Robotic Nation Evidence

You need to start to worry when someone says, about an economic issue, "This time is different".

In principal, even if increased productivity goes into profits, what is the long-term net effect? Those profits are eventually used to invest back into the system. Even if just stored in a bank, those bankers "keep" the money by investing it.

The maker of widget_A might never see an increase in wages. She might have to change jobs for that. But, as a whole, a growing economy is good for everyone even if wages are not immediately increased.


"Once we start seeing a direct replacement of entire classes of workers with robots, the bargaining power of employees collapses."

This just isn't true, unless these people both have no other skills and also can't learn other skills.

The only way the "bargaining power" of labor is gone is when there is nothing of value added, as the unlimited wants of humans yield constant demand.

My point isn't that, for example, some trucks will be driven by humans getting a lower wage. It's that the resources saved in using a robotic truck will be used on another human eventually.


So you can't just take a static portrait: robots replace jobs make people unemployed forever, no increases in productivity now means none in the future.

You especially can't take a static look in addition to a US centric view. First, it could be worse, not just "flat". Look at Europe.

Second, as a whole, the world is getting better with respect to labor. Hundreds of millions of people in India, China, and elsewhere are enjoying excellent economies. That success story is so often misreported as “foreigners taking our jobs” it’s sad. It’s especially sad when growth through free trade makes their lives better and so many of the Live-8 crowd are scratching their heads about Africa.
 

I should learn the difference between principal and principle. Or, more precisely, Word should.
 

I am curious Ivan - if robots are replacing truck drivers, retail clerks, pilots, teachers, construction workers, firemen, policemen, factory workers, fast food workers, etc all at about the same time, what jobs (new jobs) will the economy create to absorb all those people? And why won't we create robots that immediately fill those new jobs, instead of people?
 

Ivan,
"This just isn't true, unless these people both have no other skills and also can't learn other skills."

That is exactly what he is saying.
Right now people are cheaper than robots. We only use robots when we need more precision and repeatability than a human can provide. But their price is falling.
What happens when robots become cheaper than humans. When A robot can stack shelves for less than minimum wage? At this point nearly every unskilled to medium skilled labor job will be gone. We're not talking about a couple layoffs, entire job classes will disapear in the time scale of a decade. The only other time we have seen anything remotly close to this type of event was the 1920's.

"You need to start to worry when someone says, about an economic issue, "This time is different"."

Yep. In economics we get a lot of transitory swings but everything works itself out in the end. Except when it doesn't.
 

We've had the discussion before that to name a list of jobs that require creativity in the future is rather difficult. Here are a few present examples which have grown in recent years: landscape architect, interior designer, interaction designer, corporate blogger, masseuse, wedding planner, and personal trainer.

The reason why all future jobs aren't created now is that we have not yet saved the resources in using robots. Those jobs categories are currently developing. Look to the rise of aesthetics and design as a major differentiator in consumer electronics as a single example of such creativity at work when the engineering and production tasks become more efficient. Note also that it doesn’t take hundreds of millions of innovators: it takes a few who then could lead millions to find gainful employment with their ideas. Further, the jobs might rely on a technology which is not yet created.


"It seems Ivan believes it is better for US citizens to have lower wages and purchasing power, so India and China can have high standards of living?"

If you hadn't noticed, our economy is growing. Growth in other countries and our own is not mutually exclusive. In fact, a synergy with positive feedback is a better way to describe it. We should be celebrating their rise, not mistakenly pointing to it as the cause of our... I was going to say "ills" but the economy is growing, proving my point.

The trend for years has been that people are changing jobs more often and needing to learn new skills more often. If it requires more education or on-the-job training, people are already doing it more than before. If it is even more difficult for people over 50, than they will need to work that much harder. Again, the trends show that this is already occurring.

While I believe that robots will prove more useful than many imagine, I also believe many commenters here are overly broad in the characterization of the change. In other words, a decade is a long time.


Also, I think there is a lack of understanding of the reason why I am this optimistic. It basically relates to the infinite wants of humans. If a current human-provided good or service can be instead fulfilled by a robot for less, those demanding those goods and services are free to demand more. My point is that this new demand can, in part, come from jobs which (temporarily) require humans.



