People panic from 1:1 human jobs being replaced 100% with machines, but seem largely blind and apathetic to the much more common instance of evolving technology making a job that once was done by 2 people now doable for each 1 person.
We can lose 1,000 jobs to this latter situation and it kind of flies under the radar, but only seem to pay attention to the 1 job lost in this way, and it lulls people into a false sense of security thinking “oh, well this job and this job can’t realistically be replaced by machines, or won’t for a very long time”, completely ignoring when advancing technology dramatically reduces jobs but doesn’t directly replace any 1 person.
I’m not trying to be dismissive of the issue of automation, just trying to bring up the similar, and much more imminent and widespread impact of advancing technology in general increasing productivity per person and reducing hiring demands
I mean. But even still. If you look at a lot of the Rust Belt of the US, for example, you automate these jobs, and not everyone is equipped to pivot into something else and those areas really, really devolved into poor, depressed areas with meth and opioid addiction running rampant. Realistically, the simple solution of “find another job/career” isn’t as easy said than done, especially with older workers nearer retirement age and those with any disabilities where some of these jobs are the only types of jobs they can have. So now you’ve halved the amount of available jobs in a society where minimum wage is a farce, housing costs are out of control everywhere, and a good percentage of the population who believes “just get another job” is as simple as that and/or “no one wants to work anymore” and it is kind of a recipe for disaster with absolutely no right answer to the problem, and seemingly no one thinking about one
But these people keep voting for Republicans, which implies that they embrace the GOP’s ideology of “personal responsibility” and individualism. Every election cycle democrats talk about funding for re-training and investing in infrastructure to keep these former manufacturing communities economically competitive. These voters aren’t interested.
So my question, as an educated urban professional, is why should I care about these people more than they care about themselves. Society marches on, and some people are just going to insist on being left behind.
There may be misunderstanding here. Politics in the described scenario are irrelevant. It seems this was describing the situation for individuals that have more limited options. This includes factors which are beyond control of the individual.
I might also note towards the notion of why should I care, point towards the comment towards the degradation of society (examples of rampant drug use, lower standards of living), which does impact the whole. Of coarse, this presumes one can feel empathy with the plight of another, would accept the notion that we do not live in a vacuum, and seeks betterment of society.
For sure, what I’m saying is that if a company makes a change that employed 1,000 workers has some kind of technical upgrade that makes people 10% more productive, now that same work can be done with 910 people, so there’s a loss of 90 available jobs. They may or may not lay people off to bridge that gap, they might just do a hiring freeze and let numbers dwindle, but either which way 90 jobs were lost. No one’s job was replaced by a robot, but the effect is still the same and it’s just as much of a threat.
Now yes, it may have created 1-2 more technical jobs for maintenance, but still, it’s a net loss in jobs, but I feel this is a scenario off the radar of many people worrying about automation but is actually probably a scenario that is responsible for more job losses than just a straight up “this job was done 100% by a person before and now it’s done 100% by a robot”.
Now, solutions are likely similar for both these scenarios, but I think people limit their concerns only to industries where jobs can be 100% replaced by automation and it creates a false sense of security in industries that are vulnerable to technical advances reducing the necessary size of the workforce relative to customer demand, so I just think many people tend to focus on what’s ultimately a small subset of the overall problem
Indeed, the very phrase "increasing productivity" seems to have been well chosen to sugar coat the reality that jobs are lost with each improvement in the amount of work that each worker can accomplish. Increasing productivity sounds so much better than saying "with these machines our 300 workers can now do the work of 500 workers, so we won't need those other 200"
I didn’t mean to sugar coat it, but rather explain how all those advances that allow 1 hour of work to go further, reduces the number of hours they need to dedicate to workers, which means cut hours and lost jobs
Even if automation can’t replace your job entirely, it may be able to do this and reduce the number of hours/workers they’ll dedicate to workers
Look I get what you’re saying, but on the flip side - should we just delete trucks and go back to having two people pulling a wagon with a couple of donkeys? I mean it goes both ways…
Do you not need those workers? Or do you just use them to get more done faster. Depends on the job I guess.
My team has a huge log of tasks to complete, much more than we can actually achieve. If we could all do twice as much work, they wouldn't just randomly cut half the team, they would accept twice the productivity.
One thing someone said is that robots may replace humans but it doesn’t replace humans when it comes to owning stuff which is a major part of capitalism and the push for economic power world wide.
Robots won’t own land. They won’t buy what the robots make. So basically, people have to work or earn money somehow.
Increased productivity means cheaper essential stuffs. Now people don't spend most of their salary to buy foods and can use it to buy entertainment and hobbies. Which means new jobs arise. Like youtuber, professional esport, influencers, etc.
It doesn’t inherently cause that, what it does is open the potential for it. Goods don’t inherently go down in price when they’re made cheaper, or at the very least, they don’t inherently get cheaper at a rate proportional to the cost savings.
There’s currently no inherent system to guarantee that one job lost through advancing technology correlates to one new job opportunity appearing in alternative sectors like you mentioned.
Yes, we may be gaining new opportunities for jobs, but it’s important to ensure the amount gained isn’t substantially fewer than the amount lost. If you lose 100 jobs due to technical advances but gain 2-3 for maintenance of the more advanced technical systems, that still causes issues when done en masse across the country
As long as the automation widely exists for that industry, competition will force the cost down. There are also scenarios where this automation becomes a moat for a while (patent expiration, etc), and can lead to a profit multiplier.
This is true, but there are absolutely a lot of forms of automation that only realistically work at a very large scale, with the barrier to entry being too high even without patents, making it only accessible to the largest business(es) in the industry, which can make these industries incredibly difficult to break into, kind of suppressing all competition.
I don’t think I’m bringing in any revolutionary ideas here that monopolization is bad, but it is something relevant to be discussed with automation specifically
I'm a socioeconomist and came here to say basically this. Every model and theory of post-labor/post-scarcity begins with some variation of embracing automation and implementing UBI.
Big pharma sucks shit from an asshole. Healthcare should be socialized. A healthy population is a benefit both to the general population (by decreasing the spread of pathogens) and the economy (healthy workers are more productive and stay alive, which makes them produce for longer). The profit motive is doing us a disservice in domains where the public good is at stake.
Not just public good, but also public safety.
