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As Our Jobs Are Automated, Some Say We'll Need A Guaranteed Basic Income
- Thread starter GusBus
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water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Even if what you say is true and that those jobs are safe from automation the idea that in the next 20 years you are going to transform millions of truckers into those professions is laughable.
You might know what it is but you dont know why it is. If you think that people with no food, no lodging, and no future that number in the tens of millions are just going to waste away and die silently in the gutter you are sadly mistaken. People talk a lot about adapting but the thing that needs to adapt is capitalism because if it doesnt its not going to be pretty.
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
Whatever they want to do.
BoosterDuck
Banned
What would we be paying the government our taxes to do?
ProfessorMoran
Member
Basically you're saying we'll all be eating from soup kitchens in a few years.
Capitalism is always adapting, people's needs are always changing and new industries would pop up to fill those needs that require people.
We already have a glut of lawyers. If you don't go to a top 10 school the roi is already pretty bad. Healthcare is pretty safe for awhile due to regulatory pressure. STEM depends on the major. Near term demand will decrease for entry level work since a lot of it can be automated. Long term they have until strong ai is developed just like every one else.
PdotMichael
Banned
Any political system that isn't capable of dealing with the higher degree of automation without the positive effect of creating totally more jobs at the end like in the past will be replaced by the people.
ProfessorMoran
Member
Infrastructure maintenance? Security? If those things are automated maybe we pay less taxes?
ProfessorMoran
Member
So welfare. Who would you like to pay for this if nobody is working and paying for this?
Led_Zeppelin
Member
LOL no, either people starve to dead or study and enter a higher paying field than the service sector, but then again holding people accountable on their individual choices in life isn't a popular opinion.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
If nothing is done soup kitchens would be best case scenario outlook for the next 50 years.
And new industries are not absorbing the losses as fast as automation is displacing them. What industry is going to absorb all the automotive jobs that will be lost from driving automation? Or is it something that has yet to be invented yet?
Baron von Loathsome
Member
You're acting like everybody has a choice between the service sector and higher-paying fields.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
They choose to work there and not invest on their studies, I am not paying more taxes so they can finance their own terrible decisions in life.
BoosterDuck
Banned
If everyone gets a guaranteed income then security would be less needed since criminals won't commit crimes for money.
And since infrastructure maintenance will be automated we won't need to throw away money on that.
good one m8
……forgetit
Member
It's not popular because it's not feasible. We can't just educate poverty away. Low skilled jobs disappearing won't automatically make more high skilled jobs appear. We're rushing towards massive unemployment just due to overpopulation.
Also this is wrong, they just don't choose to not have higher education, some people straight up aren't cut out for higher paying/higher stress/ higher skill positions. Also not a popular opinion but some people, a lot of people, aren't smart enough to even train to do the work.
Epsilon-delta
Banned
What?! This isn't a natural law of the universe or what have you.
It's an ideological belief that new jobs will be created to fill in the ones that are displaced, which is absurd.
Too many people clutch to this idea like it's an infallible statement.
ProfessorMoran
Member
No industry is going to "absorb" all the lost automotive jobs, it's up to the individuals to find jobs in existing and new industries, you're asking for a magic bullet but people adapt, some might be doing jobs they might or might not like but the need to make a living is what drives them, take that away and you basically have a communist welfare state where everybody is eating out of soup kitchens except for a privileged few.
Your job is now automated. Please get in the bread line because you made a bad choice to pursue a field that went obsolete
Byakuya769
Member
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
im curious.. what field do you work in?
Led_Zeppelin
Member
Precisely my point, if I make a bad call is on me not on the rest of society, people can see automation coming from years ahead. People should be responsible of their own individual choices, even if that choice is to starve to death because of a lack of marketable skill.
I have been working in IT for the last 10 years in different positions, from a couple of years I have been investing in the stock market as well and this year I came back to college to get a second engineering degree, this time in civil engineering.
I don't pretend to solve anything, people should either live or die depending on their role on society, if they can't support themselves then maybe they should leave to other places or gain an actual marketable skill.
This is a heck of a way to solve unemployment, lol
Because everyone starts from the same point and have perfect information, right?
I assume you are an orphan who never received and advice nor support from your family. Am I wrong?
PdotMichael
Banned
Was there recently another one of the poorly researched panic articles about automation on some of the bigger website? Or even worse a TV documentary about that topic?
The amount of sold and installed industrial robots increase with every year but it didn't have a negative effect on employment rate, in reality it showed the opposite effect.
The amount of sold and installed industrial robots increase with every year but it didn't have a negative effect on employment rate, in reality it showed the opposite effect.