A final note: if you think that Brain is right about the speed of the rise, and if you, like me, find his stipend/mass-welfare idea economically illiterate (and personally revolting), please provide an alternative. If you don’t have faith in market mechanisms like I do, please describe exactly what you think will and/or should happen. I am almost completely certain any Brain-like government intervention will be worse than my market approach, but, as the phrase goes, I’d love to see the plan.
 

Ivan has it right - the rest of you need to take economics 101 (+ perhaps 201: Macroeconomic theory)
 

Upon further thought, I realize an old-as-dirt job that non-creative robots won't replace: artists.

Is there some upper limit in our saturation for entertainment and/or edification?

This is a perfect example of unlimited want.
 

Here are the jobs Ivan listed:
- landscape architect
- interior designer
- interaction designer
- corporate blogger
- masseuse
- wedding planner
- personal trainer

First one in list is "Landscape architect". Keep in mind that there are 6 million construction workers, 16 million manufacturing worker, 10 million people working in places like Wal-Mart. Look at this page from the Department of Labor:

http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos039.htm

There are only 23,000 landscape architects in the entire United States.

Second on in the list is "Interior Designer". Look on this page:

http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos090.htm

There are only 60,000 in the entire United States.

Corporate Blogger??? Please.

Masseuse. Robots will be doing all the massaging. Right now there are only 11,000 Massage Therapists in the United States, all of whom will be replaced by robots.

Wedding planner. The Department of Labor does not even list that as an occupation. But assume it exists. There are 2.3 million weddings in the U.S. per year. Assume that every one of those weddings uses a wedding planner (untrue, but makes the math easy). Assume a wedding planner handles one wedding per month. Best case you need only 200,000 wedding planners in the United States. More likely there are only 50,000 slots available.

In Ivan's list of "possible new jobs", there are not even 300,000 total jobs available. Yet robots will eliminate tens of millions of jobs. Something wrong with the math.
 

Part of the problem with central tracking of jobs is that the typical methods of tracking them don't work.

You can't ask GM how many welders it has. It'll tell you something significant about the number of welders in the economy. You can't do that for the innovative service jobs cropping up. This is why the household survey is consistently better looking than the payroll survey as a measure of employment. It is also probably a better measure. Read this to get a better idea of the difference. This website is particularly poor at a nuanced interpretation of labor statistics.


Part of my point is that these types of jobs will increase in the future, so the "math" needn't add up. In fact, for it to "add up" in this crude sense, I would need to provide a classified ad saying "Wanted: 30 million workers whose jobs are about to be replaced with robots". That's ridiculous.

The question was what kind of jobs will replace these, and I gave a fair answer.

As for "good" jobs with "quality", you need to take a few things into account. First the "benefits" like medical and pension aren't gifts from god. I would gladly receive 0 benefits and get the difference in cash. A job with excellent dental or not is irrelevant if you look at "total compensation". In that sense, a "quality" job is just once whose total compensation is large enough, which is a convenient single dimensional measure. I don't think you realize how well paying jobs of this type are.

If you want to talk about quality of life while on the job, my guess is that creativity-based services will be more enjoyable than a factory job. The exceptions for me personally would be a factory job which dealt with really big machines or an outdoor job like a construction worker, but that's just me :)



In sum:
1) It’s the future, don't expect those jobs to be either a complete list or extremely common today. Also, they’d be difficult to measure in certain surveys.
2) Service jobs requiring creativity are probably the best possible broad category of employment.



p.s. “Corporate Blogger??? Please.”
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Blogging is a particularly refreshing and dynamic mechanism to establish brand, do grass roots marketing, and keep a loyal customer base immersed and informed in your company.
 

Yes, Ivan, there will be new job creation, but it's not going to offset the millions of jobs decimated by advances in automation and robotics.

Even now, while we are at the dawn of this era, examine employment statistics for America's largest employers — those numbers have been steadily falling since the 1980's. And the new star corporations (i.e., Wal-mart, Microsoft) can operate with far less a scale of employees.

35 years ago, GM was the biggest employer and provided a good standard of living for an average American who didn't even need a college education, but still could support a family without spouse working. Now Wal-Mart is largest employer and I think it's fair to say that the average Wal-Mart wages don't even come close to paying for the average cost of housing. You'll need a spouse (or roommate working) along with additional jobs to support a family.

