-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
As Our Jobs Are Automated, Some Say We'll Need A Guaranteed Basic Income
- Thread starter GusBus
- Start date
- Status
PdotMichael
Banned
And how dl you explain that more jobs were created by automation in the past?
Technology in the past involved the expansion of human capabilities. Consider how machinery has been an extension of the human body in a sense, allowing us to do more with the physical environment. A crane could be an example of this.
The problem now is that technology is not simply that physical extension, but a cognitive superseding. We are now making technology that simply thinks and acts quicker, faster, and more efficiently than human efforts, and this is a problem for a culture that says all humans must work above all else forever and ever, the end. A driverless car, for example, is a merging of the physical extension of mobility now mixed with a system that can process more than a human does, hence the realistic concern of human obsolescence there.
The problem we face is that much of what we can make will very likely only need people in the starting or supporting roles to such a technology, and that's not nearly as large of a body of labor as the arenas it is poised to be invasive with.
Labour will move into jobs where humans have a comparative advantage. Technological unemployment can't exist under current scenarios (distinct from disruption).
I'm also not sure how a basic income would be a solution, given it would further disrupt the labour market and would become supremely unaffordable if all these people were no longer paying into the tax system.
PdotMichael
Banned
You are just repeating a bunch of points already made in this thread without providing arguments and facts.
Keynes claimed we would today only work 3 hours every day because the increased use of machine tools and automation back in the 30s. Sure, it didn't work out that way.
Not all jobs will go and thats what actually makes this transition so hard. Alot of semi skilled labour will go, so will manufacturing, transport and basic legal work. So will alot of basic medical, tests, diagnosis shit, the stuff without a human element. But that still leaves work to be done, alot of which will still be dirty nasty and low paid.
Its probably 15-30% of jobs. Enough to make those who believe in bootstrapping or "the need for mankind to work" either very depressed or rabidly conservative.
I think we need a basic wage at that point just to put upward pressure on the wages left.
The "higher education STEM" thing is good up to a point but not everyone has the smarts for that, and even if we all did all that would do is put downward pressure on compensation for skilled work.
All i know is i dont want to go through a global french revolution so id really like the elites who run shit to get ahead of this crap.
Its probably 15-30% of jobs. Enough to make those who believe in bootstrapping or "the need for mankind to work" either very depressed or rabidly conservative.
I think we need a basic wage at that point just to put upward pressure on the wages left.
The "higher education STEM" thing is good up to a point but not everyone has the smarts for that, and even if we all did all that would do is put downward pressure on compensation for skilled work.
All i know is i dont want to go through a global french revolution so id really like the elites who run shit to get ahead of this crap.
Fallout-NL
Member
That's exactly what should have happened. But that implies a fairness of wealth distribution that's simply not happening.
Do you have a source for these? I'd be interested to see their arguments. /edit: because what a quick google search is revealing thus far isn't exactly bowling me over.
You would probably explain it by going back to times of mass automation and looking at the various factors present at that time.
You would not simply plot a graph of automation levels against employment and just extrapolate it forward.
Funding basic income is a huge problem. I feel that if we could get population control and energy under control that we could make a go at it. First things first gotta find a way to stop the 1% from hiding their money and get it taxed properly. Then we've got to make much easier for women to get abortions without jumping through a billion and one hoops. And finally we've gotta find a way to switch from oil because there's no way we can reduce the military spending if we're dependent on foreign oil.
Fallout-NL
Member
Thanks, but yeah, that top one is the one I found as well. Do you really find that fairly incomprehensible collection of paragraphs to in any way resemble a convincing argument? I still think it fails to see the distinction between the type of automation we've had thus far, and the form of change that is rapidly approaching. Regardless of your personal belief in whether or not complex AIs are viable any time soon (and - yes this is an appeal to authority - Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking seem to think they very definitely are), driverless cars are already a reality, which signals a rather significant problem for a rather large part of the workforce.
Apart from that, stuff like this (also from that reddit post):
"The office worker"
Does this guy have any idea how many "office workers" there are? That's probably the majority of the workforce for most modern countries. So he concedes these people need to 'find a new job', but somehow doesn't see that as a problem?
