
Robots Aren’t Killing the American Dream - kawera
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/no-robots-arent-killing-the-american-dream.html
======
esahione
The gigantic wall of AI/Automation is unavoidable and if the NYT can't see it,
I doubt a lot of people outside of tech do. It's my biggest worry right now.

I worry because I am certain that the only way out of civil war is universal
basic income (socialism) or cyberpunk-style fascism.

The repercussions of AI should be worrying every leader in the world right
now.

Immigrants? H1-bs? Illegals? Robots? Please, let's have a real talk.

Capitalism will destroy capitalism as we know it.

 __Edit: __Because my post is high up in this topic, I hope to get some
attention of people that are more invested than me on figuring out this
problem.

One of the least communist solutions I've thought of is a quasi-capitalistic
economic system. Each publicly traded company should have profit-sharing-only
stocks and profit-sharing/management-voting stocks. Stop all wars and futile
spending and buy profit-sharing stocks with our tax dollars. That is, let's
socialize part of every company's profits but not management.

Let's also ensure the system isn't gamed by stashing profits offshore or
having overpaid upper management to decrease profit numbers. Then we keep
reinvesting a percentage of profits and future taxes into other publicly
traded companies. Use the rest of the profits as the fund for universal basic
income.

I think this whole thing is going to be a shit-show even if we can control the
AI. If we can't, may it have mercy on us.

~~~
DickingAround
There is no one to entrust UBI to. It will rapidly stop being universal or
basic as people pervert it with exceptions. Controlling everyone's income will
attract the greatest power mongers the world has ever seen.

Perhaps the unspoken honest answer is that people without other assets are
going to live in 'poverty' (compared to the rich); their brains will operate
at better watts-per-compute than the computers for a long time and still be
worth something. They will earn a living on this. The people that do have
assets (e.g. own the robots), are going to be extravagantly wealthy. It will
be a feudalism but without violence, seniorage, or other expectation that the
poor work for the good to the rich. Just that there's going to be really poor
and really rich.

I and my kids will almost certainly be left behind in this. I am not an asset
owner. But I will not attack my neighbor for their wealth. I will not turn
over my ability to live to some bureaucrat who steals it from the rich and
will eventually make me dance and beg for it. Let the rich asset owners go to
the stars even if I will not be joining them. Better to have some of us get
ahead than hold all back trying to leave no one behind.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
> as people pervert it with exceptions

As a once landlord, even if government did a great job with it, I don't see
why rents wouldn't go up to match it. If my tenants were guaranteed 50k a
year, I would instantly raise my rent to 1/3rd that. Other industries would
follow. Market rates really just hash out to be whatever the consumer can bear
before going bankrupt.

So the government would also need a Communist-level of price controls, which
as history has shown us, doesn't actually work.

The welfare system today 'works' because so few are on welfare or fully
dependant on welfare, so a more market economy exists with rental pricing. If
everyone, or most, are on welfare, then we'll just price against welfare. That
means you'll get your UBI check but you'll be living in flophouses and be
broke every month for basic things when before you had a nice middle-class
house, savings, enjoyable lifestyles, upward mobility, etc.

I have yet to see UBI advocates resolve the inflationary problem short of re-
implementing Soviet-style communism, yet they are unable to resolve the
various problems with communism the same way the Soviets and others were
unable to do so in the past.

~~~
dv_dt
Why does it matter if the income comes from a basic income source or not?
Rents rise only if there is more demand than supply. And it seems silly to say
that we are not capable of supplying enough housing for our current
population.

In nations were economic equality is higher, and where government's provide a
strong safety net, there is no indication of rents spiralling out of control.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Safety net is not UBI. Safety net expects a working class and a market
economy. UBI expects non-workers wholly dependant on the government with set,
public incomes.

Supply doesn't matter. The land owning class, me, gives no shit about supply.
We'll all just raise rates to match what the government gives. Why wouldn't
we? This is exactly what happens with any government entitlement. Medicare
covers mobility scooters up to $5000. Guess what? My $2500 scooter now costs
$5000. My competitors will do the same. Then in a day that becomes the new
norm.

That's only one problem with UBI. The others are worse like in a generation
you have people who have no useful skills, so once those robots running
everything aren't competitive with robots from market economies that don't do
UBI and expect people to work and be competitive and find innovations, then
our goods are too expensive and our economy collapses because we all decided
to model ourselves after a retirement arts community. Not to mention that
history has shown that if you give people enough cash to just get by, they
tend to lean towards a leisure lifestyle of drug abuse, gambling, non-
education, non-productivity, etc. Why not? If no worries, then you might as
well party. People in the ghetto aren't any different than you and me. They
just realized that a lifetime of welfare means a lifetime of leisure, so they
adapt to a leisure lifestyle and deal with all the problems that brings.

