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The Future of Work Might Not Be So Bleak (bloomberg.com)
From a report, shared by readers: That said, technology can also favor standard salaried employment. The economists George Baker and Thomas Hubbard, for example, have noted how onboard computers could change U.S. trucking. By monitoring behavior, they would solve a moral hazard problem: Drivers have little incentive to be as careful with company trucks as they would with their own. As a result, more drivers could become employees of companies that buy and maintain fleets, rather than going it alone. They wouldn't have to invest in their own vehicles, which makes them vulnerable to recessions by putting their savings in the same sector as their labor; and they wouldn't be out of pocket and out of work when their trucks broke down. More generally, conventional jobs have a lot of advantages. First, a single worker or group of workers might lack the capital needed to set up a business, or prefer to avoid the stress and risk of running one (consider doctors or dentists who choose to be employees of a medical clinic). Second, business owners might not want their employees to have other bosses -- particularly if the work involves confidential information or team projects that require undivided time and attention. Third, reputations based on ratings might not be reliable: The economist Diane Coyle has shown that the quality of individual consultants can be hard to monitor, at least immediately, whereas a traditional consultancy may be more efficient at "guaranteeing" quality. In short, I believe that salaried employment will not disappear, although it might become less prevalent over time.
n/t
The tax system is biased towards those who risk capital.
This will remove one of the only and best options for upward class mobility. This is a real problem when combined with the joke standards for public STEM education, the other real way out/up.
Interesting times.
..don't panic
>They wouldn't have to invest in their own vehicles, which makes them vulnerable to recessions by putting their savings in the same sector as their labor
Owning their own vehicles means they can enjoy reduced income during a recession, rather than losing their job entirely.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Nearly every trucking company has more trucks than drivers due to wages, not a fear of truck damage.
... as self driving trucks, cargo ships, taxis, etc. will be introduced to the market in the coming years. Use other examples.
sigo ergo sum
>> I believe that salaried employment will not disappear, although it might become less prevalent over time.
Um...so you DO believe the future is bleak?
towards elite rent seekers. Owners, not workers. Those folks don't risk anything. Their loans are guaranteed, they've got insider information given verbally at country clubs, laws don't apply to them and if all else fails we've given them so much wealth that if they go down they take everything with them.
STEM isn't going to get you out/up given the amount of outsourcing going on. Only the very brightest can overcome that barrier and not everybody can be a genius, if they could the definition of genius would change.
If you're referencing that Chinese insult about living in interesting times though you're spot on. Between automation, general attacks on education in the form of funding cuts and our endless wars the working class is boned.
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vehicle ownership for truckers is a scam. They're low paid and vulnerable (living on the road is costly, you can't just look at their base pay). Trucking companies used that during the recession to force them into 'leases' where the truck company fronts them money for the truck and takes the cost of buying and maintaining it out of their paycheck. Think Uber but a million times worse. If you stop working the truck company takes the equity in the truck but if there's not enough they leave you with the debt. There was a big expose where a guy was working 90 hours a week and taking home pennies (literally, he showed some pay stubs that were around 20 cents after fees).
That said, this guy is full of crap. Automation will put truckers out of business. And even if it didn't there's no way the trucking companies are giving an arrangement that puts all the cost/risk on somebody else. Not unless the government steps in, and I know I'll get dinged for partisanship here but the Republicans control every single branch of government. I'm not holding my breath.
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I was in an antique car and carriage museum recently. There were some beautiful old carriages and vintage cars. In between the two eras were a few mashups - carriage bodies which had been fitted with a small gas engine and a steering tiller. The worst of both worlds, this technology was clumsy and short-lived. This image came to mind when reading about installing computers in trucks but keeping the driver. How long will this last until self-driving trucks push them into a niche in some museum?
Lots of random postulation in TFA, with little useful substance. Clear that the authors needed to write about something, and this was something. Even if they didn't know anything about the topic, and couldn't be bothered to learn.
It's still not clear, however, which human tasks computers will be able to replace, and what the effects will be.
Oh really? Then what is the point of your guesswork here?
The most difficult tasks for computers involve unforeseen problems that do not match any programmed routine....the example of a driverless car that sees a little ball pass in front of it. This ball poses no danger to the car, which therefore has no reason to slam on the brakes. A human being, on the other hand, will probably foresee that the ball may be followed by a young child, and will therefore have a different reaction. The driverless car will not have enough experience to react appropriately.
