
We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation - danvideo
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/31/we-need-a-new-deal-to-address-the-economic-risks-of-automation/
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bsmith
I disagree with the author here on UBI. The root of the issue goes deeper than
deciding to prop up job markets so that there is enough supply of jobs to meet
the demand. Based on the arguments in the article, this can only be a
temporary fix; eventually automation will take over too many jobs for every
person to have one—or at the very least, human labor is a commodity that
eventually becomes so cheap that the laborers cannot survive.

The author seems to be solidly in the 'work == virtue' camp and argues that
UBI decreases the incentive to work. While partly true, the REAL work we want
done is not menial, but innovative, and leads to the next big breakthroughs
that increase productivity and eliminate even MORE jobs. This is capitalism,
no? UBI is there so everyone still survives to have a crack at it, if they
want to.

This becomes an ethical question quite quickly: does being born make you
worthy of survival?

~~~
UweSchmidt
Um, yes? Being born makes you worthy of survival. Where is the ethical
dilemma? Otherwise I agree with your post.

~~~
bsmith
It's meant to be rhetorical; of course being born makes you worthy of
survival! But what if working doesn't provide you enough sustenance? And what
if you don't even have the opportunity in the first place, once the demand for
human labor is low enough?

~~~
devoply
We have more than enough resources. If working does not provide enough
sustenance then we need to replace the government. These are political issues
not economic ones. We can solve the problem of production with automation,
however the problem of distribution remains and if the government is not
distributing resources to you then you need to take that government down and
replace it with one that does. That ultimatum hopefully makes politicians
understand that they are no longer serving their corporate overlords but the
people. They have been ignoring the people so long that might get some getting
used to.

Most innovation done today I would say a good 99% of what constitutes the job
market is trivial and can be automated away in the next 50 years. What remains
is the 1% of scientists and engineers that actually make shit happen and
strive to change the game. It's fine with me if these people live like kings
and the rest of us have enough resources and all the free time in the world to
do whatever we want and not be encumbered by trivial work. Maybe we can bring
back hunting gathering civilizations or other microcosms of civilization and
ways of life.

~~~
pharrlax
>It's fine with me if these people live like kings and the rest of us have
enough resources and all the free time in the world to do whatever we want and
not be encumbered by trivial work.

One problem with this that springs to mind is that historically, relative
numbers of young, bored, jobless men and crime rates are tightly correlated.

~~~
devoply
Gaming. Virtual reality. Virtual reality porn. They can be hooligans there.
You want somewhere to prove yourself do it there. We should in fact create a
de facto virtual reality simulation to take over lots of useless social things
we do with material goods and services like expensive cars, clothing, and
whatnot. All the conspicuous consumption can happen in virtual reality. That's
much better for the environment too. Leave the actual real world alone and
focus on implementing our imaginations in the virtual world.

It's already happening: [http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-video-
games-jobs-e...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-video-games-jobs-
emploment-20160923-story.html)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/13/gamer-prefers-
virtu...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/13/gamer-prefers-virtual-
world_n_7789168.html)

~~~
pc86
This argument ignores history, human psychology, and basic reality.

~~~
devoply
Human beings don't live in reality they live in their imaginations work to
bring that imagination into the real world through technology. History is just
that history, we never had this sort of tech so looking to history and saying
it won't work is irrelevant. Basic psychology is that humans don't live in the
real world but in their imaginations. There is already a subsection of society
that's already so involved in gaming that they don't care about the "real"
world any more, links on the edit above.

------
AndrewKemendo
As usual the chorus will be something along the lines of:

"Nothing to see here. We've had these shifts before and more jobs will be
created than lost and people will transition to new jobs etc..."

To which the response is, yes that's true, however never have we seen it at
such a pace. Shifts are now likely to happen multiple times in a single
working lifetime, as opposed to once a generation (1960-2000 - Solid State &
industrial automation) or once every third generation (1800-1920 -
Industrialization).

From years 0-1800 you could expect that your children would probably do the
same job you and your grandfather did (more than likely farming). From 1950's
on, children would likely go into a different line of work than their parents
were in. Now it's common for a parent to have multiple careers with completely
different skill sets and so on for their children.

This would be all well and good if one of these options were true:

1\. People could adapt as quickly as advances in machine processes are
changing (the outcome of which obviates machine efficiencies)

2\. There was flexibility in the system which would allow people the time to
adapt

The only other way to keep people around and not in poverty conditions would
be to decouple human needs from business processes - which is effectively what
UBI is trying to do in a roundabout way. I think has interesting long term
outcomes, namely that a few dominant machine organizations would feed, clothe,
house and train the population.

