Unskilled labor is completely mechanized/robotized, what happens to employment?

[Sam_Stone]

@gaffa

It seems like a religion “The Market will Provide!”

On the contrary, you seem to be the one with the religious dogma that you’re trying to push. Both theory and empirical evidence are on my side. ‘The Market’ is not some magical force. It’s not chaos and anarchy. It’s just a description of the billions of transactions that take place each year as people trade freely with each other to their mutual benefit. It is amenable to study through statistical analysis, and amenable to logical analysis.

The prices you see in the marketplace are typically the best representation of the true value of things that we know how to find. As prices of things change due to scarcity or advances in technology, the market adapts. Money moves into other investments or other products. We can predict that if automation starts to complete with labor, we will settle on a mixture of both that optimizes their value to the best of our knowledge. We can also predict that if the overall price of labor goes down, this will just increase development and the formation of new industries until a new equilibrium is reached.

In the end, we’re most likely to wind up with even more houses and businesses and toys and art and other luxuries, with comparatively less labor invested in each. That’s been the pattern so far - as stuff gets cheaper, we buy more of it. When people have more money, they invest some of it, which spurs economic growth and job growth.

OK, where are these jobs? We can easily point out where the jobs are disappearing, and have done so. Where are these new jobs you claim are appearing? Point them out, please! Reading through this thread, every time someone mentions that a particular job has been automated out of existence, someone repeats the mantra that the market will somehow magically produce new work - but never bothers actually identifying them.

They must be somewhere, huh? Considering how there are 80 million more people in the United States today than there were 30 years ago, and yet the jobless rate is near historical lows. With incomes near historical highs.

Somehow people have gotten it into their heads that we’re living in some kind of economic disaster, where the middle class is being destroyed and people’s incomes are shrinking. It’s not the case. Standards of living in the United States have never been higher than they are today. Job income growth is only part of it - another big part has been the relative lowering in cost of the things that matter to the middle class. Big screen TVs, cell phones, computers, airline travel, and other staples of the middle class “good life” have shrunk in cost by orders of magnitude. The average car is astonishingly better than it was 15 years ago, and probably cost less money in constant dollars. The unemployment rate is near historical lows, and inflation and interest rates are both low and stable.

For all the gloom and doom we keep hearing from people like Lou Dobbs and John Edwards, life has never been better.

But it’s hard to win elections with that message when you’re not an incumbent. This year, no one is. So there’s no one to defend the economy, and it’s going to take a drubbing on the campaign and in the press.

[gaffa]

@RickJay

Well,

A) It is simply a falsehood to say “pretty much any tech support call winds up being picked up in Bangalore.” In fact, there are lots of tech support jobs in North America. Call centres still recruit. Let’s not pretend every single call center job is in India.

Which is why I said pretty much. The odds of dialing the tech support line for any computer, electronics or cable company and not reaching someone in Bangalore are not good. The US jobs are generally for second level tech support or higher. But you have to exhaust first level before they will let you talk to the second level. I don’t know how many tech support lines you’ve called in the past few years, but my experience has been that greater than 90% of the calls have been outsourced.

B) It’s not just farmers. Switches put telephone operators out of jobs. Chimney sweeps are out of jobs. I could name 100 jobs that have been reduced in importance or simply wiped from the map and the unemployment rate in the United States still isn’t fifty percent, which, if those jobs were not replaced, it should be.

Your claim, not mine. Argue your own points rather than build straw men, please.

SO

WHY

HAVEN’T

THEY?

Jesus, this isn’t 1946! The things you have described have already happened and there are not huge numbers of people unemployed. You are talking about things… ATMs, self-serve gas stations - that have been around for quite a few years now and yet the unemployment rate isn’t going up. Please explain.

The US unemployment rate has been fudged for years by various administrations of both parties to make things appear better than they are. The actual unemployment rate is closer to 9.5%. I’m not talking about self-service gas pumps, I’m talking about gas stations with no employees on-site.

Great God Almighty, you cannot be serious.