Today, uncertainy reigns for the college educated, including programmers and engineers who have no job security and could be out in a matter of months or weeks, after they train their offshore replacements.

All the while, record profits flow into the coffers of corporate multinationals. Mr. Brain's proposal of BIG (basic income guarantee) is a wonderful idea that could empower us to greater heights.

Your citing of "corporate blogger" is funny, because that's the sort of multiple hat job that is going to be done by somebody empowered to do more with less and will just be another responsibility for a scaled down workforce.

Innovation is worthy, but we should make sure it is just and all can participate in the "pursuit of happiness". Even such illustrious economists as Milton Friedman have advocated for a negative income tax, that it would address poverty without the baggage of getting government involved in self-sustaining kingdoms (i.e., welfare, food stamps, medicaid)…
 

Marshall: You argue that more jobs will not be created in the new economy. I would argue the reverse, that new jobs will be created by the new economy... for robots.
 

I think most of the jobs that you are thinking robots will dominate will be in places like Japan, where they are particularly suited to a hermetic existance due in part to their dim view of other cultures. Gentlemen, start your robots!
 

Will not the Free Market smooth things out in the long run?

Wages are the result of cost of living.

Prices are the result of wages. (SOMEBODY has to buy it.)

Production up + wages down. = Lower Prices to compenstate for the lower wages.
 

"This just isn't true, unless these people both have no other skills and also can't learn other skills."

You make it sound like as if it was as reprogramming a computer. But for a person in his 40's, which maybe was not the sharpest tool in the box to start with and who worked for Walmart or something similar for all his life becoming a landscape architect (or whatever will be sought after on the market then) may simply be not an option, especially when he will find himself on the street living off expedients.Problem is, there might be tens of millions of people in the same condition at some point.

I do agree that new jobs we cannot imagine now will emerge, just like one could not imagine websites designers back in the 60's.
But it might not be enough because people might simply not be able to cope with an increasing pace of change, if anything else.And in the longer term machines may aquire creativity closing the gap with human capabilities.

"You need to start to worry when someone says, about an economic issue, "This time is different".

In general yes, but sometimes it is true. The world was a very different place before and after the agricultural and the industrial revolutions.
 

"You make it sound like as if it was as reprogramming a computer."

Things like this will become more common, i.e. education will be automated. The barriers to education will be very, very low; pessimists who feel you'll need to spend 4 years at a university to get a new job are stuck in today's model.

Most importantly, people need to take responsibility and use the tools available to improve their lives. That responsibility must not be replaced by a government welfare program. I'm still waiting to hear the alternatives.

"You need to start to worry when someone says, about an economic issue, "This time is different".

In general yes, but sometimes it is true. The world was a very different place before and after the agricultural and the industrial revolutions.

Actually, you can apply today's economic models to those earth-changing events. They are models of multiple agent behavior under scarcity. This won't change until we have unlimited resources (time is the killer) or have a giant collective mind. Maybe I'm being overly broad, but finding a better way to do something generally doesn't cause net job loss. It's usually the opposite.


Naum,
A negative income tax was advocated by Friedman as a welfare-if-you-must program. I am certain he would rather not place the responsibility of personal welfare on others coerced into charity through taxpayers. The NIT makes sense to have constant incentives to improve regardless of income. It also makes sense in minimal governmental involvement.

Back to reality, have you noticed the way our government operates? Even education, which is clearly a State issue in America, is becoming more nationalized.

I would only back a generous NIT to replace all the bells and whistles we have on our system. The earned-income tax credit is pretty close to it anyway.

But to have half the population on a NIT dole, well, let's just say that's the fastest way possible to make those actually paying taxes leave your country. They you have a race to the bottom with more people on the dole, fewer people working, and more governmental involvement in daily life.

Funny how Brain's fear of an overly paternalistic society can easily be envisioned as the product of his desire to provide income for everyone who can't provide it himself or herself.


"Yes, Ivan, there will be new job creation, but it's not going to offset the millions of jobs decimated by advances in automation and robotics."

Funny how debate of the future can degrade to "It will" and "It won't".

