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'We Need Robots To Take Our Jobs,' Veteran Tech Reporter John Markoff Explains Why (recode.net)
Former New York Times technology reporter John Markoff used to think robots taking jobs was cause for alarm. Then, he found out that the working-age population in China, Japan, Korea and the U.S. was declining. From a report on Recode: "We need the robots for two reasons: On the one side, there are not enough workers," Markoff said on the latest episode of Recode Decode. "The demographic trends are more important than the technological trends, and they happen more quickly. On the other side, there's this thing called the dependency ratio, the ratio between caregivers and people who need care," he added. "For the first time last year, there were more people in the world who are over 65 than under five. First time ever in history. By the middle of the century, the number of people over 80 will double. By the end of the century, it'll be up sevenfold, globally."
In theory it's great, in practice it will "hit" people in different ways unevenly, and is part of the reason the rich are getting richer while the rest stagnate.
We don't know how to organize an economy to take advantage of such. We only have theories that have yet to be tested. That means we are guinea-pigs. But if we do nothing, we are still guinea-pigs, because doing nothing means changes in jobs and automation will still impact us, but without any planning.
Such displacement is arguably why T won: he gave a voice to the displaced of the Rust Belt, which are swing states. His reasoning about solutions is all off kilter, but he at least gave the problem top billing.
Managing change is politically tricky.
Table-ized A.I.
Corporate-speak translation: "There are not enough highly-educated workers who are cheap, docile, and single so they have no family distractions."
In that sense, yes, there is a shortage.
Table-ized A.I.
... think again: The vast majority of elderly people do not have the monetary resources to acquire some "robot care taker".
All those robot fantasies are based on the illusion that somehow, once there are enough robots around, people will magically start to share their wealth with others in need. It has been proven time and again that this does not happen. Not even with much more basic things like food/shelter/healthcare.
The more likely situation will be that a few robots will aide some rich elderly people, while a lot of armed robots will be in charge of putting down any rebellion from the have-nots.
And I'll explain for you. The minimum wage worker can probably manage the $8.50 meal once in a while. If he loses his job he has $0 to spend on any sort of burger.
That trend will not go well for anyone unless you're prepared to implement a basic income that will allow him to manage that $11.50 meal once in a while.
Your point being? You can hire 5000 dudes in China to dig a ditch. Doesn't mean that you aren't better off with an excavator or other heavy equipment.
"Robots" have been taking jobs for hundreds of years. Water wheels and wind mills have taken jobs of men manually grinding flour. The steam engine took the jobs of horses and people in the field. Hydraulics took the job of people manually manipulating plows. Bigger tractors took the place of more people driving more steam engines.
What used to take a few hundred men with shovels can be done with an operator in a heavy equipment cab. What used to take a few hundred men underground hauling coal and other minerals can be done by a handful of men and heavy equipment. What used to take hundreds of teachers across the US can be done by online courses.
We need robots to take over the boring repetitive stuff of now so we can work on the jobs of the future. Just like has been done to now.
Does anyone really pine for the days that it took 50+% of our workforce just to make food for the other minority? If so the Amish are 'hiring'. We leave them well enough alone and they make great meats and cheeses for us to buy.
"Basic Income can never work because it is "central planning" and that has never worked."
No it's not, you're making that up. The government sending its citizens a check every month is not at all the same as central planning of the economy.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
how many burgers will that robot of yours buy again? Gourmet or not.
Jack of all trades,master of none
The idle rich are a very small set of people. Most people do something with their lives given the opportunity. And that's the problem we need to solve: giving everyone that opportunity. We as a society suck at vocational training, and we can fix that.
In Germany if you want to work at, say, Mercedes, you'll be an intern on the factory line by 16, having gotten an education specifically tuned for that job and the chance to do the work. By graduation, you're there in that well-paying skilled manufacturing job.
America has over a million high skilled manufacturing jobs unfilled due to lack of trained workers. The companies aren't going to do that on their own -- they aren't schools -- but we as a society can surely work together with those manufacturers to make it happen. But instead we turn up our noses at blue-collar work, dismiss the working class as stupid racists, and generally separate education from labor as far as we possibly can. It won't end well.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No. This time it will be completely different. The Muslims will kill us all and then steal our women and then replace our Constitution with Sharia Law. But Trump will stop them!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!