Thirty-five years ago there weren’t any Blockbuster stores. Thirty-five years ago there was essentially no home movie rental business of any kind, as a matter of fact; VCRs were a very newfangled and expensive toy. Home movie rentals didn’t really start becoming commonplace until the late 70s/early 80s. The jobs you’re bemoaning the loss of, which are in any event minimum wage jobs for students, did not exist less than two generations ago. A new business model simply popped into existence, created jobs, and now you’re claiming it’s bad that it’s going away in what is, in historical terms, a burp of time.

The video store job was the 80s and 90s equivalent of being a soda jerk. I remember the video store boom quite well. Thousands of mom’n’pop stores, several in every neighborhood which were wiped out by the huge chains, employing a much smaller number of people, which are now being wiped out by a web site with a primarily automated distribution center that, all together, might employ less than 1% of of number of people at the peak mom’n’pop video shop era. Is that clear enough? It doesn’t matter how many web developers NetFlix employs, it’s a tiny fraction of the number who used to work for mom’n’pop.

You know what, though? When video stores popped up people said it’d rob the employees of movie theatres of their jobs. They pointed out, correctly, that it takes fewer people to run a Blockbuster than it does a movie theatre. Now it’s Netflix. Netflix will be obsolete in five years. What then?

The cable and satellite companies and Apple intend that every movie “rental” will be accomplished by download. And yes, even fewer people will be employed.

I’m not going to do your homework for you; if you want to know the percentage of jobs that make up the economy go find it yourself. What I know is that the unemployment rate is not skyrocketing even after many of the things you have described have happened. Indeed, it’s quite a bit lower now than it once was.

See above. The “unemployment rate” is the number of people currently seeking employment, but - after six months of not finding a job, they no longer consider you unemployed and drop you from the list of unemployed people.

There are lots of jobs out there. Did you know the trucking industry is short of drivers? The skilled trades are short, too. Lots of existing jobs are growing.

Not really relevant to the thread though. Long distance trucker? See my post about Darpa’s “Grand Challenge”. We’ll probably see truck convoys with one driver at the front, followed by half a dozen driverless trucks following within ten years.

[quote]

You ask for jobs that have been created. Well, okay; video store employee. That job was just invented thirty years ago and still employs thousandes. Now, Netflix employee. How about computer programmer? PBX technician? Load broker? Lots of science majors get jobs doing environmental assessment and rehabilitation work, stuff that didn’t exist twenty years ago. Cell phone retail sales, that’s new. Cell phone manufacture. The guy who repairs cell phone towers - I have a friend who does that, in fact. How about the people who make Blackberrys? Twenty years ago they employed a handful of people; now just the Waterloo HQ, 45 minutes from my house, employs 7000. All created in the last ten to twenty years.

[quote]

In every case, the net total will be fewer people than whatever business has been replaced. Cell phones and Blackberrys? All assembled in China.

In January, the unemployment rate was 4.9%. You do realize that’s quite low, right? 95.1% of people have found a job. Why don’t you look around and ask them what they’re doing?

Are you actually buying that 4.9% number? Are you actually claiming that 95.1% of all eligible Americans have a job?

[Gorsnak]

@gaffa

Are you actually buying that 4.9% number? Are you actually claiming that 95.1% of all eligible Americans have a job?

Can’t speak for the US, but in these parts you can’t throw a stone without hitting a “Now Hiring - All Shifts” sign. I believe we’re right around 5% according to official statistics, and I believe it. Anyone who is seriously looking for work and doesn’t have a job is either very picky, is looking in a niche market, or is damn near unemployable.

[Indistinguishable]

@gaffa

Cell phones and Blackberrys? All assembled in China.

Again, I’m confused. Is this thread about the problems technology poses in terms of leaving jobs to be done by humans, or is it about the problems posed by considering Asians for jobs?

[brazil84]

@gaffa

The US unemployment rate has been fudged for years by various administrations of both parties to make things appear better than they are. The actual unemployment rate is closer to 9.5%. I’m not talking about self-service gas pumps, I’m talking about gas stations with no employees on-site.

