What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

Yeah, fundamentally automation doesn't pose any new threats. Fundamentally, what we're talking about are improvements in economic efficiencies that reduce the demand for labor in a given area. This, for example, happened with farming. Farming use to be so inefficient that we needed 90%+ of our population to work the land. Now we need less than 1% to work the land, and that 1% provides more food than the whole requires. What about all the jobs that we lost in farming due to rising efficiencies in farming?

It's called "creative destruction". In the short-term, people are put out of work, and that "destruction" hurts, in the short-term. But in the long-term, that frees up labor to move into other fields. Historically these rising efficiencies created room for craftsmen, artists, etc., to provide more luxuries. Over time we'll need fewer and fewer people to provide necessities - and we'll have more labor freed up to provide more luxuries. That isn't a bad thing. Every single time this has happened, whether its with improved farming techniques, new farming equipment, new manufacturing techniques and equipment, more efficient shipping systems, society as a whole has benefitted tremendously, and even those on the lower rungs have, in the long-run, benefitted.

One thing this has, and will lead to, is further wealth inequality. But so long as the long-term living standards of all areas of society improve, to include the 4th and 5th quintiles, as has always happened before with rising efficiencies, then that isn't an issue.

 

that is not progress but more of the same for those left behind.

the poorer half of America will continue to have the best living standards than most of the world, but a third world quality of life when compared with their compatriots.

unfairness breeds resentment, and resentment hopefully will bring an equitable redistribution of wealth using lawful government force.

 

I mentioned, but didn't really develop the insurance and litigation expense inherent in lots of the types of automation in the chart. IME such costs, and the resulting fact that human labor, as expensive as it is, is cheaper than class action lawsuits, are rarely mentioned in the Malthusian academic predictions re automation. Is the prospect of human error greater than machine error? Of course, in many ways. But in other ways, it's far less.

Take for just one -rough- example an automated barber. Sure it's cheaper, but the instant it lops an ear off someone, it becomes TONS more expensive (I don't even want to get into all the complicated stuff done with women's hair involving dangerous chemicals and close proximity of sharp things to the brain) One could certainly sue a stylist , and their insurance will eat it willingly. When one sues the manufacturer of an automated barber? It gets a lot more expensive and complicated. This reality of our insurance and legal systems is necessary context in any threats that automation will be replacing tens of millions of jobs anytime soon.

Finally, as you allude to, people will pay extra to deal with live humans, to get that human touch. IMO people will always pay extra for human warmth and contact in lots of supposed threatened industries.

If the future holds any real threats in terms of innovation and automation, IMO that comes from 3D printing and nanotechnology, both with very scary ramifications for public safety and welfare, especially if combined.

 

The problem with the OP and most of the other responses is the automatic tendency to look toward government solutions. But we don't need government solutions. One thing the free market does is make maximum use of available supply, and labor is the most abundant supply. So no matter how many robots and self-driving trucks, etc., we have working and providing lower and lower per-unit costs, companies are still going to hire people to do things, because not doing so is inefficient. The biggest problem I see is the dysgenic effect of importing millions of 3rd world people into a 1st world country, where the need is for highly intelligent, highly educated people to build, program, and repair the incredibly complex technological devices that we have running today. No amount of education, no education system, is going to turn low IQ people into computer programmers. Meanwhile, those low IQ people keep breeding at ridiculous (and unsustainable) rates, weighing down the economy more and more and more. We already know that cutting off their welfare payments after the first child doesn't slow them down, any, either. Find a solution to that problem!

 

So? Why haven't they made the "perfect" car then? Because it would put too many out of work. If they can make a rocket and send it into space, then they can make a car that doesn't break down every 2 years or even more often than that!

 

Why?

 

Well, I've owned mine for around 4 or 5 years now and it has broken down and required a mechanics care at least several times. Besides that, I'm not just talking about "breaking down." There is also brakes, this that, that and this, and blah blah blah.

 

Sorry about the blah, blah, blah. I'm starting to get tired and all I could think of at the moment is having to get brakes fixed.