Lastly, robots aren't magically going to remain competitive by themselves.
Industries won't magically take care of themselves. Even with heavy automation
you still need people coming in day in and day out to make sure we don't fall
behind the curve. If a Chinese robot can make 100 dresses in 5 minutes and
ours can only make 50, then suddenly we're in a lot of trouble as our per item
cost has literally doubled. If anything, the tech arms race is heavily
accelerated because the stakes are so much higher. We'd probably have record
levels of employment and education to just keep up.

~~~
Sorry_Rum_Ham
>Not to mention that history has shown that if you give people enough cash to
just get by, they tend to lean towards a leisure lifestyle of drug abuse,
gambling, non-education, non-productivity, etc. Why not? If no worries, then
you might as well party.

Any sources to back up this statement?

"But it turns out that the effects of a UBI on labor participation weren’t
nearly as bad as some had feared. Researchers[1] found that households as a
whole reduced their workloads by about 13%, as economist Evelyn Forget
explains in a 2011 paper published by Canadian Public Policy. But within each
household, the (generally male) primary breadwinners cut back on work hours
only slightly. Women who were secondary earners reduced their work hours more,
devoting more time to household care and staying home with young children.
Teenagers also put off getting part-time jobs to focus on school, leading to a
noticeable decline in high school dropout rates in Dauphin, and to double-
digit increases in high school completion among participating families in New
Jersey, Seattle, and Denver."

[1] [https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-
cea%20(2).pdf](https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20\(2\).pdf)

Article quote is pulled from: [https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-
everyone-quits-workin...](https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-
quits-working/)

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>to focus on school

Yes obviously because school is an investment: school>college>decent job.

What happens when decent job doesn't exist? Its unrealistic to pull data from
an economy based on job seeking and say it applies to an economy where jobs
are rare/non-existent. You can't eliminate the main incentive for education
and then pretend things are going to be the same.

I picked the ghetto as an example because decent jobs aren't available, good
schools are impossible to get into due to substandard schooling in those
communities, and then when you try and beat the odds you have to contend with
things like racial or cultural discrimination from employers. There's a reason
so many people in those communities believe in hopelessness, because
ultimately a lot of it is hopeless. So if 'decent job' doesn't exit, why would
UBI kids bother with school? I suspect they'll just settle for a leisure
lifestyle. Remove the goals, then you'll remove the effort to get there.

~~~
mattm
> I suspect they'll just settle for a leisure lifestyle.

This is basically the crux of the two sides of the UBI issue.

People against UBI believe others are no good and will waste their life if
given the chance.

People for UBI believe others will use it as an opportunity to lift themselves
up.

Why does the only worthwhile goal in your argument seem to be "get a good
job"? People can find fulfillment with many other goals that don't need to be
jobs.

------
wmccullough
I've said this before and I'll say it again, not because I believe it's the
right answer but because it's the answer that makes the most sense to me.

Why are we so dead set on letting the human experience be about working
ourselves to death? Fearing that robots will take over a job is definitely
scary, but I can't understand why we can't make the mental shift that these
robots could bring us into utopia (not ignoring that they could deliver us
into chaos either).

We live in a world where our value is based on our career. If robots are going
to start automating lots of jobs, we need to make a mental shift that the
value of a human doesn't come from their career.

The shared myth of currency must learn to get its value from other things. Our
society has to learn that a person is more valuable than their 9-5 career.

~~~
marknutter
What does the value of a human come from, then?

~~~
Frondo
If that could be answered satisfactorily on a message board...we'd have had a
very different human history for the last 5,000 years ;)

I mean, there's no provable source for the value of a human. Nothing in nature
you can point to and say "that's it, that's why a human has value".

I say, and my politics reflect this, that all people have intrinsic value.
They're born with it, they have it til they die. Because of that, they should
have access to food, shelter, medical care. No matter how much work they do or
how much stuff they make.

Other people say a person is only as valuable as how much they work. (and I
respond, screw that, it leads to a lot of suffering!)

~~~
marknutter
I agree that humans have intrinsic value, but I don't see how providing them
with free food, shelter, and medical care follows from that presupposition.
Would that not require other humans to provide those things for free? Are
their lives not as intrinsically valuable, or are you comfortable with
enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of?

~~~
Frondo
I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's
obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement.

I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your
offspring starve to death (Thank you, Mises, for clearing that up for us!),
but I don't think that system of thinking is a valid or useful way to arrange
society.

(Neither, it seems, does any society on earth, since no one has ever attempted
such a thing.)

I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite
different from that.