You should actually look at the statistics. There is currently a "middle-class squeeze" in America because the middle class is moving into higher income brackets, not lower. Wal-Mart is not the defining characteristic of today's economy. The rapid rise in productivity is.
 

At the root of the issue is the concentration of wealth. Robots contribute to that in exponential manner. Imagine if your entire privately owned company operates only on robots, and there's just one person profiting from so large operations. Thats concentration of wealth at the extreme.
Interestingly for publicly held companies .. did you hear the recent announcement by IBM that robots, or actually programs with specifically developed and tuned AI are better at stock trading than average stock broker ?
And i know that first-hand, i have written a ( by now largely autonomous ) program to help a friend in stock trading.
 

Ivan, let's suppose what Marshall Brain said- let's suppose it came to pass.

Would you change your mind?

Answering "yes" would not mean that you think the future will go that way. It just assures us that you're not a religious Libertarian, who, when things go bad for people, will say: "It's your own damn fault."

You should actually look at the statistics. There is currently a "middle-class squeeze" in America because the middle class is moving into higher income brackets, not lower.

If you want us to look at the statistics, show us the links. Marshall Brain has done so.

Then we can talk about the validity of the data that informs you. We may be convinced, or we may find the data empty.

-- Lion
 

"Things like this will become more common, i.e. education will be automated. The barriers to education will be very, very low; pessimists who feel you'll need to spend 4 years at a university to get a new job are stuck in today's model"

Sorry but it is not like you are going to dowload knowledge in your brain while you are sleeping.
Learning about this sort of subjects requires time and effort.
The nominal cost of the education is just part of the equation.
For the majority of the people doing that while they are working longer and longer hours in some low end service sector job to make ends meet or on the street wondering if they will eat tomorrow does not sound very plausible.

"well, let's just say that's the fastest way possible to make those actually paying taxes leave your country."

Agree.The ability of the state to run his core businesses,like waging war and raising taxes, is clearly in sharp decline at least in this historical phase.Wealth redistribution schemes seem pretty unlikely at this point.

"You should actually look at the statistics. There is currently a "middle-class squeeze" in America because the middle class is moving into higher income brackets, not lower."

The article presented quoted a decline in wages in the last year despite continued economic and productivity growth.Is that contradicted by others statistical surveys?
 

Ivan,
"Also, I think there is a lack of understanding of the reason why I am this optimistic. It basically relates to the infinite wants of humans."

Do humans have truly infinite want? We are force feeding ourselves to the point that a growing population of Americans are obese and yet we can't consume all the food we can provide (we pay farmers billions to not grow food). There are only so many calories a human can efectivly use, and there are only so many hours in a day. Is there no limit to our ability to consume?

Now I agree that there is no upper limit to our ability to waste. We are only capable of driving a car for a maximum of 24 hours a day. But there is no limit to the number of cars we can own and let sit idle and rusting in our garage. But do you really want that?

Do we want a society that promotes constantly increasing levels of waste because that is the only way to provide the constandly increasing levels of earnings our economy requires? I don't.

" Upon further thought, I realize an old-as-dirt job that non-creative robots won't replace: artists."

Are you sure? We already know we can use automation to reproduce art at increasing levels of fidelity.
It may take a while, but would it be impossible to model many aspects of what the average person finds apealing? Maybe the comercialization of Pop music si the start of this. The record labels use tried and true algorithyms to determine what will sell and how to change a product to make it sell better. Are you sure that our computers won't become so sophisticated that these algorithyms no longer need human input?

There will always be artists, but automation can increase the productivity of them as well.

"Is there some upper limit in our saturation for entertainment and/or edification?"

Yes, there are only 24 hours a day. We can only listen to so much music or watch so many movies. The upper limit may be large, but it is not infinite. And if we are able to leverage automation to exponentialy increase the productivity of artists; then it is only a matter of time until we reach it.

Personaly we have already reached my maximum consumption of Music, and we are getting close on TV and Movies. I can't possibly find and listen to all the music that would interest me, and it is becoming a chore to watch all the TV amd Movies that interest me.