 

Improving efficiencies result in lower quality of life how? Please, do tell me how moving from 1790 farming tools and techniques to modern farming tools and techniques made the people worse off? Please tell me how going from small craftsman shops to major factories made people worse off?

 

A 2011 Chevy Impala. Mine looks cooler than this because it has tinted windows though.

 

I don't know if I would want to put my life in the hands of a computer. I work on computers for a living! I know they suck! Lol!

 

Hmm. Now that I think about it a bit more, could they be any worse than human drivers? There are some terrible drivers out there on the road. There would probably be less accidents too because of lack of human error, although I don't think they would be eliminated completely. Computers malfunction sometimes for whatever reasons.

Getting back to automation taking over jobs though, they were telling me years ago that my job would be in jeopardy because of speech recognition software (I'm a medical transcriptionist BTW). Well, guess what? The speech recognition software is not NEARLY as accurate as we are! They can only program so many things into a computer. It doesn't have enough memory to store all of the medications that exist and all of the terms that are used as of now, so we are still valuable in editing those reports that are generated by voice recognition software. Also, a lot of hospitals/clinics do not even use it.

 

A very interesting and prescient thread
I suppose that if we were all so smart as we think we are
Then it would be possible to foresee such consequences
And take steps as you have proposed to mitigate them

IMO, realistically, this rarely happens
Especially if anyone’s ox is being gored by the risk mitigation strategies
Almost by definition the political and cultural parties will take opposite positions
And then proceed to eviscerate each other

As a result, it matters not how accurately you see future risks
Risk mitigation will only happen in response a real calamity
In the mean time, blame-guilt will be passed off on the ideological villain du jour

Although we no not know the shape of the emergent calamity,
I cannot imagine this problem could be effectively resolved without a substantially
Reduced population. After all, those who Are enriched by automation are not
Likely to favor subsidization of massive populations that have become extraneous
And those extraneous people are unlikely to quietly disappear.

This is an inherently unstable situation whose most likely end would IMO
Be described by chaos theory

 

Your proposed solution has considerable merit and it is obvious that you have put some thought into it.

Our current economy is based upon a profits BEFORE people principle that it proving to have considerable long term negative side effects. If this same approach is maintained while automation eliminates the kinds of service worker jobs that will lead to considerable economic hardship for a great many millions of hardworking Americans. Shop assistants, cabbies, truck drivers, etc are going to need paychecks to survive and when their jobs are automated what jobs will exist to replace them?

As has been mentioned by others there will need to be those who maintain and program this automated machinery but the cost/benefit equations demonstrate that there will be far fewer of those jobs even if they do pay higher salaries. That means that unemployment will inevitably rise amongst those least able to compete in a highly automated economy.

The failure to increase taxes to support those who are unemployed by this automation will result in higher crime rates which in turn requires increased taxes to deal with the criminals. Failure to increase taxes would be self defeating IMO and result in a society that is starkly divided between the haves and have-nots. Our current economy is headed for this outcome unfortunately.

What is missing from your proposal is the political willpower to reshape our own future.

We need to organize ourselves into communities that are willing to put people before profits. We need employee owned corporations where profits are recycled back into the salaries and bonuses of the employees. We need a mindset that considers that each person who works deserves to be paid a living wage with benefits. And yes, we need to recognize that both education and healthcare are basic rights for all of us.

Before anyone accuses me of advocating the C-word all of the above can be done in a capitalist society where those who desire profits can still earn them. Innovation, entrepreneurship, competition and growth are not limited to greed based profit driven corporations alone. In many respects those kinds of corporations actually stifle innovation and competition through political lobbying in order to protect their "market share".

We have no other viable option but to adapt to an economy that values people first because the alternative will not be a society that any of us would want to live in ourselves IMO.

 

Of course I have empathy for people whose livelihoods have been torn out from under them because they inefficient in comparison to new technology. When man first discovered fire, I'm sure that people were put out of work. The history of technological advancements is littered with the corpses of people who suddenly found themselves not as efficient as the new technology, so they had to change or find a cardboard box to sleep on.

