
Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs - gk1
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/upshot/evidence-that-robots-are-winning-the-race-for-american-jobs.html?_r=0
======
meri_dian
People don't need to work at 9-5 jobs to be happy, so I don't worry about
automation from an existential point of view. There are numerous retired
people who can attest to this. Now, many of them say they value their
retirements precisely because they worked for decades in pursuit of
retirement, but this idea is contradicted by the Ancient Greeks.

Athens had an extremely high slave to citizen ratio. I've read that the
average citizen (a more exclusive category then than now but still) owned 7
slaves. The result of this was that most privileged Athenians didn't really
have to work. Their days consisted of haggling and gossiping in the market,
working out in the gymnasium, attending lectures and getting drunk with
friends at symposiums (house parties). It's what they were used to.

Now, will the average citizen enjoy such a life in a fully automated world or
will they just live in perpetual poverty buffered only by barely sufficient
handouts of food and other basic goods needed for survival? That's a more
pressing question.

~~~
eksemplar
I work in a digitization departement in a multiplicity, which translates to me
doing almost nothing but replacing jobs with software automation.

Things like going through 500.000 cases containing multiple documents and
sorting them correctly can be done with Azure services in 5 hours after a 14
month algorithm training period. It takes 5 people working 37 hours a week 3-5
months to achieve the same result and they will have a larger margin of error
than the machine. I know this, because we did the same process as a
competition between man and machine.

Getting back to the point, however, everyone loves my department. Part of this
is because people aren't really fired due to automation, we solve the freed up
resources by not hiring people when someone retires, but the main reason is
because we automate boring stuff.

Nobody wants to sort through 500.000 cases manually, so you're absolutely
correct, automation can free up humanity.

Some people will spend their time being productive, but the truth is you don't
have to. That is, if we manage to take back ownership from companies.

Today western society is build around income tax, and as long as that doesn't
change, we're not heading for freedom but for oblivion.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
_> That is, if we manage to take back ownership from companies. Today western
society is build around income tax, and as long as that doesn't change, we're
not heading for freedom but for oblivion._

I don't understand. Ownership of what do you want us to take back and who is
us?

~~~
m12k
Not OP, but I read this as "us", as in, working people in the lower or middle
class with no notable investments outside of maybe a mortgage, and ownership
being ownership of the world's companies (i.e. currently owned by stock- or
shareholders depending on whether the company is public or private). I believe
they were referring to the worst case scenario where automation removes most
jobs (which are not just replaced with others), but because the automation
mainly benefits the owners of the companies that own the robots/AIs, the
majority of people would simply lose the ability to earn money (because they
can no longer find work, and they don't own anything that can generate income
for them in other ways). The fact that goods can be produced cheaper is little
help if you cannot earn any money at all. The worst case scenario is a
breakdown of consumerism, as most consumers stop being able to earn money, and
all wealth accumulates with the owners of companies in a way that would make
the current 1%/99% split look like a socialist utopia. Is this likely? No
idea, but it is one of the possible futures that the current trends point
toward, and it has a lot of people worried, and is one of the reasons why
there's renewed interest in concepts like basic income among futurists.

~~~
visarga
That scenario would mean ruin for everyone, the 1% and the 99%.

~~~
sten
How do you figure? If they can produce anything with automation what do they
care if there's no one to purchase it? Value will be expressed in other ways.
I could easily imagine the 1% or whoever completely controlling production and
allowing everyone else to die.

------
Glyptodon
One aspect I don't ever see discussed is whether it's moral or abusive for
people to perform jobs that don't respect their capacities as a human being.

If your job is to follow a script 60 times an hour without deviation is your
job one that humans should be permitted to do? Or is it an abuse?

If your job is to ignore circumstances and human empathy is it a job humans
should be permitted to do? Or is it an abuse?

If an abuse is what permits survival should it be embraced or scorned?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think at the very least there's a clear
way to look on things with human eyes and a human perspective.

~~~
ctdonath
"Permitted" is a word I find distasteful in such a subject. That implies that
there is a third party, beyond employer & employee, imposing himself upon the
other two without their consent. If both enter into the contract freely, 'tis
nobody else's business but to ensure the contract is, in fact, freely entered
into.

Many jobs "don't respect their capacities" precisely because it needs doing,
but nobody wants to do it - the only way to get it done is to pay someone
accordingly. Following a script may be boring as he11, but may currently be
the only way to build widgets which bring joy and/or give life to others. Of
late, when visiting the pharmacist I wonder how much joy they really get out
of filling little bottles with precise numbers of little pills, this after
many years of studying pharmaceuticals at a intellectually high and
stimulating level - and I thank them for doing such a mind-numbing job,
precisely because it keeps _me_ alive for decades (vs dead within weeks of a
stroke). Scrubbing toilets isn't exactly rewarding either, but keeps our
society sanitary & healthy. In neither case is anyone _forced_ to do so, but
does need to for there to be food on the table and a roof overhead.

I have been mulling over "bottom line" sustenance vs minimum wage, poverty
lines, guaranteed income, etc. Of late I note that one's "fair share" amounts
to 8 acres of generally workable land, plenty for sustenance farming and then
some. That's the baseline scenario for what work is expected of an individual:
elicit your own food, shelter, clothing out of your fair share of land; from
there, you can barter your way up to better living. It is fair, in terms of
what our species has been given / ended up with, to consider that where to
begin such questions (and _not_ to start with a luxurious society where doing
nothing can net you $30,000/yr).

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _If both enter into the contract freely_

Ah, yes, the "freedom" thing again.

When you're on a salary that barely keeps you afloat, that you cannot really
afford to lose, suddenly you start reading different meanings into that word.

