Re:Automation is set to hit workers in developing countries ...
by coldtea on Wednesday March 29, 2017 @08:21PM
(#13991878)
>Let's see. My guess is that "Things that can't be created by automation" become more scarce, hence more rare. That means their price goes up, demand increases, and more folks start making that stuff.
This assumes that:
(1) jobs making "things that can't be created by automation" would be enough to replace jobs replaced by automation.
(2)people whose jobs have been automated en masse will still have money to pay for that marginally useful scarce products (or consumption by the rich/upper classes will be enough to employ them).
None of those two are safe bets. There's nothing magical about jobs, and no physical or other law that guarantees that humanity will forever, whatever the technology available, still have jobs for everybody.
It's very much possible to have a world where only 5-10% of the population is required to perform the most manual/difficult to AI jobs and all the others are automated away.
We basically have 2 historical instances where this didn't happen, and we extrapolate that this is some guarantee. But it's far from guaranteed.
The industrial revolution turned most manual and farm jobs into factory jobs because early factories weren't automated enough by the technology of the time -- not because it was "inevitable".
The service factor jobs that replaced most factory jobs when factories got more automated happened because we had the increase factory production, but no way to automate those (from accounting to burger flipping). If the majority of those get automated away from AI and software, there might be new jobs, but there's no guarantee for that.
There might be some way (through a "New Deal" style effort to create various marginally useful jobs for humans), or a huge reduction in working hours, or there might be UBI, or there will be discontent and chaos and people who are more numerous than jobs.
This assumes that:
(1) jobs making "things that can't be created by automation" would be enough to replace jobs replaced by automation.
(2)people whose jobs have been automated en masse will still have money to pay for that marginally useful scarce products (or consumption by the rich/upper classes will be enough to employ them).
None of those two are safe bets. There's nothing magical about jobs, and no physical or other law that guarantees that humanity will forever, whatever the technology available, still have jobs for everybody.
It's very much possible to have a world where only 5-10% of the population is required to perform the most manual/difficult to AI jobs and all the others are automated away.
We basically have 2 historical instances where this didn't happen, and we extrapolate that this is some guarantee. But it's far from guaranteed.
The industrial revolution turned most manual and farm jobs into factory jobs because early factories weren't automated enough by the technology of the time -- not because it was "inevitable".
The service factor jobs that replaced most factory jobs when factories got more automated happened because we had the increase factory production, but no way to automate those (from accounting to burger flipping). If the majority of those get automated away from AI and software, there might be new jobs, but there's no guarantee for that.
There might be some way (through a "New Deal" style effort to create various marginally useful jobs for humans), or a huge reduction in working hours, or there might be UBI, or there will be discontent and chaos and people who are more numerous than jobs.