You can worry about those people who used to shoe horses for a living, but they lost their job to people who can change a tire on an automobile, that's entirely understandable. Yet, whatcha gonna do? Give up your car for a horse and buggy because of empathy? No! You're going to take from the tire changer guys so that the horse shoe guys can learn how to change tires.

But you seemingly missed my entire point. If we, as a society, can't afford to upgrade from horses to cars, then we do without cars. There's nothing wrong with a horse and buggy if that's all we can do. You can travel to the poorest countries in the world and see how that plays out. They do without cars just fine, like those of us who can't afford ferraris make do with fords.

What you're not going to do is figure out some kinda way that a society that drives fords will be able to afford ferraris. You're not that smart. Neither am I. What you'll probably end up doing is forcing us all back into horse and buggies instead.

Take my advice and let us decide how to run our own lives and spend our own money. It's better that way.

 

"What then, would you suggest as solutions to those issues"

I. Education
1. A student-centric public education structure that focuses more on math, grammar and the sciences and less on the liberal arts. This could include "aptitude tests" that track a students natural tendencies as well as his academic achievements.
2. A focus on work/study at the high school level - too many students are never trained for the work place and don't know the true value of a dollar.
3. Do something about teachers unions that are bankrupting too many communities via exorbitant salaries and retirement benefits.
4. Tie student loans to future earning capacity - getting a hundred thousand in student loans to learn basket weaving 101 and major in the racial arts is a loan that won't get paid back.
II. Where's Keynes when you need him
1. The traditional core family is no more - women have the right to enjoy a career - where is the government in assisting with day care where each child could cost the parent $5 to $10 per hour. A tax break for the family won't do it, but government subsidized day care will do it - this is where the religious community could really step up - and I mean ALL religions.
2. A focus on rebuilding aging infrastructure - especially in those places that are suffering severe unemployment. An old line Democrat named James Michael Curley was as corrupt as can be - but he made sure his constituents were kept employed via neighborhood renovations of sidewalks and streets. FDR had tha CCC and Eisenhower had the daddy of them all with his focus on an American National Roads system.
III. The government needs to focus on "America First"
1. There are a lot of jobs that would pay higher wages except illegal aliens take them; there are a lot of skilled jobs that would pay higher wages to Americans, except that employers import immigrants on H1B Visas to take those jobs at a cheaper wage and benefits.
2. Globalism is an enemy of the American worker - importing cheaply made foreign goods while taxing exports that reduce the ability to sell American made goods outside of America
3. To pay for keynesian projects, tax the rich, but make sure taxes on investments in American corporations are minimized; tax imports.

I have a ton more, but these are the more important suggestions I would support

.

 

problem is, it's all going to the cloud and being handled by India, ect...

information is power and American corps are giving that power to other countries

 

we live in a country that can vote for change, as more and more can't support themselves, they will vote for the government to address it

the few that have the money, will start to have less pull

 

Yes, this is good.

We've gone through this before.

When our economy was based on agriculture, employers found 8th grade education was sufficient. So, we provided that.

When we moved to manufacturing, corporations required more education, so we moved to making high school mandatory and free.

Now, we're moving beyond manufacturing in that the same level of jobs are going away. Our economy is becoming more based on high tech, information, innovation, etc. Even jobs in manufacturing are moving toward those who can design, build and operate automated systems.

That DOES require more education as well as vocational training.


Another way to look at it is that we're moving to an economy where the competition (inside America and with other countries) has brains as the required resource (instead of iron ore, coal or whatever).

But, America has only 5% of the brains!

We need every brain cell we've got. And, we can't continue to dump on brain cells that happen to come from different places, reside in bodies of different colored skin, etc. Every kid in every palace or ghetto is a resource we need.


Another way to look at it is that if we fail to bring an individual up to being productive in our modern economy, then we're going to be paying for that for the rest of OUR lives.