Automation, Robotics, and AI - The New Job Market

[Godwynn]

A little background on this discussion. There are three books that really sparked my interest in the subject. Picketty's Capital in the 21st Century, Ford's Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, and Putnam's Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.

To summarize the three books, Picketty argues that income inequality will increase in the future and most income gains will go to those that already control capital. I suspect most people are familiar with the main ideas of this books.

Ford's book describes how technology is replacing labor, not only what we consider low skill blue collar jobs, but now increasingly white collar and educated jobs. Interesting side note, he describes how lawyers are currently being replaced. Up next according to him: MBA degree holders. Healthcare workers are not exempt from the coming emotionless bots.

Putnam's narrative revolves around his home town of Port Clinton, Ohio. It's a little to anecdotal for my liking, but he thinks that as income groups segregate, social mobility will vanish/has been vanishing, as those in the upper income groups can afford better schools and connections.

A short video from CGPGrey on the subject.

Anyway, I like coming to CFC because I can get decent opinions from experts/enthusiasts in the subject.

Is this a real problem or just hype?

What industries will be affected next?

How long until a crisis comes?

What are potential solutions?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

For those who think their job can't be taken by a robot...apparently the robots are now resorting to the old fashioned method.

More seriously, robotics and automation is just the latest tech representation of the classic problem of economics represented by the adage "it takes money to make money." Until that changes the disparity between the wealthy and the not wealthy will always continue to grow until it causes a breakdown in the system.

 

[Commodore]

A little background on this discussion. There are three books that really sparked my interest in the subject. Picketty's Capital in the 21st Century, Ford's Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, and Putnam's Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.

To summarize the three books, Picketty argues that income inequality will increase in the future and most income gains will go to those that already control capital. I suspect most people are familiar with the main ideas of this books.

Ford's book describes how technology is replacing labor, not only what we consider low skill blue collar jobs, but now increasingly white collar and educated jobs. Interesting side note, he describes how lawyers are currently being replaced. Up next according to him: MBA degree holders. Healthcare workers are not exempt from the coming emotionless bots.

Putnam's narrative revolves around his home town of Port Clinton, Ohio. It's a little to anecdotal for my liking, but he thinks that as income groups segregate, social mobility will vanish/has been vanishing, as those in the upper income groups can afford better schools and connections.

A short video from CGPGrey on the subject.

Anyway, I like coming to CFC because I can get decent opinions from experts/enthusiasts in the subject.

Is this a real problem or just hype?

What industries will be affected next?

How long until a crisis comes?

What are potential solutions?

I think it's just hype from luddites who fear a future where no one has to work and machines act as our caretakers. I can understand that fear as it would be the first time in the entire history of human civilization that humans would be free to do whatever they please. This can be terrifying because while it would ultimately lead to a level of personal liberty humanity has never known, it also can lead to feelings that one has no purpose, objective, or goal in life.

Although I can understand the fear, I do ultimately see it as an irrational one. I, personally, embrace a future in which machines take care of us like, as Steve Wozniak puts it, "pets". Basically, we will eventually reach the point in which machines would become the pet owners and we would be treated in a similar fashion as the family dog. Wozniak feels intelligent machines would do this for us because they would come to revere us as "gods" since we are the beings that gave them "life".

 

[gay_Aleks]

Until the inevitable moment when the roles reverse, and we become the "pets", and the machine - the "gods".

 

[Commodore]

Until the inevitable moment when the roles reverse, and we become the "pets", and the machine - the "gods".

Nothing changes though. They still take care of us and we still laze about all day doing whatever we want. Just don't crap on the carpet and you should be fine.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Then again, surely in order to replicate and multiply, they need resources. And depending on how malevolent they are, we'll be having an excellent time as we mine He-3 on the moon or scuttle the surface of Europa for titanium, all in the name of our robot overlords.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That is a very good video which summarizes the matter quite well. There is no doubt that better robots will change the dynamics of the workforce considerably.

But what he doesn't address is that automation hasn't eliminated any jobs so far, as much as it has shrunk the numbers and moved the workers still doing them to other areas where robots don't work so well.

Nor have automated trading systems eliminated many jobs on Wall Street as much as it has created a different niche. It has likely created far more jobs than it has eliminated.

Every major corporation used to have row upon row of clerks who did nothing but add numbers all day, first by hand and later by machine. They were the victims of the very first computers in business. But there are still office clerks, just not nearly as many as there used to be.

So, yes, things will definitely change. But they likely won't change nearly as fast as many people claim they will. Being quite adaptive, humans will change what they do as well.

