor, CEO of
Sol Marketing a brand/retail strategy consultancy. "Shoppers are devoting
bigger shares of their wallets to entertainment, restaurants and technology,
and spending less on clothing and accessories." [1]

Retail has revenue per employee of ~$450K. Restaurants have about $150K
revenue per employee. So money is shifting to the more labor intensive
industries, and maybe this is true even while including tech and
entertainment.

But this is just a small scale, relatively to what could be coming. And
people's spending patterns may not be so supportive of humans.

[1][http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinso...](http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Retail-
workers-will-be-the-next-unemployment-11263625.php)

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
>> movie rentals and newspapers are small industries, with slow change.

Ok, fair enough. So then what are those large and fast-paced industries that
are under the immediate and severe threat due to automation?

I mean for something to be on par with industrial revolution there has to be a
pretty profound impact all over the place, the kind of impact that the
existing ways of doing things can't adapt to at all (kind of how retail has
been adapting to e-commerce with mixed results over the course of the past 15+
years).

~~~
petra
Is retail adapting to e-commerce ? Or is it mostly a really slow decline ?
This question is still unanswered If you look at the Amazon's recent fashion
growth and walmart's grocery pick up.

As for what big industries are under immediate threat ? I'm not sure about how
rapid, but in almost every industry you look you see a lot of real term deep
innovation(from startups) that, if successful would greatly reduce jobs. Think
not only automation but electric cars and mechanics and plant based meat and
farmers.

That, combined with the fact that we are maybe starting to be able to
mechanize the key skills of humans:dexterity and thinking, seem quite a huge
change.

And maybe we can adapt - but we don't hear almost any ideas at all for many
more new jobs, even with creativity of the net so maybe massive unemployment
is a possibility?

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
>> Is retail adapting to e-commerce ? Or is it mostly a really slow decline ?

It's both, really. For some retailers with brick-and-mortar shops online
presence is a way to expand their market, for others - internet is slow death.

But again nothing drastic in terms of job reduction has happened overnight
even though the whole "internet thing" changed the way things are done
drastically af.

>> And maybe we can adapt - but we don't hear almost any ideas at all for many
more new jobs...

It's hard to predict these things. But again I'm not buying the "zomg there
will be riots" spiel. If anything there will be a whole set of new (or subset
of existing) industries along the lines of how adoption of the internet-based
tech spawned them.

~~~
petra
>> It's hard to predict these things [new jobs]

Let's think about the Internet(in 1994) but in the abstract:

It was a new medium. New mediums create new advertising and content industries
around them. So did the Internet. They also create many jobs to manage/improve
the technical stuff - That's also true.

It's also a great distribution channel for software and goods. we've known
this pretty early. and new distribution channels reduce a business cost thus
increasing demand. They also create changes along the whole supply chain, so
that's more work.

But the surprising fact about the net is it's ability to enable businesses
targeting very tiny niches. But if you talked to a many direct marketing guys
back in the day, before the net and explained to them about the technical
possibilities of the internet(and moore's law and powerful computing) and let
them think about it, one in a 10-100, would have told you: this could be great
for small targeted businesses.

Or maybe that guy is working in prediction, or science fiction, etc.

But today we have blogs,and media business who would kill for an eyeball, so
we should be able to hear from that smart guy .

So why aren't we hearing stories about all those possible new jobs ?

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
>> why aren't we hearing stories about all those possible new jobs ?

you tell me :) I'm not 100% sure why the automation narrative has primarily
been of the "impending doom" variety.

I think just like with the internet - even if automation does take off big
time there will be some "victims" but also new possibilities from the obvious
ones - like manufacturing, supporting/updating, installing the "robots" to
some things we (speaking for myself lol) can't envision until this actually
happens.

------
k__
I'm a big proponent of UBI, but I have to admit, many new jobs got created,
despite the call that automation would make us all obsolete.

I think the problem isn't that automation kills jobs, it's that nobody cares
about people who worked in these jobs for >10 years and don't know anything
other.

I'm not saying we should allow everyone to become a pilot or medical doctor
after working 30 years as a trucker, but I think we should at least try to
work in this direction.

------
cerealbad
we will fight two world wars in the next 3 decades and the generations born
after will be wasteful and destructive.

revive me in 2099 if i was correct.