~~~
ctdonath
Hence my argument: what is the barest "barely" that can keep you afloat?

8 acres is your fair share of Earth. Here's a $20 bag of assorted nutritious
seeds. (If you're really uptight about this, I'll throw in a $40 sack of rice
as enough to get you to first harvest.) There we have the stark reality of
"barely keeps you afloat" and "cannot really afford to lose": subsistence
farming. Harsh as it sounds, that's the real-world baseline.

Capitalism gives you the option of doing something other than self-sufficient
farming. You can put in the same effort, with the equivalent "cannot really
afford to lose" work-or-starve option, and leverage the available contract -
or not. The notion that you're somehow not "free" to accept or reject the
contract (if living at that bare edge of survival) is practically no different
than subsistence farming.

I acknowledge that "freedom" seems rather moot at that level, but so long as
the effort required is little different from the effort for subsistence
farming, that's the hard reality of being a human living on Earth. If you're
accepting the contract because of "work or starve" in the context of effort
I'm harping on, and you have the liberty to pick between whatever contracts
are available ("start digging & planting" always being one) then yes that's
"freedom". If you're compelled under threat of abuse/injury/death to work for
a disproportionately meager return, and/or literally confined with no options,
then that is an immoral denial of the "freedom" I'm referring to.

To wit: the natural law of "produce or starve" is not to be confused with, nor
equated to, compulsory hard labor within incarceration sustained with a scant
moldy loaf.

(I'm writing this much about the subject because I'm trying to sort thru &
refine ideas, bouncing 'em off HN for insight.)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Where do I sign up to get my 20 acres? And do I get free agriculture school?
Because capitalists took the land from indigenous people who were surviving
and then intentionally destroyed the social institutions that would've let
them revive their culture on a land grant. Ironically, capitalists eventually
did the same thing to the descendants of the settlers, with a little less
outright slaughter.

Therefore, I would say society owes all of us at least the land and the
education—real hands on education and family-style support—before anyone can
start saying wage "slavery" is a choice.

~~~
ctdonath
For $10,000 (we'll arrange it via a tax refund, turbotax.intuit.com), I'll
have you on 20 acres of land next week (zillow.com) with the complete set of
Foxfire books documenting Appalachian live-off-the-land survival (amazon.com),
plus a set of basic tools needed (amazon.com), plus a camper to get you
comfortably started (craigslist.com).

As for "hands on" and "family style support", you're demanding luxuries that
many settlers didn't have. I'm reading the Foxfire books, they're all you'll
need for a good fair start.

~~~
erikpukinskis
We don't have $10,000 each.

------
onmobiletemp
The whole discussion we have is silly. Robots and ai will kill jobs. Sorry but
the concept of everyone becoming a programmer or roboticist is a fucking pipe
dream. Some people are simply not cut out for it. Even if everyone was
perfectly educated, there is no demand for that many people in those kinds of
positions and there never will be. Weve already gotton a taste of automation
from people doing any work at all for cheaper overseas. The result has been
for people to get psychology degrees and other easy degrees and go on to get
bullshit jobs in the swelling, fractured and broken systems of beurocracy that
are now so common in the west. Why do schools need such huge adminiatrations?
They dont. They got huge because people need work and not everyone can be a
stem major. So the answer is obvious in my eyes. Sooner or later we will have
universal basic income. It depends on how long the overburdened sources of
business and psychology degree jobs can hold out before collapsing i suppose.

~~~
Jabanga
You will not need to become a programmer or roboticist to have a job, anymore
than you have to be a mechanic or factory worker to have a job today. Assuming
we don't have human-like AI, there will be vast numbers of tasks that only
humans will be able to do.

~~~
BrandonMarc
Vast numbers? Will? What job category is increasing in demand today, and with
no foreseeable threat from robots in the near future?