Yep. No idea what they're talking about. It's like each driverless car has to learn how to drive on its own, and can't possibly learn from all of the other ones on the road. And there's no possibility that the car would detect the cross-traffic of a child which is large enough to trigger auto-breaking far before a human could notice and react. Even under parked cars, which is technology we currently have. Can I get paid to write about things I have no clue about? How do I sign up for that job?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
In short, I believe that salaried employment will not disappear, although it might become less prevalent over time.
That's too bad. I was looking forward to the future with a 4 hour work week, and robots doing all the actual work, sitting on the beach being served pina coladas by a robot.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And they cannot stop projecting that damn behavior onto everyone and everything.
" Drivers have little incentive to be as careful with company trucks as they would with their own"
This is blatantly false. People have many other incentives than the merely financial. The fact that we recognize when someone has a good work ethic, is a staunch keeper of their word, is very conscientious, all of these traits reveal non-financial motivation. Sure, some of that clearly will translate into personal gain in the form of the likelihood of continued employment, but not everyone has to stop and think "will my job be helped or hurt if I don't take care of my employer's vehicle?"
And yet time and again, economist measure people's behavior, intentions, motives, and goals almost solely in financial terms and then draw ridiculously biased conclusion based upon that faulty reasoning.
"But the people being displaced can move into higher level roles. I remember reading one story about a truck driver who was not driving a truck any more, but instead monitoring several trucks and taking over control for tricky parts of the driving."
I am confused about one of the words you used, I must have mistaken its meaning.
What does 'several' mean?
You know...if our society comes down to this and actually dependent upon this tech providing all....we're all pretty much fucked when something as natural and unpredictable as a solar flare knocks out the power grid for any good length of time.
That's not even counting terrorist hackers fscking up the infrastructure.
You think it looks bleak on The Walking Dead...let the US go without power grid for a month or so across the country and we'll see some pretty nastiness come out in people when they have to do more to survive than just drive down the block to the grocery store.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
These two geniuses ignore the fact that "onboard computers" are only an intermediary step towards no drivers at all, which is clearly the goal of the trucking industry.
I can't wait for their next article, which is titled, "Being a Slave is Not So Bad Because You Get Free Room and Board".
You are welcome on my lawn.
independent contracting in name only is the issue look at fedex they got sued over that.
companies can get all of the control of employees but get bypass the liability and they can even profit by renting tools at high prices to workers + sell uniforms at high cost to them.
Apparently, the future of work is driving a truck for somebody else's trucking business. Yes, this implies the article is written for AIs.
trains still lot's of manual switch both freight sidings and commuter parking areas outlining stations.
Sounds more like it was written by a chatbot. There are a lot of conclusions drawn there with very little supporting supposition, never mind evidence.
That little trucking example was incredibly wrong on several points.
1 - the trucks will be autonomous, no drivers, no jobs
2 - what jobs there will be will not be secure. The piece just assumes working for someone else means full time secure work. Not part time, on demand work, which more and more of this type or work is. Needing for drivers for deliveries is generally seasonal. With several seasonal markets, be it packages, equipment or seasonal goods.
3 - owning less equipment means you are more at the whim of the job market and can be exploited for low wages
That's the hell we're living in currently, and it has to STOP.
We programmers have been automating our own work for decades now. One could argue that we are working ourselves out of a job, but somehow there always seems to be more work--more automating--to do!
Back in the 30s, Keynes predicted we would all be working four-hour days by now. Somehow, that didn't quite work out.
https://www.theguardian.com/bu...
I love all the automated tools I can now use every day, to do the drudge work I used to have to do manually. Who would want to go back to those days? What actually happens is that automation allows us to do MORE than we could do before, and to do NEW things we could never do before. The total amount of work doesn't seem to be shrinking at all.
Look at the downside too: Employers would become liable for those illegal work-hours and falsified log-books.
Employers push the cost of vehicle maintenance onto contractors so they don't have to bear the cost of shitty drivers. It also allows them to avoid other costs, such as overtime and the severe legal costs on it.
Your model is grossly incomplete and a pure fantasy as a result. If you have that truck driver supervising, say, 10 trucks (which is on the low end), then you also have 9 unemployed truck drivers. And you seem to completely miss that most people need "work" as a source of meaning in their lives. Food and shelter is not enough, longer term.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
In case of solar flare, everyone under the age of 30 will commit suicide.
The Mormons will take over
slave labor and slave wages continue to exist.
As well as the Amish.
If you have that truck driver supervising, say, 10 trucks (which is on the low end), then you also have 9 unemployed truck drivers
Only if there are not more trucks, which self-driving monitored trucks allow for.
I do think there will be fewer truck drivers (I don't see the number of trucks increasing 10x) but a lot of that can be handled through simple attrition of drivers retiring.
