Humans Need Not Apply - Automation of the Workforce

[Netto Azure]

​

This is a fairly well tread topic in science fiction circles, how the advent of Artificial Intelligence leads to wars between humanity and robots. But that hyperbolic scenario aside, me and my friend were discussing how we, as people would treat the quite real and now present disruption that the new automation revolution is bringing to us.

Much of the labor force in the United States and Developed countries already engage in the Service Sector economy and the developing world essentially providing much of the manufacturing labor force in the world. Each of these paths are possible to automate in many ways.

During our discussion I expressed a more optimistic view of welcoming this innovation as a way to free humans to pursue what they consider to be a fulfilling life. What Marcuse called "non-alienated libidinal work" But my friend expressed the worry that when mechanization and robotics start to provide and replace those same services, there would probably be an over abundance of unemployment in society leading to depression as their labor is what drives their lives.

Anyways, thoughts on this issue? Here's an interesting summation for the non-Youtube viewer.

 

[twocows]

Modern-day Luddites.

If we can automate a complex process, we should. Yes, there will be short-term unemployment as a result, but that will resolve itself and as time goes on, people will find themselves working on things that are more useful to humanity. As a result, the human race progresses forward faster than it would have if we kept around an obsolete process just for the sake of employing people.

 

[Deleted member 211486]

Modern-day Luddites.

At 14:29 of the vid, CPG Grey says:

"This video isn't about how automation is bad -- rather that automation is inevitable. It's a tool to produce abundance for little effort."

Seeing as he is a professor of physics with multiple degrees in different fields in science, I doubt he fears the idea of robots

 

[Oryx]

I didn't watch the video because I hate watching videos and it's so long but I read the article, and I feel like he's missing a lot. It seems like the author is thinking "so we'll automate these things and then change nothing else at all about our society and then things will fall apart!" Well...yeah, if the context in which society lives changes and society refuses to change, then bad things will happen. That's not what happens though; as the context changes, so does society. Right now, we have people in our country that have graduated high school without ever touching a computer because their impoverished schools only had half a dozen for 1000+ students. We have people that don't bother to develop a skill or never have the opportunity to and do fine because we have plenty of low-level jobs for them to take on. We need to increase our focus on education, specifically skill-building, to make this shift effective. Otherwise, we might end up with a lot of people with only low-level skills and the low-level work taken by automation, and maintained by people that did develop skills.

I think the idea of "we won't even know what we might need until it happens" is also very important. I've been watching a lot of the original Star Trek with my boyfriend lately. In one of the episodes, they "dream up" a machine that can compare two voices and say if they match and are the same person. This machine then prints out a piece of paper with the result, because the people who decided that couldn't imagine the screens we have today. What's just beyond our horizon that we can't imagine, that will seem obvious to us in a few decades?

 

[twocows]

At 14:29 of the vid, CPG Grey says:

"This video isn't about how automation is bad -- rather that automation is inevitable. It's a tool to produce abundance for little effort."

Seeing as he is a professor of physics with multiple degrees in different fields in science, I doubt he fears the idea of robots

I wasn't talking about the video, nor did I watch it. I don't think I even saw it in the post when I posted. I would have thought that was obvious, since I didn't mention the video anywhere in my post or anything it talked about, but apparently it wasn't.

I was talking about people like OP's friend, who I understood as suggesting that a small short-term unemployment increase is too high of a price for progress. There are a lot of people who believe that. I disagree with that belief and think that the benefits of automation, including in the workforce, far outweigh any minor short-term costs.

 

[Deleted member 211486]

I wasn't talking about the video, nor did I watch it. I don't think I even saw it in the post when I posted. I would have thought that was obvious, since I didn't mention the video anywhere in my post or anything it talked about, but apparently it wasn't.

I was talking about people like OP's friend, who I understood as suggesting that a small short-term unemployment increase is too high of a price for progress. There are a lot of people who believe that. I disagree with that belief and think that the benefits of automation, including in the workforce, far outweigh any minor short-term costs.

If the world is prepared. That's also what the video was about though -- it proved how a robot revolution could replace 40% of the world's population due to their growing ability to replace people whose jobs rely on their professions (engineering, maths, aeronautics, etc.), white collar jobs, and creativity (writing, poetry, and art).

 

[twocows]

If the world is prepared. That's also what the video was about though -- it proved how a robot revolution could replace 40% of the world's population due to their growing ability to replace people whose jobs rely on their professions (engineering, maths, aeronautics, etc.), white collar jobs, and creativity (writing, poetry, and art).

It would still balance itself out, I think. It's not like we're going to run out of things that need doing anytime soon, and as certain things become obsolete due to automation, people will be pressured toward other jobs that are harder to automate. It's true that 40% all at once would be a bit much, but I don't really think it would happen all at once. It'll most likely be a slower process that gives people time to retrain and learn things that are still in demand. If it did come all at once, there would probably be some pushback, but it would still work out and people would find ways to make a living doing other things.