Tell me about today, and I'll believe your prediction for the future.

~~~
hutzlibu
All kinds of therapist. Society gets older and needs more treatment,
especially with the current livestyle. And while some work might be done by
robots, it needs at least strong KI to replace a good therapist. Also,
teachers, artists, ...

~~~
ensiferum
Just an example:

There are about 4 million truckers in the US whose jobs will be axed the
minute self driving trucks become reality on a mass scale (i.e. in the next +5
years when the tech is ready and the final bill passes).

In the meanwhile, how many teachers and artists and therapists do you think
there will be (or are needed for)?

~~~
hutzlibu
Well, needed are probably much more. But paying them at our current society is
a different question, and that you dont become a good therapist from beeing a
truck driver for 40 years that easy. So what?

I just gave a counterexample to "What job category is increasing in demand
today, and with no foreseeable threat from robots in the near future?"

But in general, there are allways so much things needed to be done, but dont
because society dont pay for it, and the people cant afford in their free
time. So I see zero problems with having too little work in the future. Just
with the thing, for what people get money for. Not an easy thing to solve ...

------
ptero
Some jobs are always being automated away (looms taking away weaver's jobs,
etc.). This can be very painful for the affected, but often benefits the
society in the long term. We could use more teachers instead of conveyor belt
workers and janitors (to train for new skills). And more custom builders,
physical therapists and nurses (aging population), etc.

IMO instead of lament automation taking jobs (at least those that we would not
want our own kids to do) we should improve the learning and training options
to make those affected employable elsewhere. Not BS 1-day clinics "how to
write your resume", but longer full time technical or human skills classes and
workshops to improve on skills in demand _today_.

And maybe beef up the safety net, especially on the medical side. Do not fight
progress, leverage it for good causes.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Two points:

1) Not everyone has the aptitude, desire, or willingness to get a highly
technical job. Those people should not suffer.

2) The pay of all positions are based off of supply and demand. If everyone
has a degree in radiology, the pay for being a radiologist would drop a lot.
This can be seen in tech. Tech support positions in rural areas require
bachelors degrees, yet pay less and less per year($12/hr in my city).

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
Your first point rubs me the wrong way. The implicit assumption is "there
exists some _lesser class_ of humans incapable of doing the work we do".

All of my experience, every success of outreach programs bringing new people
to tech, everything we know about the distribution of IQ suggests that it's
not the case. There is plenty of room in the future economy for more knowledge
workers and we shouldn't be making the assumption that people should let their
mind rot doing work better suited for machines.

~~~
cblock811
To his point, if they don't have the desire or willingness...that's an issue.
Just because he called out that some people aren't going to work out in tech
doesnt mean he is assigning them to a lesser class. I certainly dont have the
aptitude, desire, or willingness to be many things. Doesnt mean I think I'm
less of a person for it.

------
abandonliberty
Just used a robot to mail a parcel at the post office. Automatically weighs
and sizes the item, takes payment, prints a label, and accepts parcel drop
off.

A happy employee came to check if I needed any help with the new technology.
Knowing the robot I just interacted with was going to replace their employment
was sobering. I couldn't figure out what to say.

The robots are coming to services.

~~~
thinkloop
Prices have little to do with costs. The iphone, for example, costs $800 every
year because this is the optimal price to sell a premium phone at. They build
the phone to be $800, not the other way around. If costs go down in a way that
the competition can't replicate, that becomes more profit for apple, not a
lower price. If automation reduces costs industry-wide, companies will
often/likely add more features and services (i.e. better chip in the iphone)
to compete at that optimal price that they previously discovered.

~~~
Super_Jambo
This is because apple have carved a non-market niche out for themselves in
phones as status symbols.

They protect this with a big advertising budget more than really necessary for
most users spent on development and when all else fails design patent lawsuit.

Most markets are not this dysfunctional, if you have decent competition and
new technology reduces the cost to provide the goods / service then either the
price goes down or you discover you have a dysfunctional market.

------
yardie
It's interesting to note that with all this automation the cost of some
products hasn't gone down at all. I was recently pricing out a new, mid-size
car. Once all the options I wanted were priced in it was in the upper 20s. And
this was your standard JA/KOR sedan. Consumer electronics, which has also
increasingly automated, has gone down in price in some cases dramatically.

People are losing their jobs in the name of efficiency through automation. But
that isn't being passed onto the buyers.

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
The car you are buying for $25k today is a lot nicer than the car you would've
bought for $25k ten years ago. It is more fuel efficient, safer, and will last
longer not to mention it likely comes with features that were completely
unheard of a decade ago.

~~~
treehau5
Maybe true with cars, but what about consumer electronics? HVAC systems?
Wireless routers? Furniture even? Even clothes.

It's all cheap garbage, inflated and marked up.