I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm immediately reminded of this when I read something like that. And bear in mind, that scene is from a time where unemployment was the result of the '08 crisis and resulting recession, not from mass unemployment caused by AI being able to emulate nearly every human task imaginable.
I've never understood how this even works financially. I scanned a couple pages and noticed tons of calls for cutting military spending. I decided to play with some numbers. Assume the population is 320 million and all of our basic income wouldn't be given to the top 5% (around 7 million tax returns in 2015). So we will assume a population of 313 billion.
Apparently the US military budget is $598 billion this year. That equals a hair over $1900 a person a year, minus the top 5%.
Say we eliminate 1.1 billion in welfare spending (replace with BI) along with no military budget, you get just over $5400 a year for not including the top 5%.
How about we tax the top 5% at 100%, which is around 3.1 trillion in income added to the above, and we don't even give them a basic income (of course not realistic...just playing with numbers), you get $15300 a year for the bottom 95%. That means no military, complete elimination of welfare/Medicaid, 100% tax collection from the top 5% (not possible due to progressive system...again just playing with some easy numbers), and the bottom 95% get less than $16000 a year. That's 4.8 trillion in spending.
Obviously it would be far more complicated but again, I don't see how this works financially short of some sort of collectivist state, but then again where does the money come from?
At the end of the day if automation leads to a society where jobs are only available to a lucky few as a means of living, then I think we are doomed. We better hope automation and technology lead to different and new types of jobs.
Apparently the US military budget is $598 billion this year. That equals a hair over $1900 a person a year, minus the top 5%.
Say we eliminate 1.1 billion in welfare spending (replace with BI) along with no military budget, you get just over $5400 a year for not including the top 5%.
How about we tax the top 5% at 100%, which is around 3.1 trillion in income added to the above, and we don't even give them a basic income (of course not realistic...just playing with numbers), you get $15300 a year for the bottom 95%. That means no military, complete elimination of welfare/Medicaid, 100% tax collection from the top 5% (not possible due to progressive system...again just playing with some easy numbers), and the bottom 95% get less than $16000 a year. That's 4.8 trillion in spending.
Obviously it would be far more complicated but again, I don't see how this works financially short of some sort of collectivist state, but then again where does the money come from?
At the end of the day if automation leads to a society where jobs are only available to a lucky few as a means of living, then I think we are doomed. We better hope automation and technology lead to different and new types of jobs.
The whole point of what he just wrote is that it doesn't permanently unemploy these people.
He essentially just refuted everything you've said, and you repeat it. I'm not sure what you want me to write in response.
Kotetsu534
Member
I don't think people are aware just how large a percentage of people are working jobs that could fairly easily be automated. When 10% of your country working retail, and another 10% is working transport, and some other large chunk working in warehouses, that's a huge chunk of employment that's almost certain to go in the near future. It doesn't require inventing new technology like complex AI. It requires currently existing technology being refined and depreciating in cost, which is going to happen. If the minimum wage gets raised, expect it to go much faster than it would otherwise as it becomes more economical for companies to invest in it. That's before we get into anything involving office work at all.
In the time I've been working retail, I've seen automated checkouts significantly improve in functionality. If they were just a little more refined (say, could change their own till roll, troubleshoot their own coin jams, could bin receipts left at them) they could already operate unsupervised. Most of the work done either involves stacking shelves, serving customers or redirecting labour around. Once you automate most of the first two, you eliminate the need for the third.
In the time I've been working retail, I've seen automated checkouts significantly improve in functionality. If they were just a little more refined (say, could change their own till roll, troubleshoot their own coin jams, could bin receipts left at them) they could already operate unsupervised. Most of the work done either involves stacking shelves, serving customers or redirecting labour around. Once you automate most of the first two, you eliminate the need for the third.
PdotMichael
Banned
Yes, and which factors aren't there anymore?
1) Ban salaries. You'll know why later. It will emancipate everyone from "work ownership".
