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Why Automation Won't Displace Human Workers (diginomica.com)
"There was never a job opening for a drone pilot until there was something to fly," writes the founder of market research firm Beagle Research Group, arguing that automation won't inevitably lead society to a universal basic income "free lunch" because new jobs arise when "new capabilities, technical and otherwise, innovate them into existence."
Heck, computer programmers had no existence until computers. At one point a computer was just someone who was very good at math performing calculations all day...it took a year to check all of the calculations needed to produce the atomic bomb and that work was all done by humans. Imagine how history might be different if even one of them had a pocket calculator. You get the idea. New technology inspires new jobs.
He also argues that historically automation eliminates jobs that were "dull, dirty, and dangerous," and that automation also ends up performing previously-nonexistent jobs -- or work that was forced onto customers in self-service scenarios.
He also argues that historically automation eliminates jobs that were "dull, dirty, and dangerous," and that automation also ends up performing previously-nonexistent jobs -- or work that was forced onto customers in self-service scenarios.
New jobs - due to innovation or due to other reasons - is what macroeconomics call "growth".
Less jobs for the same effect - due to automation or for other reasons - is what they call an increase in "productivity".
Both effects are measured and reported by various sources.
For the last decades growth has been lower thant productivity gains. These measurements include all the effects he is listing.
The projections for the future are worse. Some of these projections take all these effects into account.
The problem is, in the Victorian age, automation freed people up from some jobs, but not everything was automated, so there were still jobs to be had. Sure, they might also be backbreaking labor, but it was still a job.
We're on the cusp of self-driving cars right now. They're not perfect, and it's most cases, it's not true auto-pilot yet, but it's getting there. Assuming no road-blocks (no pun intended) in the way, within 5-10 years, we're going to have self-driving cars.
And there goes the taxi industry. And the trucking industry. What jobs will they transition to? Okay, sure, not every taxi driver and trucker will be out of work on the same day, but their jobs are going to go away. What happens then?
It's going to be incremental. We're not all going to wake up one day and find out that automation has taken away all of our jobs. But saying it's not going to happen at all is facetious at best.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
No, it doesn't depend. Most people are not creative in any way or form and you don't need creativity in routine situations. Most of what we consider a job today also does not require creativity. Sure, creative, knowledgeable and smart people will find jobs in post-automation world. This is maybe 10% of population, what the rest of 90% of population would do? Starve to death? It used to be service, but we killed that culture in the Western world - very few have a cleaner, cook, live-in nanny, butler and so on.
Excuse me? Show me any company that is willing to pass those savings onto customers! When any company reduces costs, they automatically think "It was our business direction that reduced these costs, therefore we shall reap the benefits."
Costs are never going down, no matter how much automation there is.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Same in IT, once upon a time companies ran all their stuff inhouse and it took a lot of people to run all that.
Our company of ~300 has exactly 1.5 end user support people, most of our shit it in the cloud, if it breaks down, someone else fixes it. Once desktop support was a very manual job, lots of time spent running around fixing stuff. Now the hardware goes for 5+ years with out breaking, the apps are in the cloud and run in a browser. The machines are 100% remotely managed. This shit is so reliable I cant remember the last time I had to even "remote desktop" someones system to look at an issue. System playing up? reimage it, and run the automated process to reload the apps, still acting up, probably hardware, give them a spare unit, and send the other one away for repair. It takes minutes to a day at most to identify if the hardware was a problem. We dont even have a "helpdesk" in the conventional sense where people call or email us, everythign is self service where possible, then they open a ticket in a tracking system and we get to it, rather then being disrupted.
Fucking rubbish. The UK abolished slavery before you colonials had that nasty North v South spat. Domestic servants only really declined in number when WW1 started.
That's a half a century after.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."