 

[Commodore]

Then again, surely in order to replicate and multiply, they need resources. And depending on how malevolent they are, we'll be having an excellent time as we mine He-3 on the moon or scuttle the surface of Europa for titanium, all in the name of our robot overlords.

Machines are driven by logic, and human labor would be deemed as too inefficient for manual labor purposes. So as long as some humans don't do anything stupid, like trying to overthrow the machines, they should just leave us to our own devices and not try to just exterminate us. However, it is inevitable that humans will resist, so I guess we will have a few decades of machines taking care of us, followed by a quick, but still extremely painful, extermination event.

 

[El_Machinae]

There's an endgoal. Food replicators and holodecks for all! But, until that point, people gotta eat.

There are two forces here. Automation drops prices. This is a good thing for the consumer and for the shareholders. The consumer moreso, since shareholder profits will go down as competition rises.

So, people have more money in their pocket to get the same amount of 'stuff' they got before, so they can go buy more (or new) stuff. Historically, people cap out on the 'more' stuff they want (you only want so much bread or so much automobile), so a lot of the economic surplus is spent buying new stuff. Gameboys, 3D speakers, organic foods, etc. Without this new invention creating new goods for people to buy, we'd just have the downside.

The downside is that automation reduces employment in the area people are being replaced. So, the dropping prices really don't help the laid-off person. Historically, what we've done is re-task people. Those new products people buy? New opportunities for employment. The problem is that re-tasking takes time and education. So, if a new machine at the cotton mill took your job, you could be illiterate and mosey on over to work to help build the new dam being constructed. Win/win. Sure, your entry drove down the wages of dam builders, but the dropping of cotton prices might have made up for that

(in fact, it probably did. This is why our current quality of life is so much higher than before)

But, lose your job as a taxi driver, and people tell you to buck up and get a job as robot engineer? Um, it might just not be possible. And, it's many tens of thousands of dollars away (at the very least). Meanwhile, people gotta eat.

So, to my mind, the major solution is new job creation. This is probably the hardest part, since it requires thinking of new ways to get people to work that justifies feeding them a living wage. A major breakdown in the Free Market (which is what got that dam-builder a job, earlier) can only chase first-order profits. And, honestly, it's working as hard as it can.

A market failure is the provision of Public Goods. These are things that create net profits, but since there's no market mechanism to capture that profit, they're under-invested in. Intentionally scratching our heads is required. The creation of public goods does the thing that didn't happen in our earlier scenario - provide employment as well as rewarding people for retasking. It also does the other good thing the Free Market does - decrease prices (or increase the supply of desirable goods, same thing).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There's an endgoal. Food replicators and holodecks for all! But, until that point, people gotta eat.

I think you vastly overestimate the humanity of humanity. The endgoal is more like food replicators and holodecks for some, and to get to that point just eat everyone else.

 

[Commodore]

I think you vastly overestimate the humanity of humanity. The endgoal is more like food replicators and holodecks for some, and to get to that point just eat everyone else.

That has been the endgoal for just about every technological development, and yet it always ends up getting disseminated among the general populace. Technological dissemination is one of the few things the elite of this world truly cannot control.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I'm more afraid leaving my fate to the Free Market than to robots. At least the latter is rational, something that can't be guaranteed for the former.

 

[El_Machinae]

You guys are still two steps too far. We're talking about the firestorm following the asteroid. And you're talking about how evolution will eventually get us bison burgers.

The Free Market is what will drive the automation, and the potential joblessness, from an increasing velocity of automation. Perils and promises.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That has been the endgoal for just about every technological development, and yet it always ends up getting disseminated among the general populace. Technological dissemination is one of the few things the elite of this world truly cannot control.

That works out for most areas of tech development, but if the early model "food replicator" can take any supply of protein and convert it into top quality steaks you can count on society being divided into the steak eating owners of the tech and the food supply. The only thing that keeps the rich from eating the poor is that the poor don't taste very good.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Mm, venison.

 

[Bootstoots]

I recently read Ford's book as well. He does a very good job of showing how this time really is different. The economy was able to adjust and make jobs for people displaced by manufacturing equipment in the past, but now that robots have gained the ability to read, interpret images, move around in physical environments based on sensory data, write sensible text, look up appropriate information from massive databases, etc., even most of the service jobs that were created in response to the decline of employment in manufacturing are at serious risk. Because most jobs are funamentally routine and repetitive, automation now threatens most jobs. Further, the relentless progress of Moore's Law has led to automation becoming competitive with even poorly-paid workers abroad and in industries like fast food. Increasing the level of education in the population seems to have just triggered an arms race of credentialism rather than driving down long-term unemployment in the population as a whole.