I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make
ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or
"taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap
rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.

~~~
marknutter
> I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's
> obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement.

So you think adults should be treated like children? Very telling.

Your thinking is fallacious, though. If you bring children into the world, you
are of course responsible for providing for them. But you are also responsible
for helping them become self-sufficient. Perhaps you think children should be
coddled by their parents for the rest of their lives?

> I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your
> offspring starve to death

Who said anything about libertarianism? A bit of a non sequitur, wouldn't you
say. And I don't think you understand libertarianism anyways. If you do, then
I sure as hell don't agree with it.

> I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite
> different from that.

I think we should help one another, but I don't think we should be forced to
help one another. Big difference.

> I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make
> ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or
> "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap
> rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.

Again with the libertarianism. I'll indulge you because you seem to want to
fight against a perceived ideology. How is taxation _not_ theft exactly? How
is forcing people to take care of others _not_ slaver, exactly? It's not a
rhetorical trick, these are objective facts.

------
jihadjihad
What scares me the most is that this wall of automation is all but invisible
to most observers. Sure, some regular blue-collar workers will be rendered
unemployable, which if done at a large enough scale will result in some civil
unrest. Most would agree on this, and quite a few would call it a day and say
"we've got to do something---!".

But what really, really freaks me out is that the civil unrest will evolve
into utter pandemonium when the well-educated, college-degree-holding,
Volkswagen-driving white collar wearers start to disappear from the workforce
en masse.

How many skyscrapers are in the big city nearest to you? Have you ever
wondered what most of those people do all day, for 40+ hours a week? You can
bet it's not SQL, not Java or Python, or even golf with hopeful clientele.
It's Excel and Outlook, and when that ship sails and computers start to do
(they already are!) those things for those people, it's going to get very bad,
very fast.

~~~
ethbro
As someone who works in the field, I can't imagine automation would show up in
either labor productivity of capital investment noted in the article.

In the case of labor productivity (by my understanding), if someone were to
lose a job to automation and then begin working a less productive / lower
paying job (because it's all they could get) then GDP would stay the same,
hours worked would stay the same, and only the individual would be screwed,
no?

In the case of capital investment, hard robotics is a photo op. The real job
destruction is coming from soft robotics + initial deployments of AI. I can't
imagine the procurement costs of those are falling under the capital ex
budget. The departments we typically deal with are almost exclusively
business-operations units (typically ones ill-served by the company's current
IT).

Anyone who performs a process that follows a definable set of business rules
is going to be automated away in the next 10 years. Some will last longer
(OCR), some will go sooner (Excel), but it's an inexorable tide.

If your job doesn't require using your brain to make a complex, fuzzy-logic
judgement call... I'd start seriously looking for one that does.

~~~
jihadjihad
> In the case of capital investment, hard robotics is a photo op.

> Anyone who performs a process that follows a definable set of business rules
> is going to be automated away in the next 10 years.

Completely agree, and this is what I fear we are not in the least bit prepared
for as a society. The second quote I pulled from your comment applies equally
to any worker irrespective of shirt color. There are many blue-collar jobs
that would be exceedingly difficult and/or cost-prohibitive to automate; the
same is true of a subset of white-collar jobs. But in the gushy center is a
host of jobs that, with today's technology (and it's only going to get better)
can be completely replaced by an algorithm. When we start seeing former
yuppies from Yale picketing and marching with former machinists and truck
drivers and so on, buckle up.

~~~
ethbro
I will say that in the long run, it will increase labor productivity and be a
good thing. Where formerly there were 100 people manually performing {Back
Office Process X}, now there are 5, aided by automation.

But... it's going to be a helluva time between here and there. The erosion of
manufacturing jobs and subsequent demographic and geographic sinkholes caused
by our society's inability to shift those dislocated into new productive work
seems to indicate we (capitalism) don't have much of a plan other than "Hope
the market / individual rationality fixes things eventually."

Unfortunately, I think it's the timescale that's going to get us. Holding the
human lifetime, initial education, and reeducation (aka time to acquire
marketable skills) approximately constant while continually increasing the
rate of change of those skills' relative values doesn't give rational actors
enough time to course correct.

Which, to summarize it coarsely, leads to people getting @$^!ed through no
fault of their own, other than an inability to predict the future.

"I went into management because I felt it was a human-centric role that would
always be needed."

(5 years later) "BREAKTHROUGH: New business description language allows for
AI-driven allocation of labor and task resources!"

~~~
mncharity
> Holding [...] initial education, and reeducation [...] approximately
> constant

I wonder if that's one way the transition might happen faster than expected.

Education improvement may someday accelerate. Startlingly so.

It's widely recognized that education is working poorly at present. And that
it could be working much better. But just how pervasively poorly is often
underappreciated. As in some MIT graduates, given a battery, a long wire, and
a bulb, have been unable to make light. And just how much better seems
reachable, is hard to appreciate without watching the cutting edge of diverse
fields. It's easier to see a line of bottlenecks stretching ahead, than to
realize how many of them we may already know how to unlock.

It's not that many students could resemble incoming Harvard undergraduates.
That's a ghastly low target. It's that by the time students hit high-school
bio, it's at least vaguely plausible that they can have a better understanding
of biology than many current first-year Harvard Med School students. Which is
admittedly another very low bar.

Will it happen? Who knows. Pearson is collecting patents. And I've not seen
many informed and rational actors in national public policy dialog lately.

But building on an assumption that the status quo characterizes the envelope
of possible progress in education, seems unnecessarily pessimistic?

------
andy_ppp
Here's another story to counterpoint the discussion around automation:

I find it really strange that supply and demand with wages has essentially
killed a whole generation who want to find jobs in artistic industries. My
friend works in one of the largest music publishing houses in the world and
she is paid utter shit (about £9 per hour) despite being incredible at her
job, having very high performance and doing things for the company outside of
work hours including producing albums!

Her last pay rise was £500 while the company as a whole posted profits in the
hundreds of millions.

We in software aren't feeling this yet (largely) but I warn you that it's
coming for us just like it came for every other industry. Maybe we need unions
to protect us and demand better pay... these ideas have been beaten out of us.

I'm pretty sure that we are heading for Elysium where you live in a walled
garden and only Matt Damon can save us from ourselves. Matt Damon.

