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Decent paying factory jobs started to become a thing of the past with the invention of the spinning jenny and the cotton gin. This was followed by semi automated machine tools and huge integrated mass production factories. Robots are just an extension of the machine tools replacing workers. In many cases the machines are not only less expensive they do a better job. Automotive manufacturing spot welding of pressed steel frame panels is a prime example.
So the question becomes how do we distribute the wealth generated by these tools? Currently it goes to the owners of the tools and only slightly to the workers that tend and repair the machinery. Unfortunately for mass production sales the machine tenders are too few to buy the output of the automated factories.
One answer is increased welfare that winds up feeding and doping with alcohol and other drugs the people unable to learn to be at least machine builders and tenders let alone the capacity to be effective managers and financiers. Keeping masses of people on a dole while still bombarding them with advertizing for the “good Life" they will never afford is a recipe for hate, discontent, criminality and revolution. None of these are good for the bottom line of economic stability.
I consider one option is to reduce the human population through normal attrition and lower fecundity. This has be happening in some parts of the “first” world with below replacement birth rates. Unfortunately tending to the aged is not amenable to mechanization and fewer young people are willing to do the work for less than they can make as skilled machine builders and tenders let alone managers and financiers. Many “first” world economies have made the mistake of enhancing the population with young immigrants that are not already integrated into the ageing society. The massive immigration of Islamic workers into Christian Europe in the last generation has been a major mistake because it only postpones finding a good solution to the problem.
Copious quantities of young Islamic immigrants are only available because population limitation has not be adopted by the source cultures in this generation. The eventual adaptation of population limiting cultural changes is IMHO inevitable. Thus the problem of fewer children and young adults being available to tend the elderly will become a word wide problem. This is a bright spot in the workers being replaced by robots because elderly care may replace employment lost to automation.
The economic problem created by replacing industrial production jobs with elderly care is the care giver’s does not increase the economic wealth as is done by industrial production. Thus the society becomes less wealthy over time although connected and monopolistic businesses within the economy may increase their relative gain. The majority of the elderly and caregivers will likely remain not very much better off than the people on the dole. This leaves up back at step one of the industrial automation problem which is how does an industrialized, let alone post industrial financialized, economy retain enough people affluent enough to purchase the output of the automated factories at a high enough price to return a profit to the owners and generated enough wealth to pay for the help requires to care for the ageing population.
I have been trying to create a low or no growth economy based on a very slow growing, steady state or declining human population for decades. Is anyone else willing to try? Someone has to because, unless we over populated the earth to a population crash, this steady state situation is inevitable.
I think more than anything, the US has to get really focused on getting young people ready for technology based jobs. We need to get good at teaching math and science again. The days of any high school grad getting a decent paying factory job are going to soon be a thing of the past.
I am not convinced U.S. scores have been declining over the long term. Instead, the cultures in some other countries have evolved to value education more so than we do.
There's a thread in the science/technology forum about this sort of stuff. I think this will spread far beyond factory, production-type jobs eventually. There are very few jobs that could not be eliminated by robotics, A.I, or automation. Especially as adaptive A.I. becomes a reality, even so called-high tech jobs could be automated. There will be AI engineering other AI. At some point in the not so distant future, the govts will have to grapple with a post-work economy where permanent, high unemployment is normal. How will the socioeconomic system of such a world work?
It's very telling that the one Dutch? company moved the factory home from China not because of concerns over employment, but cost. The cost of a robot is abou 3.50 an hour, about that of a Chinese worker. The cost of Chinese workers is rising. The cost of robots is dropping. It was a decision based on the balance sheet. It will become cheaper to run the factory at home.
Its astonishing that we're very close to being able to build HAL.
I think the point is quite clear that this is a different shift then mearly moving people to different jobs. The jobs created are specialized and fewer. The jobs lost are more general and don't require the training. The first to take the new jobs will be those with some degree of the skills already. Your average clerk isn't one of them.
Much science fiction was written in the fifties abour the 'left over' people. Some of it wasn't pretty. Just as it wasn't back when the strips of farmland were replaced by grazing sheep on estates in the 1600's. Some of the displaced went to factories, but most went to places like East London. The problem of 'excess population' was solved by shipping many, willingly or not, off to new continents to labor there. But we don't have that option.
But what we may see is a new underclass of those who don't qualify and don't have the connections which is like living next to a bomb factory, hoping it won't blow.
For things to work in the future, as it is becomming, we'll have stepped forward technologically and backward socially.
A Dutch or German (and other European) entity that moves a factory offshore is no longer Dutch. Expanding production abroad is allowed. There is a huge difference. American entreprenuers offshore all their manufacturing but get to enjoy the profits in the good old USA. They also have the entire world to sell their widgets to when and if Americans can't afford them. Most importantly, however, if you are a Dutch factory worker and your job is replaced by a machine you will not starve nor will you have to perform your own tooth extractions. There are Americans starving and doing their own dental work. Or dying for the lack of decent food and dental care. We hear only about the lazy ones on EBT or TANF or regular unemployment. German businessmen pay 51% income tax which in part maintains the access of the workers they discard to food and health care. Businessmen in the U.S. pay whatever their Tax Attorney's can wangle and in some cases it is under 15%. We haven't seen the outright proliferation of automated cashier kiosks in the U.S. because these systems are still prohibitively expensive. I don't think that is changing soon. Americans are too greedy. Union busting and welfare to work and other labor consolidation strategies will compete effectively with technology in the U.S. for some time. Who would have thought that being a backward, quasi-Third World quasi-democracy slow to adopt new technology and progress, would be a good thing.
The irony here is that this argument comes up on CD and the "tin foil hat" jokes get slung around with hardiness.....but needs a couple MIT professors and 60 Minutes, or any other MSM outlet, for common folks to put any stock into it.
This is a core proponent of Agenda 21.
Those suffering from the snap-attend mind can only respond to suggestions & information divulged by authority. All else is paranoia, hate and out-of-touch rambles from the 'uneducated' crazies.
The same people would never acknowledge that the US government conducted test studies on black Americans in the 1950's to find suitable treatments for syphilis- by infecting people with the disease then treating them with experimental medicine, all without their knowledge... until a Bill Clinton admits to it.
Take home message is that we need far fewer people. Stop the baby production.
That is actually true. The ROI on the robots of today is mind-boggling. I'll approve most capital requests with a payback of 2 years or less..1-2 years allowed as the bar is common in America.
The robots in the warehouse shown erased 1.5 human jobs each. At $11 per hour, employer cost is 18/hr, 37.5k per year. The robots last about 3 years, and cost 22k. So they pay for themselves in 7 MONTHS.
What is bothering me...Why do we have to put up with crap like AI? Why SHOULD I accept that AI steal my job?
What are the benefits of no work? Lower childhood obesity? Better knowledge? Help me out here? What's the appeal of technology that people don't want to even think of ridding it? I'd rather live under the poor social conditions of the 1950's USA. This is sick. I'm serious in asking here.
What is bothering me...Why do we have to put up with crap like AI? Why SHOULD I accept that AI steal my job?
What are the benefits of no work? Lower childhood obesity? Better knowledge? Help me out here? What's the appeal of technology that people don't want to even think of ridding it? I'd rather live under the poor social conditions of the 1950's USA. This is sick. I'm serious in asking here.
In any business, the purpose is always an improvement in profitability. That is the appeal, and most in mgmt have bonus incentive plans that will also generate increased bonus payouts with every improvement in profitability.
Often what is appealing at the micro level differs from what appeals at the macro level.
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Will a robot steal your job?
