
Brexit Britain Could Replace Migrants with Robots - ayanai
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-03/migrants-in-brexit-britain-beware-these-robots-want-your-jobs
======
ajeet_dhaliwal
The tech necessary to replace front line service workers is not there. If it
was we'd all be buying one to use as a domestic servant/slave. The robots in
the article are more assembly line types, what happens when someone spills a
coffee in some place 'unexpected', customer wants a custom
frappadappalappachino instead of the regular drink, or something needs to be
moved out of reach some customer needs help in a million other unexpected
ways. The tech will get there eventually I'm sure but not by 2019. They will
need to hire more locals, and probably increase their wages because they
(rightfully so) won't accept such nonsense wages like £8 an hour in London.

~~~
mr_luc
I agree that things won't change enough in service jobs to matter by 2019. But
as to this:

> The tech necessary to replace front line service workers is not there. If it
> was we'd all be buying one ... what happens when ... some customer needs
> help in unexpected ways

History does tell us that sometimes the market will throw away jobs that are
becoming inconvenient to society, even if that means doing without the
services that class of worker provides, or receiving _worse_ and _less_
_convenient_ services.

Consider household servants.

They used to be seen as necessary for middle and upper-class households,
because professional households required staggering amounts of manual labor
just to keep everyone fed and clothed.

Those jobs vanished, right around the time that clothes and dish-washing
machines were invented. But it's interesting to look at why.

Clothes and dish-washing machines are, frankly, not as great as servants (my
feeling 'icky' about having someone else wash my clothes aside). You have to
do the work yourself, and accept more cognitive load. But they win on cost --
the costs of employing a servant went up, and eventually worse service was
worth it for a simpler and cheaper self-serve solution.

Could something similar happen in service work?

Well, look at the Amazon store, and compare it to a current grocery store.

Now imagine a Starbucks with touchscreen-and-voice enabled ordering, no
visible employees (maybe one employee, nominally a store manager, working the
fleet of coffee machines behind the screens, and doing some light sweeping in
the restaurant, etc) and a communal co-working space that more or less
preserves the current experience, just minus the baristas.

~~~
badgers
> Now imagine a Starbucks with touchscreen-and-voice enabled ordering, no
> visible employees (maybe one employee, nominally a store manager, working
> the fleet of coffee machines behind the screens, and doing some light
> sweeping in the restaurant, etc) and a communal co-working space that more
> or less preserves the current experience, just minus the baristas.

We are already almost there. We have coffee vending machines. We have touch
screen soda dispensers. Starbucks could wire in their mobile app to give
customers a "redbox" coffee experience if they wanted to. I think it's part of
their brand that a barista hand crafts your beverage rather than a machine do
it, but who knows what their future direction will be.

~~~
clubm8
I think we won't see full automation, but a drastic reduction in the number of
people required to run a store.

For example, I went into an American fast food restaurant in Amsterdam once.
Orders were made on a touch screen, you get a number, then someone at the
counter hands you your order.

They still have kitchen staff, but instead of having 5+ humans taking orders
you have 5+ kiosks and one person calling numbers.

------
hacker_9
To be honest, a lot more robots could be used if locations were designed for
them in the first place. I'm not exactly expecting to see my bartender get
replaced by a humanoid robot, as seen in Passengers, anytime soon. Instead I
expect more to follow the McDonalds route; changing the entire food ordering
flow by having touch screen displays dotted around the restaurant, where you
can quickly tap in an order.

~~~
kefka
Or extra BIG ASS FRIES... (Carl's Jr from Idiocracy)

ObOnTopic: Cashiers are doing a very automatable job.. Like, it's done already
to good effect. And if you do like our Krogers does at night, you dont have a
choice to not use automation.

The harder thing is mechanics and QC for food production. But with cheaper
motors and actuators, makes more complicated food automation cheaper, easier,
and higher quality than human workers. And robots don't complain, or whine
about bad working conditions... And they show up to work without fail.

~~~
strange_quark
Cashiers are not automate-able yet, at least not with current product design.
Yes, yes I know there's that Amazon store and some other test store that tags
every one of its products with RFID tags, but the self-checkout isn't
automated, it's just making the customer be their own cashier.

~~~
kefka
Well, if the store isn't paying for it, and isn't discounting for working for
the store, then yes it's "Free".

People are just too stupid to see it that way, and are willing to be flesh-
automation with no cost.

~~~
rhino369
It's not no cost. It creates long wait times which can send customers
elsewhere. I was a cashier in 2004 and I saw the introduction of the self
checkout. The store ended up taking them back out this past year.

When you can pay a teenager 9 bucks an hour to do it much faster it's worth
every penny.

These things work for walgreens but Costco and Aldes won't have them for a
long while.

~~~
kefka
Indeed, I get the sentiment. But in South-Central Indiana (Bloomington), we
see Krogers with self-checkouts.

How Krogers uses these, is that they only keep them open after 10p. And 1
clerk deals with 6 registers. Even if someone is being slow, the whole line
moves faster.

And you don't have a choice. Marsh has 1 24 hour store here. And they have 1
clerk (no self checkout) so it's on the range of 10-20 minute lines. If you
want something from Krogers at night, it's self checkout or go away.