In any case it doesn't mean the role goes away, just how people perform that role. But the general life of a truck driver gets better when technology is applied.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it's Gross than he's either team driving with his own truck or he's training.
There's good money in team driving, but it's also kinda crap work. I knew a husband/wife team that did it but besides that it's rough.
If you're a trainer you're taking your life in your hands. The newbies have a high rate of crashes. You're safer in Afghanistan, Iraq or doing undersea welding. It pays well because it's dangerous as hell.
Source: I've got several friends and the aforementioned husband/wife team in truck driving.
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Labor is not the only motivation to enslave. There is dominance, sexual and otherwise; there are bragging rights, pride, ego. Etc.
For instance, when someone ties their partner to the bedposts, they aren't doing it to get them to work harder.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
And will only last until the robots can do the deliveries. Likewise, security roles, vehicle repair, dispatching, loading, transitions between rail and truck chassis for modular carriers, etc.
There's no reason - at all - to assume that the low level job market going forward will be as rich in employment opportunities. Every time any idea like that has been put forward, it's been full of huge holes in reasoning. No exception this time, either.
It's bullshit, and it's bullshit designed to keep the soon-to-be-unemployed passive just a little while longer. That too will come to an end.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You really do not have a systems view of this at all, you just see some isolated details. This causes you to fail to understand the issue.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
or, you know ...
Get a small loan ($1 million) from daddy to get going ....
Not any more. That job has been taken over by AI.
And besides, this is Slashdot. We've been doing it for free for 20 years.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
towards elite rent seekers. Owners, not workers. Those folks don't risk anything.
Bullshit they don't risk anything. If you think that entrepreneurs don't risk anything then you've never tried to start or run a company. Owners of companies generally live a life of low grade terror because of the vast number of things that can go wrong and the amount of money they stand to lose.
Their loans are guaranteed, they've got insider information given verbally at country clubs, laws don't apply to them and if all else fails we've given them so much wealth that if they go down they take everything with them.
That's a quaint picture you have that has little correlation to reality for all but a tiny handful of business owners in rare cases. Go ahead and try to get an unsecured loan even if you have a lot of money. I've done it myself and been around plenty of others who have as well including some very wealthy people. It's very rare that you can get a loan without some form of collateral and/or personal guarantee. Even if you are already rich and successful.
STEM isn't going to get you out/up given the amount of outsourcing going on. Only the very brightest can overcome that barrier and not everybody can be a genius, if they could the definition of genius would change.
Who ever claimed that an engineering degree would protect you from globalism? Trying to pretend that global competition isn't a real thing is as absurd as pretending that the industrial revolution was a passing fad or that people will get over these computer things soon. You don't have to be a genius to compete in a global market. But you do have to be aware that the wages will not be set locally and protectionism will not save you.
If you're referencing that Chinese insult about living in interesting times though you're spot on. Between automation, general attacks on education in the form of funding cuts and our endless wars the working class is boned.
It's adorable that you think that. The problem the "working class" (and some white collar work too) in the US has is that in general they want wages that are well above the global average for equivalent work. If you are doing labor intensive work then that work is going to tend to migrate to where labor is cheap. When politicians pander to "bring back manufacturing jobs" what they are really promising is to lower wages to compete with the global prevailing wage. There are plenty of jobs. There might not be plenty of jobs wage levels near the top of the bell curve. Supply and demand. China and India have lots of labor so prices for that labor are relatively cheap. If you want higher than average wages then you had better have higher than average productivity too.
And you seem to completely miss that most people need "work" as a source of meaning in their lives.
No, they don't.
Most people need work as a source of money to buy food, a roof over their head, clothes for their children and so on.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
On the contrary: It is you who are not considering the larger view of the future, how the connections between all aspects of industry will play out.
You may have a larger picture of now, but you are not projecting it into the future and applying technological changes that are imminent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You know...if our society comes down to this and actually dependent upon this tech providing all....we're all pretty much fucked when something as natural and unpredictable as a solar flare knocks out the power grid for any good length of time.
In 1870, 90% of the US labor force were farmers.
Today it's less than 2%, and it seems like less than 5% in total of our labor goes into farming, chemicals, and so forth. We use GMO, pesticides, tractors, and the like. A single individual can feed themselves for about 3% of the median income, although it's closer to 9% because people eat out-of-home a lot more than they used to--McDonalds is food and servants to cook and clean for you, plus the rent of the building, all on a time share.
Do you realize how much technical progress has gone into farming? The planet can support about 150 million humans as hunter-gatherers; agriculture brought that up; and, in the early 1900s, we faced impending famine because we can't support 2 billion people--wait, no, a bunch of selective breeding, new farming technology, and so forth fixed that, and the global population nearly doubled in five years as a result.
