
Silicon Valley is right–our jobs are already disappearing - smalera
https://qz.com/895681/silicon-valley-is-right-our-jobs-are-already-disappearing-due-to-automation/
======
jdhopeunique
A quote from the Venture for America website mentioned in the article: "Is VFA
the right move for me if I’m trying to change careers?

When it comes down to it, our fellowship is designed for recent grads (meaning
graduating seniors, those a year or two into their careers, or grad students
with a year or two of advanced schooling). Our training, mentorship, and job
opportunities are targeted to those fresh out of college, so if you have three
or more years of professional experience or advanced schooling, this might not
be the best fit."

The latest trend in the news seems to indicate AI (not cheap immigrant labor)
is taking over jobs. The solution is for young graduates to join these
"fellowships", bootcamps, and other attempts to pool cheap young labor. Old
people need not apply.

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crdoconnor
From the referenced study on job losses being attributable to automation:

[http://conexus.cberdata.org/files/MfgReality.pdf](http://conexus.cberdata.org/files/MfgReality.pdf)

"We begin by examining productivity. The most common measure of productivity
is the average product of labor, which is simply the value of all goods
manufactured in the U.S. divided by the number of workers." (p3)

In other words, if you offshore half of your workforce for half the price
(purchasing them as a service like Apple does) while maintaining sales and a
notional "made in the USA" stamp, this study concludes that your productivity
has doubled.

Later on in the study they give a lot of reasons for why they think "the value
of goods manufactured" divided by "number of workers" has gone up and conclude
without much analysis that it was "spawned by growth in the industrial use of
information technology" (p4).

They appear to calculate job losses attributable to trade by deducting the
value of export goods from the value of imported goods.

At the end of the study they lobby for the reduction of Corporation tax.

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jamielee
Author: Andrew Yang, Founder/CEO of Venture for America

TL;DR

Smart people in the world such as Stephen Hawking, Sam Hinkie and Sam Altman,
are saying jobs will be obliterated due to automation. Even the White House
has published reports that have said 83% of jobs with wages less than $20/hour
will be automated or replaced, between 9 and 47% of jobs are in danger of
becoming obsolete, between 2.2 and 3.1 million car/bus/truck-driving jobs will
be eliminated due to self-driving vehicles. Graph:
[https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/jobs.jpeg?quality...](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/jobs.jpeg?quality=80&strip=all&w=975)

Automation has already eliminated about 4 million manufacturing jobs in the
U.S. since 2000. Most people left the workforce and did not return. During
that same period, the U.S. labor force plummeted by about 10 million. Labor
participation rate in the U.S. is at 62.7%, a rate right below El Salvador and
right above Ukraine (Source: [http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-
states/labor-force-pa...](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-
force-participation-rate)). Chart:
[https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/driving-
jobs.png?...](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/driving-
jobs.png?w=640&h=411)

"Each 1% decline equates to about 2.5 million Americans dropping out. Number
of working-age Americans who aren't in the workforce surged to a record 95
million up almost 500,000 in the last month alone, many being factory
workers."

High unemployment rates correlate to higher rates of substance abuse, domestic
violence, child abuse, depression, and many other social ailments (Cited
Sources:
[https://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pag...](https://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=1457),
[http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/23/health/heroin-opioid-drug-
over...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/23/health/heroin-opioid-drug-overdose-
deaths-visual-guide/)).

Venture for America's mission is to help create 100,000 U.S. jobs by 2025 by
helping growth companies access talent and training the next generation of
entrepreneurs. They claim their clients have built multi-million dollar
businesses that have hired dozens or hundreds of people, even low-skilled
manufacturing workers. Having trained over 500 aspiring entrepreneurs to work
in 18 cities around the U.S., they are now recruiting executives from Silicon
Valley companies who want to help. Most start-ups require the best talent,
usually requiring a college degree. This excludes 68% of the population. And
they are constantly trying to weed out inefficient people.

TL;DR: Automation is happening right now and causing job losses. Venture for
America is trying to somehow stop it but does not explain the details in the
article.

\----

Personal thoughts:

This article seemed like a self-promotional ad for the author's company,
"Venture for America" (which I will refer to as VFA). The article uses quotes
from famous tech giants and scientists about automation and job loss to paint
"Venture for America" as a charitable endeavor, but not explaining much about
what it has done. It bothered me that he would use Sam Altman's charitable act
of giving $20,000 of basic income to people living in Oakland to try to shine
light on himself. All in all, it sounded very scammy and self-serving, not
really saying much that wasn't already known to people who have been paying
any attention to the tech sector.

It wouldn't have sounded so underhanded if the article did not cite examples
of American factory workers being down, out-of-luck and jobless. If VFA cared
so much about America's displaced citizens, they would be trying to help those
citizens directly, not trying to poach away top executives from other big tech
companies. I agree with jdhopeunique when he points out they are only looking
for young, cheap graduates. Everyone wants the young bright graduates, so why
should they join VFA when there are many other companies who are looking for
these kinds of candidates.

VFA looks like a legitamate company that might have done some good (I don't
know whether their net impact has been good or bad), but based on the article
alone and without doing any further research, VFA appears to be charading
altruism. This would make me reluctant to trust this organization.

I was kind of disappointed because I was looking for more substance given the
headline.