2) Rework fiscality, only few taxes, one of them being in exchange of the now eliminated manpower cost.
3) Create a basic revenue for everyone, funded by the precedent tax.
4) Fund public services and facilities as a protector state with local ownership taxes and VAT, eliminate every financial helps.
5) Allow everyone to have bonuses over their basic revenues with fair conditions (working or not, level of responsabilities, etc).
6) Let people fund everything else themselves, with workers and "entrepreneurs" being the only owners of what they produce.
2) Rework fiscality, only few taxes, one of them being in exchange of the now eliminated manpower cost.
3) Create a basic revenue for everyone, funded by the precedent tax.
4) Fund public services and facilities as a protector state with local ownership taxes and VAT, eliminate every financial helps.
5) Allow everyone to have bonuses over their basic revenues with fair conditions (working or not, level of responsabilities, etc).
6) Let people fund everything else themselves, with workers and "entrepreneurs" being the only owners of what they produce.
Heaven Shard
Banned
Has this been posted yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
From one of the best youtube channels out there.
I do think if a farm using 1000 workers becomes fully automated (and being more efficient and producing more while at it), then those 1000 workers can still live off it. The US (and other countries are following) has become a corporate place and culture: you don't work, you don't live. But machines are supposed to make our lives easier. Imagine everything was automated; everyone would just enjoy living. You can work to make a change/ a difference or to achieve something, but it wouldn't be for biological survival.
Systems, policies, cultures all change. Because we are developing faster and faster, we need to change these systems and policies faster as well. The world changed in the last century more than it did since human existence.
....and we need to figure out what to do with the rate of birth we are going with. We can't keep doubling every 60 years.
From one of the best youtube channels out there.
I do think if a farm using 1000 workers becomes fully automated (and being more efficient and producing more while at it), then those 1000 workers can still live off it. The US (and other countries are following) has become a corporate place and culture: you don't work, you don't live. But machines are supposed to make our lives easier. Imagine everything was automated; everyone would just enjoy living. You can work to make a change/ a difference or to achieve something, but it wouldn't be for biological survival.
Systems, policies, cultures all change. Because we are developing faster and faster, we need to change these systems and policies faster as well. The world changed in the last century more than it did since human existence.
....and we need to figure out what to do with the rate of birth we are going with. We can't keep doubling every 60 years.
Straight Edge
Member
Companies are not going to buy and maintain expensive production robots just so they can give away their goods for free.
This is already happening friend. Why do you think there is such a push for 15 dollar minimum wage? Why are so many manufacturing jobs gone?
PdotMichael
Banned
Fallout-NL
Member
I'm reading some of those papers and I'm coming across a lot of this:
Just because Levy and Murname find it 'hard to imagine' this happening. Doesn't mean it isn't going to (it already has).
Seriously, a lot of the arguments read like that. That these authors lack the imagination to understand what AI is going to do, doesn't mean 'everything I said has been refuted.'
In the article's conclusion:
Ignoring for a minute the fact that not everyone can just 'acquire creative and social skills', their guess that there are going to be tasks that are non susceptible to computerisation is good as my guess that there are not going to be a whole lot of tasks safe from computerisation.
Because these problems (another quote from the article):
are eventually going to be solved.
How is number 3 and 4 possible with the existence of number 2?
Interwoven with the problem of job loss to automation is the more fundemental problem of overpopulation. I think the appalling but most practical solution is to guarantee basic income to those willing to undergo tubal ligation or vasectomy. The problem will have to be much worse before something like this is implemented and able to gain any public support.
Teaching is actually considered one of the harder professions to automate. We'll get more university and upper high school level courses online, but the first decade of schooling is largely teaching students the basics of language, numbers and how to learn.
The vast majority of law, computer programming, and medical jobs will be automated before we get rid of teachers.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
IIRC the military is one of the largest employers in the country. If spending is cut it likely wont impact all the research and building related to jets, weapons, etc. It will more than likely impact all the non-military employees at the various forts and bases around the world.
