'Robots Won't Just Take Our Jobs -- They'll Make the Rich Even Richer' (theguardian.com)

Robotics and artificial intelligence will continue to improve -- but without political change such as a tax, the outcome will range from bad to apocalyptic, writes technology and politics journalist Ben Tarnoff, citing experts and studies, for The Guardian. From the article, shared by six anonymous readers: Despite a steady stream of alarming headlines about clever computers gobbling up our jobs, the economic data suggests that automation isn't happening on a large scale. The bad news is that if it does, it will produce a level of inequality that will make present-day America look like an egalitarian utopia by comparison. The real threat posed by robots isn't that they will become evil and kill us all, which is what keeps Elon Musk up at night -- it's that they will amplify economic disparities to such an extreme that life will become, quite literally, unlivable for the vast majority. A robot tax may or may not be a useful policy tool for averting this scenario. But it's a good starting point for an important conversation. Mass automation presents a serious political problem -- one that demands a serious political solution. Automation isn't new. In the late 16th century, an English inventor developed a knitting machine known as the stocking frame. By hand, workers averaged 100 stitches per minute; with the stocking frame, they averaged 1,000. This is the basic pattern, repeated through centuries: as technology improves, it reduces the amount of labor required to produce a certain number of goods. So far, however, this phenomenon hasn't produced extreme unemployment. That's because automation can create jobs as well as destroy them. What's different this time is the possibility that technology will become so sophisticated that there won't be anything left for humans to do. What if your ATM could not only give you a hundred bucks, but sell you an adjustable-rate mortgage?

Comments

Bull

[nospam007]

"By hand, workers averaged 100 stitches per minute; with the stocking frame, they averaged 1,000. This is the basic pattern, repeated through centuries: as technology improves, it reduces the amount of labor required to produce a certain number of goods. So far, however, this phenomenon hasn't produced extreme unemployment."

Yes, it did. Automatic steam-powered weaving machines caused the birth of the Union movement, because hundreds of thousands lost their jobs worldwide.
Just nobody cared at the time and the rich did get richer then as well.

Re:Bull

[Jeremi]

Technological advancements can't result in long-term widescale job loss. Because if it does, the masses wouldn't be able to buy as much stuff, and it would reduce the country's net productivity, meaning a smaller pie for the rich to take their disproportionate slice from.

That seems like an argument for why it would be bad for technological advancements to result in job loss -- which is a very different thing than an argument for why they can't result in job loss.

If you think the individually-rational decisions of various companies will always guarantee a universally-positive outcome for the market as a whole, then you've never experienced a market crash or a tragedy-of-the-commons. The "invisible hand" is not an infallible guide.

because only a government can deprive people of freedom to make their own economic decisions

Another canard -- there's nothing particularly unique about governments in that respect. Any sufficiently powerful entity can deprive people of freedom to make their own economic choices, and private corporations also do it all the time. Read about the "company store" for miners, or the conditions in which migrant agricultural workers were (and are) held. It's no good to say "well, they're technically free to walk away whenever they want" if, as a practical matter, they do not have the economic resources to do so.

That freedom is what allows people to increase their standard of living - by individually choosing more productive activities over less.

And what do you do when there is no activity that you are capable of that is economically productive, because anything you could do, a machine can do better and more cheaply? Hope that other people will buy your (inferior and more expensive) products/services out of sympathy for your plight?

Re:Bull

[MobyDisk]

I see a flaw:

What happens when you pay your workers the same wage and have them work the same hours, but you only employ 50% as many workers? ...Mind you, because that stove is only $1,673, the households which historically bought the $1,800 models can now buy your previously-$3,200 model in the same budget (although the $1,800 models will also be cheaper). Most likely, you'll move more product

But now, only 50% of the people have jobs. So there are fewer households that can afford the $1,800 models.

Consider this scenario, then let me tie it into your scenario:

There are 4 farmers. The farmers share their grazing land, but each one keeps the profits from shearing their own sheep. Each farmer starts with 10 sheep. Each farmer asks "should I buy another sheep?" Well, since they keep the profits from the sheep they buy, but share the costs, each farmer decides it is economical to buy another sheep. But now, each farmer found their cost increased by 1 full sheep, not 1/4 of a sheep, but it increased by 1/4 of a sheep for the sheep they bought and 3/4 for the 3 sheep the other farmers bought. Lesson: "Local optimization does not lead to global optimization."

Now in your scenario, the product price dropped because one company cut its labor by 50%. That resulted in fewer households who can afford $1,800. But this is just one employer out of millions. So the resulting reduction from the layoffs does not significantly reduce the number of total households that can afford the $1,800 models. However, what if all the other factories do the same thing? This problem starts to look a lot like the sheep scenario. Each factory saves money by reducing their own labor pool, but they share the customers pool. But if all factories do this same labor and cost reduction, it starts to impact the pool of customers. The short-term winner is the company that can cut costs faster than other companies. But eventually, everyone loses.

Re:so what?

[MightyMartian]

Or we could just up corporate taxes and accept that full-time long-term employment in many sectors is a thing of the past.

Re:so what?

[Opportunist]

That's the problem: That doesn't work this time around.

Back when agriculture was modernized so that we didn't need 70+ percent of the workforce in the production of food anymore, the people that worked on the fields before moved to the towns and worked in factories, and farmhands became factory workers. When factories started to modernize and automatize, people went into services and factory workers became waiters and salespeople.

The problem is that now we're replacing these people and there isn't anything they could move towards. There is no new sector opening that would hoover up that free workforce this time.

Err, guys?

[Penguinisto]

If the vast majority of humanity becomes unemployed (which is what this apocalyptic scenario implies), then no one will be buying the products that these robots make. Without customers and the money/purchasing they bring, businesses tend to collapse fairly quickly. You could counter with "well, the rich will just buy stuff from each other", but 1) the scale won't be there to justify the automation in most cases, and 2) in economics, just like in biology, when the genetic pool gets too small for a species, the result eventually becomes extinction.

Look, I get it, but honestly, this is the same argument that was being advanced 100 years ago when electricity was automating things (and 'OMG that Westinghouse guy is going to have more money than a god while the rest of us starve!'), 200 years ago when steam was automating things, etc etc. People have always adapted, shifted their career focus, and created new industries which are not as easily automated. Unless someone can come up with an argument showing how this time will be different (hint: it probably won't), then this is just a rehash of an old argument.

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in this scenario you are the ox...

Can't name replacements [Re:Err, guys?]

[Tablizer]

People have always adapted, shifted their career focus, and created new industries which are not as easily automated. Unless someone can come up with an argument showing how this time will be different

Here's the evidence: nobody can identify the new fields that are replacing the old ones, unlike the past. Sure, there are new fields, but they not appearing in sufficient quantity to replace those lost. And even those fields are being offshored to cheap-labor countries.

For example, craigslist employs about 60 people, but has probably killed tens or hundreds of thousands of newspaper-related jobs in the process.

Re:Rich are winning class war [Re: Bull]

[crtreece]

Then what they will be buying themselves, eventually, is civil war.

The owner-class won't worry about that. They'll be directing their hunter/killer robots from within their walled off enclaves.

Seriously. Once the dirty business of producing food, clothing, shelter, and high-tech toys is fully automated, why would the .1% want the unwashed masses around, other than for entertainment?