------
tzs
I think that there are two big differences between the Industrial Revolution
and similar past increases in automation and what is happening now.

1\. The workers then were displaced in many (most?) cases by newly invented
_physical_ machines. Those machines had to be built in brand new factories,
employing many workers. Building those machines greatly boosted the need for
many resources, such as metals, lubricants, fuels, and wood, so indirectly
created many jobs in those industries. The machines needed frequent and
regular maintenance, spawning even more jobs and industries.

What's going on now seems different. Our automation nowadays involves much
less new physical machines. As an example, consider self driving big rig
trucks, which some think will be the first self driving vehicles to displace a
large number of workers.

What is the difference between a self driving big rig and a regular big rig?
The self driving one is essentially a regular one with some additions:

• some sensors,

• some motors or actuators to operate controls,

• one or more computers that run the driving software, and handle the
interface with the human who is in charge,

• maybe some kind of wireless communication system so the driving software can
receive orders from the trucking company if that's not handled by a human who
accompanies the truck.

None of these things are new. What's new is putting them in a truck.

Let's focus on the computers. Let's be optimistic and assume that every single
new big rig that comes off the assembly line is equipped from the factory for
self driving, so every single one needs a computer. Let's further assume that
they use a high end GPU to run the AI software.

Putting a high end GPU in every single new big rig in the US would raise total
annual demand for high end GPUs by about 10%. That's not "build a new factory"
territory. That's "authorize a little overtime at the GPU factory" territory.

It's similar for other things. Each big rig now has a few electric motors so
the AI can steer and shift gears and brake...but as with GPUs that's just a
small bump in the total demand.

Worse, many of these things, like the GPUs, the sensors, probably the motors,
and probably the communications system are built in highly automated
factories, so even if the factories have to kick up production with overtime
or even add new shifts, it will be machines getting the new work.

2\. During the Industrial Revolution we had large, rapidly expanding
frontiers.

If you were in the developed part of your country and lost your job to a
machine there was a good chance you could go to the frontier and find a
similar job that was safe from the machines because the frontier lacked the
infrastructure to support the machine.

Our frontiers now, to the extent that we even have any, are small and not
expanding much if at all, and we've gotten a lot better at getting our
machines there.

------
amazeballswohoo
Oh my god why are there so many people here who don't understand. UBI wont
work. If you just think further than the extent of your nose; consider a
2-person society; a fisher and a fishnet maker. They live off eachothers work.
Then give them this fantastic UBI. It's so great, the wealth gets distributed
and they both have income without having to have a job. Ok. So fisherman goes
to fishnet maker and gives him 100$ and says make me some fishnets please.
Fishnet maker says nah, why should i? I have this fantastic UBI so i don't
have to work. Btw i'd like to buy fish from you here is 100$. Fisherman says
nah, you know i got this UBI. WAOW SUCH GREAT, UBI, AMAZE, BEST, SMART,
PROGRESSIVE

~~~
igravious
> WAOW SUCH GREAT, UBI, AMAZE, BEST, SMART, PROGRESSIVE

Unhelpful and counterproductive rhetoric.

------
atemerev
In before anybody mentions "universal basic income", I want to remind that it
was exactly the major selling point of Communism: machines will raise
productivity to such levels that nobody will even need money, as material
products will be plentiful for everyone.

This grand vision was unsustainable and led to millions of deaths.

Universal basic income is no less unsustainable (even government retirement
and pension funds, which require much less money, are struggling everywhere).
I really can hope that this false promise will not lead to similar
catastrophes.

~~~
daptaq
UBI was never a "selling point" for Communism (except if you have a very
vulgar concept of Communism), quite the opposite it's what sustains Capitalism
beyond the point it should have already had died off.

~~~
atemerev
Really?

I am Russian, I went to a Soviet school, and I am quite aware what was and
what wasn't a selling point for Communism. It was -- down to being mentioned
in every socialist realism book, in nearly every major TV report, even as a
running joke. There was a line in a popular Soviet movie: "no more worries, no
more rat race, robots are toiling, man is happy" \-- and this line was taken
at a face value, as a defining feature of the future Communist utopia we were
all building.