~~~
falcolas
Tiny nit: generations are measured in 20 or 25 year increments, an "average"
of how long it takes one group of humans to grow up and begin reproducing
themselves. I've found that the media tends to use 20 year increments, even
though 25 is a bit more accurate for an "average time for two people to have
two children".

This would change your figures to around 2 generations for the current
automation revolution, and industrialization to between 4-6 generations.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Thanks for that. I wrestled with using generational vs life span for that
exact reason, but decided it was pedantic and not worth going into. So thanks
for doing that math for me :)

------
zip1234
I'm totally onboard with UBI if it is actually needed. The problem is people
PROJECTING that it will be needed. In the current world human labor is very
much in demand. Maybe people won't be able to use the specific degree that
they went to school for but that just means a bit of retraining and/or a bit
of mindset shift. If there is a massive outflux of jobs in America, then there
are many questions that need to be answered before even approaching UBI as a
solution. For example, "are all countries suffering the same job losses? If
not, then why not?"

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> In the current world human labor is very much in demand.

If this were the case, wages would be rising. Supply and demand is what kept
unions around in the 60s, there was enough demand for labor that they could
demand higher wages and better treatment. Now due to globalization and other
things, the return on labor is incredibly low and still declining.

~~~
zip1234
Wages are rising significantly in the China, India, etc and are catching up.
Nobody really knows what will happen once all of the labor that is extremely
cheap now is not as cheap. We can conjecture that their will be some upheaval,
but nobody really knows what the effects will be.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Wages are rising for them regionally, but the return on labor is lower than it
was before. Previously, a laborer working 9-5 could afford a middle class life
with a house, car, and nuclear family. Can a laborer in India or China afford
that now? I doubt it.

~~~
zip1234
Well no, a laborer in India and China cannot afford that now but more people
have come out of poverty in the last 20 years than any 20 year period in
history.
[http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bill...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-
people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim)

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
That is great, a true testament to the wealth-creating power of globalization,
but it doesn't change the fact that the return on labor is significantly lower
than it used to be.

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d--b
You don't really have to speculate. Automation is going to do to the service
industry what globalization did to manufacturing. Manufacturing got
"automated" away by sending work to places where labor costs next to nothing.

Did the offshoring of manufacture jobs create joblessness?

Actually I'm not sure what the answer to that is. According to statistics the
US is running at full employment. According to pretty much every other source
of information, regions where manufacturing used to happen are devastated by
joblessness, drug addiction, and violence...

I don't know why there is such a disconnect.

~~~
daliwali
Because the unemployment rate is a lie. It is denominated by the "labor
force", which, if one excludes those who are no longer seeking work or
chronically unemployed, it's basically being dishonest with statistics. One
does not have to feign ignorance as to why there is a disconnect between the
statistics and the reality.

~~~
maxerickson
It's not a lie, it's a technical measure that people misinterpret.

If it was a lie you'd expect suppression of the further data.

[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)

~~~
daliwali
There is no need to censor the data, as long as one can present it in a way
that is favorable to a particular viewpoint. The fallacious argument being
made with the unemployment rate lends itself to misinterpretation.

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peacetreefrog
this guy needs a little more humility. as dan boudreaux writes:

"It’s called “history.” Since humans first controlled fire and carved arrows,
history is a long tale of the invention and use of labor-saving techniques and
devices. Domestication of oxen and horses. Pulleys. Levers. Irrigation
channels. Metal saws. The printing press. Concrete. The wheel. All save labor,
yet none has led to permanent increases in unemployment.

"It’s true that the pace of introducing new labor-saving techniques has
magnificently quickened in the past two hundred years. This fast pace
continues today. Yet still we encounter no evidence that labor-saving
techniques permanently increase unemployment.

"You’ll reply “This time is different!” Perhaps, but I doubt it"

~~~
RobertoG
There are strong arguments in the "this time is different" side.

