
Will robots steal our jobs? The humble loom suggests not - GlennCSmith
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/25/what-the-humble-loom-can-teach-us-about-robots-and-automation/
======
al2o3cr
"In the 19th century, the maturation and standardization of weaving technology
finally brought long-overdue raises to textile workers."

Wow. Way to completely write out of the story the PEOPLE who fought tooth-and-
nail to get those raises, WaPo....

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls)

Of course, acknowledging the real struggle might seriously impact the whole
"things will get better by themselves, just keep sleeping" argument of the
piece...

~~~
FD3SA
Keep in mind that The Washington Post was recently acquired by Jeff Bezos.

This article makes much more sense when viewed in the light of Amazon's
current PR problems due to their treatment of poorly paid warehouse workers.
They are desperately trying to automate as fast as possible, and this piece
tries its best to spin it as a win-win for everyone.

~~~
TDL
You of course have evidence that Bezos is interfering in the editorial
operations of the Post, right?

~~~
sliverstorm
It's happened enough with other figures & papers that some people take it as
good practice to assume, proof or no, and simply disregard the paper on
suspect topics.

Certainly nothing you can take anyone to court over, but perhaps prudent.

------
chrisdevereux
On the other hand, the mechanization of agriculture had devastating social
consequences when introduced to the UK in the 1700s, leading to mass
unemployment, crimewaves and the introduction of the death penalty for
stealing food. The industrial revolution eventualy created replacements but
things got very ugly for a few generations.

There's no reason to assume that replacement forms of employment will
automatically appear when needed.

------
ealloc
> as the market for cotton cloth matured in the mid-20th century, further
> automation no longer generated such increases in demand and new technology
> slowly eliminated jobs in the textile industry.

This seems to be a counterpoint to his thesis: Technology does indeed create
unemployment if all demand has already been satisfied.

His point should thus be stated with a caveat: Technology does not destroy
jobs _as long as demand increases along with the increased supply_. In order
to know whether robots will steal our jobs, we have to first determine whether
human demands are already being met or not, and it seems plausible to me that
they nearly are today (though the inverse also seems plausible).

~~~
YokoZar
"Demand" can be a bit of a fuzzy thing. For instance, all those people who
were now had "enough" clothes and were saving money from the lower prices were
instead buying other things, creating increased demand for some other sector
of the economy. Which, presumably, would eventually lead to more jobs
elsewhere.

I think a better moral for the story is to expect technology to have
significant local effects on employment in particular industries (either up or
down), but the evidence for the economy as a whole seems to be much more
neutral.

------
YokoZar
The loom was an example of a technology that actually had a more egalitarian
effect on wealth distribution: expensive skilled labor was replaced with
greater numbers of cheap unskilled labor.

Given the right prices, this sort of technology can make sense even if it
doesn't actually "save" labor at all -- replacing one efficient skilled person
with two inefficient unskilled ones for the same output makes business sense
if the skilled labor is more than double the price.

Today's market has a lot of disparity in labor prices like this, especially
when you look at it globablly. So it's entirely possible for new tech that
doesn't actually save labor in terms of output per worker to find a niche.

At the same time, it's also possible for tech to do the inverse, and replace
three expensive unskilled workers with one skilled one who commands double the
wage.

So in terms of income inequality, at least, it's not entirely clear where
technology will take us.