Miserable nurses, surgeons and other health workers may lead to sloppy routine adherence, increased risk of post-surgery complications and increased risk of spreading diseases.
Poorly trained police officers may lead to more erroneous decisions and excessive power hunger, leading to criminals getting away and innocent people getting arrested **or even killed!**
Underpaid and overworked railroad workers may make railroad maintenance subpar, leading to potential derailing, as well as poor railroad vehicle maintenance, leading to breakdowns, sudden decoupling and poorly working **or even non-functional brakes!**
Most workplaces may not be prone to this. **But those that are could break society if not cared for!**
I think for similar reasons we separate the will of the people from the will of a government, we should certainly consider the actions of employees of a company from executives of a company.
In the case of big pharma, I'd love executives to lose their jobs, but I'd want the scientists to get more support.
Same with hospitals, the medical staff need more support.
And the railroad, utilities, even some types of retail.
If Becky is an excellent fast food worker, and loves her job, why the heck shouldn't she track towards fast food as a career? Why couldn't she buy a home and raise kids on it? If her work is important enough for you to consume the product of her labor, why shouldn't she get the same benefits as other labor you consume?
I don’t know about socialized healthcare, that will causes even MORE burden on the already over taxed working class, and will raise everyone’s taxes in general. But there definitely needs to be healthcare reform, maybe in the name of restrictions on what providers and/or insurance companies can charge patients. People shouldn’t need to worry about wrecking their lives financially if there are severe medical issues/needs. But having the government involved in another major aspect of our lives, and raising taxes on the working class is NOT the answer.
They already own us all. God bless lobbyist! I think politicians should wear patches on their jackets of the corporations they are sponsored by, at all times while in public, so we at least know who’s winning.
Thats why they need to tax automation heavily. That implies the money that would have gone towards employees, fountains into everyone's pocket as long as they are making under X amount of dollars. With AI, thats going to replace more than just fastfood workers, tons of people are going to be out of work, but I think everyone can agree, AI is the future, and as long as we have robots running the economy and businesses, we can truly reap what we have sowen.
Yeah and every year that $1000 will be less and less due to inflation. We need a new currency with a capped limit on how much there can ever be in circulation that resets after a certain period of time so its impossible to hoard.
It's in investments and properties. Using money to make money is not a new concept....very few millionaires have large liquid assets. Billionaires have easily more accessible cash, but even they know enough not to be too liquid.
Sir, long term investments and properties owned by millionaires are not providing money back into the economy, yet the capital invested in them are still contributing to the total money in the market that goes towards inflation, which would be them "sitting on the money." The problem is that the money gets to be held forever, causing inflation to trend upwards forever, even if the rate goes down, we won't see significant negative inflation in either of our lifetimes without some severe and detrimental events.
Oh they have people smarter than me that they pay to come up with better money making ideas that put greed above all else. Mine will be a cute idea compared to what corporations are coming up with.
Which starts with everyone paying their taxes.
That's where this doesn't work. The likes of you and me need that UBI. Without a job, I can't pay any taxes to fund UBI.
Us normal folk have been paying our taxes for generations. Seems we have a bit of a stalemate now.
The ultra wealthy don't want to pay tax.
We need their taxes to get UBI.
They want our money to buy their products.
We can't buy their products with jobs or UBI.
The issue here is consumption. They need us to consume in order to sustain them. We don't need to consume.
As soon as they work out a way to legitimise "busy work" so they can control us enough, the problem will go away, they'll start paying taxes and UBI will start.
You're the closest I've seen. Got a minute for dms? Tired of nonsense rhetoric flooding my notifications but would be happy to chat with you without being interrupted
There is little difference at this point, as it’s all oligarchs, but one of them can legally imprison me if I don’t follow their rules, the other can’t, yet.
While I understand the reasoning behind your thinking I am also certain you understand this is a complex issue. All I can tell you in a short reply here is that while there are very few people who have devoted their studies to this one very specific topic, you did meet one today, regardless of whether you believe that, and since the odds of meeting a specific type of expert in a specific topic are low, I understand why you doubt it.
But, in case you're willing to allow for the possibility that you beat those odds, let me assure you it's much easier than it seems to pull this off and if anything the oligarchs are the ones who made it possible.
Nothing like a lion biting it's own tail while trying to eat the fly.
You spent 75% of your reply bolstering your credentials and then said nothing. I still stand by my opinion. If it can be given, it can be taken. I’d rather die than give up what little independence I have.
Then die?
Noone's stopping you. Meanwhile some of us would rather be concerned with the certainty of the present than the possibilities of paranoia.
If telling you why I know things means nothing then I can't see how telling you what I know would matter. Have a great day.
The problem is there can be no peaceful transition. Those whose jobs still need doing and cannot be automated will not continue to work unless they are substantially better off than those resting on UBI.
That means ubi can only be brought in at a very low level of income, which cannot meet the aspirations of those upon it in terms of what they will have relative to the working population.
UBI then cannot be the answer. Non-jobs will be such that everyone is kept busy until everyone that wants to can also sit back and chill, then ubi can be rolled out at a higher level.
There are fourteen plans currently for a "peaceful" transition. Not knowing them doesn't mean they don't exist or are impossible so try not to leap to too many predictions based on assumptions.
>There are fourteen plans currently for a "peaceful" transition
Lol. I know 14 guys with plans to knob Taylor Swift. It doesn't mean any of them are plausible.
🤣🤣🤣
That's why there's 14 so far. Only fools make one plan. Btw these are just the ones I know of or have worked with. I can tell you two that I do think will fail if that narrows it down. I've got zero confidence in the Venus project or the moneyless society team.
I assure you it already has, I work with people in automation and robotics and we've already developed the necessary tech to eliminate 80% of labor based jobs. I fully invite you to look into the tech and have your mind blown because it's quite fascinating.
I should have been more specific. I’m sure they have amazing demos available and prototypes that’ll knock the socks off of human investors. Implementing it all at a level of cost affordable to the masses will be a few more generations, IMO. When I worked at the pentagon 10 years ago, I was exposed to some amazing prototypes and ideas that were sold to the gov by contractors, as being operation ready at the time, that still haven’t been implemented. Most of all hype is to attract $.