Also, that job still needed to be done leading up to automation. If everyone were so forward thinking, there'd be a big wage hike for the few people willing to do that job - but then they'd be rewarded with starvation soon after 
Setting aside morality, you're creating a huge market distortion.
Setting aside morality, you're creating a huge market distortion.
George Washington
Member
I'm talking about fully autonomous. The train example you provided is not, if someone is pulling a lever. Also, there is a push from automakers as this is a new an exciting opportunity for them.
You cannot stop the autonomous future. There are a lot of problems that they have that will be sorted out and will pose a less risk than a human driver.
Autonomous vehicles have more sensory information at hand than any human can imagine, can communicate with each other, and calculate billions of operations in the blink of an eye while a human must rely on intuition and reflexes.
They do not require sleep, food, or vacations. They are not drunk, stoned, distracted.
Just because the United States is behind in implementation/standards, that does not deny their importance and inevitable replacement of human drivers. Take a look at other countries like Japan that have begun implementing autonomous vehicles slowly.
The compromise for the time being will be that drivers will still have the option for taking manual control of the vehicle but in time, as these issues are solved, there will be no more "driver" in the traditional sense.
Technology is rapidly advancing and will overcome these obstacles while younger generations are more accustomed to automation and will welcome this change.
I give it 20 years to see widespread adoption.
The main challenges are as follows:
- ethics
(can't avoid accident, should I crash into a group of kids or a mom with a toddler, etc.)
- safety
(what is the probability of survival/accident vs. human driver)
- reliability
(are these algorithms sustainable everywhere and does function degrade over time, i.e. bugs, things behave incorrectly)
Just a quick recap of things not mentioned from Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car
Vestal
Gold Member
The space travel stuff has more to do with political will IMO rather than technological barriers. Space travel became a passing thought once we beat the ruskies to the moon and the country stopped caring about it thus politicians stopped throwing money at it.
The impact of automation is real and it is already here. A lot of jobs have been lost to it, and I wager will continue to grow at an alarming rate. Just take a look at major industrial areas were automation has cut workforce necessities to see it's impact.
Turin Turambar
Member
You may have touched an important issue here. Our standards as people grow as time passes. Hundreds of years ago humans needed some food, some clean water, a roof, a bit of alcohol fun every few days, and not a lot more.
Now our standards are higher, we want superior education as it enriches us, we want annual holidays in other countries (something I suppose only very rich people could allow themselves), we want sophisticated entertainment in form of music, tv, cinema, video games, etc in an almost daily manner. We want news services, and they have to be fast, almost immediate. We want to go out to eat, and it has to be a decent quality as you say. Internet is another example, even taking in account the inflation of how the average website size has increased, what is considered a 'basic' Internet connection (as basic in our eyes as tap water and electricity) has multiplied several times in the last 10 years.
So as we progress and have more in theory idle time as jobs have automated (nothing new, we had the Industrial revolution already), we INVENTED new needs and things we want, that first were just a luxury but that later turned into basic needs. Some of these needs will be directly automated yeah, but some won't be possible and people will pay for it, so people will work on that new sector.
I'm sure in 50 years lots of actual jobs will be automated, but sure as hell new jobs that right now we can't even imagine will appear to cover a new 'need'. In quotes because sure as hell I won't die if my tv broke today, but I would go to buy a new guy instantly even using special savings, as if a tv was an ~essential~ need for humans.
Maybe this won't make the problem disappear, but it will slow it down considerably.
George Washington
Member
Who said anything about transforming them? I talked about those being left behind pretty clearly.
The ethics thing is largely overblown. The car shouldn't crash, period. If the car is ever at the point where it needs to decide where to crash at, it has already failed before that (or something outside of it has failed, which is not the car's responsibility). I don't think you'll see a car designed to choose whether to kill a bunch of toddlers or a bunch of old people that got simultaneously thrown in front of it from god knows where.
Besides, ethical thinking is not really a core component of a self driving system, and it might require human-level AI which is farther off than self-driving cars.
This sounds eerily similar to those arguments for why we need religion. Without a fear of some sort of divine punishment, why would people want to live fulfilled lives, or be decent to each other?
To answer your question: people would want more out of their lives than the bare minimum. Your argument seems to be that it would be a morale drain, but I think people not having to spend all of their time working just to cover the basic costs of living would probably be a morale boost, no?
But I'm a person, and it would make me sad to see so many people starve to dead.
The point is trains are far easier to fully automate, and we actually did it in like the 1950s, but we still have human drivers because adoption rates for new technology are truly abysmal. There are usually obstacles in the way that are ignored in foresight.
Rapscallion
Member
Marx was really in favor of automation for this very reason. He believed that as automation took over labor jobs that people would be placed out of jobs, which would cause them to fight for more livable wages and less working hours. We actually saw some of this during the early 1900s and it's a big reason why we have a 8 hour work day as opposed to a 12 hour workday, but the 2nd World War diverted us off course.