Walmart has a weird strategy: self checkout is closed at night, and the center
lane with the tobacco is always open no matter what. But I don't particularly
like wally world. And they're further away than kroger.

------
stuaxo
Surely they will replace them with locals on 0 hours contracts or the young
doing apprenticeships for peanuts.

~~~
patrickaljord
Probably. A question though, what would these locals and young be doing if
migrants did those jobs?

~~~
tobltobs
Education, so that they could get one of those jobs which will be moved back
to the EU now.

~~~
01000001
> one of those jobs which will be moved back to the EU now

Can you cite any examples of a job that moved /from/ the EU to the UK, and
which will now /move back/?

~~~
pjmlp
A good example is any IT related project that needs to obey EU data protection
laws.

With UK out of EU, those servers need to be on EU country, unless they do some
data agreement.

------
lhnz
Probably more likely that the government will create very, very accessible and
liberal visas for europeans and they will continue to work in the same jobs
that they do now.

------
adaml_623
Brexit Britain Could Replace Human Migrants with Robot Migrants.

They don't take up space in housing but they don't pay tax either

------
vincnetas
What will make local's immune from being replaced by robots. Why this should
affect only immigrants?

~~~
Kadin
When it starts affecting people who vote, they'll start to push back and
you'll get either Keynesian economic stimulus (we'll pay you to dig a hole and
fill it back in again), or regulation that makes automation more difficult
(e.g. French-style job protections).

Put in a policy saying that anyone whose job gets eliminated or reduced as the
result of automation is eligible for half-pay and full pension benefits until
they have a new job at an equivalent salary and suddenly the business case for
robots wouldn't be nearly so strong. And people will be pushing for stuff like
that if they feel that their jobs, rather than some Polish guy's, is at risk.

Migrants, by and large, don't vote, so you can automate their jobs away
without incurring regulatory risk to yourself, if you are a large
organization. It's the safe place to start.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
The the UK really could do with some infrastructure investments [2013,2016]
(dig the holes, don't fill em in again). I hope they use that Keynesian
opportunity wisely, but I am afraid they won't. Having lived in the UK for a
long time I then would despair at the crappy infrastructure compared to other
norther European countries.

2016: [http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21693936-government-
tr...](http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21693936-government-trumpets-its-
ambitions-roads-railways-and-airports-fact-infrastructure) 2013:
[http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21573129-why-
britain-d...](http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21573129-why-britain-
doesnt-build-bunged-up)

------
harryf
Clickbait title keyed to feed our current robot fears. Should at least have
the qualifier " for low skilled jobs in the manufacturing sector"

~~~
dspillett
_> qualifier " for low skilled jobs in the manufacturing sector"_

For most of the people whose main reason for voting for Brexit was
immigration's effects on jobs, these are the jobs that they seem the
immigrants as competition for.

The theory is that the immigrants were willing to work for less so "stole" the
menial, mind-numbing, often physical, & sometimes seasonal jobs. Having a
number of such complainers in my family and otherwise in ear-shot I'd say the
issue for many employers is not "being willing to work for less" but more
"being willing to work to much of a standard at any price", but I digress...
If the robots work out cheaper over a short enough amount of time (allowing
for the large up-front investment in both the robots directly and any changes
needed to make the environment one that can be efficient in) then it is
logical that businesses will let them "steal" the jobs instead of accepting
that they'll have to pay local workers more.

 _> keyed to feed our current robot fears_

This isn't the first article to cover the possibility. I've been reading the
headlines, particularly those in the UK press, as more a poke at the people
who voted for leaving mainly due to the jobs issue - a message of "not what
you wanted, eh?, don't say we didn't tell you...".

~~~
harryf
> The theory is that the immigrants were willing to work for less so "stole"
> the menial, mind-numbing, often physical, & sometimes seasonal jobs.

Except recent studies show that most EU migrants go for high skilled jobs and
that the migrant impact on low skilled jobs is small - see below.

> The positive impact of recent European migration to Britain is highlighted
> by the fact that the UK now attracts the highest number of university-
> educated migrants of any country in the European Union, according to new
> research from University College London.

\- [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/uk-magnet-
hi...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/uk-magnet-highly-
educated-migrants-research)

> In 2015, there were approximately 3.3 million EU immigrants living in
> Britain. About a third live in London. EU migrants tend to be younger and
> better educated than the UK-born population.

> Do low-skilled UK citizens bear the brunt of EU migration? A number of
> studies have found there is a small negative effect of migration on the
> wages of low-skilled workers — those with whom migrants compete most
> directly.

\-
[https://www.ft.com/content/0deacb52-178b-11e6-9d98-00386a18e...](https://www.ft.com/content/0deacb52-178b-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d)

~~~
dspillett
_> > The theory is that the immigrants were willing to work for less so
"stole" the menial, mind-numbing, often physical, & sometimes seasonal jobs. >
Except recent studies show that most EU migrants go for high skilled jobs and
that the migrant impact on low skilled jobs is small - see below._

No studies to hand to back up my intuition, but looking at the balance of
backgrounds in retail/cafes/restaurants (viewed from my position as a
customer), and factory work (as someone who knows people who both work on and
manage production lines) I find it hard to believe that immigration doesn't
have a significant impact on those areas.