"If you think that Brain is right about the speed of the rise, and if you, like me, find his stipend/mass-welfare idea economically illiterate (and personally revolting), please provide an alternative. If you don’t have faith in market mechanisms like I do, please describe exactly what you think will and/or should happen."

I agree that it is possible for the market to survive, but I don't want to live in such a world. Unfortunatly I think that is our most likely future.

I have an alternative. It flies in the face of your economic beliefs but I would suggest that you look at it with an open mind. And spend some time to understand it fully, because I know your first reaction will be to imediatly dismiss it.
Check out www.Technocracy.ca

-Dan
 

"Is there no limit to our ability to consume?"

Beyond a bare minimum in terms of calories,clothes etc what is necessary and what is a waste becomes hard to tell.Surely nobody can watch films 24/24 but maybe someone else might simply prefer driving around his garden a couple of hours a day on the perfect replica of a WW2 german Tiger tank
if he had the money to buy it.Others might want a battleship as personal yacht...
 

A slight dip in real wages has little to do with the recent larger trend of rising incomes. I'm using this book as a source. I'll quote some statistics from it later today.


Ivan, let's suppose what Marshall Brain said- let's suppose it came to pass.
Would you change your mind?

What specifically are you talking about? The rise of robotics? The permanent unemployment of millions? The dictatorship he predicts in Manna?


Bonvenon, you need to read a history of the failure of top-down, command and control economies.


As for the mention of concentration of wealth: it won't be concentrated if other industries grow in proportion to the increases in productivity caused by automation. That's the whole debate: will there be anything the average human can do to make money.


Marcello, you can buy a computer for $100 today and less in the future. My prediction about education is that cheap software will be almost as useful (when combined with online resources) as today's higher education. People work 8-12 hours daily, sleep for 8; the rest can be used for self-improvement, even if you get minimum wage.
 

I want to make an argument for Ivan's side on education-

It is my belief that education is primarily limited by poor materials. You know this is true if you've ever worked with crappy textbooks, and then worked with a really stellar explanation. One is fast and relevant, the other makes you want to beat your head on a wall.

The rise of visual language will mean that we'll be learning a lot faster. Simulation technology will work as well.

I predict visual language will really take off big-time in a noticable way 10 years after SVG breaks into browsers. (That is, around 2015.)

Within 4-5 years, I believe you'll probably see computer-related subjects documented online in SVG wiki. From there, the trend will spread on out to everything.

-- Lion
 

The more technology can be marshalled in the cause of education, the better computers, robots and technology those students will end up creating...

its a run-away train. now unless we take control of our gene pool, there will be smart folk, average folk, and dumb folk. The dumb folk are already on the ropes in this economy, as technology advances, there will only be jobs left for the right end of the bell curve. And no, 50 year olds wont be going back to school to learn nanotechnology 101. They will be out in the streets with torches and pitchforks before that happens.
 

The Jetsons did fine at 3 hours a day.
 

-- Ivan, let's suppose what Marshall Brain said- let's suppose it came to pass. Would you change your mind?

- What specifically are you talking about? The rise of robotics? The permanent unemployment of millions? The dictatorship he predicts in Manna?

The unemployment of millions, basically.

If millions of people go unemployed, and new jobs don't appear within, say, 10 years for these people (as Marshall Brain predicts, and which you deny would happen)- Would you be someone who says, "It must be something that's wrong with these people; Anybody can be a success here," or would you be someone who says, "Gee, there's something really wrong here. We have a duty to find an answer for these people."

I don't mean to trap you into putting a response to something that you don't think is going to happen anyways. It seems clear to me that you believe that new jobs will come in to replace the old, (as has been the case in the last century,) and that new educational techniques will help people transition.

I'm trying to find something out about your mindset here. "Are these people willing to change their minds, should things go sour, or are these people so adament, that if they go sour, they simply won't care or rethink things."

I've heard some people say pretty inhuman things before: "If someone's not smart, if they're not useful, we simply don't need them anymore, and we should do nothing to support that waste. If we did, we would be a civilization in decline. We have no obligation to them." That sort of thing.

I'm not saying you think that sort of thing. I'm saying: I've heard it from the Mises / Libertarian world. I'd much rather see a basic income than accept that sort of reasoning.

-- Lion
 

ways to make extra money is easy. ways to make extra money