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If you have one truck driver doing the work of ten mechanics while what amounts to a fraction of a bunch of other people doing the work of the driver (the engineer who makes a design replicated millions of times; the factory workers who make millions of trucks per year; etc.), then you have, say, 1/5 of a person's working hours doing what 1 person did before.
For simplicity's sake, say it's one trucker doing the work of five.
You only have to pay one trucker.
Okay, there are a lot of independent shipping companies. A lot. There are a lot of local shippers pulling last mile, a lot of cross-country shippers, a lot of big names like WABASH and GOD and a lot of small names and even independent contractors. The independents will get folded into small shops with multi-truck fleets because we don't need drivers--eventually (this won't happen right away unless you fuck up royally and delay the movement onto self-driving trucks until everyone is ready to jump on that bandwagon right away, causing massive unemployment).
With so many elections, you're competing for business. It costs 20% as much to ship goods. If you're making twice as much profit margin, you can charge 22% as much! ... well, that won't happen, because prices won't just hit the bottom; they'll have to push downward as trucking fleets fight over customers.
Every downwards tick means lower costs to get goods to retail stores. Wal-Mart is going to start talking about "price rollbacks" again. Target is actually bigger; K-Mart is gone, but was never a "lowest low prices" store so much as it was a "we're K-Mart and shopping here is good because our prices are low" store (i.e. not "lowest", but "low"). K-Mart was all about store loyalty; Wal-Mart and Target are both about a retail price war, although Wal-Mart advertises it more.
Most consumers aren't truck drivers, so most consumers are still working. They get wages. With the lower costs, the prices start coming down, and people buy and have money left. Aside from some really super-rich folks whose savings and investments grow and grow because they spend freely and don't run out, most folks are hitting the end of discretionary spending. That means they have more discretionary spending, where their remainder before was zero; this implies discretionary spending greater than spending capacity.
So, of course, with the increased spending capacity, they spend.
Well, someone needs to ship those new goods.
We're not putting the other 80% of truckers back in trucks. Someone needs to operate the registers, unload the trucks, track inventory, manage retail stores, and so forth as well. They'll eat into the consumer's new spending power.
There's a delay. It takes time--months. To avoid recession, you want these things to be legal before they're mature: early adopters, strategic adopters, late adopters, in that order. Spread the job loss over months or years so it occurs in tandem with the recovery, minimizing the peak unemployment. This, by the way, is why we need welfare.
So you're right: we start with 1 trucker who becomes a mechanic, 9 unemployed truckers, and a market that's highly-unstable and will race to the bottom, expand trucking, expand retail, employ a couple of those truckers as mechanics, and employ some other folks as retail. Some of those truckers are going to be old enough for retirement; and some won't be an "unemployed trucker" because the people starting their careers will say, "Welp that's a dying business; let's take another direction" and so will avoid entering the market in the first place.
It takes time, it's not magic, and it sends some people to high-skill jobs (mechanic) and some to low-skill jobs (retail monkey). The retail jobs will go away, too... eventually. We'll still need people for loss prevention for a while; and we'll have people for customer service. The store shelves will be stocked by humans for a while, because it's just
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Fair enough; however, most people also will want to work for economic reasons.
Take my program of Universal Social Security as a postulate. A strong welfare state: if you don't work, your two-adult household gets minimum wage (untaxed), plus WIC, SNAP, housing assistance, all this efficient welfare that's largely-diminished by the Universal Dividend. It's ... livable.
If you do work, well, you keep getting the Universal Dividend. Minimum wage is pinned to twice the Dividend for a single adult--hence the two-adult minimum-wage-untaxed household. A single individual triples their standard of living with a job; a two-adult household doubles it. The welfare state cuts into this a little, but not so much as today: because of the Universal Dividend, your total earned-plus-unearned income is higher, diminishing your eligibility for welfare services. A single person gets just enough unearned income in the 2016 model to be ineligible for SSI, so I just repeal that program.
That doesn't count the Earned Income Tax Credit: minimum wage might be $8.75/hr, but EITC also pays you, say, $3/hr on top of that, phasing out above a certain household income. $11.75/hr on top of your $8.75/hr-equivalent (40 hours) two-adult Dividend.
Why would you not work? Is your life simply a matter of consuming food and hiding in your tiny hovel? Look at people today--people who work, who have luxurious middle-class lifestyles, and still curse the rich for being richer. You're going to see the middle-class living the high life, and you're going to want it. Well you can have it, easily.
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Oh, well. Another Dunning-Kruger far-left....
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