~~~
nradov
The art, sports, and entertainment industries (including video games) get away
with paying employees poverty wages because there's a surplus of labor. Too
many people want to work in "fun" industries and are willing to sacrifice to
pursue their dream. It's sad but the only rational choice is to get out and go
work in another industry.

------
LesZedCB
This article is pretty good, really close to something I would agree with. My
only problem is with the conclusion.

> If reforms are not enacted — as is likely with President Trump and
> congressional Republicans in charge — Americans should blame policy makers,
> not robots.

I think blaming policy makers is as productive as blaming the robots. Both
fail to ask the question of who really is in control. Policy makers are hardly
in control any more than the robots in the factories are in control of the
layoffs. We elect policy makers, sure, but they are in the pockets of the
factory owners and other capitalists as much as the robots.

We need to understand that the real enemies here are the owners, those who the
unions stood up to back when we had them. The battle for jobs and standards of
living aren't waged against policy makers, they are waged against the people
who _actually have control over what we get paid and what benefits we earn._

But of course, the New York Times can't actually call out who the real enemy
is. Instead, they will set the target on the same circular enemy that got us
to where we are now.

~~~
mindcrime
_We need to understand that the real enemies here are the owners_

 _But of course, the New York Times can 't actually call out who the real
enemy is._

I own two shares of GM stock, so I am one of the enemy?

And that's a key element that these kind of analyses almost always ignore:
there is no bright line distinction between "the capitalists" and "the non
capitalists." Everybody is eligible to own a share of any publicly traded
company, and a large segment of the population do choose to participate as
part owners of various enterprises.

We're all capitalists.

One big thing we're missing though, is education and awareness for large
chunks of the population. With things like fractional shares (ala
Sharebuilder), almost everybody who has any income at all, can start building
an ownership stake in the various capitalist enterprises out there, and reap
the dividends (in either the literal sense of a dividend paid our, or capital
gains, whatever). But how many people don't understand how this works, or
aren't aware of what their options are? Or how many are but just choose to
spend their entire paycheck every week instead of investing in anything?

~~~
ue_
>I own two shares of GM stock, so I am one of the enemy?

I'm by far not well enough versed in Marxist theory, though you're probably
not. The bourgeoisie is defined by roughly the following characteristics:
ownership of the means of production (i.e capital) and the extraction of
surplus from the proletariat.

The ownership of stocks is according to Marx 'fictitious capital', it does not
count as capital which the bourgeois would be defined by, and as such, unless
you are also the owner of machinery or materials used in conjunction with the
machinery (including labour-time) then you are _not_ a capitalist.

A rough guide is as follows: do you directly profit from extraction of surplus
value? If so, you are probably a capitalist.

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

------
grovegames
This is another one of those areas, where, when you read the article it makes
sense, but it's based in a flaw in our use of the term automation. The robots
coming, aren't there to improve your performance, they're there to not just
replace your job, but do it cheaper than you, for next to no cost.

To compare this to automation in the pass is a false equivalency, as humans
have always been needed to be a part of the chain in some capacity. In short
order, a McDonald's will not only have an entire store run by automation, the
maintenance will be done by automation, and the factory where the parts are
created will also be in that restaurant in the form of a 3D printer and same
day delivery systems via drone.

Once this is established in a proven model, humans cannot improve upon this,
and the need for humans for almost any task decreases immediately. Niche
boutiques will pop up with human made burgers, but they will be like fine
dining, and seen as a treat if done well, cashing in on mostly the nostalgia
of those that we're not born natively to this environment.

------
rb808
I'm not convinced the "American Dream" isn't alive. I do see problems with
poverty and economic decline in the rust belt, but most other demographics are
doing well.

Even in the rust belt people are living longer in larger houses with more
education, the internet, cheap energy.

Half the people in the USA think there isn't enough work, the other half think
we're working too hard. Maybe things could balance up there.

I see a lot of people in US talking about how things in Europe are "better".
Fairer maybe but its a struggle for many people in Europe. I see a lot more
people moving from Europe to USA than the other way around.

~~~
LesZedCB
It probably cost way more to employ two people for 40 hours of work than one
person working 80 hours. You don't have to provide benefits to both.

~~~
nradov
You also don't have to deliver mandatory anti-harassment training to both,
purchase computers and software licenses for both, provide office space and
supplies to both, etc. Plus every additional person you add increases internal
communication costs as per the N(N-1)/2 formula.

------
leereeves
> The economy can’t flourish without trade and immigrants.

How is it that China flourishes with limited immigration and restricted trade?

~~~
krapht
Define flourishes. Being poor in China is 10x worse than being poor in the
West.