As of 2008, I agree with the others on this point – there are tons of jobs in the US right now. However, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, this fact has the potential to be a little misleading because of Simple Fact Number One: There are still lots of things that a person can do that a machine cannot do.

So it’s kind of like the optimist who jumps off the Empire State Building. As he passes the 30th floor on the way down, he shouts “So far, so good!”

If and when Simple Fact Number One changes, then all bets are off.

[Indistinguishable]

@brazil84

As of 2008, I agree with the others on this point – there are tons of jobs in the US right now. However, as I alluded to earlier in this thread, this fact has the potential to be a little misleading because of Simple Fact Number One: There are still lots of things that a person can do that a machine cannot do.

So it’s kind of like the optimist who jumps off the Empire State Building. As he passes the 30th floor on the way down, he shouts “So far, so good!”

If and when Simple Fact Number One changes, then all bets are off.

But if it ever gets to be that a person can’t do anything that an available machine can’t do better, then what’s so bad about that? That means the machines are serving all our needs and wants without us having to waste our own effort on it. It’s not like people yearn to labor; that’s just a means to the end of getting various jollies (food, entertainment, whatever). If we could have the machines do all the work while we reaped all the reward, that’d be awesome.

[brazil84]

@Indistinguishable

But if it ever gets to be that a person can’t do anything that an available machine can’t do better, then what’s so bad about that?

Nothing’s necessarily bad about it, but it could create problems that society would need to address. Right now, there is a lot of contempt for many of the people who do not work. That attitude would need to change. We would need to ramp up the welfare system. etc. etc.

It’s not like people yearn to labor; that’s just a means to the end of getting various jollies (food, entertainment, whatever).

I’m not so sure about that. What if there is a basic human need to do productive work? My job is a pain in the ***, but I’m not so sure I’d quit if I won the lottery. And if I did win the lottery and quit, I don’t know if I’d be happier.

If we could have the machines do all the work while we reaped all the reward, that’d be awesome.

To be sure, it would have the potential to be awesome.

[Indistinguishable]

@brazil84

I’m not so sure about that. What if there is a basic human need to do productive work? My job is a pain in the ***, but I’m not so sure I’d quit if I won the lottery. And if I did win the lottery and quit, I don’t know if I’d be happier.

Well, if you’re really itching to do work even without the pay, I don’t think anyone’s going to stop you. They just won’t pay you for it.

[RickJay]

@gaffa

Which is why I said pretty much. The odds of dialing the tech support line for any computer, electronics or cable company and not reaching someone in Bangalore are not good. The US jobs are generally for second level tech support or higher. But you have to exhaust first level before they will let you talk to the second level. I don’t know how many tech support lines you’ve called in the past few years, but my experience has been that greater than 90% of the calls have been outsourced.

As has been pointed out, what’s wrong with Asians having jobs? You’re moving your goalposts now; previously the problem was automation eliminating jobs. Now you imply the problem is foreigners having jobs. Don’t Indians need jobs?

And in any case, I simply don’t believe that 90% of call centre jobs are now in India. It’s ludicrous. Why do I see so many ads for call centre jobs here in North America?

The US unemployment rate has been fudged for years by various administrations of both parties to make things appear better than they are. The actual unemployment rate is closer to 9.5%.

Let’s assume it’s 9.5%. How can it possibly be that low, when we’ve eliminated so many jobs? Telephone operators, gone. Typing pools, gone. Bank tellers, gone. Gas station attendants (please don’t backtrack and pretend a self-service station needs as many employees as a full service one) gone. And 90% of people still have jobs? 90% of call center jobs, according to you, have moved out of the country. But the unemployment rate is lower than it was 30 years ago, when the government had every reason to fudge it.

The video store job was the 80s and 90s equivalent of being a soda jerk. I remember the video store boom quite well. Thousands of mom’n’pop stores, several in every neighborhood which were wiped out by the huge chains, employing a much smaller number of people, which are now being wiped out by a web site with a primarily automated distribution center that, all together, might employ less than 1% of of number of people at the peak mom’n’pop video shop era. Is that clear enough?