I live in an area that had a base get BRAC'd (ie shut down due to costs). It took over 5 years to complete the transition and resulted in an over spend by more than 100%. The land has been unused for the least 3-4 years as the US government, county and town figure out what to do with it. It's now starting to progress forward in some manner, but likely is still 3-4 years out from showing any sign of progress.
If you think teaching can be automated you're grossly underestimating what goes into teaching.
The biggest employer in the world is the transportation industry. Which is the industry most poised to explode into automation with self driving cars and trucks. That will be tens of millions of jobs lost globally in likely the next ten years. The service industry is next up.
PdotMichael
Banned
eh, no.
Red Liquorice
Member
I'm so glad I've only got a couple of decades left at most. Nothing about the direction humanity is heading in the next 100 years fills me with anything but sorrow and dread.
gutter_trash
Banned
I support this
My job is all about creating automation within the enterprise (IT). Every day I complete a major solution I think to myself that I am automating my own dumb self out of a job. So I'll just save up and try to figure out where I go from here in several years when I'm replaced by my own creations.
And I support a basic income. It doesn't need to be a lot, maybe $25k in most states. I think we need to wrangle in our healthcare costs first though.
And I support a basic income. It doesn't need to be a lot, maybe $25k in most states. I think we need to wrangle in our healthcare costs first though.
Just 10 years ago they said computers would never be able to play Go at human levels, that computer would never be able to describe an image, or drive a car. While we won't probably see as much huge leaps as we've seen in the last 10 years because computer tech is actually been stagnating the last 5-6 years, to think that human intelligence won't eventually be solved seems just arrogance and the idea that we are someway just more than chemical computers because we have to be "special".
We're gonna become obsolete in our lifetimes. And i can't wait.
We're gonna become obsolete in our lifetimes. And i can't wait.
Imma just go ahead and quote myself:
Well, all of them. My entire point was that people tend to overestimate the extent to which historical data can be extended into the future. The fact that in the past automated looms and steam based machines led to job creation should really have a very small impact on your confidence in a lack of impacts from machine learning and near human AI
I think the idea of basic income is heavily flawed in the sense that we're framing it in a context were money and production work the way they do nowadays. But in a world were the costs of production are essentially 0 and the needs of the people are vastly different from what they are now (think about why cities actually exist for example), a lots of the costs we take for necessary now may actually not be so.
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
you cut most of the low skill and medium jobs and have over half of the population unemployed without income youll be looking at crime levels as high as venezuela with rampant murder
nailbombxx
Member
I assume this will also cause the pay for many non-automated jobs to be lowered because all of the extra competition to get them?
Probably. The natural fix is to not allow owners and share holders to simply keep all the savings of cutting their workforce to next to nothing, but that's not going to happeb with our current legal framework.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
If that much of the population is unemployed than soon the remainder of the population will also be broke. If people cant afford to buy the goods and services you are selling the entire economy collapses. Rich people will very quickly find themselves to be poor people.
edit: i also just wanted to say that Foffy has absolutely killed it in here.
It sounds sweet but I wouldn't hold out on it happening any time soon. Fulfill your dreams right now, guys. Do whatever it is that your heart desires outside of work!
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
some of us have to work 6+ days a week 9+ hours a day so that one day off if you get it you dont feel like doing anything
There is no overpopulation but overconsumption. And even if there was it inherently is a problem that solves itself with economic progression. So I'd not worry about if I were you.
What you need to worry about and we all need to worry about is the grip normal citizens have on economic practices. The stronger corporations are, the more production is dependent on them, the more leverage regular people lose.
Do kids also get a basic income? So a family of 5 would get $50K and a single person head of household would only get 10K? Maybe a head of household should get $20-$30K.
So if kids get basic income, how do you compensate adults who did not receive basic income when they were children?
So if kids get basic income, how do you compensate adults who did not receive basic income when they were children?
PHOENIXZERO
Member
People really need to stop taking spending numbers of today and applying them to the future, education, healthcare, the military and so on because all are likely to come eventually crashing down in costs compared to what they are today due to automation just like nearly everything else.