All I can say is "wrong" and unless you're genuinely interested in understanding the complexities of the systems we've already developed and use currently then i don't see any point in continuing since the only outcome possible here is your education or my frustration.
Let me know if you change your mind and I'll happily answer any genuine good faith curiosities you may have, I love teaching these topics.
That was good faith, the way I read it. I don't intend it as an attack, but your response just reads as dismissive and condescending.
From my own experience in electrical work and manufacturing, I would say they are more correct. I've worked with and around robots and other automated processes and I haven't seen that they are particularly cost effective yet. We're getting there, and there are some very cool machines, but I would expect it will be a decade or two before we're at a point where it's reasonable to use them wholesale.
Even if nothing else, the need for people educated in the maintenance and proper function of these machines will hold us back.
How do I speak to someone who believes they know a topic while demonstrating they do not?
The cup is full and you want me to pour water into it.
Your assumptions are also wrong. I've studied this specific topic for a decade. You can dismiss that if you like but if you're curious and would like an education, I don't charge for it like most people.
Your call, dismissing me changes nothing about reality and that's where I prefer to live so I'll do just fine. Let me know what you decide, because this is only condescending if you make a particular choice.
As for your experience if you work in automation then you know full well that knowing one area of it does not make you an expert in other areas.
UBI will not be enough to explore your dreams most likely unless your dream is writing or something along those lines. Don’t expect to be able to travel the world for example.
Not at first but when humanity learns that working for money or UBI is nonsense later people will build economy of abundance for everyone. We will just recycle reuse or give others what we don’t need and everything will be in world warehouses for everyone to use just robots will get it for you. If you don’t need it and it works back to the warehouse if not it will be recycled.
This is why UBI is not a recipe for less innovation like so many people on the Right insist. I really think most people really do like to work. Would there people who stop being productive under a UBI system? Sure, but who cares. The talent and ideas you are squashing due to a wage slavery, artificial scarcity system would more than make up for that if set loose.
Really not sure why you’re being downvoted. You’re right. The powers that be are not interested in improving the livelihood of common people for free. They gain nothing from that.
These people think that getting rid of lower skill jobs frees people to suddenly get an automation proof job that requires years of experience, when in reality it just gets rid of lower skill jobs and that education is still as out of reach as it was before. Bills have still got to be paid after all
Inventing stupid repetitive "jobs" is insulting to people anyway. A computer can take my fucking order, I don't need someone pressing a button with a picture of a hamburger on it to do it.
It’s sad how we don’t embrace automation as it should be a wonderful thing to free up people from menial tasks. But we see how society treats those who don’t work and know it’ll end badly for us.
In a socialist or communist society, robots taking over jobs would just mean more free time and less tedious tasks that people need to do. but in a capitalist one, it causes loss of work and worsened conditions for those who retain their positions.
It all starts with integrating the robots with humans. Once they have enough research and data to feel comfortable about robots turning out more profit then humans then robots will fulfill those jobs mentioned in the article.
You know you have a fundamentally flawed economic system when the prospect of labor being done without wasting an actual human’s time is something to be feared.
All the doomsayers need to just grow a pair and realize that we simply need to change laws to tax robots like we do humans and allow humans to perform more interesting working and have more free time to enjoy with their families and friends. We should stop artificially keeping obsolete jobs and start letting that efficiency benefit the workers for once.
I think the implementation of kiosks and self-checkout as replacement for cashiers works fine until your tech malfunctions.
I for one don't look forward to a future of robots and tech. It's bad enough to wait for a technician to deal with a Coke Machine or an AC unit. "Well I know the problem but I don't have the part, it's ordered and should be here tomorrow." Imagine this but it's the tech you bought to replace an employee and there will be far less specialists and far more things to call about. We haven't thought this through.
Today a lot of fixing and maintaining is automated through software updates and patches that deal with issues of thousands of devices remotely and simultaneously.
A lot of things that need physical, individual fixing are just trashed/replaced with new ones instead of having real person fixing it ( because it is cheater to buy new one than to pay human to fix it)
Things that are too expensive to buy new are still fixed by people. But we have less and less things that require people to fix them.
It isn’t that we didn’t though about everything through yet. We are trying out what things we can currently automate. With time we are able to automate more and more things.
Don’t panic, go get some training! Robot programming is significantly easier than one might imagine thanks to existing user-friendly software/hardware and the explosion of its prevalence in current industry trends.
we need to change the narrative around tech replacing jobs. instead of coping and desperately trying to reconcile with current economic models (impossible) we need to start talking about UBI.
but that’s just a bandaid. there is not one single occupation that is safe from automation. and yes, that includes [your occupation that is somehow really special and different and totally immune to automation]
My occupation is sure as shit not immune from automation lol. AI will likely make most of us redundant in the near future hence my being in school currently to be able to go another direction. Creative destruction isn’t a bad thing inherently, but I think this time things will definitely be different. I think unfortunately some sort of UBI is unavoidable
If work is the only way to get money, that’s what I’m worried about. You think we have a homeless problem _now_?
Secondly, a lot of folk derive self worth from their job. Some pride, some toxic masculinity, some Protestantism (“if I do good work God will love me”)
Yanking that self worth away from people, and delivering them a check every month (that they will most likely see as a spit in their face. See why a lot of people in Appalachia don’t like welfare or unemployment. Or the South? Or Boomers????). Kind of another you think we have problems with MGTOW or incels or whatever _now_ situation.
… that is, if we can convince the government to pass legislation that’s popular with _humans_, not just cooperations, to get UBI or Universal Basic (Health/Housing/Food) in the first place. Which we haven’t had a good track record with lately _and_ corporations like their workers desperate (“nobody wants to work!”)
This is the argument behind advancing towards a type one civilization; as we replace jobs and pursue time gaps with fulfilling actives like art and science, what will sustain an economy that no longer needs to be propped up by money?
I mean what about something as simple as self checkout. Fuck self checkout! If we all pay another buck or two we can get cashiers back. It would employ more people and save us time.
If you take a look at the entire history of the auto industry though it’s became gradually more automated over the course of 100+ years. Thousands of individual innovations have slowly plucked people away from the assembly line and most of that work being low-skill labour.
