Relevant to the discussion, a report from McKinsey: http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works
The headline I keep seeing is that “half the work people do can be automated”.
So far I’ve only read the summary on the landing page.
It’s a very interesting read so far–thanks. I think they get it right in ways we’ve been talking about (that automation often tends to enable fewer and fewer people to get the same amount accomplished, rather than replacing jobs entirely):
Here’s (arguably) our first “robot lawyer”: 'Robot Lawyer' Makes The Case Against Parking Tickets : NPR
Bill Gates says we should just tax robots as though they are workers, and use the proceeds to fund job programs to take care of the elderly, disabled, and “kids in school”. He also sees the tax as a way to slow down automation so that it can be better integrated into society. Good ideas!
Why just robots? Tax all motors: they do things that honest working men (or horses and oxen) used to do, taking away desperately-wanted jobs.
Tax harvesters; tax road-graders; tax jet aircraft. Base the rate upon energy consumption.
Or, hey, just tax gasoline and electricity. (Which we already do!)
Taxing robots is a moronic idea. Robots are just a way of improving a process. Taxing robots is like taxing someone for coming up with a way to re-organize an assembly line to save on labor.
Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to tax things that improve economic efficiency is not thinking clearly.
It’s a good point. I wouldn’t be against doing it that way. It would also encourage conservation.
Except that beyond a certain stage, which we may already have passed into, “improving economic efficiency” means extreme economic inequality and a desperate circumstance for the unemployed who don’t have anything to offer that can’t be automated. And if you believe in Keynesian demand-side economics rather than supply-side, you need a lot of consumers with spending money to keep the economy fueled, rather than tying up most of the wealth in a few people’s hands. That’s where something like a mincome comes in, but you need tax money to pay for it.
I put up a thread warning about “the new machine age” on another forum over two years ago, to see how many people were aware of it yet - many in the media even now, prefer to remain quiet about it. People tended to come out with the line about having seen it before and referring to the luddites. Not realising this will be different, and change will come remarkably quickly. It won’t just affect the lower skilled “working classes” of course but will hollow out middle class jobs.
Politicians in Britain, however, are still talking about the need for half a million migrants a year, with no change in sight.
Yes, well said. It’s ironic that those working in the news media are so slow to realize this process has already taken a toll on their field. As I’ve said upthread, at this stage it tends to happen not so much in a clunky, obvious way of having a robot reporter sit down at the desk where a human used to sit, but in magnifying the power of the fewer humans still needed to work there, while reducing (and soon, eliminating) the role of people like copy editors.
In the not too distant future, though, AI and robotics will be so advanced as to make it pointless to hire anyone of average or below-average intelligence for most jobs. The capacity of AI to improve itself could theoretically take it up the IQ ladder pretty quickly, but I think humans will want to stay in charge and kind of direct efforts or at least goals, so it could be much more gradual before we get all the way to “The Machine Stops” level automation.
You mentioned the Luddites. Planet Money did a good report on them a couple years ago that highlighted how unfair it is for people to just roll their eyes at them (the historical group, or anyone who emulates them). Emphases mine:
Which neatly dovetails with my OP:
Maybe future societies can own these wondrous engines of wealth creation in common and share the outputs so that everyone can benefit instead of a privileged few. Oh wait, duh. Human nature. Silly me!
Do the companies that use machines to replace workers really want mass unemployment? Who’s gonna buy the products their machines turn out?
A giant class of people in grinding poverty is not in the manufacturers’ interest.
AI, Artificial Intelligence, is still pretty limited to whatever code the developers write. Despite numerous stories and movies and a lot of recent hype about “machine learning”, it’s mostly a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, for now at least. There is no SkyNet or HAL 9000 or Ultron out there, learning, growing, biding its time.
Well, no, not exactly. Individual cases aren’t coded any longer; AI is able to learn. The coding is for general cases. The programmers are often (joyously) surprised by what their AI can accomplish.
When the machines take over I’ll have to start dating the new ruling class. That will bring them down to our level quick enough.
What are some of the more accomplished AIs? What have they “learned”?
Yeah, I read about an AI that was being used by research scientists to analyze data and come up with equations to make predictions for future cases. The predictions are accurate, but the scientists can’t understand why, can’t make heads nor tails of the equations, no matter how long they look at them. Kind of like how chess AIs have changed chess theory for human grandmasters (a greater willingness to retreat and retrench, for instance).
Same idea as the long term interest of fisherman not to fish a valuable species into extinction. Many people don’t think that way, unfortunately. ETA: This is why more forward thinking capitalists may support a “mincome”, not just socialist types.
Immigrants are more docile: voting democracy has practically silenced the lower classes ( since there’s nowhere to go once defeated at the polls [ and a/ most bourgeois parties are in agreement anyway and b/ the conservatives have a practical lock on parliament thanks to British demographics ] ) while immigrants generally want to keep their heads down, and replacing the awkward indigenes is something the wealthy/upper-class/media/CEO-class complex has all long aspired to.
Very!
That kind of surprising exponential growth will continue in other sectors–just watch. In five years from now, even (the same time this thread has existed so far), I may come back and quote this prediction and point to examples.
And:
Great article, dofe. Thanks!