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I'm usually not an alarmist, and I'm a firm believer in the idea that technology can create positions even as it eliminates others.
The Amazon dot com announcement that it was planning on using drone technology for deliveries is exciting on the one hand. It's science fiction that dares to become a reality. But I can't help but think that it could eliminate couriers. Maybe that's just one field that's getting affected, but as computers and robotics become more and more sophisticated, what happens to human labor? How can any politician or bureaucrat account for technology's impact on the American worker - on any worker for that matter?
Raise the minimum wage to $15 and we will see it first hand. We don't need humans to take orders and make burgers.
As much of a ******* as I tend to be, I agree. I think raising the minimum wage to some arbitrary value has all kinds of negative effects. I remember studying this in ECON 101 or whatever it was -- wage floor pressures. If the Mickey D's employee gets paid $15 an hour, then what does everyone else in the labor pool suddenly think they're worth? Too much, which means machines will be used to maximize efficiency and cut human hours.
I wonder if immigration laws will ever be enforced if there are more robotics put into place. Considering how much the ultra cheap labor ends up costing in health care, education, housing, etc, robotics would greatly benefit.
Historically, technology has never caused job loss, at least in the long run. If it did, we would have seen steadily rising unemployment all through the 20th century, but we didn't. U3 unemployment was around 5% in 1900, and not far from that in 2000, after 100 yrs of technology including the car, the assembly line, the computer, etc.
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Robotics has the potential to reduce or eliminate many low-wage unskilled jobs. On the other hand it will create many higher paying jobs for those that build, program, and maintain them. Those are not the same people. It will perpetuate the disparity in incomes. If I were back in college today I would definitely consider a course of study that would prepare me for a career in robotics.
I'm really not sure why we still pay people to take orders at fast foot restaurants. I regional convenience store where I live (Wawa) has a deli counter. They just use a touchscreen for your ordering. Works very well.
I would like to see a fast food place with no workers. I don't think it is possible. It would be like going to a computer/machine to cut your hair instead of a barber.
Quote:
Originally Posted by manderly6
I'm really not sure why we still pay people to take orders at fast foot restaurants. I regional convenience store where I live (Wawa) has a deli counter. They just use a touchscreen for your ordering. Works very well.
Robotics has the potential to reduce or eliminate many low-wage unskilled jobs. On the other hand it will create many higher paying jobs for those that build, program, and maintain them. Those are not the same people.
It's also not a comparable number of people: The purpose of automation is to leverage advantages for several orders of magnitude. Effectively, automation explicitly reduces the demand for hours worked by perhaps 100 but saturation and globalization now assures that technological advancement doesn't generate sufficient extra economic activity to make up for what it takes away. That imbalance isn't going to go away because the only defensible solutions to it work against the exploitative preferences of some.
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