Solutions to Automation

Discussion in 'Labor & Employment' started by Guest03, Aug 4, 2015.

  1. Guest03

    Guest03 Banned

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    What are some possible solutions to automation both now and in the future? What happens when we have enough technology to make most human labor unecessary?
     
  2. Oxymoron

    Oxymoron Well-Known Member

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    Service industry will have to take most jobs, others will have to be subsidized, and some forms of population control will be needed.
     
  3. David_N

    David_N New Member

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    Socialism.
     
  4. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    What many people may not realize is that lower paying entry levels jobs are still important for young people looking to earn a little extra money, or sometimes to get their foot in on the first rung of the ladder to start their careers. These jobs can also be important for elderly people who are not able to physically work hard, standing on their feet all day, but still need a little extra money to supplement their pension or retirement savings. Unfortunately, the way things are now, many of these less desirable younger and older workers are beginning to be displaced from the entry job market by middle-aged adult workers.
     
  5. 3blake7

    3blake7 New Member

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    I think we should do something I call an Elastic Economy. Basically there will be a Maximum Work Hours Per Worker, which would be Total Work Hours divided by Total Workers and would sort of be like how you get paid double time if you work over 60 hours, which manipulates employers to hire more people and only have them work 40 hours. If we decreased it to say 36 hours, it would create more jobs. Then we do a Minimum Wage based on Productivity, which would be based on Total Revenue divided by Total Work Hours. As automation increases, decreasing the total work hours in the economy, the Minimum Wage will increase and the Maximum Work Hours Per Worker will decrease. Eventually people will be working 20 hours and making twice as much per hour. Employers won't be rewarded for automation but employees would be, by having more free time, which would get them to help automate even quicker.

    Also, I just wanted to say that IBM has developed a neurosynaptic processor called TrueNorth, with 1 million neurons and 256 million synapses. A supercomputer like IBM Watson upgrades with these new processors, could become the leading expert in every field of science. I personally think this could happen within the next 10 years. No one is safe! We need a paradigm shift.
     
  6. wutitiz

    wutitiz New Member

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    Historically automation has not caused unemployment, save for perhaps short term unemployment. Unemployment in 1900 was around 4%. After 100 years of labor saving technology, the rate in 2000 was 4%.

    No doubt one b-train (double trailer) semi truck driver in 2000 could produce the same work output as several hundred (maybe even thousand) teamsters driving harnessed horses or mules in 1900. Yet this did not result in a higher unemployment rate in 2000 as compared w/ 1900.
     
  7. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Agreed. As we are able to produce what is fundamentally needed for survival with fewer labor hours service industries prosper as created wealth is used to improve the standard of living. Manufacturing jobs are lost to technology but many more jobs are created in the service sector. The improvements in the standard of living are proof of this.
     
  8. Anglicus

    Anglicus New Member

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    Why does it need a 'solution'? If the human labour does indeed become unnecessary then it would be rather silly not to get rid of it. To think otherwise, would be akin to being in favour of paying one man to move a stone from A to B, and then paying another man to move it back to B from A. In short, if a job is unnecessary, get rid of it.
     
  9. PT78

    PT78 Banned

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    I strongly agree with both of you.

    And it is not just unemployment has not risen overall, but the quality of the jobs HAS risen.

    Manufacturing jobs are usually dehumanizing. I worked (briefly) in a Ford assembly line factory and it was awful. Incredibly boring, repetitious work that stifles the mind and bores the soul. Other then the pay check, there was NOTHING of redeeming value (imo) to that job.
    If automation can replace these jobs...the faster the better as far as I am concerned.
    And this is just one small example of all the lousy, mind-numbing jobs that automation has (and continues to) replace.

    In almost all cases, automation is - in the end- good for all. It increases productivity, which lowers costs, which lowers prices and it frees up people to do better quality tasks.

    It is win-win.

    [​IMG]

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...workers-meet-machine-just-put-all-you-out-job
     
  10. 3blake7

    3blake7 New Member

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    Without a doubt, technology has eliminated jobs but created jobs in the process. For example, an assembly line may have put factory workers out of work but it created new, higher tech jobs, where workers would design and maintain the assembly lines.

    Higher quality of life probably gets the most credit for creating jobs, since people started demanding new products and services that didn't exist before. Like electricity, the internet, mobile phones, other electronics, TV shows and movies, musics albums, etc.

    Lets move this debate to another question. Is there a limit to how much the quality of life can improve and the jobs it improving creates? Also, is there a point when technology becomes so good, like artificial intelligences (self-programming computers) and robotics, can literally do anything as well as a human worker?

    We have self-driving cars in the works, which could eliminate a million jobs in the US.

    What if we had a supercomputer that could program the self-driving cars? Another supercomputer that could control robotics that did maintenance on the cars? Another supercomputer, that analysed traffic and coordinated all the self-driving cars for greater overall efficiency? What if we had robotics bagging groceries. AI theorizing on the cutting edge of every field of science? What if we had an AI Skyping millions of citizens simultaneously and convincing them to support a bill proposed by a politician? What if Dominos replaced it's workers with self-driving cars and robotics that made the pizza and another robot did maintenance and the whole setup was designed and installed by AI and robotics?