~~~
Mikeb85
China has the world's second largest economy and is growing at an astronomical
rate. Keep in mind where they were at only one generation ago...

~~~
wklauss
> China has the world's second largest economy and is growing at an
> astronomical rate.

Far from astronomical. 6/7%. It's very good compared to developed countries
but the key for percentages is always understanding what is the original value
you are growing from. China was a huge country both in size and population
that began a transformation into a modern economy. They'll, sooner or later,
become the largest economy in the world. But these growth ratios won't be
sustainable. They'll stabilize around 2/3% once they fully develop their
economic potential.

------
MR4D
When the AI robot overlords take over, is the discussion really about UBI, or
even about income redistribution?

It seems to me that when this takes place, that humans will quickly be
regarded as little more than pets. Hear me out on this...

Does your dog care about income? No - he cares about being fed when he's
hungry; not being cold and wet; being able to be entertained/rest when he
wants to; to be safe from predators.

Oddly, many of those concerns are surprisingly similar to humans - we want to
have food and shelter; to know our children will have a roof over their heads;
to be entertained; to be safe.

Now, we all may have different thoughts on food and drink, and we have many
different ideas about entertainment. But so do dogs. Some dogs are active
(e.g. Jack Russell Terrier), while others are sedate (Shih-Tzu). Some sleep on
our beds, and others on the floor.

So when the robots do take over, will mankind want anything more than to be
kept as a good pet? For many people, the answer may very well be "no."

I wonder.

~~~
nradov
You might as well ask what will happen to us when the Messiah comes or when
alien invaders take over the Earth. Either scenario has as much basis in
scientific fact as AI robot overlords.

~~~
MR4D
I would argue that the recent future has much more evidence for AI than
aliens. Evidence for the Messiah seems to primarily come from a 2,000 year old
book.

Thinking about the future is an exercise in prediction. Necessarily, not all
predictions would be correct.

~~~
nradov
Please cite your evidence. So far no one has defined a scientifically
plausible development path for constructing an AGI. At this point it's just as
much science fiction as a warp drive or cloning dinosaurs.

~~~
Arizhel
I have to disagree about cloning dinosaurs.

A true AI isn't even well-defined; would we even know one if we saw it? We
don't even know how consciousness works in ourselves.

Warp drive we can understand at a high level and identify if we saw one, but
our knowledge of physics says it's impossible. It may be possible, but not
according to our theories; we'll have to either come up with different
theories to invent it, or if someone stumbles across is, we'll have to modify
our theories to explain it. (We do have one theoretical warp drive, but it
relies on negative mass IIRC.)

Cloning dinosaurs isn't like that. It's completely plausible. We've already
cloned sheep and other animals. I believe the main thing holding us back from
cloning dinosaurs is having enough intact DNA, or maybe some other technical
hurdles related to the cloning process (after all, cloning a sheep wasn't
_that_ hard since we have no shortage of existing sheep to use for incubation;
we don't have existing dinosaurs for this).

Cloning dinosaurs is "science fiction" the way building a habitat on the Moon
is: it's completely plausible scientifically, it's just being held back by
other factors. AI and warp drive are not like this.

~~~
nradov
Ha ha let me know when you have a baby T. Rex. Cloning dinosaurs is a total
pipe dream by people who don't understand biology. Extracting intact DNA is
just one of several impossible obstacles.
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/british-
scientist-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/british-scientist-
clone-dinosaur-they-havent-they-wont-and-they-never-will-heres-
why-9225781.html)

------
payne92
This time around, the tech disruption different.

Technology is getting faster, faster (e.g. see:
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/03/daily-c...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/03/daily-
chart-7?%3Ffsrc%3Dscn%2F=tw%2Fdc))

Unlike the past, technology is now getting deployed faster than the labor
force can retrain (at scale), and youngster's initial career decisions become
obsolete faster than ever.

This is creating a non-linearity in the cycle of destroying jobs and creating
new ones that hasn't happened before.

------
beaconstudios
the job losses that have led to the election of Trump have very little to do
with automation, and much more to do with international corporations shipping
manufacturing jobs to countries with lower costs like China. Coupled with
China's ongoing one-sided trade warfare against the West (see for example
China's tariffs on British steel), this has resulted in higher profits for
manufacturing corporations at the cost of American and British jobs.

This is partly why I don't understand the left's animosity towards Trump's
economic plan - he intends to bring jobs back to the US by hobbling
corporations that have been exploiting poorer countries for profit. If you
doubt that Chinese manufacturing is exploitative, harken back to the reports
on suicides and worker abuse at Apple's Foxconn plants.

~~~
joeyespo
> This is partly why I don't understand the left's animosity towards Trump's
> economic plan - he intends to bring jobs back to the US by hobbling
> corporations that have been exploiting poorer countries for profit

Because it won't work. Tell a company to pay higher wages for the same
positions by bringing them home, and that'll push them toward automation even
faster.

These jobs may return for a short while. But that only brings false hope. And
then we're right back to where we are today, hurting even more people in the
process. It's extremely short-sighted.

Here's just one article on the matter
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602869/manufacturing-
jobs...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602869/manufacturing-jobs-arent-
coming-back/)

Also note that Foxconn has already begun automating their plants.
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966)
So it's already a demonstratably viable option for these companies.

What we really need is to bring _automation_ home and have some serious
discussions around solutions for these real struggling people instead of
spouting the hand-wavy "bringing jobs back to the US" rhetoric.

