What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

Have you heard the term "straw man"? I strongly recommend that you look it up.

 

Look, if someone in responding to me just parrots some common partisan talking points thay have nothing to do with what I said, I'm going to call them out on it. You can't have a real conversation with anyone if they only respond to things you didn't say.

 

I agree with you here. There are lots of examples. One could even go back to home labor saving devices (like washers) that allowed more employee hours (like from women).

However, we DID make a significant change when we moved from agriculture to manufacturing. Corporations required more than 8th grade education, so we used tax dollars to create high schools for everyone and required attendance.

The signs are there that we're moving from manufacturing toward high tech, innovation, etc., with a job market that is changing at an increasing rate.

And, once again that's going to require attention to education and training.

We can't afford to create more backwater enclaves of labor such as we have with manufacturing. Those resources were "freed", but then there wasn't a way to apply those resources in the changing economy.

And, that is a disaster of waste and hardship that we need to avoid.

 

What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

Automation is by far the most serious threat to employment now and in the future. I agree with those who see that the answer to the dilemma is to accept automation along with its elimination of the human workforce as a positive step toward freeing humans from the slavery of labor and allowing them for the first time in human history, to actually follow their personal interests and passions on a full-time basis. Of course, government will have to step in and provide all the basic needs for everyone to survive without having to work. This could work out for the benefit of every living person along with society at large, for machines would do all the work while humans enjoyed life to the fullest every day. I like it.

 

Wow, you REALLY missed the point.

Automation is fundamentally the same issue we've seen many times before - rising production efficiencies. What makes it different this time? Stilllllll waiting.

And here is what you said:

And you were somehow using that to suggest that we need to change public policy? And if so, then WHY is a loss of manufacturing JOBS (something you kept pointing to) relevant? Please, don't keep trying to evade the point.

1. No. Public schools didn't shift education policy in response to corporation hiring policies in manufacturing, idk where you got that wild idea.
2. States do not require more than a middle school education - find me one. Go ahead, look it up, and you'll find that what states require is actually not an education attainment level.
3. College does not

Education is affordable. Period. End of story. Students that take on massive debt are CHOOSING to, because they have CHOSEN to go to expensive schools where they DID NOT receive a significant scholarship.

The problem is not lack of public support - we have an excess of it. The problem is people making bad decisions, like choosing not to get a relevant degree (like getting a degree in women's studies). Our education system not only fails to help inform college-bound students about what their prospects are with different degrees, it subsidizes the wrong choices. Let people make their own damned choices - we never needed government to dictate what jobs the proletariat needed to fill, and we never will. Let them make their own damned choices. But let's at least have public schools stop the misinformation, like telling students that a college degree will increase their lifetime earnings, without controlling for what degree they obtain.

1.There is no such thing as a free lunch. There is simply shifting the cost burden - and it has made even high school more expensive. The average public high school per pupil spending is more than the average private school tuition, and doesn't even factor in the hidden costs (by which I mean costs of public school operation that are hidden from the figures, such as public forgiveness of public teacher student debts, incentives to work in certain areas, etc.).
2. No, they are not. As I said, students make the CHOICE to attend ridiculously priced schools w/o any scholarship. There are affordable colleges in every state, and this list <[link]is not a list of the cheapest colleges in each state. As you can see here [<link], there are 176 colleges and universities where annual tuition is less than $5,000. Bear in mind, that average Pell Grant is nearly $4,000, and disburses up to nearly $6,000, based on need...

 

Really? You agree with me here, when I'm saying the same thing I've been saying? huh.

No, this is just factually incorrect throughout. Provide a source for the claim that we started compulsory secondary education in response to corporate education requirements

We didn't create "backwater enclaves of labor", people failed to make the right choices when the problem was screamed in their ears. It was common knowledge for a long time that the days of the past, with high paying manufacturing jobs for unskilled workers, were coming to an end. People were told so many times about it - but they didn't take action. That isn't a government shortcoming - education is plenty affordable. People made the wrong choices.

As I've said, this is a problem of people's choices. There are plenty of job openings in the STEM fields - but, somehow, there are still few people wanting to get those degrees, so we still have people going to college for women's studies, art history, etc. and taking out loans to do it, then suddenly whining that they have unbearable student loans and that they're somehow a victim.

If there is any problem in public policy, it is simply this: that public schools are not properly informing students about the opportunities available to them after high school. Students aren't being told about the earnings of tradesmen w/o college education, like in plumbing. They are being told the value of a college degree based on the average level of attainment - w/o controlling for field. They're not being told that they'll have little to no earning potential increase if they get a degree in art history, women's studies, etc., and they aren't being told that their earning potential will be through the roof with a degree in accounting, engineering, computer science, finance, etc. Though that's kind of considered common sense stuff...

 

I doubt that's what's going to happen.

Today we feel the crunch in coal, for example, but clean energy now provides MORE employment than coal does, and clean energy is a segment that is growing rapidly.

There have been lots of labor and time saving technologies in the past - the printing press, the tractor, the washing machine, the cotton gin, the automobile.

My own opinion is that what's changing overall is that the new market segments that are opening up and looking for employees who will get good wages are different in that they require more education and training. Also, they may not last as long, as new technologies are changing ever faster. So, people are going to have to be prepared to learn new skills and move to new jobs more frequently.

It used to be that jobs changed more slowly, so one could possibly work a whole career in a good paying job category that really didn't change all that much. That's going to be less and less the case.

 

I didn't say it wasn't.

What's changing is that such change is occurring at a higher rate. That is, job definitions and requirements are changing more rapidly. It's the same old same old, but at an increasing rate as shown by metrics on number of job changes in a career, etc.