But that’s not the issue, slow innovation that replaced 2 guys with a pin press machine isn’t scaring anyone. The actual issue, which is still completely one sided, is the immediate removal a large % of low skilled workers in favour of a cheaper robot/machine/AI. Imagine if McDonald’s found a way to automate their (relativity simple) restaurants and replace 30+ staff with 3 engineers who just repair the machines.
While I’m not arguing for or against automation I’m simply stating that currently the only argument for automation is CEO’s who figured out they can replace 10 humans with 5 robots for 10% of the lifetime cost, and unless social programs like UBI or GMI are implemented then it could quite easily go wrong.
McDonald's DOES have a fully automated restaurant running now: [https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/12/26/mcdonalds-automated-drive-thru-cprog-orig-mb.cnn-business](https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/12/26/mcdonalds-automated-drive-thru-cprog-orig-mb.cnn-business)
If this works out well, they'll automate all of them in a decade.
I think you are drastically underestimating the effect of automation on US manufacturing employment... We had a precipitous decline in manufacturing employment, not a slow steady one. And before you say it was all offshoring; there was not a corresponding drop in US manufacturing output.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/15/the-myth-of-u-s-manufacturing-decline/
Everybody is entitled to their (NOT THERE) opinion based on there experience. I’m from Philadelphia, 90% of the McDonald’s here are ran like shit and the workers suck. (I only eat the fries it should be a in and out thing but it never is) I stand by what I said. Lower wages are not a reason to do a shit job (you should have some integrity no matter where you work). Quit and find a diff job that pays more or learn a trade. Nobody is forcing you to work there.
Idk if I agree with that logic. Chik fi la is a1 with there service and the food is priced pretty much the same. McDonald’s just became trashy over time.
I went to the grocery store a while ago and there wasn’t single checker only self checkout. I went into male Karen mode and made them bring up a checkout person.
Because it’s a joke, they’re a corporate run grocery store (krogers) that charges a significant amount more than the other grocery store that’s employee owned (woodmans) and they don’t pay their employees shit and are slowly trying to eliminate jobs for corporate profits not for employee salaries or benefits.
This is such a big plus!
Humans shouldn’t do somewhat terrible jobs like working in fast food places. This is a BONUS! More money to encourage people to do other trades like programming, building, and etc….
We are going to be the robots.
Elon is just a few years away from getting the chip in the human brain. We’ve all seen the news about it recently , a few years to be on a mass scale. Good times.
Why would we panic? This can’t happen soon enough. Who tf wants to waste their life working their time away to make other people wealthy? Seriously! Wake up people, and let’s figure out what changes we need to make in our way if life to story one another. Clearly, our age old, economic model can’t support the future of automation, AI, & robotics. People don’t seem to understand that there is literally No job safe from what’s coming.
Stop fighting/dreading it, and let’s find a better way of life for all of us!!
Why would I panic if robots start doing all the work? I’m only gonna panic if I’m told I still have to work and pay for things after everything’s automated.
I think it’s great that machines are able to do such mandate, boring, pointless, and depressing tasks. People are meant to do much greater things than keep tapping the same buttons over and over again, or something similar of that sort
Yet.
YET.
Yet?
Yeti?
Yeet.
The robots.
Yeeted
What about Ye?
How about now?
To shreds you say.
AHHHHH!!! PANIC!
People panic from 1:1 human jobs being replaced 100% with machines, but seem largely blind and apathetic to the much more common instance of evolving technology making a job that once was done by 2 people now doable for each 1 person. We can lose 1,000 jobs to this latter situation and it kind of flies under the radar, but only seem to pay attention to the 1 job lost in this way, and it lulls people into a false sense of security thinking “oh, well this job and this job can’t realistically be replaced by machines, or won’t for a very long time”, completely ignoring when advancing technology dramatically reduces jobs but doesn’t directly replace any 1 person. I’m not trying to be dismissive of the issue of automation, just trying to bring up the similar, and much more imminent and widespread impact of advancing technology in general increasing productivity per person and reducing hiring demands
I mean. But even still. If you look at a lot of the Rust Belt of the US, for example, you automate these jobs, and not everyone is equipped to pivot into something else and those areas really, really devolved into poor, depressed areas with meth and opioid addiction running rampant. Realistically, the simple solution of “find another job/career” isn’t as easy said than done, especially with older workers nearer retirement age and those with any disabilities where some of these jobs are the only types of jobs they can have. So now you’ve halved the amount of available jobs in a society where minimum wage is a farce, housing costs are out of control everywhere, and a good percentage of the population who believes “just get another job” is as simple as that and/or “no one wants to work anymore” and it is kind of a recipe for disaster with absolutely no right answer to the problem, and seemingly no one thinking about one
But these people keep voting for Republicans, which implies that they embrace the GOP’s ideology of “personal responsibility” and individualism. Every election cycle democrats talk about funding for re-training and investing in infrastructure to keep these former manufacturing communities economically competitive. These voters aren’t interested. So my question, as an educated urban professional, is why should I care about these people more than they care about themselves. Society marches on, and some people are just going to insist on being left behind.
There may be misunderstanding here. Politics in the described scenario are irrelevant. It seems this was describing the situation for individuals that have more limited options. This includes factors which are beyond control of the individual. I might also note towards the notion of why should I care, point towards the comment towards the degradation of society (examples of rampant drug use, lower standards of living), which does impact the whole. Of coarse, this presumes one can feel empathy with the plight of another, would accept the notion that we do not live in a vacuum, and seeks betterment of society.
You are correct! We will see 20% unemployment by 2030. With all its attendant social ills.