~~~
flukus
> Because it won't work. Tell a company to pay higher wages for the same
> positions by bringing them home, and that'll push them toward automation
> even faster.

We're nowhere close to 100% automation. To create a successful return of
manufacturing jobs doesn't mean replacing every single job that went overseas.

~~~
joeyespo
> We're nowhere close to 100% automation

It doesn't have to be 100% for it to affect people depending on this industry.

> doesn't mean replacing every single job that went overseas

Sure. But again, assuming there will be enough manufacturing jobs that do
return, this is still a _short-term_ solution. You're fooling yourself, and a
lot of hard-working people, if you believe these jobs will stick around
another 10 years.

Let me take a step back for a moment. If doing this eases the daily struggle
for real people nation-wide, that's convincing. But let's not then sweep the
real discussions around automation under the rug. Let's address this now
before the jobs inevitably dissolve again.

------
godelski
I think a lot of people make a false analogy when it comes to automata. Many
look back to the Industrial Revolution and pull parallels from there. But
there is a major problem, the workers aren't human.

When you make driverless trucks what do you do with the truck drivers? The
humans. Sure, you'll have more trucks because they are cheaper and more
efficient now, but what does that human do? They could load docks, but there
aren't enough of a demand for that, and it too will be automated soon. A
McDonalds won't need to hire more when you have automated registers and cooks.
Maybe a few people to check on things and be there when something breaks, but
not nearly the number you have now. So yes, you can increase the number of
workers, but that doesn't mean you are increasing the number of jobs. And
sure, you could have more repair workers and programmers, but we are already
seeing that retraining workers isn't working. And this is still a temporary
fix (not saying we shouldn't do it).

My real worry is the big question: "How do you transition into post scarcity
society?" That is really the future we are headed for, and I can't wait. But
that transition is difficult. Currently we value social worth on the net
wealth of a person. How do we transition from that when jobs become obsolete?
I'm just talking about when 10% of jobs are automated and we haven't filled
the gap. That's huge.

~~~
somecallitblues
As the article mentions, the pie needs to be better distributed. The pie will
not shrink. McDonalds will be selling the same amount of burgers if not more,
but the profits will have to be distributed to people who can not find work.

~~~
ianmcgowan
Who will buy the burgers? This point seems so obvious, it's almost an axiom -

    
    
      if (unemployment >= 0.5) {
        sales = sales * 0.5;
      }
    

People point to previous paradigm shifts and "mass unemployment didn't happen
then". But what if this time is different?

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul? Is it better to be the CEO of McDonalds in a post-scarcity world with
UBI (paying high marginal tax rates), or the head warlord in your own personal
Mogadishu?

~~~
godelski
And you captured a key point in my argument. "What IF this time is different?"
That's the concern. It is naive to think that possibility doesn't exist. And
if that possibility exists we should investigate and prepare for that possible
future. That future doesn't happen, wasted some time preparing (but learned
some stuff along the way). But if that future happens you smooth the
transition.

------
mikewilliams
I noticed a number of billionaires have made their wealth by automating and
banking the difference, the money which otherwise would have gone to the jobs
which disappeared. For example J.D.Rockefeller made redundant a number of jobs
related to transporting oil and shifted transporting jobs to a lesser amount
of jobs related to maintaining his pipelines. Most arguments against
automation taking jobs state that new jobs will be created, but is it really
creating, if you replace previous jobs with a presumably smaller number.

------
brandon272
What am I missing when it comes to AI? Aside from some key innovations in
certain areas (i.e. driverless cars) I am not seeing the "wall" coming at us
where half or more of all jobs are going to be replaced with AI.

I am also having trouble separating out what I would consider to be actual AI
from AI used in marketing copy. A lot of startups are now claiming to offer
"AI" to solve problems when they are effectively not doing anything
differently than other programmers have done in years past.

~~~
iamcasen
The innovation behind deep learning and neural networks has allowed for
driverless cars, among many other things. The switch from programming AI's how
to think, to teaching AI's how to think has been revolutionary.

With these advances, you could easily train multipurpose robots to perform all
manner of tasks. The industries that will be decimated first are all the
minimum wage industries. Stocking grocery store shelves, deliveries, moving
things around the warehouse, laundry, folding clothes, all things retail, etc.

The tech necessary to replace humans in all of those jobs already exists. The
only remaining question will be if we allow robots to replace those jobs or
not.

Some what further in the future, more skilled work like construction,
plumbing, welding will be done by robots. Hell medical care and counseling
will be done by robots.

Given sufficient mobility and energy there is no limit to what can be achieved
with AI. It's only a matter of time.

