Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
If you’re not aware, look up the automation paradox: https://ideas.ted.com/will-automation-take-away-all-our-jobs/
Every* automation advancement has lead to an increase in employment, not decrease. Most often jobs in the immediate sector are lost, but the rise in supporting sector jobs are bolstered.
Classic examples are the cotton mill and combine harvester. The number of agricultural workers declined, but the number of jobs processing agricultural product increased. Or with ATMs, the number of tellers needed per bank location decreased, but the total employment in the banking sector increased (banks opened more branches, namely in places where it was previously cost prohibitive).
As more things are automated, what’s being automated becomes cheaper and more prolific, often increasing (or creating) new opportunities. There are so many historic examples of this, it’s hard to justify “this time is different” predictions… Even for things like AI automating white collar jobs.
*Edit: almost every. It depends a bit on how you count the secondary jobs, and where those are located (automation combined with offshoring results in a net decline in some countries, but increase overall).
I like the horse analogy for this. Cars came and replaced horses they never found new jobs. This time they want to replace the people with AI. Whee are they supposed to go? Don’t need that many mechanics or technicians to repair the cars.
Recent studies suggest the science on this is less clear than that TED talk suggests. So I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on either the idea that automation will or won’t take away net jobs.
I think the underlying dynamic there is that automation in one industry led to cheaper goods, which led to consumer savings, which led to greater demand, which led to increased employment in other industries that eventually absorbed the displaced workers.
The differences with the current situation are that, firstly, decades of corporate consolidation have reduced competition and enabled automators to channel most of the savings to corporate profits instead of lower prices; and secondly, the fact that automation is affecting the whole economy at once instead of a specific industry means that an economy-wide increase in demand doesn’t cause a corresponding increase in the demand for labor.
So if the difference is corporate consolidation… Sounds like that’s the real underlying issue then, not automation.
Economics has well established that monopolistic behavior by firms harms consumers & the overall economy (that’s why we have anti-trust laws in the first place).
Don’t conflate the one problem with another, as I agree the erosion of anti-trust laws is a bad thing and needs to be reversed. But that doesn’t mean firms further automating things is now also bad.
I’d also say “automation affecting the whole economy at once” isn’t unique. The industrial revolution was not isolated to one industry, its effects were economy-wide. Also true for the transportation revolution (trains & steam boats moved everything), telecommunications, and the internet…
No one’s been arguing against automation per se—the comment you originally replied to was asking what the plan was after automation. Because the marginal effect of automation in the current economy, if corporations are left to their own devices, stands to harm as many as it benefits.
And yes, the industrial revolution isn’t a bad parallel for what we’re potentially facing now. It brought about some of the most miserable conditions working people have ever endured short of slavery, and it took the labor movement several bloody generations to end the worst of it.
What happens when we move all the way from manual labor automation and start doing service and information work? Not everyone’s an AI developer
I dunno, this feels like the whole ‘infinite growth’ problem of capitalism. Sure that’s been true so far, but it can’t continually result in more jobs forever. At some point they’ll just automate too much and it’ll be a tipping point.