I don't know if it's possible for us to have the same midset now that people did when they fought for rights in the 1900s. Half of the country actively votes against policies in their favor. So much of our population has Stockholm syndrome for a party that is working against their interests.
I don't know if it's possible for us to have the same midset now that people did when they fought for rights in the 1900s. Half of the country actively votes against policies in their favor. So much of our population has Stockholm syndrome for a party that is working against their interests.
Chezzymann
Member
That's basically the equivalent of troll physics in economics
There's probably going to be something with cars that delays mass adoption. I can guess with trucks it's going to be the need for somebody to maintain the cargo and handle procedure at weigh stations.
George Washington
Member
I don't think the actual adoption of the automation changes will be as sudden as people assume. All of this is very pilot stage right now. I would expect maybe later in the millenial generation that this becomes a problem.
The labor issue is that we lack specialized skilled laborers, we have an excess of untrained/unskilled/unemployed workers, and there is not an easy way to convert.
The labor issue is that we lack specialized skilled laborers, we have an excess of untrained/unskilled/unemployed workers, and there is not an easy way to convert.
Led_Zeppelin
Member
Then you must be the saddest person alive because there are people dying of hunger every day everywhere. The reality is that we as society are OK with a lot of shit, I am just not hypocritical about it and don't fake outrage that other people aren't having as much as a good time in life as me nor I pretend I actually care for their well being.
George Washington
Member
I agree, it will be gradual. Minor improvements over time.
Edit: I still think around 20 years to see mass adoption.
Abstrusity
Member
"Today I asked my economics professor why the value of money can't change. He looked at me like I blew his mind. I think I'm gonna be an economist."
Numbers don't work that way is not an actual argument. How do they not work that way?
The Us currently spends about 1.7 trillion USD on welfare every year, which works out at around $5'800 per person if you turned it all to UBI.
Now I can direct you to another costing here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-speech/
which argues for eliminating the public education budget to help pay for basic income (if you think "what, that's crazy!" go and read the points in the article, I'm just using this as an example). He then uses some fuzzy math to suggest that this would release enough cash to pay a basic income of $20'000 per year to every person.
Now, I'm not sure about that figure but at the very least with 2016 figures such a program would enable payments of around $10'000 per person.
However, let's assume that at least some of the assumptions he makes are true, and that there will be some growth in GDP (relatively greater than %pop. growth) and say that in the end the US would have enough to spend $15'000 per person. This is already looking pretty healthy for something people can live off of.
But there are more assumptions which help the case:
First, not everyone would actually need the full UBI. It would be quite wise not to give children a full UBI for various reasons, such as not encouraging some people to pump out children to get more welfare. So let's assume that the 60 million under 15 year olds in the US only get 50% UBI. That allows you to add extra, probably around $1500 per person, so its now $16500 per person per year.
We can probably also assume that some percentage of people won't actually take the UBI, due to having enough wealth or other reasons; let's say 5% of people, which is another 15million people not taking the money and another $1000 added to each person's UBI per year.
So now you're at $17'500 per year per person, without even having to discuss tax raises, though of course such things would be inevitable due to the massive inequality that automation could cause. Capital gains in particular would have to raise harshly, as huge amounts of money would accrue to shareholders rather than going to labour as before. But let's just say that any tax raises would cover up holes in my assumptions and not actually increase the amount available.
Is $17'500 enough to live on? Some might say no way, you need to pay $1000 per month for rent or something. However, another benefit of UBI is that it removes the need to live in certain locations for work. You could see a mass movement out of cities back to the much cheaper countryside, which would have a huge impact on reducing cost of living.
Another consideration is that this is per person. If you're in a couple, you receive $35'000 but without a linear increase in costs. A family of 3 would get $43'000, which is pretty close to the US median salary already. So as you can see, here is a calculation for where the money will come from, and how the numbers work.
Obviously, this is all a fairly unlikely hypothetical. The government isn't going to cancel all education spending, no matter what. Additional Taxation would probably need to cover some $2Trillion to pay for UBI as above. But, given that the Bush tax cuts alone cost some $1Trillion per year (IIRC), is that such a hard target?
Accounting for accidents doesn't mean a self-driving car will understand the concept of "pregnant lady", "old man", "toddler" etc.
Buy products and services
Which is why people are thinking about policies to fix the situation...
lol
Oh so you're a Social Darwinist. Great.
BoosterDuck
Banned
yeah bernardo but how will they be buying those products and services if they're using it to build their Steam libraries
George Washington
Member
Okay now I understand what you meant. I also believe that there is also a lack of trust for fully autonomous vehicles which is completely understandable for today's implementations.
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