WashPo: Rise of the machines

This is the problem with Trump followers! You live in fantasyland! You only think about yourselves. Trump will never ship 30 million illegals out of the USA. And I know first hand that Americans will NEVER do the work that immigrants and illegals are doing today!

How can he cut taxes when we have a $500 billion annual deficit?
You think all regulations will be terminated when in fact most will stay in place...because they make sense!
Unions are here to stay although their strength today I might question.

 

If you want information/data then you can obtain it the same way I do...reading and research...

 

You stated automation was only in place to earn higher profits and survive...wrong!!

 

now there is a surprise!! voters want free stuff because libcommies trick them into thinking it really is free!!

Ben Franklin: "When voters find they can vote themselves money in their pockets that will herald the end of democracy?"

 

right and u6 and u3 show there is no unemployment problem!! which is why your are so afriad to present you case.

 

it is true without it most companies would not survive. Do you understand?

 

Spend some time looking at the US worker participation rate...

 

I fully understand automation exists for myriad reasons...

 

only one actually, it is cheaper

 

LFPR and U6 show no problems, employment is 96%!! LFPR is 81%

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300060

 

It's true that in principle, automation frees human beings to do work machines can't do, and that has been the effect in practice to date. However, advancing AI brings a new dynamic into play: machines that can do things better than ANYTHING many (and then most, and then all) humans can do. Up to now, machines' physical capabilities have far outstripped ours, while their intellectual capabilities have been far below ours. But that is now no longer a given, and it is going to be very difficult to predict exactly which jobs people will still be needed for even just a few years in the future. Radiology, for example, has been a very lucrative, high-status career in the medical industry, but is now probably dead in the water as a human profession: AI can now interpret medical images as well as or better than expert humans, and med schools can start closing down their radiology departments. How long before clumsy human fingers evolved for life on the savannah are no longer as nimble or skilled in the operating theater as robot micro-actuators? Lawyers are being replaced by AIs that can do case and precedent research orders of magnitude faster and more thoroughly than any human being. Lower on the intellectual scale, millions of taxi, truck and bus drivers are soon going to be out of jobs as AI behind the wheel proves to be both safer and faster than human drivers. In more and more cases the question will be, "Is there ANYTHING this displaced worker can do that a machine can't do better?" And more and more often, the answer is going to be, "No."

I am old enough to remember when the progress of AI seemed glacial, and the best of them regularly produced laughable results. But the last 20-odd years have seen exponential acceleration in the technology. Online poker was a thing for several years, but is now dying because AI players will simply take the money of any human player. Almost all trading on financial markets is now done by computer programs, and it is so fast that humans cannot participate, let alone supervise them. When big business sees no alternative to trusting AIs with managing their money, that tells you something fundamental has changed. Next is AI on the battlefield. There is absolutely no doubt that robotic munitions are going to keep improving, to the point where mere human soldiers will not be able to survive in combat with them. Imagine an autonomous armed robot roughly the size and shape of a cat, but ten times as fast. Or a quadcopter. Now imagine they can be produced by the millions for $100 each. Without similar machines to help them, human soldiers would be utterly defenseless against such weapons, and will therefore become more of a liability than an asset in combat.

We need to become much more cognizant of the fact that our kids have NO viable and secure long-term career path. I can even imagine a not-too-distant time when AI analyzes all the most popular song melodies from the last century, then writes as many more of them as its operators want. The competitive threat to our MINDS is different in kind from all the automation advances of the past.

 

Relevant ONLY in the nature of the Stock-Market being a means to invest one's savings. Unfortunately in the US it has become a principal means of doing so - because the gains are quick and important. They are also highly variable.

Still, about half of American families hold stocks (depending upon whose numbers you want to believe) and that percentage has not changed very much for a great long time. What percentage of their total savings is invested is another matter.

That does not mean they are more viable long-term than simple savings and modest interest-rates. But as an investment alternative, the stock-market is prevalent in the US. Which does not make it, ipso facto, either the best or the most effective.

Real savings add money to the supply available for investors as well. For instance, in allowing house mortgages. Still, there is no real research showing definitively that either stocks or savings are the better bet long-term. Of course, the key long-term savings is in a home in which one lives.

The above is about investments that one may make with their savings. In fact, the savings rate amongst the lowest class of people is near-zero. They spend everything simply to survive.

How many times must I post this fact (from here, 2017):


When one is working at the Minimum Wage ($7.25/hour) there is no place in America where one can afford to rent a two-bedroom house. Two-wages are necessary - and working full-time is never a "option" to all families (especially those with children).

The Minimum Wage must be raised in the US to $12/15 per hour. Your BigMac will cost you 20 cents more.

BFD ...

 

Interesting summary of "investing in America" by the SEC - here.
Excerpt -

 

Gotta stop you here. Education system has kept up easily. Unless you can point out a single case of a prospective student being unable to find a seat at a college or trade school we can just chalk this up as a lie.


The problem is that we don't have enough people with the intelligence and commitment to get the training and education to fill these jobs.

 

Depends upon how you cook the number.

Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2007 - see here from the BLS.