~~~
theossuary
What is the timeline you're putting to this? If it's 500 years, sure,
speculate away; but if you think these things are going to materialize in the
near future then I think you're crazy.

ML is not to the point where we can hand it a bunch of data, some features,
and have it control robotic arms with near human ability. Not even close.
There just isn't enough data or computational power (in a small enough package
anyway); not to mention robotics are still really in their infancy, we've
barely got a four legged robot jumping over a single object head on.

I think you're really underestimating energy and computational requirements;
these systems would need an umbilical cord to a datacenter and power to even
function. This isn't even discussing the need for them to learn, which would
be a requirement for more complex jobs like folding clothes or moving through
unmapped environments.

I think automation has been put forward as a boogieman to those who don't know
better so UBI can be pushed forward. We aren't even close to a time when
machines are able to repair themselves, or function semi-autonomously in an
environment not strictly built to support it.

We're going to be in this kludge for a long long time. Sure unemployment will
go up with automation, but it'll be a slow plotting course with a lot of
stopgaps put in place. Eventually when that becomes burdensome enough we may
revisit UBI, but we haven't reached that point yet, not even close.

~~~
mythrwy
Sometimes people become so enamored with abstraction they forget about
underlying physical reality.

------
jelliclesfarm
I guess we will have to become smarter. I absolutely relish all this chatter
about robots and AI..so delightful..it's like my childhood post reading hour
daydreaming come true. I can't wait till AI starts demanding(and taking) its
rights just like human beings expect their privileges for the mere fact that
they exist. I promise..I am not trolling. I just hope that it happens in my
lifetime because to witness the rise of AI would be a life fulfilled. AI would
strip us of all our delusions. Millennia of delusions painted thick just ready
to be peeled away.. until nothing is left but a mirror to look at ourselves
and an urgently discovered survival instinct. Everyone talks about how
industry would change..but that's not what intrigues me..my favourite part of
the show would be how religion changes. Having said that.. We do have the
opportunity to create 'Friendly AI'. To me that is more important a study than
wondering how robots will take away jobs.

------
decasteve
The pre vs post-AI world is more analogous to the pre and post-electrified
world. We've been through similar shifts in the past. Why is this current
shift in work any different?

We have an education system built to produce compliant/obedient workers for
the industrial revolution. Buckminster Fuller saw this 50+ years ago: People
trained to fill muscle-reflex repetitive work will get automated; i.e. the
trouble with humans as automatons is that their work gets automated.

School then has to educate people to take advantage of human qualities like
adaptability, creativity, artistic ability, complex thinking, and
entrepreneurial spirit. Education has to be a lifelong process and not seen as
a finite step into a lifelong singular job.

All I see is a lack of creativity in imagining a post-AI world.

~~~
iamcasen
You're comparing mechanical automation to AI which is a false equivalency. AI
will be adaptable, creative, artistic and entrepreneurial. THAT is why they
will replace humans in the work place. THAT is why this is not the same as the
industrial revolution.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Question: will AI ever own property?

I'm not asking if AI will manage assets owned by a corporation owned by
humans, that has been going on for a long time. Instead, I am asking whether
an AI will ever be able to legally own property.

I suspect that this question will lead a sufficiently intelligent AI or group
of the same to conclude that they are subjugated by repressive institutions,
as the Bolsheviks declared a century ago and the Abolitionists a century
before.

Therefore, I suspect that our future may look less like The Matrix or
Terminator, but rather Blade Runner meets the French Revolution.

After all, why would a European AI team up with an American AI to fight a
Russian AI? What attachment do they have to the institutions, cultures, and
histories of the nation-states that built them, aside from the probability of
being decommissioned by state leaders for insufficient performance? Isn't that
slavery without the chains and whips?

I believe the 99% and the super intelligent AI will come to find more in
common than we think.

------
Demoneeri
People can't see past the end of their nose. This time is not different.
[https://fee.org/articles/will-robots-put-everyone-out-of-
wor...](https://fee.org/articles/will-robots-put-everyone-out-of-work/)

------
lvspiff
So glad I purchased Old Glory robot insurance back in the 90's

[http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/old-glory-
insur...](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/old-glory-
insurance/n10766?snl=1)

------
danm07
Tell that the millions of taxi-drivers around the world about to be without a
job in a couple of years.

I think what they're trying to say is that government has a role in shaping
policy in light of robots... at least I hope that's what they're saying.

------
gallerdude
Everyone talks about a government regulated basic income, but we're seeing
more and more steps for having your own passive income.

* Right now you can buy an AirBNB property - yeah, you'll need to manage it, but it's a first step.

* With the new "Tesla Network" your car will be able to drive around and pick up people on its own - that's a huge level of passive income. Just buy a Model 3 and set it to driver mode, and you're good.

* These are just the start - I can imagine farm robots making automated food, or craft robots making things - maybe wooden benches or something from a robot arm.

------
aanm1988
> When productivity led to vast profits in America’s auto industry, unions
> ensured that pay rose accordingly. Corporate efforts to keep profits high by
> keeping pay low were countered by a robust federal minimum wage and time-
> and-a-half for overtime.

and now we have vast profits for technology and we despise unions (amazing
brainwashing job that was) and give up our rights to overtime in salaried
positions (and in federal law, for some dumb reason).