How could it NOT support the point that jobs are changing? Of course, there are other supporting points as well - the fact that US Steel came back, but is producing steel with dramatically fewer employees per unit product, etc.

The advent of manufacturing education requirements is what spurred requirement for education beyond 8th grade.

States generally state their requirement in terms of the age of the student. So, it is true that once you are passed the age of normal high school students you aren't required to go to high school anymore.
College does not ... what?

Utter nonsense. College requires applicants to make a major bet. Many high school graduates can not make that bet.

A kid my daughter counseled pointed out that his experience is that people who owed that much money invariably ended up dead. She also ran into a good number of students whose parents would not sign anything pertaining to finances - or emancipation, for that matter. There are many who do not see their own graduation and some grand employment as a mortal lock, and know they have no way to pay off loans of any significant size.

College is probably the very best investment our government could POSSIBLY make.

The return on investment through taxes is a big win when you consider the average lifetime earning differential.

Pell Grants, etc. do not cover the percentage of college costs you propose in that there are required materials, living situations, food, travel, etc. that are not represented in tuition. There is even the problem that colleges often kick kids out of dorms during vacations - when some don't have the resources to rent hotels or travel home.

It's pretty clear you have no idea what financial stress looks like and what it means to not know how to evaluate the bet being placed by paying for education.

 

Screaming in people's ears almost never turns out to be a good communication style.

When the options are unknown, unavailable, beyond ones means, etc., you can yell at someone to do something about their situation all you want.

I agree high school does not prepare kids to answer the questions they will face when making decisions about higher education.

But, I'd point out that choosing engineering is a bad idea if you don't like engineering. Picking a career by looking at salary as the primary data point is not a good idea. And, other degrees do have value. Getting an engineering degree requires serious work (as do other fields). If you just don't excel in or like engineering, chances of failure are very real - leaving you with debt and no degree. The fact that there isn't a job title called "women's studies" doesn't mean one should avoid that - you may need it if headed toward a career in counseling or related work.

 

Anyone who wants to be employed in 20 years time will need to constantly learn, careers will evolve on the job as they try to keep up with technology and change, (it's already happening but this cycle will speed up) if you're not keeping up you will be left behind. If your job becomes redundant you need to be flexible enough to move into something else, preferably related to what you were doing so you do not have to start all over again, but sitting around waiting for something to come along is going to land you on the redundant heap.
Essentially any predictions we make about the future are hit and miss, the only way to prepare the next generation for tomorrow is to help them, help themselves, be multi skilled and flexible.

 

And what happens when large numbers of people get left behind? They elect demagogues, they stock up on firearms, they become nationalistic.

 

It is worth noting that the government makes technology investments in other areas that are too costly for corporations to make. For example the canal system in this nation was a government project. A more relevant example along the same lines in the highway system. It was the government that provided the incentive for the electrification of rural areas.

More recently we have had government investment in space and the internet. These government spending initiatives have all been of benefit to We the People, corporations and the economy in general. Nations that did not make these government investments have lagged behind and failed to prosper.

So the government having a role in an automated future is a given. What that role will be is open to civil discourse. As the OP has pointed out there is going to be an impact on employment which is most definitely a concern of government since the bulk of it's revenues comes from working individuals. With fewer people working that would mean higher tax rates or finding other sources of revenue such as taxation of corporations. That has occurred in the past and will probably need to happen again in an automated future.

 

Trump supporters are not against change

But before the robots take over lets move the human jobs back to America where they belong

So that Americans can do those human jobs for as long as they exist

And after the robots take over lets make sure that the design, manufacture and use of the robots is in America too

 

Depends, there is such a thing as being too busy to survive to revolt

 

Good point!

Having reached semi retirement after 4 decades in IT was cleaning up and out of curiosity I was looking at the various courses that I have attended. It came to over 43 which meant that I averaged learning a new subject every year throughout my career. I am currently doing another 2 and I suspect that I won't stop there either.

Education is an ongoing process and that will apply even more to anyone who will be working in an automated future. We need to change our attitude towards education and build it into our lives as something we all need to be doing as part of our careers.

 

The following post was removed by a moderator. I have no idea why?

Anyway, this is my response: Here, the election of Trump was the revolt. Nationalism, is the revolt. The collection of firearms, is the revolt. I don't expect it to go any further, however, that's more than far enough. The damage is being done, and done in then name of fear of being left behind, fear of loss of place in society without the mechanisms to regain, or improve on that plight. Much of that is due to technology, automation, etc.

 

Absolutely.

The government even contributed to us having cable TV upgraded to higher definition - something that required a consistent set of decisions in TV design, bandwidth use, content, and other components of the system. Remember when TVs weren't "cable ready" and when cable was one way only?

Cable companies were actually more interested in giving the bandwidth to far more channels at much lower definition and even less interaction with the viewer. They saw that as a larger revenue opportunity for them.

 

Interesting spoiler!

Today we have unpaid or extremely low paid internships. There really is no reason that couldn't go negative - that one would pay for the job.

One result is that those with money have access to any career opportunity that comes through the "internship".

Both of my daughters worked for free for a period.

 

I believe the labor unions did alot to help workers. That is a great example of the people coming together to make their lives better. This is why I do not believe government is completely the answer. It is really up to the people to solve this problem.

 

A study on the economic effects of unions nationwide found that while unions improved wages for the industries that were unionized, they had the effect of depressing wages for everyone else, so they were transferring wages from the general working class to themselves, not from the employers or "wealthy".

 

That study is wrong. The labor unions have brought about many good changes for workers. There are nonunion companies that have to pay more to keep and attract good employees. That is common knowledge.

 

Do you have a credible source for that "study"?