News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: Does one feel they are contributing positively to... by dx034 on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @10:26AM (#15183931)
If this time is not completely different, automating jobs will have positive benefits for all, esp those working in jobs automated away. Automation has happened continuously since the 1800s and new machines were always feared to take away many jobs (or earlier, e.g. by the mechanical knitting machine in ~1589). Looking at datasets of popular jobs from just a century ago it's amazing to see how many of those ceased to exist and how little we miss them. I'm sure most of the jobs to be automated away are not "dream jobs" that people will miss thoroughly.

Not to say that it doesn't bear risks but there's currently no indication that this time jobs wouldn't be replaced by something better. Just because many think so doesn't make it true, Keynes also firmly believed in the 1930s that we would run out of work and yet I cannot see that anywhere.

Re:Ask HN: Does one feel they are contributing positively to... by Retric on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @10:31AM (#15183968)
% of population working has declined significantly since 1600. Right now we are under 2/5 of the US population (~38.8%) is working a 35+ hour a week job.

So, I suspect they have been costing jobs. Society has simply shifted to use a lower percentage of peoples time vs. having large numbers of people never work.

However, unless we start reducing the retirement age down to late 40's or other very large scale changes that's only going to keep working for so long.

Re:Ask HN: Does one feel they are contributing positively to... by dx034 on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @10:36AM (#15184006)
And we will probably continue to do so. Life expectancy in many countries is likely to rise so that further automation can help to keep the retirement age. Most people in Europe today retire at around the same age as 100 years ago (~65) while living much longer.

But still, we don't see joblessness or masses of people unqualified for the market. Faster developments will lead to many having 3-5 careers over their life time but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

Re:Ask HN: Does one feel they are contributing positively to... by Retric on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @10:49AM (#15184099)
What's different this time is rather than replacing physical effort we are replacing judgement. Automated checkout lines, self driving cars etc are attacking the kind of jobs you can train people to do.

It's true we are creating more jobs, but mostly by having people do things that are low priority and thus low paying. There might be unlimited demand for service jobs like raft guides, but they pay crap because they compete with things like video games.

Re:Ask HN: Does one feel they are contributing positively to... by dx034 on Friday September 08, 2017 @06:07AM (#15199078)
I only partly agree. We create jobs for both, high value added and low value added. The low value added still increase productivity (Amazon warehouse workers serve more clients than retail cashiers) but most focus will be on high value-added.

What disappears is the middle. This means we have to ensure that as many people as possible can get an education preparing them for higher value-added jobs. More diverse university courses and free education could help with that, vocational training can do the same.

Re:Ask HN: Does one feel they are contributing positively to... by Retric on Friday September 08, 2017 @06:48AM (#15199248)
Amazon warehouse workers are hardly the kind of jobs safe from automation. Self checkout lines supliment cashiers, but that means you end up with fewer cashiers in the short term not zero. Amazon clearly uses automation when cost effective and competing head to head with machines is not a long term viable option.