------
georgeoliver
To write an entire article using historical textile production as an example
and not mention the impacts of contemporary globalization on the same industry
is confusing at best and hopelessly optimistic at worst.

~~~
dredmorbius
The point of the article isn't what is happening presently in terms of
textiles and globalization, but how technological innovation affected the
industry in 18th and 19th century Massachusetts.

That said, there are some omissions. The American Colonies / Early United
States were labor-constrained. The economy was growing rapidly, and there
simply weren't enough warm bodies to meet demand (discussed in Smith, _Wealth
of Nations_ , Book 1, Chapter VII). Wages were high, supplies of finished
goods were limited, and the benefits of industrialization were high. This
contrasted with England in which factories drew masses of labor from the
countryside, city populations exploded (Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham
grew from small towns of 4,000 - 6,000 in 1685 to major cities of 393,000 -
552,000 by 1881, see Arnold Toynbee's _Lectures on the Industrial Revolution_
), and working conditions in general were abysmal.

Which suggests _other_ reasons why picking the Lowell factories as the
analysis point is somewhat misguided. Toynbee's _Lectures_ paint a markedly
different picture of how industrialization proceeded in the UK.

The challenge now is that virtually all basic needs of survival ... and then
some ... are satisfied. Does this mean that there's _no_ additional demand or
demand growth possible? No. But ... the situation's markedly different from
the late 18th century.

Too: the dawn of the Industrial Revolution was a period in which there were
vast untapped natural resources -- virgin land (or, if you prefer, newly
cleared land by way of the aboriginal genocide and pandemics) in the Americas,
forests, untilled prairies, and of course, untold gigatons of coal, oil, and
gas in the ground. William Stanley Jevons noted that increased efficiencies
tended to _increase_ consumption of resources by increasing their marginal
utility (the so-called Jevons Paradox)

We're looking at a constrained resource environment going out, which may well
invert the logic of Jevons Paradox and see fewer resources consumed with
increasing efficiency. Which would mean that automation would idle, not
employ, hands.

------
hobs
One of the arguments of this article is that as technology stabilizes we will
be able to demand higher pay.

Technology will likely not stabilize.

~~~
snowwrestler
Internet technology has stabilized already: we're still using HTML, HTTP,
javascript, etc. The Space Jam website from 1996 still loads in a browser.
Most servers and clients still use IPv4. Etc.

~~~
hobs
Using the article's analogies, they talk specifically about web designers.

Would a web designer from 1996 have a job in today's market? In the same vein,
it would be like saying the autoloom would still work today, obviously it
would, but no one would use it to produce goods to sell commercially.

------
mhb
Richard Posner's view:

[http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2014/01/secular-
stagnation...](http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2014/01/secular-
stagnationposner.html)

~~~
tomp
TL;DR:

> It is difficult to imagine productive activities that cannot be
> automated—mining, construction, many medical services, house cleaning: the
> list goes on and on.

> A decline in the demand for labor, caused by automation, will result in
> lower wages, without necessarily producing an increase in employment (work
> effort will not grow if there is no work), let alone an increase in national
> income.

However, as he also states, "with no truck drivers to pay, the cost of truck
transportation will fall, and price will follow". In my view, this will
further reduce the main necessities of living (food, hygiene products, energy)
which will in turn allow people to live with much less money. Therefore, the
poverty levels should fall, as well. It is not hard to imagine the government
paying enough social welfare so that everyone can afford basic stuff.
Actually, government could also just buy enough robots and produce all the
necessities itself.

~~~
zackmorris
To extrapolate on what you said: "which will in turn allow people to live with
much less money", I think this is absolutely true but the endgame is that most
things will be nearly free but people will have no money to buy them.

For example computers are effectively free now, they are widely available on
Craigslist for under $100 and capable smartphones are bundled into most
cellular plans. Flat screen TVs, for all their perceived excess, halve in
price each year. However houses and cars still cost $100,000 and $10,000, even
used. What's beginning to haunt me is that soon there will be no money in so
many industries that people think of as lucrative now: computing,
transportation, services, etc, yet the things that constitute the core
infrastructure of our society only appreciate in value. You'll be able to get
what you want, but not what you need.

My prediction for America in 10 or 20 years, assuming there is no intervention
soon, is that corporations will replace the state as the primary wealth
manager and that nearly the entirety of the population, probably 400 million
people by then, will have no wealth to speak of. People will be struggling to
find high paying jobs because raises will be a thing of the past once
automation progressively lowers costs each year. There will be a profound
sense of being "locked in", running a perpetual rat race where work that used
to be worth $100 per hour slips to $50, then $25, and so on until even the
most trying work is not profitable, and stabilizes on some rate set by fear,
perhaps $10 an hour. With everyone making this across industries, we'll have
neo-communism. Your boss won't be able to afford a home, and neither will his
or her boss. But go high enough up the ladder and houses will be gifted out as
perks.

Then there will be some kind of revolution, it's tempting to think we don't
know what form it will take, but if it's to be successful it will be a
peaceful one. Basically we'll all look around and wonder why we're all working
so hard in the most productive economy that's ever existed, and we'll throw
out the bosses by deciding not to participate in the activities that they
depend on. Suddenly everyone will have a substantial level of public wealth,
you'll instantly own the home you're in, and it will be unclear whether you'll
still pay a mortgage. The way it works is that the people and policies that
help society are carried over post revolution, and the ones that hinder it are
cast aside.

I kind of hope I'm wrong about all of this, but I know in my heart I'm not.
We're living in the last heyday of the industrial age, "enjoy" it while it
lasts. We can even pretend that we don't know what the post-revolution age
will look like, but that's not true either. Everyone's standard of living will
go up to what it would have been without oppression. Only this time it will
feel unthinkable to coerce people into doing work you would disdain to do
yourself, so robots will fill that role instead of other ethnicities, genders
or foreigners. It may very well be the last revolution before we're a
spacefaring society.

In fairness, and because this got so long, I just want to say that this is
only one possible future, and that we may very well adopt robots on a personal
level like the PC (hydroponic gardens, off-grid homes and cars built of
recycled materials, a sharing economy like Airbnb for everything) before then
and the next generation may follow a completely different path. I just think
this is the most likely forecast, based on the evidence I see around me now.