Why should it concern us that a job that did not exist 30 years ago won’t exist tomorrow? Surely you aren’t saying that it was the minimum wage jobs at Blockbuster that kept our economy going?

And if jobs and productivity can be created through video stores, why can’t they be created through something else? Look at Blackberry. They’re up to what, 9,000 employees worldwide?

See above. The “unemployment rate” is the number of people currently seeking employment, but - after six months of not finding a job, they no longer consider you unemployed and drop you from the list of unemployed people.

Sounds like an urban myth to me.

As Gorsnak points out, it’s funny that there are “Help Wanted” signs everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE around here, businesses need entry level work, and there’s a not of skilled work for which people are desperate for employees. “I can’t find good employees” is a common refrain I hear from my customers.

I’ve done audits on staffing/recruitment firms as well, and they often simply have no decent employees. I don’t mean they lack people with specialized educations or industrial skills; many of them have trouble finding people who are legitimately employable, people who will, if asked to show up for work on Monday at 9 AM, actually show up on time and not call in sick with a hangover before Wednesday. The quality of the employees who cannot hold down jobs is truly, unbelievably, staggeringly bad. I’m taking about 26-year-olds who are dragged into the recruiting office by their mothers.

In every case, the net total will be fewer people than whatever business has been replaced. Cell phones and Blackberrys? All assembled in China.

Blackberrys are assembled in Canada, so far as I am aware, or else I am quite confused as to what their 7,000 employees do in Waterloo. They can’t all be counting money, and the call center there only numbers about 1,300 people (not counting the thousand in Halifax, Nova Scotia.) But Canadians are foreigners to you so do those jobs not count?

There you have a business that created eight thousand jobs - and counting - right here at home. GOOD jobs, almost all of them; these are not McJobs. The week before last I visited a business in Markham that has gone from no employees ten years ago to 400 today and they continue to grow, building a product that hasn’t existed for more than twenty years or so (and was primitive then.) Last Thursday and Friday I was with a customer just ten years in business that was expanding and had 50 employees working on various aspects of steel fabrication, welding and assembly, and on Wednesday it was a structural steel design and fabrication firm. This week I plan to visit a firm that builds and repairs ships. Most of my customers are growing, moving into the opportunities that busi8ness and the free market present. I see jobs that have been recently created every week.

[brazil84]

@Indistinguishable

Well, if you’re really itching to do work even without the pay, I don’t think anyone’s going to stop you. They just won’t pay you for it.

I agree that’s possible. However, take a look at trust fund babies. Take a look at the gangstas in rap videos dancing around on yachts, showing off their watches and their babes. I find it unsettling that we all may end up like that.

[Indistinguishable]

Well, alright.

I mean, I personally have no problem with other people enjoying yachts, watches, babes, and the flashing thereof, if that’s what gets them off. Why should I care? But, at any rate, concerns about cultural malaise rather than the state of the economy, per se, seem a bit removed from the topic of this thread, or at least what I had sensed it to be.

[begbert2]

As one who believes that the ‘limitless army of robots’ scenario has the potential to ‘break’ the market (under certain conditions), I have to say that I am not convinced that a similar effect is currently occurring in the non-hypothetical world of today, either globally or strictly in the US.

Yes, the OP sounds to me like an allegory about the perils of modern job loss to technology/job exportation. But it’s an allegory that’s been given serious teeth, escalating the situation several orders of magnitude beyond what we’re currently seeing so far. If you think the world today is seriously running out of jobs, feel free to prove it, but I don’t see it so far myself. In the hypothetical, yes. In the real world, no.

[Lemur866]

Well, I’ll say that in the event of strong AI replacing almost all human jobs, we’ve got ourselves a serious can of worms, much more serious than the prospect of widespread human unemployment.

Because if we can invent a computer that can think like a human, 18 months later we’ve got one twice as smart as a human. Once you put that 2x smart computer on the job of designing the next generation of computers it’s hard-core nonstop Singularity on Singularity action.