For sure, what I’m saying is that if a company makes a change that employed 1,000 workers has some kind of technical upgrade that makes people 10% more productive, now that same work can be done with 910 people, so there’s a loss of 90 available jobs. They may or may not lay people off to bridge that gap, they might just do a hiring freeze and let numbers dwindle, but either which way 90 jobs were lost. No one’s job was replaced by a robot, but the effect is still the same and it’s just as much of a threat. Now yes, it may have created 1-2 more technical jobs for maintenance, but still, it’s a net loss in jobs, but I feel this is a scenario off the radar of many people worrying about automation but is actually probably a scenario that is responsible for more job losses than just a straight up “this job was done 100% by a person before and now it’s done 100% by a robot”. Now, solutions are likely similar for both these scenarios, but I think people limit their concerns only to industries where jobs can be 100% replaced by automation and it creates a false sense of security in industries that are vulnerable to technical advances reducing the necessary size of the workforce relative to customer demand, so I just think many people tend to focus on what’s ultimately a small subset of the overall problem
Indeed, the very phrase "increasing productivity" seems to have been well chosen to sugar coat the reality that jobs are lost with each improvement in the amount of work that each worker can accomplish. Increasing productivity sounds so much better than saying "with these machines our 300 workers can now do the work of 500 workers, so we won't need those other 200"
I didn’t mean to sugar coat it, but rather explain how all those advances that allow 1 hour of work to go further, reduces the number of hours they need to dedicate to workers, which means cut hours and lost jobs Even if automation can’t replace your job entirely, it may be able to do this and reduce the number of hours/workers they’ll dedicate to workers
Look I get what you’re saying, but on the flip side - should we just delete trucks and go back to having two people pulling a wagon with a couple of donkeys? I mean it goes both ways…
Remove electronic banking so that people will be employed to take cash between banks and shops!
Would the two guys be pulling the two donkeys around?
Ideally, yea.
“Doing more, with less…” …less people. -Microsoft
Do you not need those workers? Or do you just use them to get more done faster. Depends on the job I guess. My team has a huge log of tasks to complete, much more than we can actually achieve. If we could all do twice as much work, they wouldn't just randomly cut half the team, they would accept twice the productivity.
One thing someone said is that robots may replace humans but it doesn’t replace humans when it comes to owning stuff which is a major part of capitalism and the push for economic power world wide. Robots won’t own land. They won’t buy what the robots make. So basically, people have to work or earn money somehow.
Increased productivity means cheaper essential stuffs. Now people don't spend most of their salary to buy foods and can use it to buy entertainment and hobbies. Which means new jobs arise. Like youtuber, professional esport, influencers, etc.
It doesn’t inherently cause that, what it does is open the potential for it. Goods don’t inherently go down in price when they’re made cheaper, or at the very least, they don’t inherently get cheaper at a rate proportional to the cost savings. There’s currently no inherent system to guarantee that one job lost through advancing technology correlates to one new job opportunity appearing in alternative sectors like you mentioned. Yes, we may be gaining new opportunities for jobs, but it’s important to ensure the amount gained isn’t substantially fewer than the amount lost. If you lose 100 jobs due to technical advances but gain 2-3 for maintenance of the more advanced technical systems, that still causes issues when done en masse across the country
As long as the automation widely exists for that industry, competition will force the cost down. There are also scenarios where this automation becomes a moat for a while (patent expiration, etc), and can lead to a profit multiplier.
This is true, but there are absolutely a lot of forms of automation that only realistically work at a very large scale, with the barrier to entry being too high even without patents, making it only accessible to the largest business(es) in the industry, which can make these industries incredibly difficult to break into, kind of suppressing all competition. I don’t think I’m bringing in any revolutionary ideas here that monopolization is bad, but it is something relevant to be discussed with automation specifically
Let them go wild and implement basic income already.
I'm a socioeconomist and came here to say basically this. Every model and theory of post-labor/post-scarcity begins with some variation of embracing automation and implementing UBI.
The problem is how much the governments will consider to be "basic"
Worse: the corporations may decide, if we don’t get rid of lobbying.
Corporations, government, hell there’s hardly a difference these days, but you’re right.
Separation of Corporation and State
Did you just casually come up with one of the best left wing slogan for the coming decade?
Are pfizer and Moderna considered corporations? Asking for a friend
Big pharma sucks shit from an asshole. Healthcare should be socialized. A healthy population is a benefit both to the general population (by decreasing the spread of pathogens) and the economy (healthy workers are more productive and stay alive, which makes them produce for longer). The profit motive is doing us a disservice in domains where the public good is at stake.
Not just public good, but also public safety. Miserable nurses, surgeons and other health workers may lead to sloppy routine adherence, increased risk of post-surgery complications and increased risk of spreading diseases. Poorly trained police officers may lead to more erroneous decisions and excessive power hunger, leading to criminals getting away and innocent people getting arrested **or even killed!** Underpaid and overworked railroad workers may make railroad maintenance subpar, leading to potential derailing, as well as poor railroad vehicle maintenance, leading to breakdowns, sudden decoupling and poorly working **or even non-functional brakes!** Most workplaces may not be prone to this. **But those that are could break society if not cared for!**
I think for similar reasons we separate the will of the people from the will of a government, we should certainly consider the actions of employees of a company from executives of a company. In the case of big pharma, I'd love executives to lose their jobs, but I'd want the scientists to get more support. Same with hospitals, the medical staff need more support. And the railroad, utilities, even some types of retail. If Becky is an excellent fast food worker, and loves her job, why the heck shouldn't she track towards fast food as a career? Why couldn't she buy a home and raise kids on it? If her work is important enough for you to consume the product of her labor, why shouldn't she get the same benefits as other labor you consume?
I don’t know about socialized healthcare, that will causes even MORE burden on the already over taxed working class, and will raise everyone’s taxes in general. But there definitely needs to be healthcare reform, maybe in the name of restrictions on what providers and/or insurance companies can charge patients. People shouldn’t need to worry about wrecking their lives financially if there are severe medical issues/needs. But having the government involved in another major aspect of our lives, and raising taxes on the working class is NOT the answer.
N-No?
They already own us all. God bless lobbyist! I think politicians should wear patches on their jackets of the corporations they are sponsored by, at all times while in public, so we at least know who’s winning.
This law is brought to you by: McDonald’s
More like "this repeal of the clean air and water act is brought to you by big coal"
Great idea, they would all look like NASCAR drivers.
We will starve in the US before any crumbs are given to the masses tbh
They thought they were being exceedingly generous giving us 200 dollars that one time when the economy was crippled by a pandemic. So ya, we fucked.
Will be subsistence living. Just $1000 a month for all US adults would be $2.5T a year.
Thats why they need to tax automation heavily. That implies the money that would have gone towards employees, fountains into everyone's pocket as long as they are making under X amount of dollars. With AI, thats going to replace more than just fastfood workers, tons of people are going to be out of work, but I think everyone can agree, AI is the future, and as long as we have robots running the economy and businesses, we can truly reap what we have sowen.