When jobs are lost because technology, the new jobs are created in fields
where technology can't compete. Until now that was intellectual work.

~~~
peacetreefrog
To me, it's a lack of imagination -- not the ability to imagine the kinds of
work people will be doing in 100 years (which is very difficult), but the lack
of empathy/ability to get out of the here and now. In 1800's over half of US
workers were in agriculture, today it's under 2%. If you were to tell a farmer
that in 1900 they'd freak out, very similarly to how this guy's freaking out
today.

------
digitalzombie
Automation is going to happen anyway.

There are several ways we can deal with it.

1\. We can set up a social safety net to transition displaced workers to a new
trade/career.

2\. Protectionism.

3\. We do nothing.

4\. basic income

\---

Doing nothing is silly.

Basic income isn't going to pass in USA, universal healthcare haven't even
pass yet.

Protectionism goes against capitalism and it doesn't help in the long run. It
just extend a dying market like coals. We chose to become specialized a long
time ago and not specializing is crazy.

So the most sensible thing is a safety net.

~~~
RobertoG
The elephant on the room, the old question that it seems nobody wants to
mention is, in a totally automated economy, "who owns the means of
production?".

I don't think we are going to arrive nowhere in the discussion until we face
that question.

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jmmcd
> UBI reduces the incentive to work, and risks stranding millions of people in
> a subsistence living trap, able to just about get by, but cut off from the
> opportunity for upward mobility, as this essay details well.

The claim is prima facie false, so I looked at the source provided ("this
essay" is [1]) and it doesn't support that claim AT ALL.

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601499/basic-income-a-
sel...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601499/basic-income-a-sellout-of-
the-american-dream/)

~~~
dmichulke
I think the reasoning goes like that:

If you give 100k people each 10k$ each month, chances are that some of them
stop working because they consider it enough.

The same holds for 1k$ but to a lesser extent.

Still, UBI reduces the incentive to work.

~~~
RobertoG
So, they give money to people because there are not enough works and then
complain because the people don't work.

I get lost somewhere in the reasoning.

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itchyjunk
I think i've read one too many articles on the "oh no, the robots will flip
our burgers. Let's make burgers that's unflippable by robots so we can keep
doing it." Even people who don't mind working, maybe loves working will be
okay with automating things and moving on. They will have other things in
their hobby list/ bucket list/ garage that they have been meaning to work on.

I understand these articles are still needed/useful for people not yet aware
about this issue so it's not a criticism of the article but of myself.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
You're assuming that this is a rising tide that will lift all boats. What I'm
afraid of is that the world will be split into capital owners who own all the
robots, and the perpetually poor, who can't get jobs because they've all been
automated and the only jobs remaining are minimum wage "service" jobs. And
that's assuming there will be enough service jobs to go around.

We're already seeing this split occur in USA. The middle class is basically
gone at this point, and the majority of people are either upper-middle class
or lower class. This is not a just or equal society at all right now.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_The middle class is basically gone at this point, and the majority of people
are either upper-middle class or lower class._

This is only true if you have some bizarre definitions that you're using. The
decline of the middle class has been a few percentage points. It's certainly
not "gone".

More than 50% of households in America make $25-100k. That's solidly middle-
class.

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

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
$25k is really not middle class, especially in cities with higher COL.

------
huffmsa
We just need to accept Marx was right, but he got the timescale wrong. I say
this as a staunch Randian. I just can't not see the obvious trend towards the
future.

Pixar's WALL-E is the Marxist utopia we'll soon be living in.

No one wants for anything.

------
adynatos
"There’s been downward pressure on jobs since the Industrial Revolution due to
leaps in productivity brought about by human ingenuity and lucky discoveries."
[citation needed] there were never more jobs

------
ganfortran
Tax the robot

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behnamoh
Automation is the natural consequence of computer technology, which is a
natural consequence of human intelligence. Any effort to fight or control
automation is doomed.

Believe it or not, the future is gonna be much different and you either accept
it, or get crushed by the power of The Machine.

~~~
deelowe
Ok. What do we do during the transition while millions of blue collar workers
take to blaming brown people for job losses?

EDIT - seems I could have done a better job with the satire here. There have
been several reports that Donald Trump's Mexican wall is misguided and that
the major driver of job losses these days is increased effeciency due to
automation.

~~~
rhapsodic
Yes, Democratic Party, please keep insulting working-class American citizens
by calling them vile names. The Republican Party will be happy to receive
their votes.

~~~
deelowe
First, I'm a conservative though I lean heavily towards libertarian. That
said, who called anyone names? Would you have felt more comfortable with my
statement if I had substituted xenophobia for brown people? I don't think
racism is as huge a factor as simple scapegoating and opportunism by
politicians. The public is being misled and comments like the parent's ignore
the very real impact automation is having on society.