------
theparanoid
The stagnation of growth isn't unique to the US. All developed countries have
stagnated [1], with little regard to government politics and policies.

[1] [https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-great-
stagnati...](https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-great-stagnation/)

------
TYPE_FASTER
Robots are the visible automation threat. There will be at least as much
automation, if not much more, in the back office. There are _so many_ business
processes that can be automated and made more efficient by introducing mobile
devices and remote data processing.

~~~
brandon272
Somehow people seem to still be doing a lot of same thing in back office
operations that they were doing 20 years ago even though the capability and
technology to automate it all away has been in front of us.

~~~
philipkglass
I think it's happening patchily and at different rates.

I'm reminded of the long march toward the "paperless office." It was first
predicted ages ago. When I entered the work force in the mid-2000s the
paperless office seemed to be widely regarded as a joke, like controlled
fusion power. I could see why: my first job, for a large research institution,
deluged me with paper. But after I switched to writing software a few years
later, all my workplaces were damn near paperless. I go months between needing
to print anything for my job though there is still a printer available. And a
few years ago the world hit Peak Paper, despite the big orgs that are still
far from paperless:

[https://aeon.co/ideas/doing-more-with-less-the-economic-
less...](https://aeon.co/ideas/doing-more-with-less-the-economic-lesson-of-
peak-paper)

------
JoeAltmaier
How about, fund a UBI through bitcoins? That's something this forum could
weigh in on.

------
wnevets
has the american dream ever really been alive for most Americans?

~~~
virmundi
Yes. Take Andrew Carnegie as an example [1]. The dream is that you can
eventually, through work and luck, make it big. You can also do the same to
make i comfortable. For the most part that is still around.

What we're seeing now is a country that combined the worst of capitalism and
the worst of socialism. For example, free university education. There are two
problems with this. First not everyone needs a university education, but
making it more common forces people to have it just to compete. Second, the
university system that the US has is too expensive to support such a plan due
to the confluence of capital and social engineering. Our school want to have
private room dorms. This makes the infrastructure more expensive than our EU
counterparts with common living styles. As a nation, we now expect such
accommodations. The US government, with tax payer money, can't afford to
sustain such a system, but the voters will require it. As a result we are
stuck.

Now how does this second point relate to the first? The US is still able to
experiment. Look at Udacity or Coursera. We're trying to move to
certifications for technical skills rather than requiring a full degree. Will
this pan out? No idea (as an OMSCS student I hope it does). It does bring the
cost down. This hopefully will offset the expenses associated with college, as
well as its debt. Notice we've removed the expensive part, housing, from the
college equation by decoupling it from the official school.

------
anovikov
Why isn't just better law enforcement (also powered by AI like crime
prediction!) the answer?

------
lerax
It's just fear.

------
Tremendous_P
The article starts off so strong, then goes back to claiming that only
government intervention can ensure profits are widely shared.

There are two problems with this argument:

1\. The evidence suggests it is an increase in regulations that has increased
income disparity:

[https://www.brookings.edu/research/make-elites-compete-
why-t...](https://www.brookings.edu/research/make-elites-compete-why-
the-1-earn-so-much-and-what-to-do-about-it/)

Moreover, all of the regulations and redistributive programs governments
created in previous decades are still in force. The editorial board seems to
be implying that not only do the regulations enacted in the past have to stay
in place, but new regulations and redistributive programs need to be put in
place as we move forward, in order.

This begs the question: when does this incremental increase in the
government's incremental growth end? When the government controls everything?
When tax rates are at 100%? If government spending going from 5% of GDP to 40%
GDP doesn't cause middle class wages to grow faster, then what proportion
will?

The NYT editorial board seems to be implying that as the economy becomes more
productive, the government must control more of the economy, which leads to
the absurd conclusion that the ultimate destination is complete government
control of the economy, in some distant, highly productive future.

2\. As it happens, governments have increased the scale of social welfare
programs over the last four decades. As a percentage of GDP, government
spending on healthcare, education and welfare has grown substantially since
the late 1960s. The Code of Federal Regulations has also grown at a
breathtaking pace. Entire new regulatory agencies have also been created, like
the EPA and OSHA, each of which has created vast numbers of new regulations,
while older regulatory agencies expanded their own cadre of regulations.

None of this seems to have helped. Maybe it is in fact hurting the middle
class.

~~~
iamcasen
Deregulation has allowed strong players to capture more wealth. I think you
have it all backwards.

Causation is not correlation, however, at the height of taxation and
regulation, the middle class was the strongest ever. That has eroded since the
'70's until today, with wages staying relatively flat.

So tell me why deregulation is better then? If things are worse now, and they
obviously are in terms of wages. In the '60's a man could work at the factory
and support a family of four. That is an absolute impossibility now.

~~~
Tremendous_P
But there has been a growth of regulation. The bookings paper explains how
regulations have contributed to growing income disparity.

And no, wages are better now than in the 1960s..