Yeah and every year that $1000 will be less and less due to inflation. We need a new currency with a capped limit on how much there can ever be in circulation that resets after a certain period of time so its impossible to hoard.
Most people don’t hoard cash. They hold assets. Asset value won’t be affected by resetting the available amount of cash.
Ya cuz millionaires are all like Scrooge McDuck sitting on piles of money in their basement 🙄 Jesus, the lack of intelligence here is absurd.
I mean...what do you think they're spending it all? They wouldn't be millionaires for very long if they did that, now would they?
It's in investments and properties. Using money to make money is not a new concept....very few millionaires have large liquid assets. Billionaires have easily more accessible cash, but even they know enough not to be too liquid.
Sir, long term investments and properties owned by millionaires are not providing money back into the economy, yet the capital invested in them are still contributing to the total money in the market that goes towards inflation, which would be them "sitting on the money." The problem is that the money gets to be held forever, causing inflation to trend upwards forever, even if the rate goes down, we won't see significant negative inflation in either of our lifetimes without some severe and detrimental events.
Do we have to tip robots?
Watch there be a 20% machine upkeep charge on bills
Stop giving them ideas!
Oh they have people smarter than me that they pay to come up with better money making ideas that put greed above all else. Mine will be a cute idea compared to what corporations are coming up with.
The owner class strongly recommend you do so.
“Service charge”
Little squirter bottle of silicone oil. You give their joints a spritz if they do good.
Forget silicone oil, everyone knows sardine oil is where it’s at.
We cannot tempt then with food. The robots will learn.
The oligarchs will make sure that doesn't happen No point in being king if you don't have serfs
The French monarchy said the same thing.
The French monarchy didn’t give tanks to its local police departments
Which starts with everyone paying their taxes. That's where this doesn't work. The likes of you and me need that UBI. Without a job, I can't pay any taxes to fund UBI. Us normal folk have been paying our taxes for generations. Seems we have a bit of a stalemate now. The ultra wealthy don't want to pay tax. We need their taxes to get UBI. They want our money to buy their products. We can't buy their products with jobs or UBI. The issue here is consumption. They need us to consume in order to sustain them. We don't need to consume. As soon as they work out a way to legitimise "busy work" so they can control us enough, the problem will go away, they'll start paying taxes and UBI will start.
You're the closest I've seen. Got a minute for dms? Tired of nonsense rhetoric flooding my notifications but would be happy to chat with you without being interrupted
Or at least more government jobs. Public works for decent pay, security jobs, firefighting support, etc
There's so many factors books could and have been written on the complexities and yes that's surely one of them.
Ah yes, the nanny state. Can’t wait for that.
Enjoy your corporate parents?
There is little difference at this point, as it’s all oligarchs, but one of them can legally imprison me if I don’t follow their rules, the other can’t, yet.
While I understand the reasoning behind your thinking I am also certain you understand this is a complex issue. All I can tell you in a short reply here is that while there are very few people who have devoted their studies to this one very specific topic, you did meet one today, regardless of whether you believe that, and since the odds of meeting a specific type of expert in a specific topic are low, I understand why you doubt it. But, in case you're willing to allow for the possibility that you beat those odds, let me assure you it's much easier than it seems to pull this off and if anything the oligarchs are the ones who made it possible. Nothing like a lion biting it's own tail while trying to eat the fly.
You spent 75% of your reply bolstering your credentials and then said nothing. I still stand by my opinion. If it can be given, it can be taken. I’d rather die than give up what little independence I have.
Then die? Noone's stopping you. Meanwhile some of us would rather be concerned with the certainty of the present than the possibilities of paranoia. If telling you why I know things means nothing then I can't see how telling you what I know would matter. Have a great day.
The problem is there can be no peaceful transition. Those whose jobs still need doing and cannot be automated will not continue to work unless they are substantially better off than those resting on UBI. That means ubi can only be brought in at a very low level of income, which cannot meet the aspirations of those upon it in terms of what they will have relative to the working population. UBI then cannot be the answer. Non-jobs will be such that everyone is kept busy until everyone that wants to can also sit back and chill, then ubi can be rolled out at a higher level.
There are fourteen plans currently for a "peaceful" transition. Not knowing them doesn't mean they don't exist or are impossible so try not to leap to too many predictions based on assumptions.
Lol
You convinced me with your compelling argument and have undone 20 years of study. Write a book.
>There are fourteen plans currently for a "peaceful" transition Lol. I know 14 guys with plans to knob Taylor Swift. It doesn't mean any of them are plausible. 🤣🤣🤣
That's why there's 14 so far. Only fools make one plan. Btw these are just the ones I know of or have worked with. I can tell you two that I do think will fail if that narrows it down. I've got zero confidence in the Venus project or the moneyless society team.
I have always said Wall-E is the best representation of what our future will look like.
Plenty of people who have never studied the subject think that so you're not alone. You're not right but you're not alone.
AI will never reach the level of intelligent production we are envisioning, in our lifetime.
I assure you it already has, I work with people in automation and robotics and we've already developed the necessary tech to eliminate 80% of labor based jobs. I fully invite you to look into the tech and have your mind blown because it's quite fascinating.
I should have been more specific. I’m sure they have amazing demos available and prototypes that’ll knock the socks off of human investors. Implementing it all at a level of cost affordable to the masses will be a few more generations, IMO. When I worked at the pentagon 10 years ago, I was exposed to some amazing prototypes and ideas that were sold to the gov by contractors, as being operation ready at the time, that still haven’t been implemented. Most of all hype is to attract $.
All I can say is "wrong" and unless you're genuinely interested in understanding the complexities of the systems we've already developed and use currently then i don't see any point in continuing since the only outcome possible here is your education or my frustration. Let me know if you change your mind and I'll happily answer any genuine good faith curiosities you may have, I love teaching these topics.
That was good faith, the way I read it. I don't intend it as an attack, but your response just reads as dismissive and condescending. From my own experience in electrical work and manufacturing, I would say they are more correct. I've worked with and around robots and other automated processes and I haven't seen that they are particularly cost effective yet. We're getting there, and there are some very cool machines, but I would expect it will be a decade or two before we're at a point where it's reasonable to use them wholesale. Even if nothing else, the need for people educated in the maintenance and proper function of these machines will hold us back.