The Employment to population ratio has NOT recuperated its level of before 2007 - see here:

Frankly, I think the above means that we have a long way to go to get back to "normal", if normal means pre-2007. I extended that line (Employment to population Ratio) out to see when what should happen "naturally" (meaning at a growth rate as shown in the graphic).

It intersects the 2007 number (63%) in 2022* ...

*Twitter that fact, Donald Dork!

 

We are in the middle of an age of mass retirement and a massive loss in trade skills with the early baby boomers retiring and the late baby boomers moving off shop floors or retiring themselves. This process is really going to sway participation rates for another 10 years or so. It's also going to make the skills gap even more pronounced with fewer and fewer people entering the skills trades.

 

If anything, automation is "in place" because everybody else is adopting it . Even China!

In fact, we started automation of production lines a long-long time ago. Detroit has been painting/welding cars using automatons since the 1970s. (See the history of robotics in Industrial Automation here.)

We cannot look blindly at its impact upon industry (and services). And the best way to do that is to educate and re-educate our people. Our PISA-score* is mediocre at best, and can be improved if we will only throw more money at it - by (1) educating more teachers to a higher standard of competence. And, (2) making post-secondary education (vocational, 2- & 4-year) free of charge. (Just as we do primary and secondary education today!)

We've grown soft thinking that the Economic Growth was a "given". Well the game-rules have changed - and if we do not get our Collective Asses in gear then our children will suffer the same fate as do some of our adults today. (That is, a lifetime of uncertain jobs.)

Moreover, it's not just about education - but "fair play". That is, for the effort put-in, the benefit output must go to more people. Not a select few who keep garnering the riches because our Upper-income Taxation is warped in their favor. (See here.)

As a nation, we must take action NOW! Not in ten-years when the world will have largely passed us by ...

*PISA (OECD) = Program for International Student Assessment. About PISA:

 

You may be right - but I would not be so drastic. The problem will only exacerbate itself because Donald Dork is proving daily "he doesn't really give a damn". (He's "Making America Grit Again!")

Anyway, the ONLY SOLUTION is to assure that the kids get out of Secondary schooling and into the Tertiary-level. And both educational processes must be free, gratis and for nothing.

Which does not guaranty a successful outcome, but certainly enhances the probability of one ...

 

That's OK, because those "basic skills" will have been learned by robots.

I don't believe that robots are going to replace human-beings on earth - except in select jobs that are already rudimentary. And, if you google the subject you will find I am not the only one sharing that sentiment ...

 

I'm talking skilled trades, not basic skills. Things like electricians, carpenters, and metal workers can't be done by a robot because ofnthe custom aspects of the job.

 

You lose all credibility when you say the automation is decades in the making, then blame the lack of skills on someone that's been in politics for 8 months.

Getting out of HS means nothing because so.many of the kids coming out of high school have no skills and don't even have the education to go to college without a year or more of remedial classes. 9n top of that, making college free will just make it more expensive. Look at how much college costs have increased with the expansion of federal school loans.

 

You are not looking at the Big¨Picture. You are looking at the Small Picture of post-secondary schooling somewhere near you.

Meaning, I suggest, we have not provided our kids with the means to obtain a Tertiary-level degree - because to do so in the US they graduate with a $35K debt. That slog puts a great many off, and so they drop below the line.

Because post-secondary education is very costly in the US. How many times must I post this infographic to get that point across? See here, from the OECD the Educational attainment of 25-64 year-olds (2015) Percentage of adults with a given level of education as the highest level attained

From that infographic, (scroll down to page 6) and read that for the "Percentage 25/64 year olds with a Tertiary Education" the number is 45% for the US. Not bad, we are in the top group!

But our goal should be to increase that number to at least 80%.

Yes we can!

 

You are completely ignoring reality in favor of statistics.


Most HS graduates need to take classes just to qualify for college level courses.

Colleges are so expensive because colleges don't have anything restraining costs, such as low attendance. They don't have to worry about costs because the federal govt simply writes unlimited loans for anyone that applies. And when the college graduate with 35k in debt and a $400 a month bill can't afford the payments on their $35k a year job, the govt just writes it off and starts the process all over again. This time with 40k worth of loans.

Paid internships and apprenticeships will eliminate the unneeded $35k debt for a job that requires training and possibly certification, not a humanities course or underwater basket weaving 201.

 

Truth hurts, doesn't it.

You are in an Economics Forum. Statistics, data, research and good sense - they all reign here.

Perhaps some other forum would be more to your liking/needs ... ?

 

All the above would be just fine by me.

As I keep insisting to the ideologically naive here: Tertiary Education is even far more important than both primary and secondary education, both of which are funded by the state. Yes, the "other government" can assume the role of providing post-secondary education - instead of enticing our kids to get a free postsecondary degree if they survive a battleground tour in the Middle-east.

(Which must be some of the most perverse thinking since the Middle-ages!)

I sent my kids to university here in France; both graduated and it cost me not more than $10K in both university fees and room 'n board for each.

They are in graduate school, also nearly free - which they are paying for themselves, since they work at teaching in their specialized subjects ...

 

What truth? Ever heard the phrase "the are lies, damn lies, and statistics"? Anyone competent in any field of study can make statistics say anything they want them to say.