~~~
FD3SA
My friend, you are an incredible optimist and I hope this is our future. But
history shows that power gained is never relinquished without a vicious
struggle.

How do you think a non-violent revolt can succeed in a society where
mercenaries keep the peace? Furthermore, what if these mercenaries are
autonomous systems which require very few skilled individuals to operate?
Surely they would simply work for the highest bidders, and viciously enforce
whatever "society" these bidders require.

The truth is, going forward, an ever larger percentage of people (specifically
their labor) will be deprecated by superior technology (capital). In fact, as
technology progresses, most people will become an operating cost in society,
as the cost of keeping the majority of people alive will outweigh their total
lifetime labor contribution. This is the reality of capital in the
technological era. Economics doesn't break down, it just means capital gets
more and more of the production pie, and labor gets less.

It will be a brave new world, but in no way will it be better than now. The
Dark Ages happened, and they can happen again.

~~~
dllthomas
_" But history shows that power gained is never relinquished without a vicious
struggle."_

People say this, but it's not true. Obviously there are countless cases where
violent struggle was used, and quite possibly in many of those cases violent
struggle was required (maybe even all), but there have clearly been cases of
individuals and groups giving up power. Sometimes in pursuit of ideals,
sometimes out of fear that violence might otherwise follow.

------
hrishirc
why would anyone want to job in the first place...? If you're in a place where
you need to mindlessly execute duties, it's not a good place.

~~~
vshade
If you have some kind of basic income then what you said makes sense. If not,
people still need food and shelter.

------
aridiculous
This is conveniently forgetting that demand (which eventually ends in consumer
demand) isn't necessarily infinite. We have this thing called a planet we live
on, that needs to remain intact (or Elon Musk needs to get a move on getting
us to other planets :)

------
snowwrestler
Could the inventors of the loom, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution,
have imagined the types of jobs most of have today, in the morning of the
Information Revolution? I doubt it.

There will be industries and jobs enabled by today's technologies, that we
can't picture today. My bet is on biotechnology. We know only a very small
amount about the systems of life.

~~~
sixbrx
Yeah there may be new jobs, but why would you have a human doing them, when a
robot could?

We can't pretend that a new _tool_ for humans to use is equivalent to a fully
autonomous robot which can think for itself beyond any human capacity. Those
two things are fundamentally un-alike.

------
scotty79
I thought humble loom is a name of some weird startup.

------
lhgaghl
> Will robots steal our jobs?

It's not stealing if I don't want it.