    I think technology we are reaching the next plateau and there will be a paradigm shift. If everything got cheaper because there were not human worker costs, people worked less hours as jobs are eliminated, they could theoretically live the same quality of life and work less. Also once they have more free time, the demand for entertainment would increase. There would also be consumer activism to a degree, like people preferring human workers when it comes to movies and music.
     
  11. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I think what makes this time different is that, if you say, low skilled labor is being replaced with very high skilled, technical jobs. However human evolution isn't moving that fast and the people who were on the left hand side of the Bell Curve in the 19th Century are still going to be on that left hand side in the 21st. So, what are low IQ people, who are not going to become engineers, going to do? We've already seen low skilled jobs disappearing. A generation ago, you could support a family even if you just had a high school education. Not so much now. It looks like we are entering an age in which half of the population will be very much in demand and the other half are going to be unemployable.

    What happens to them?
     
  12. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Technology will continue to evolve in the direction of making devices more capable and less expensive. This will replace humans doing low skill and repetitive tasks. However more jobs will be created in the fields dealing with applications of devices as well as servicing them and in the services industries as the basic needs of humans are met at lower costs. Jobs will be available but education and training will continue to be more and more important which is why it is so important to ensure that low income families today have access to quality education options. This is the only way in which their children will be able to succeed in an economy based on technological innovation. This trajectory will continue for the foreseeable future - where will it end? Not sure but there may be some point at which as you point out consumers will insist on services being performed by actual humans. Human innovation will always be the driver of technological advancement but individuals must also be able to bring this drive to the marketplace via product development. The time of AI take over of the innovative and creative processes is the realm of science fiction at this point in time.
     
  13. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Persons of low IQ can still be productive. There will be some who will need the social safety net to provide a subsidized living but others can certainly contribute via blue collar occupations. Vocational training will be the key to the success of these people. And making sure that the educational and training options are available to them at reasonable cost will be a challenge for the representative democracy that we live in. Also important is the availability of jobs for those low productivity workers so that they can get into the workforce and begin to develop workplace experience and skills leading to their individual increased personal productivity. Minimum wage laws act to artificially price these people out of the job market. It's much better to abolish the minimum wage thus increasing employment and using the social safety net to make for family income deficiencies as appropriate. But the message that education/training is much more important than it has been in the past has to get out there. And any stigma against blue collar occupational training must be removed.
     
  14. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Vocational training? One of the most common jobs in just about every state is driving, either trucks or in some other capacity. In 30 years, when big rigs are automated, what will happen to those people? It sounds like your solution is just to put everyone on welfare.
     
  15. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There are many more vocations than driving a truck. Landscaping, painting, hvac, carpenter, etc ... Evolving markets for labor will determine where labor "goes" in future economies. And you have missed my point on the minimum wage. The CBO has estimated that between 500,000 to 1,000,000 low wage workers will lose their jobs if the federal minimum wage is increased to ~ $10 per hour. Those most adversely affected will be those with the lowest productivity who need the "on the job training" as well as income from the job to move up the ladder. Some of those who lose their job will go on welfare (some will not if they live in a higher income household). It is much better for the low productivity worker to have a job and for the social safety net to supplement income as needed. This gives the worker the means to move up. Sadly however in some cases there are economic penalties for those who earn more money - but that is another discussion.
     
  16. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Yes, of course there are more vocations than truck driving. I was pointing out that those type jobs are disappearing, and the type of jobs to replace them are not going to be held by a former truck driver. It's an oncoming social and economic crisis.
     
  17. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And all those trucks will not disappear over night. There will be plenty of time for the truck driver market to adjust to the gradual implementation of Google trucks. :smile:
     
  18. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Adjust how? A 45 year old truck driver isn't going to go back to school to become an engineer.
     
  19. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You might be surprised. I know of one person who was a med tech and then went back to medical school and became a doctor. But like I said this truck driver should have figured out that Google trucks would be taking over many years before he lost his job. He could have been taking community college courses in computer programming, computer aided drafting/design, Google Truck maintenance, japanese bonsai tree trimming, ... all kinds of stuff.
     
  20. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then most work won't involve human labor.



     
  21. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Getting the same work done with less people isn't a crisis. It's progress.




     
  22. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, it's called an increase in productivity which leads to increased GDP growth, increased overall wealth creation, and increases in the standard of living.
     
  23. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    *shrug* If he prefers to live on charity, that's his choice. As long as the charity holds out. Doesn't change the fact that what he was doing before may no longer have any value now.



     
  24. Telekat

    Telekat Member Past Donor

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    The economy will do the same thing it did when the first round of automation happened: it will adapt. Service-sector and entertainment jobs will rise. We will be able to produce more with less and faster, skyrocketing standards of living. Automation should be encouraged, not fought.
     
  25. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    *nod* ... and the second time, and the third, the fourth, the fifth ... automation has been happening for a very long time.​


    [​IMG]
     

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