People already make that decision though and more often than not just hitting the animal is the safest choice to make. When it comes to people there's likely not going to be a person jumping out of bushes and running across a road from a deep ditch and doing so in a way to catch someone completely off guard.
Or parents just schedule socializing time, it's also not about completely eliminating the human element it's that they take on a new role that requires a fraction of hands on teaching and instead of needing what today would be for example teacher for every 20-25 students we may only need one for every 100, especially at higher grades. But again, school as we know it is going to be radically different and classrooms beyond a certain level obsolete.
No because that would just incentivize people to have a bunch of kids. If anything it'd be at a much reduced rate.
Or the car, sensing the animal from a 200 yards away adjusts properly to not come into a situation where it needs to make that choice, easier if there's other vehicles that are on the road that are and have been sharing data which is no different from how when people flash their headlights to warn someone of an upcoming hazard except the AI will know precisely what to prepare for. In 20 years the technology is going to be light years ahead of where it is 10 years from now just as it will be in 10 years from today.
People already make that decision though and more often than not just hitting the animal is the safest choice to make. When it comes to people there's likely not going to be a person jumping out of bushes and running across a road from a deep ditch and doing so in a way to catch someone completely off guard.
Or parents just schedule socializing time, it's also not about completely eliminating the human element it's that they take on a new role that requires a fraction of hands on teaching and instead of needing what today would be for example teacher for every 20-25 students we may only need one for every 100, especially at higher grades. But again, school as we know it is going to be radically different and classrooms beyond a certain level obsolete.
No because that would just incentivize people to have a bunch of kids. If anything it'd be at a much reduced rate.
TheLaughingStock
Member
I thought the Obama administration jumped up and down for 7+ years about how many private sector jobs had been added net? And there's a significant bias towards low skill?
Paracelsus
Member
People who argue "get better education for the new jobs" are at the same level of "to make new friends just go to the gym/library/starbucks and start talking with people", that kind of delirium. It shows some sort of utopistic view of the world that doesn't match the real one at all. It takes years, mental inclination, tons dedication which fades away with age to get a new education, and even after that you're not qualified for those jobs which will magically appear, you have to get trained, so more years for apprenticeship. And then, assuming you made it, you have to fight a war with the other like-minded people whom are stuffing your same business (kinda like the health worker fad back when they started culling nurses to save costs: initially wages were decent, then many other people joined the fray and now wages are third-world tier, and you're back to square one).
I haven't thought through the meaningful impacts of automation, but I've always wondered why a basic income is the only answer we come up with.
What about changing our economic models to cooperatives where we have shared ownership and participation in, say, a manufacturing plant that has automation and less required human labor. You would split up whatever remaining work was required among owners and revenue would go to paying them all. The more owners you had, the less labor for each is required.
Obviously our conceptions of hierarchical structures and capital accumulation would have to change, but I feel this is a positive way to create a more democratic and participatory labor environment that still requires people to seek out associations and care about the company they part-own.
What about changing our economic models to cooperatives where we have shared ownership and participation in, say, a manufacturing plant that has automation and less required human labor. You would split up whatever remaining work was required among owners and revenue would go to paying them all. The more owners you had, the less labor for each is required.
Obviously our conceptions of hierarchical structures and capital accumulation would have to change, but I feel this is a positive way to create a more democratic and participatory labor environment that still requires people to seek out associations and care about the company they part-own.
PdotMichael
Banned
Well, if robots are capable of producing goods better than humans in a way to make them even completly obselete in any form of production and services and everything basically for free then we got it rid of scarcity and one of the fundamental problems of our economic system.
We would basically enter a new economic age.
But this is Star Trek and not what we will see in the next decades.
Until that day, there is no base to believe that we don't see an increase of jobs with additional automation like we have seen it in the past or even today.
There is also the argument that many places in the world will need more automation to deal with the demographic change.
That's true, and I feel for those people (although they're a minority). A job change might be in order for those working that much.
We already have robots that replicate themselves, and they've been making breakthroughs in AI self-simulation, so we'll get there eventually.
- Status