~~~
pdelbarba
I can design a wireless router as a side project. I've built my own furniture
for fun. I don't think I have the resources to start a car manufacturing
line...

When the barrier to entry is high, there's no reason to lower prices.

~~~
cr0sh
Actually, the barrier to entry to build a car isn't that high - it only
appears that way.

Most of the parts - if not all - are available. All one really needs is the
knowledge (internet), the tools ($$$), and the space ($$$$) to build.

I have a friend whose father is in his 70s, who builds custom VW vehicles; one
of his last vehicles used a shortened chassis and the cab from an old electric
truck (might've been a Cushman). He finished that one, and is moving on to
another.

Plenty of people fabricate rally cars and sand rails using tubular steel and
fairly simple tools (tube bender, a notcher, mig welder, grinder, plasma
cutter or torch, etc). In many cases one can do this all in their garage (but
it is better to have a more dedicated space). Engines tend toward the VW end
of things, but nothing says you have to use such an engine; there are plenty
of new and used engines and sub-frames to work from.

I've considered building something similar to this flatpack truck:

[http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-terrain-vehicle/](http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-
terrain-vehicle/)

I figure that the parts from an old VW Vanagon could provide most of it; that
or use some front-wheel drive vehicle, then build the cab-over part.

The only real compromise on all of this would be the safety aspect; pretty
much any home-brew vehicle is going to be a likely death trap in a real
accident, but that is outside the argument of being able build one. There's
also the issue of registration and insurance, but this too can be overcome (at
least here in the United States - other countries may be more or less
lenient/easy to do this).

The information is out there to build a vehicle, and fairly cheap too. You
just have to be willing to get your hands dirty (and suffer some injuries - it
seems any kind of automotive work requires a blood sacrifice, not unlike PC
repair).

~~~
pdelbarba
You bring up a good point; I'd still say it's harder but not insurmountably
so. Maybe a better way of differentiating would be the regulatory hell you'd
have to go through to sell your cars on a mass production scale. For a router,
you could actually get away with almost no testing or paperwork whatsoever
(not even with the FCC if you use pre-certified RF modules).

------
nubbins
People ask me why are you learning programming when you already have another
career, and I feel like I'm Noah building an ark

------
jhallenworld
I would think that robots are stealing Mexican/Chinese/Vietnamese jobs
provided by American companies or contractors. This is not good: these jobs
help raise the standard of living in these countries.

------
d--b
Ok, so now that it's clear that robots are taking over the low-skill jobs. Can
we talk about inequality in the US?

~~~
balozi
Are there jobs at any skill level that are immune to automation?

~~~
ctchocula
Mathematicians assuming P!=NP.

~~~
analog31
Even in mathematics... a robot could fail to prove thousands of theorems in
the time it takes for a mathematician to fail with just one.

------
Mendenhall
I see lots of posts about running out of jobs because of automation in the
future. Dont worry you know whats coming that always gives people something to
work on? war.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Sorry to tell you that they'll automate that too. Which has some chilling
implications when the unemployed riot.

Historically this has led to soldiers shooting down their fellow countrymen.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre)

But I guess once it's automated that's going to increase the likelihood.

------
lacampbell
Who started this Robots are Stealing our Jobs narrative? I feel like it's not
a coincidence that in the past few years everyone has been talking about it,
despite automation increasing apace for the past century or so.

Who's behind it, and who benefits? UBI proponents?

~~~
Namrog84
Because it's while it has been happening and even accelerating for the last
century(and longer), it is only now hitting a threshold/momentum in the past
few years. We are now standing at a precipice of a substantial amount of
people being automated with unlikelihood of them going somewhere else.
Although predictions are unreliable, there is strong evidence that there isn't
just going to be "more jobs somewhere else", like has happened in the past
when things were automated or optimized (e.g. farming)

UBI discussions and increasing proponents are an outcome of this, not the
other way around.

------
known
Who'll decide
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work%E2%80%93life_balance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work%E2%80%93life_balance)

------
newyankee
Steve Mnuchin said that this is not even on the radar for the US govt.

~~~
Animats
That says a lot about Steve Mnuchin. He should know better. He used to be a
hedge fund manager. There are now hedge funds run by AI programs. They're
doing better than the average hedge fund.[1] By the time his term at Treasury
is over, his job may be obsolete.

[1] [http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/01/ai-hedge-fund-
returns/](http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/01/ai-hedge-fund-returns/)

------
mehaveaccount
The 800 pound gorilla that we never see discussed when talking about AI taking
American jobs is how much immigration is exacerbating the problem. Whether we
are trying to distribute the jobs available or whether we are distributing
govt handouts/ basic income, immigration always and only increases the
difficulty of both the jobs and the govt benefits sides of that discussion.

