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So You Automated Your Coworkers Out of a Job (gizmodo.com)
merbs writes: Automation is too often presented as a faceless, monolithic phenomenon -- but it's a human finger that ultimately pulls the trigger. Someone has to initiate the process that automates a task or mechanizes a production line. To write or procure the program that makes a department or a job redundant. And that's not always an executive, or upper-, or even middle management -- in fact, it's very often not. Sometimes it's a junior employee, or a developer, even an intern.
In a series of interviews with coders, technicians, and engineers who've automated their colleagues out of work -- or, in one case, been put in a position where they'd have to do so and decided to quit instead -- I've attempted to produce a snapshot of life on the messy front lines of modern automation. (Some names have been changed to protect the identities of the automators.) We've heard plenty of forecasting about the many jobs slated to be erased, and we've seen the impacts on the communities that have lost livelihoods at the hands of automation, but we haven't had many close up looks at how all this unfolds in the office or the factory floor.
In a series of interviews with coders, technicians, and engineers who've automated their colleagues out of work -- or, in one case, been put in a position where they'd have to do so and decided to quit instead -- I've attempted to produce a snapshot of life on the messy front lines of modern automation. (Some names have been changed to protect the identities of the automators.) We've heard plenty of forecasting about the many jobs slated to be erased, and we've seen the impacts on the communities that have lost livelihoods at the hands of automation, but we haven't had many close up looks at how all this unfolds in the office or the factory floor.
should be.
i could live a little longer in this prison
>> been put in a position where they'd have to (automated their colleagues out of work) and decided to quit instead
I wonder if this would work on a overly righteous but inept employee. Hmmmm.
>> To write or procure the program that makes a department or a job redundant.
I don't know about you, but automating work that people manually previously had to perform is one of the main reasons I enjoy what I do.
I've spent a career automating processes. My first such innovation came in my first year and I remember having these feelings when I realized the consequences of my proposal. I spoke to my manager and she said it was our duty to make things more efficient for our customer and that if we didn't someone else would. There is always someone paying the bill whether it's customers, shareholders, private investors or tax payers or maybe in a more abstract way the environment. We always have an obligation to use those resources wisely. In the end these people will retrain and do something else as evidenced by our current unemployment rate.
We all should strive to have a higher standard of living and work less. Automation is not the enemy, bad allocation of resources is.
I know we're all supposed to fear automation, but the fact of the matter is humans respond best to other humans; there will always be work for people to do.
On that note; if I have a good employee, and I write some code that deprives them of anything with which to pay them for, a few things are happening, and will happen:
1) I was grossly underutilizing the good employee to begin with
2) I will find something else for this good employee to do.
Good employees are like gold; you never throw one away, or waste them in such a manner that they'll go looking for someone to better appreciate them. I realize a lot of managers don't grasp this concept, but enough do that good employees will find one if they keep looking.
Mind you; if I automate someone out of a job, and that's all they're capable of doing, they aren't a good employee. At best, mediocre, but probably lower than that. My payroll is more important to me than their want to waste my money.
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Any job that can be automated will be . End of discussion.
And where do all those displaced workers go? Rely on the retraining fairy tale?
For one, everyone cannot be retrained for a marketable profession. And who knows what will be marketable by the time they're done.
And only so many people can work in any profession before it gets saturated.
And it's one thing if someone is in say their 20s, but sending a middle aged person for retraining? Even if they could do very well, employers don't like hiring old (over 40) people.
And in the past when workers lost their job because of automation, they were SOL. If they were LUCKY they got a job lower on the socioeconomic scale. Those weavers who were displaced in the Industrial Revolution became unskilled laborers when they could. Supervisors? Nope - unless they knew someone. Machine operators? Nope - they trained and hired kids to do that.
We really need to think on what to do with those displaced workers because they're all not going to crawl away and drink or do opioids until they die; which is exactly what's happening in much of parts of the country that is being decimated because of our changing economy.
The other way is sad too. Having employees do busy work that could easily be automated is kind of soul-crushing in its own way. It's like watching someone dig a tunnel with a spoon when you're standing next to them with a shovel.
It's sad to see someone lose their job, especially if they haven't built skills to get their next job. But we would never go the other direction and purposely remove automation and modern tools from people so that we could hire additional folks. The fact that we never choose to go backwards means that we should be wary of being too critical of moving forward.
I keep hearing that the only solution is to come up with new jobs for them, but there doesn't seem to be much of anything. When I was a kid it was coding and then the H1-Bs and outsourcing took those jobs. Then it was biotech, but those jobs never really materialized in mass (and you need a 4-6 year degree to get them).
I keep saying this on Automation threads, but there was close to 80 years of strife and unemployment following the industrial revolution before WWI & II came alone (the largest government backed guaranteed jobs programs in history, which I could take the credit for that observation but it was Rob Reich who made it). We blew up most of Europe & Asia and killed tens of millions of working age males. The 20th century equivalent of Aztec sacrifice to cull the population.
Are we gonna do that gain? If not what are we doing to do with all these people? Look at the American Indian reservations before the Casinos if you want to see what life is like for people who aren't needed by anyone. Do we want large masses living like that? If not do we have a solution besides "Wait 80 years for a technological revolution to employ everyone"?
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folks who can do cryptography, AI math, complex mechanical and electrical engineering, etc.
The key here is these are highly skilled and creative people. They're not just workers, they're creators. When you've got people literally making new things for your business yeah, they're gonna be worth while.
This is not to say you can't make money off good employees. But you're going to run into margins at some point. Like the classic pizza example of economics. That first slice is great, and second might even be better, by the third you're pretty much done and you're probably not gonna make it to the crust on #4. Diminishing returns.
The key here is your good employees are "doers". They aren't making new things for you and opening up new markets, they're just servicing the existing markets.
Most of us are "Doers". Some of them are even very, very good at it. But there just aren't that many "creators". Especially in STEM fields. If there were we'd already have flying electric cars and no disease. You're expectations are too high, which sadly is pretty common among small business employers. You want the world, but you don't want to have to pay for it.
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If all the jobs are automated, and no one has any jobs, who will buy the stuff the machines produce?
I do not have a signature
Not for a living wage.
I wonder how the idiots who think this is all wonderful will feel when *they* are automated out of a job. Esp. when their job was "automated" by idiots.[1]
In the late seventies and early eighties, there was a lot of blather about how, although factory jobs were being automated and going away, the "information economy" will provide more and better jobs.
These days, there's no blather about anything, because there are no zillions of jobs, other than low-level healthcare assistants who get paid, and treated, like crap.
Ever notice that if you lay people off, they don't buy anywhere near as much as they did before? Can't imagine why....
But those who think it all ought to be automated should be 110% on board with a basic income paid to everyone.[2]
1. Like the idiot "you can check in on the pad" at my doctor's... which is too stupid to tell me "I don't see you scheduled for today", the way the person did, when someone handled me.
2. You're worried about my BI coming out of your taxes? Why - you're not working either. They'd be coming out of Bill Gates' taxes, and Warren Buffet's taxes, and Sen. Mitch McConnell's taxes, and Apples, and Microsoft's, and....