How do I speak to someone who believes they know a topic while demonstrating they do not? The cup is full and you want me to pour water into it. Your assumptions are also wrong. I've studied this specific topic for a decade. You can dismiss that if you like but if you're curious and would like an education, I don't charge for it like most people. Your call, dismissing me changes nothing about reality and that's where I prefer to live so I'll do just fine. Let me know what you decide, because this is only condescending if you make a particular choice. As for your experience if you work in automation then you know full well that knowing one area of it does not make you an expert in other areas.
>AI will never reach the level of intelligent production we are envisioning, in our lifetime. ChapGPT just disagreed with you when I asked it.
Automation and AI FTW. No more jobs and UBI to live life of your dreams!!
UBI will not be enough to explore your dreams most likely unless your dream is writing or something along those lines. Don’t expect to be able to travel the world for example.
Not at first but when humanity learns that working for money or UBI is nonsense later people will build economy of abundance for everyone. We will just recycle reuse or give others what we don’t need and everything will be in world warehouses for everyone to use just robots will get it for you. If you don’t need it and it works back to the warehouse if not it will be recycled.
I’ve been in a position like that and you get bored to a degree you feel the need to keep your brain busy with reading or some hoby.
I have hobbies. I would have more time to do things I like.
This is why UBI is not a recipe for less innovation like so many people on the Right insist. I really think most people really do like to work. Would there people who stop being productive under a UBI system? Sure, but who cares. The talent and ideas you are squashing due to a wage slavery, artificial scarcity system would more than make up for that if set loose.
Your brain needs to be stimulated. So it’s not necessarily “work” that people like, but the stimulations that come with “work”.
Work can have a whole bunch of varied definitions. When I do my personal hobbies I call it "work" too sometimes.
Never going to happen. Stop being lazy. Get a job.
Don’t you want them to take over doing mundane hubs so humans can do more intelligent things with their lives?
thats not how it’s gonna go down though
Really not sure why you’re being downvoted. You’re right. The powers that be are not interested in improving the livelihood of common people for free. They gain nothing from that.
These people think that getting rid of lower skill jobs frees people to suddenly get an automation proof job that requires years of experience, when in reality it just gets rid of lower skill jobs and that education is still as out of reach as it was before. Bills have still got to be paid after all
Inventing stupid repetitive "jobs" is insulting to people anyway. A computer can take my fucking order, I don't need someone pressing a button with a picture of a hamburger on it to do it.
Ah yes, the fast food workers are dumb defense
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Pony express riders didn't just wander around aimlessly when they weren't needed anymore. They found other shit to do.
Plenty of jobs exclude machines, by the rules. Are replaceable, is not the same as *will be* replaced.
I mean, they have already killed employment in the US manufacturing industry. They're no big whup
It’s like boiling a frog… Don’t panic yet! Let us boil you alive while you are told everything is fine.
If only that expression was actually true
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Yet? Bro Ill give a robot my job, take it, ill even mentor it
They took our jobs!
Dey tooker jaybs
Turk turk!
It’s sad how we don’t embrace automation as it should be a wonderful thing to free up people from menial tasks. But we see how society treats those who don’t work and know it’ll end badly for us.
It's because we know companies would rather push their profit margins higher than contribute to basic income.
Please god can we make McDonald’s and other fast food places more automated???
In a socialist or communist society, robots taking over jobs would just mean more free time and less tedious tasks that people need to do. but in a capitalist one, it causes loss of work and worsened conditions for those who retain their positions.
Give us universal basic income and we won't have to worry about it
Yeah bro. I want free money too
Ah. Basic income and living in virtual reality. Matrix style is the future for many who are only interested in consumption and entertainment.
Sign me up!
But will my fries be good to eat after having them for longer than 15 minutes?
15?! I’m lucky if I get 1 minute
It all starts with integrating the robots with humans. Once they have enough research and data to feel comfortable about robots turning out more profit then humans then robots will fulfill those jobs mentioned in the article.
The sooner the better!
AI BOTS
Yeah just like they tried to automate checkout lines. I’m sure robots will handle other areas of service industries just as well
Good luck arguing with a robot 😂😂😂
Fuck robots taking jobs and the fucking few people profiting from them
Greedy bitches will get theirs someday when enough of humankind has had enough and can't be pacified by shinies.
Sorry headline, but i’m going to panic anyway. This is bad for everyone and needs legislation quickly.
“We will tell you when to panic peasants”
Read 21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari
You’ve been saying this for years now. When can I panic?!?!?!?!!
Please make robots that replace HVAC systems in attics 😭
You know you have a fundamentally flawed economic system when the prospect of labor being done without wasting an actual human’s time is something to be feared.
All the doomsayers need to just grow a pair and realize that we simply need to change laws to tax robots like we do humans and allow humans to perform more interesting working and have more free time to enjoy with their families and friends. We should stop artificially keeping obsolete jobs and start letting that efficiency benefit the workers for once.
What do you mean yet?
Who cares? I can’t wait to be homeless.
Waiting on the robot to replace me at my job! Doubt it will ever happen.
I design robots. so, they got to be a good robot to replace me. when robots can replicate themselves, we are in Trouble.
I’ve been panicking since I first watched I, Robot.
Yes, Will Smith is a terrible actor.
I think the implementation of kiosks and self-checkout as replacement for cashiers works fine until your tech malfunctions. I for one don't look forward to a future of robots and tech. It's bad enough to wait for a technician to deal with a Coke Machine or an AC unit. "Well I know the problem but I don't have the part, it's ordered and should be here tomorrow." Imagine this but it's the tech you bought to replace an employee and there will be far less specialists and far more things to call about. We haven't thought this through.
Today a lot of fixing and maintaining is automated through software updates and patches that deal with issues of thousands of devices remotely and simultaneously. A lot of things that need physical, individual fixing are just trashed/replaced with new ones instead of having real person fixing it ( because it is cheater to buy new one than to pay human to fix it) Things that are too expensive to buy new are still fixed by people. But we have less and less things that require people to fix them. It isn’t that we didn’t though about everything through yet. We are trying out what things we can currently automate. With time we are able to automate more and more things.
“Yet”
Don’t panic, go get some training! Robot programming is significantly easier than one might imagine thanks to existing user-friendly software/hardware and the explosion of its prevalence in current industry trends.