 

[Dying Light]

I've always seen automation as a double-edged sword. Once implemented, it causes unemployment, but it saves a company money, which a good company will use to further itself and it's place to benefit us through R&D and such. I certainly abhor unemployment, as we all know, as it causes those individuals the inability to provide for themselves or their families. And although the effects can be remedied, they can, in some instances, take a long time to recoup from such a downfall.

 

[Blu·Ray]

If the world is prepared. That's also what the video was about though -- it proved how a robot revolution could replace 40% of the world's population due to their growing ability to replace people whose jobs rely on their professions (engineering, maths, aeronautics, etc.), white collar jobs, and creativity (writing, poetry, and art).

Not only does the video state that 45% of the jobs in the united states could be replaced by robots, but they could be replaced with technology that we have available today. Additionally, although the video does not state this directly, almost all of our jobs will be replaceable by robots sometime in the future. And if you're thinking that we'll just be able to move on to more sophisticated and more specialized work, you're wrong. We can't just think up millions of jobs in an afternoon. A robot revolution like this will have consequences, but whether this will be for the better or for the worse long-term it to be seen. I personally believe that the progress of humanity is important. And if robots taking over our jobs helps us move forward as a species I highly endorse this evolution. But our progress shouldn't stand above everything else, and we certainly shouldn't use progress as an excuse for doing bad things. For the sake of our society, and for the sake of the millions of people who stand to lose their jobs, I can only hope that this evolution towards an increasingly automated society will progress at a steady pace. Not too fast, not too slow. If robots are really ready to take over in a big scale, I think that we are at an interesting point in human history, and I am looking forward to seeing where our future is headed.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I've shown this video to one of my friends during our Skype chat, and his response:

they would be folish to eventually leave stuff to be done by a a.i. that could plot to destroy the human race. ai's are designed to learn though and a ai could though learn to betray its masters remember movies like i robot and one that had hal 9000. i dont trust artificial intelligence it is just gonna cause problems in the long run. remember though a ai relies on a computer which can be hacked. after some of the recent stuff i have seen article wise it is possible to manipulate an ai.

He sounds really paranoid/luddite-ish about how articial intelligence will one day wipe out all humanity once they gain a consequence like in our typical science fiction flicks. He never mentioned anything about unemployment for our normal work force.

 

[Lotus the Cat]

I watched this a week or so ago and found it very interesting. It leaves some big questions about how our society would have to change to be able to fully incorporate automation.

I think the rise of the use of automation may see the death of capitalism. In a society where the majority of people are unemployable and cannot earn a living, who buys the services provided by these robots? Unless people are happy with the idea of an ever increasing underclass and the robot owners simply purchase from other robot owners. The underclass would then be forced to set up makeshift communities of their own on whatever pieces of land they can occupy to survive - maybe it will get a bit Grapes of Wrath.

Unless society becomes socialist, with the robots working for the good of everyone, I can't imagine humans progressing as a species.

 

[Entermaid]

Automation can be great!

It's everything that Mill and Marx would have been estatic if they witnessed modern industrialization. Both having theories about increased net outputs (food, clothes, ect).

Mill postulates that greed exists when resources are limited. Of course, supplies will ALWAYS be limited since they can never be infinite. Though, we might take from his observation that increased resources to population ratios might decrease the extent of scarcity/greed.

Imagine for instance, if Chinese workers were obselete, yet, industries were able to push out more goods. Then Chinese workers could receive greater living standards and less laborious jobs. Same goes, well, everywhere when there is more output, exchange of resources, and wealth to create more service/professional industries.

It all depends on, as Marx states, who controls the means of production. Even in a capitalist society, so long as it's MIXED socialism/capitalism, there can be wealth disparity, yet satisfy the wants/needs of the population. Though, this balance is delicate. Wealth inequality is good, but has exceeded the optimal limit, since a strong consumer base is important for any capitalist market, decreased purchasing power/consumer confidence equates to less spending and more saving...not good for market growth!

I can't wait to see automization increase, more professional/service jobs increase, standard of living increase, and labor intensive jobs decrease. Wow, I usually am not such an optimist, I am sure there a variety of potential unintended consequences of automization not accounted for in my little post. (I'll be thinking.)

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

At work, I'm part of a team that helps automate processes to be more efficient. We often joke that if we did our jobs well enough there would be no more need for us as employees.

The reality is that, while if makes a good punchline, it probably won't end up happening that way in reality. Business, in order to remain successful, needs to have the ability to change and adjust to changes in its environment, similar to an animal. Thus, you simply cannot automate everything because of the fact that automation does not take into consideration the changes of the world around us. Customers will still want new modules added to their stuff, customers will want us to change this, that and the other. Automation serves to make our lives easier when it is still applicable, I doubt that it will replace everything. It should be encouraged. Automation allows us to focus on the things that make a business versatile instead of repeating tasks.

And for those who fear that automation of manufacturing will outperform humans, it will allow those humans to take and do other things as opposed to monotonous work. Either they will adopt other labour holes where they can get a new job, or they may adopt an artistry, which has its own market which automation simply cannot compete with due to its personalized nature.

I think the most important thing to regard with automation is to let it be introduced slowly. Then again, that could be said with anything that has an impact on an economy or business.