There is plenty of migration in my line of work (pretty technical, relatively
well paid, significant experience needed) too of course. Healthcare is another
sector that is likely to be affected by a reduction in incoming workers. But
most of the people who cite immigration as a problem for their jobs are not,
in my experience, generally qualified for any such technical/experienced
roles.

------
udev
Yes, looking forward to that plumber robot.

~~~
Toenex
...and a new branch of adult entertainment is born.

~~~
Neliquat
Let me guess, it malfunctions and... fixes the cable?

------
fasterthanjim
Now we just need to get rid of those pesky poor people and presto... instant
utopia. Purge anyone?

~~~
lallysingh
Or basic income.

~~~
01000001
Get rid of the whole array of benefits entirely, and give people a universal
income that is enough to live on. Now, you can work if you want more money, or
you can do something with your life that matters.

Question is, how many people would just sit on their arses watching JK?

~~~
s_kilk
> Question is, how many people would just sit on their arses watching JK?

The people who are already two decades into a Jeremy Kyle binge-watch will
likely not change their behaviour even under a UBI scheme, but at least their
kids would have a chance to do something with themselves rather than continue
the generational unemployment.

I think it's important for us t acknowledge that UBI won't solve every
existing problem, and nor should it, but it could set up the coming
generations for a much more productive and happier world.

------
jacquesm
It could, but this could happen to anybody anywhere in the world where low
skilled work that matches the current crop of industrial robots skills is
being done. It's mostly a matter of a one time capital expense or a lease
agreement versus an extra employee on the books. And most of those jobs have
already been automated, we're on the tail end of that until the next
generation automation based on the present avalanche of developments comes on
stream.

And that will have impact on a totally different level than the previous one
which took many decades to complete.

So, nothing to do with brexit, nor with migrants.

~~~
RileyKyeden
Fear of immigrants taking jobs is one thing driving these nationalist
movements. A lot of people supported Brexit on the belief that it would open
more jobs for natives, the same way people here in the US think building a
wall and kicking all the brown people out will bring jobs back.

But it's silly. What hasn't been automated will be once they have to choose
between paying legal citizens and stepping up plans to automate.

------
jdavis703
So not only is there worry over how automation will impact domestic income
inequality, but also how it'll increase inequality between countries. In the
future desperate citizens of poor nations can't even hope to immigrate to
richer areas, if the rich countries just realize they can solve the
immigration "problem" by using robots. Combined with a spike in protectionist
governments in the west, does this mean we're likely to see more bloody
economic wars?

------
dharma1
Considering many people who design and develop the tech for robots in the UK
are migrants, i don't think this strategy will fare particularly well

~~~
pliny
If I understand UK visa rules correctly, getting a work permit as someone who
designs or develops tech for robots is as easy as getting a job offer from a
company that wants you to design or develop tech for robots for them.

~~~
nkoren
Yes, but:

1.) This doesn't help startups -- only large companies that can afford to go
through the expensive and laborious visa-permit process.

2.) As a foreign worker, since your residency depends on employment, you're in
a far worse bargaining position vis-a-vis salaries, so this depresses worker
wages, however much the government tries to enforce the requirement that
foreign workers are paid at prevailing wages.

3.) Also because your residency depends on ongoing employment, putting down
roots and becoming a full-fledged member of the community is much more
difficult.

Source: I'm a non-EU immigrant to the UK, brought in specifically to work on
automated transport technologies. The hacks I've had to go through to start my
two companies here are unbelievable. The UK's immigration policies are
seriously bad at attracting talent, and post-Brexit, look like they'll get
much, much worse.

~~~
golergka
It's almost as if the system was designed to give UK citizens advantage over
you.

~~~
nkoren
I've founded two companies, employed many people, and brought in millions of
pounds business to the UK. This is not a zero-sum game. None of this has been
at the expense of a single UK citizen. The rules have not given UK citizens
any advantage over me; they've merely penalised me. That's all.

~~~
golergka
> This is not a zero-sum game.

It's not. However, it's not always the opposite, either.

> The rules have not given UK citizens any advantage over me; they've merely
> penalised me.

Advantage is always relative.

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id122015
I'm lucky in that case. Robots dont look so good wearing stilleto's. So I will
not be replaced.

~~~
simonh
Unemployment is only a press release for the launch of the 'Jimmy Choo Robot
Edition' away.

------
gkya
Funny that people didn't want the migrants because they took up job positions
otherwise the pure English could've taken. Maybe they'll have to do a TechXit
too?

------
jlebrech
What about having handymen powered by smartphones and they take instructions
from an expert.

------
MatthewWilkes
The problem with having robots do this kind of work is that the majority don't
integrate well: they don't learn English, they don't drink in pubs and they
have their own schools.

~~~
devoply
I am sure if we try enough we can integrate robot society into our society.
Little William can go to school with little Robby and they can be best
friends, until one day when Robby tries to give William a hug inadvertently
killing him. Then I believe there will be a real backlash against robot
society.