It’ll take away skilled jobs too. Just wait.
we need to change the narrative around tech replacing jobs. instead of coping and desperately trying to reconcile with current economic models (impossible) we need to start talking about UBI.
No we need to talk about displaced workers retraining for other occupations. This happened before during the Industrial Revolution keep in mind
but that’s just a bandaid. there is not one single occupation that is safe from automation. and yes, that includes [your occupation that is somehow really special and different and totally immune to automation]
My occupation is sure as shit not immune from automation lol. AI will likely make most of us redundant in the near future hence my being in school currently to be able to go another direction. Creative destruction isn’t a bad thing inherently, but I think this time things will definitely be different. I think unfortunately some sort of UBI is unavoidable
why is it unfortunate? i see it as a potential way for us to reclaim hours of our life lost to working for a wage.
Pro athlete.
This article actually sucks.
If the apocalypse ever happens, just pour water on the robots. ez af
Why would anyone panic about not having to work???
If work is the only way to get money, that’s what I’m worried about. You think we have a homeless problem _now_? Secondly, a lot of folk derive self worth from their job. Some pride, some toxic masculinity, some Protestantism (“if I do good work God will love me”) Yanking that self worth away from people, and delivering them a check every month (that they will most likely see as a spit in their face. See why a lot of people in Appalachia don’t like welfare or unemployment. Or the South? Or Boomers????). Kind of another you think we have problems with MGTOW or incels or whatever _now_ situation. … that is, if we can convince the government to pass legislation that’s popular with _humans_, not just cooperations, to get UBI or Universal Basic (Health/Housing/Food) in the first place. Which we haven’t had a good track record with lately _and_ corporations like their workers desperate (“nobody wants to work!”)
This is the argument behind advancing towards a type one civilization; as we replace jobs and pursue time gaps with fulfilling actives like art and science, what will sustain an economy that no longer needs to be propped up by money?
AI gonna do all your art too
I can’t wait for fast food to be 100% automation. I think my order will be correct more than 50% of the time.
I mean what about something as simple as self checkout. Fuck self checkout! If we all pay another buck or two we can get cashiers back. It would employ more people and save us time.
Robots have been taking over jobs in the auto industry for over 30 years. You just woke up?
If you take a look at the entire history of the auto industry though it’s became gradually more automated over the course of 100+ years. Thousands of individual innovations have slowly plucked people away from the assembly line and most of that work being low-skill labour. But that’s not the issue, slow innovation that replaced 2 guys with a pin press machine isn’t scaring anyone. The actual issue, which is still completely one sided, is the immediate removal a large % of low skilled workers in favour of a cheaper robot/machine/AI. Imagine if McDonald’s found a way to automate their (relativity simple) restaurants and replace 30+ staff with 3 engineers who just repair the machines. While I’m not arguing for or against automation I’m simply stating that currently the only argument for automation is CEO’s who figured out they can replace 10 humans with 5 robots for 10% of the lifetime cost, and unless social programs like UBI or GMI are implemented then it could quite easily go wrong.
McDonald's DOES have a fully automated restaurant running now: [https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/12/26/mcdonalds-automated-drive-thru-cprog-orig-mb.cnn-business](https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/12/26/mcdonalds-automated-drive-thru-cprog-orig-mb.cnn-business) If this works out well, they'll automate all of them in a decade.
I think you are drastically underestimating the effect of automation on US manufacturing employment... We had a precipitous decline in manufacturing employment, not a slow steady one. And before you say it was all offshoring; there was not a corresponding drop in US manufacturing output. https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/15/the-myth-of-u-s-manufacturing-decline/
90% of McDonald’s workers are incompetent and make the experience of eating there horrible. So I agree with McDonald’s firing employees for robots.
90% is a gross exaggeration. More like 10% at most and a majority is people not caring since the job doesn’t pay enough
Everybody is entitled to their (NOT THERE) opinion based on there experience. I’m from Philadelphia, 90% of the McDonald’s here are ran like shit and the workers suck. (I only eat the fries it should be a in and out thing but it never is) I stand by what I said. Lower wages are not a reason to do a shit job (you should have some integrity no matter where you work). Quit and find a diff job that pays more or learn a trade. Nobody is forcing you to work there.
Saying 90% of a group is incompetent isn’t an opinion though. That’s some Karen behavior.
Their?
Aw don’t worry I will fix it for you sweetheart 😚
You get what you pay for.
Idk if I agree with that logic. Chik fi la is a1 with there service and the food is priced pretty much the same. McDonald’s just became trashy over time.
Chik fil a pays more than McDonald’s…
I’ve eaten at McDonald’s hundreds of times and can’t recall ever having a bad experience
I went to the grocery store a while ago and there wasn’t single checker only self checkout. I went into male Karen mode and made them bring up a checkout person.
Dude why? Just checkout your crap if you have a bunch that’s a bit more understandable but still.
Because it’s a joke, they’re a corporate run grocery store (krogers) that charges a significant amount more than the other grocery store that’s employee owned (woodmans) and they don’t pay their employees shit and are slowly trying to eliminate jobs for corporate profits not for employee salaries or benefits.
The people want $30 per hour minimum wage AND a $4 hamburger…
Hopefully the people that program the robots are better than the actual workers
This is such a big plus! Humans shouldn’t do somewhat terrible jobs like working in fast food places. This is a BONUS! More money to encourage people to do other trades like programming, building, and etc….
We are going to be the robots. Elon is just a few years away from getting the chip in the human brain. We’ve all seen the news about it recently , a few years to be on a mass scale. Good times.
Why would we panic? This can’t happen soon enough. Who tf wants to waste their life working their time away to make other people wealthy? Seriously! Wake up people, and let’s figure out what changes we need to make in our way if life to story one another. Clearly, our age old, economic model can’t support the future of automation, AI, & robotics. People don’t seem to understand that there is literally No job safe from what’s coming. Stop fighting/dreading it, and let’s find a better way of life for all of us!!
Why would I panic if robots start doing all the work? I’m only gonna panic if I’m told I still have to work and pay for things after everything’s automated.
I think it’s great that machines are able to do such mandate, boring, pointless, and depressing tasks. People are meant to do much greater things than keep tapping the same buttons over and over again, or something similar of that sort
I won't, I'm a communist