Re:The Full Automation Fallacy
by tuatoru on Monday February 08, 2021 @06:19AM
(#26063144)
> - From our own deployment of automation (software in services sector) we have not seen a fall in number of humans in the business where we deploy automation.
Such a fall in absolute numbers would not be expected if the reorganisation made an organisation more competitive (assuming it's just one of many in its industry), so perhaps you're doing something right.[1]
> - However, we have observed these businesses adopting human capital at a much lower rate than they were in the past as their business grows in favour of technology.
This also is expected. It's what happened with the introduction of ATMs in bank branches.
However those are side issues.
One of the major points of the article is that labour shifting is sold as automation. So we need to know: how much labour and cost has been shifted onto the customers and/or suppliers of the organisations you automate? How much has been shifted out to piecework contractors? What has the effect been on the families of the employees?
Without answers to questions like these we can't really make a proper asssessment of the full social benefit of your automation efforts.
1. A cynical take on automation projects is that they are often opportunities to shake out some of the dead wood that any large organisation accumulates--accumulates because, as other have noted, the incentives within large organisations act to increase the headcounts in various fiefdoms.
The other half of that cynical take is that in other organisations they are opportunities for one group of managers to gather more power over others. This is probably the case in hospitals, where specialist bureaucrats have an advantage over doctors, so "automation" projects shift clerical labour onto doctors (and nurses and patients) while "upgrading" admin work into endless and unnecessary "cognitive tasks".
Such a fall in absolute numbers would not be expected if the reorganisation made an organisation more competitive (assuming it's just one of many in its industry), so perhaps you're doing something right.[1]
> - However, we have observed these businesses adopting human capital at a much lower rate than they were in the past as their business grows in favour of technology.
This also is expected. It's what happened with the introduction of ATMs in bank branches.
However those are side issues.
One of the major points of the article is that labour shifting is sold as automation. So we need to know: how much labour and cost has been shifted onto the customers and/or suppliers of the organisations you automate? How much has been shifted out to piecework contractors? What has the effect been on the families of the employees?
Without answers to questions like these we can't really make a proper asssessment of the full social benefit of your automation efforts.
1. A cynical take on automation projects is that they are often opportunities to shake out some of the dead wood that any large organisation accumulates--accumulates because, as other have noted, the incentives within large organisations act to increase the headcounts in various fiefdoms.
The other half of that cynical take is that in other organisations they are opportunities for one group of managers to gather more power over others. This is probably the case in hospitals, where specialist bureaucrats have an advantage over doctors, so "automation" projects shift clerical labour onto doctors (and nurses and patients) while "upgrading" admin work into endless and unnecessary "cognitive tasks".