It's physically possible for society to respond to this by letting everyone work fewer hours for the same pay, guaranteeing a reasonable minimum income to people whether they're employed or not, and the like. But of course this isn't how capitalism works: instead, those who own the increasingly productive capital make large sums of money while anybody left unemployed is left to suffer, and lower prices for consumer goods doesn't do much to make their lives easier. And there doesn't seem to be any sign that this situation will be responded to by strengthening the welfare state: overall, social welfare programs are being weakened rather than strengthened. Ford doesn't really seem to have a solution other than advocating a guaranteed minimum income and the like, but while I agree, I don't see any political will for this at all.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I recently read Ford's book as well. He does a very good job of showing how this time really is different. The economy was able to adjust and make jobs for people displaced by manufacturing equipment in the past, but now that robots have gained the ability to read, interpret images, move around in physical environments based on sensory data, write sensible text, look up appropriate information from massive databases, etc., even most of the service jobs that were created in response to the decline of employment in manufacturing are at serious risk. Because most jobs are funamentally routine and repetitive, automation now threatens most jobs. Further, the relentless progress of Moore's Law has led to automation becoming competitive with even poorly-paid workers abroad and in industries like fast food. Increasing the level of education in the population seems to have just triggered an arms race of credentialism rather than driving down long-term unemployment in the population as a whole.

It's physically possible for society to respond to this by letting everyone work fewer hours for the same pay, guaranteeing a reasonable minimum income to people whether they're employed or not, and the like. But of course this isn't how capitalism works: instead, those who own the increasingly productive capital make large sums of money while anybody left unemployed is left to suffer, and lower prices for consumer goods doesn't do much to make their lives easier. And there doesn't seem to be any sign that this situation will be responded to by strengthening the welfare state: overall, social welfare programs are being weakened rather than strengthened. Ford doesn't really seem to have a solution other than advocating a guaranteed minimum income and the like, but while I agree, I don't see any political will for this at all.

This is because owning large amounts of productive capital isn't really that satisfying in and of itself. It is the suffering of the masses that makes it all worth while. Ask any rich guy.

 

[Bootstoots]

I think they'd mostly deny it, and I suspect they'd be telling the truth. There are a variety of ideologies that the rich can adopt to justify their wealth to themselves, but enjoyment of other people's suffering doesn't really seem to come into it. Most very rich people are significant philanthropists, partly because it gives them an opportunity to remake the world in their image and partly to justify the existing order. But a large fraction of their charities do actually alleviate the suffering of some people.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think they'd mostly deny it, and I suspect they'd be telling the truth. There are a variety of ideologies that the rich can adopt to justify their wealth to themselves, but enjoyment of other people's suffering doesn't really seem to come into it. Most very rich people are significant philanthropists, partly because it gives them an opportunity to remake the world in their image and partly to justify the existing order. But a large fraction of their charities do actually alleviate the suffering of some people.

If there were not suffering available for them to alleviate, how would they maintain their self image as philanthropists?

I have no question that most would deny it, by the way, but in most cases I think their denials would fail under even cursory examination.

 

[Kozmos]

I recently read Ford's book as well. He does a very good job of showing how this time really is different. The economy was able to adjust and make jobs for people displaced by manufacturing equipment in the past, but now that robots have gained the ability to read, interpret images, move around in physical environments based on sensory data, write sensible text, look up appropriate information from massive databases, etc., even most of the service jobs that were created in response to the decline of employment in manufacturing are at serious risk. Because most jobs are funamentally routine and repetitive, automation now threatens most jobs. Further, the relentless progress of Moore's Law has led to automation becoming competitive with even poorly-paid workers abroad and in industries like fast food. Increasing the level of education in the population seems to have just triggered an arms race of credentialism rather than driving down long-term unemployment in the population as a whole.

It's physically possible for society to respond to this by letting everyone work fewer hours for the same pay, guaranteeing a reasonable minimum income to people whether they're employed or not, and the like. But of course this isn't how capitalism works: instead, those who own the increasingly productive capital make large sums of money while anybody left unemployed is left to suffer, and lower prices for consumer goods doesn't do much to make their lives easier. And there doesn't seem to be any sign that this situation will be responded to by strengthening the welfare state: overall, social welfare programs are being weakened rather than strengthened. Ford doesn't really seem to have a solution other than advocating a guaranteed minimum income and the like, but while I agree, I don't see any political will for this at all.

I think political will will accrue sufficiently swiftly as the number of bored/hungry jobless people increases. Idle hands and so on...