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.

Comments

Re:It's not silly.

[gtall]

The U.S. has about 3.6 million software developers. India is expect to outpace the U.S. in number of software developers in a few years.

So, you expect the U.S. to double the software industry to accommodate the new lot, presuming they even have what it takes to retrain. And they'll be competing against India and, I presume, China, and every other country figuring to get in on software.

Numbers are important.

Doesn't depend at all.

[fyngyrz]

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.

Exactly this, and even that's only applicable if AI stalls where it is, which is a ridiculously unlikely assumption to make.

Sure, creative, knowledgeable and smart people will find jobs in post-automation world.

They'll find undertakings that suit them (as will everyone else.) They won't find jobs. No one will be paying anyone for anything; because "pay" will be an obsolete model. There's no reason to have a medium of exchange that discriminates between one person doing something completely optional, and another doing something completely optional.

It used to be service, but we killed that culture in the Western world

There's only one class of service (or "service") humans can provide that automation is unable to eventually cover, and that is interaction with other humans. Bartending, maid/butler, sex, sports, appreciation -- these kinds of things. Having said that, if people want those most of the things those interactions accomplish done well, then they will still turn to automation, with at least the initial exception of sex for procreative purposes (but that's not to say that couldn't succumb as well.)

I don't doubt for a moment that at least for a while, it will be a mark of some kind of status to have a human servant. But in a society where no one has to work, I also don't doubt for a moment that finding mentally healthy humans who want to serve in such fashions will be quite difficult.

very few have a cleaner, cook, live-in nanny, butler and so on.

[glances at Roomba cruising around in the hall] Actually, service is coming back. It is automated service though, and in its ultimate form, won't involve condemning people to working. The opposite: it will free them.

What I do with my mind that is enjoyable for me, I already do for free (because I can... when others can, I am certain they will as well.)

OTOH, what I do that I have to: I clean the catbox, mow the lawn, shop for food, wash the windows, dust, wash the dishes, cook, make the bed, wash the clothes, bedding, curtains, towels and so on, empty the Roomba, take out the trash, keep the house painted and otherwise maintained, gutters clear, deck stained and so on for a huge long list of "has to be done simply to maintain the status quo."

There isn't even one thing in that list that I want to do, and as each one falls to automation, I will be smiling ear-to-ear.

Non-conscious, sophisticated automation will free us. Conscious AI (which is to say, actual, true Scotsman AI) will almost certainly not, in and of itself; although I have little doubt that conscious AI will help us out quite a bit with non-conscious automation design.

Just as those of us who could afford them almost entirely stopped sweeping when vacuum cleaners became a thing; and those of us who have circumstances where Roombas can work and have put one into play have stopped vacuuming... we'll stop emptying the Roomba when it can empty itself. That goes for everything we don't actually want to do. the writing's on the wall. All we have to do is read it.

The problem isn't the non-working society I describe above. The problem -- and it will be a huge problem -- will be the transition from the working society we have now to a non-working society. UBI is the key to getting that accomplished with the least blood on the floor. Probably literally.

Anyone who argues that jobs will remain a dependable social construct in the face of our present technological path is in error. Barring serious disaster - comet, climate, war, major vulcanism, significant solar misbehavior, etc. - there's just no way we aren't headed for a jobless society.