Technological unemployment is (almost) here

[jdbtracker]

Just spread the shares to the people who invest well, the best investors in what Humanity needs will be rewarded by increased production, higher prices and lower costs, investment would be the only way for the autonomous corporation to grow.

To spread the shares between people, the government must to confiscate means of production from the current owners. Its obvious that >80% of ordinary people will just sell/gamble/lose these shares within 5..10..20 years and the rich who owned capitals before nationalization will own them again and poor-today will be poor again!

In case of nationalization, the only one viable model which will work is a form of socialism with planned economy. Otherwise nationalization will have even worse effect than doing nothing - poor will be poor again AND nobody will invest in this country fearing confiscation!

Of course it is inevitable, the redistribution of wealth will resettle to those with the most connections or access to prime information and knowledge for that reason other system would need to be put in place, to balance the system, it will be evolved out of our current system. We cannot forget that evolution happens in cycles, those on top will shed their place to those who can outresource them, the never ending cycle... cycles within cycles within cycles.

What is knowledge worth after all... what if you knew exactly what you know and don't know? The automated factories have neural networks and Machine learning algorithms finding the best choices... who do you think will take those choices if projects like Mahout(machine learning algorithms) are open source? All economics would be automated as well. The algorithms place each person in the best place for investment and not only that, what about the social good? sometimes the value of something can be measured in far greater terms than monetary returns, sometimes it's efficiency gained, costs reduced, endevours achieved.
  No one would work, but still there would be compensation schemes to use all unused human capital, even though everything can be automated, knowledge will be the new industry, driving costs further down... Bitcoin is the perfect currency for this economy a deflationary currency for a logarithmically efficiency increasing, cost reducing society. no one likes to get less than what they wanted, too many external unknowns to justify deflation... unless efficiency is as well exponentially increasing to produce more goods and services for the rest of society; This creates a price balance between technological development and the economy, no more waiting for the economic conditions to be right to unleash key technologies... just release as soon as available.

All systems are trying to balance to equilibrium, 100% efficiency,driving all costs down to 0. Anyone in this society can afford all quality of life improvements. Think of the open source movement... If you gotta change the world, all the tools are available to create anything you want right now, we just don't have the right network to efficiently link all free resources to everyone, but more free resources are being added to the world every day. It is just a matter of time before all these free services reach the even horizon point of no return... who will want to pay for things if everything is freely available?

Yes... Automation is expanding beyond the individuals capability to form new employment oportunities or gain the knowledge necessary for it ... this is growing worse. We need to prepare now for this future. Jobs are being automated faster than individuals can adapt, a four year degree now takes 2 years because of this, It's only a matter of time, we cannot train ourselves out of this, we need to adapt now.

[zimmah]

when you say machines are going to take over the jobs, yes maybe the ones today but that's because we're becoming more productive and as humans advance new industries start to form. Those who anticipate where the new demand will be are the ones who start it off, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world, extraordinary humans unlike you and I, so just because you can't think of where the jobs are gonna come from in the future doesn't mean there aren't gonna be any because if you did know where the jobs were gonna come from you'd probably become very rich.

There are no doubts new industries will appear and new jobs created, but the problem is the number of jobs created is less than destroyed. This trend become very clear now!

why are we still measuring wealth by the amount of jobs there are available, rather than measuring wealth by the amount of commodities that are available divided by the amount of people in the world?

I'm not saying we shouldn't work, that'd be selfish and stupid, i'm just saying that having to work 'just because' is even more stupid.

especially if the feds get to print unlimited amounts of dollars while the common people have to fight for scraps.

There's nothing wrong with machines taking our jobs, as long as society at large benefits from it, which is currently not the case.

[kjj]

There are no doubts new industries will appear and new jobs created, but the problem is the number of jobs created is less than destroyed. This trend become very clear now!

When pondering this chart, don't forget the concept of a "stay at home mom" was very common on the left side of the chart, and is rather uncommon on the right side.

[giantdragon]

When pondering this chart, don't forget the concept of a "stay at home mom" was very common on the left side of the chart, and is rather uncommon on the right side.

Real wage have fallen since 60-70's and it is almost impossible to live on single family member's salary now!

[invisiblehand]

Valid thread.

The problem is market forces do not prevent mass uprisings and riots.

I'm very much a capitalist and libertarian, but how will people handle rioting in the streets from the unemployed?

[giantdragon]

I can foresee a scenario where the world will be split into 3 large blocks:

1. Elitist - the smallest one (in part of population) but the most technologically advanced. Libertarian and free market ideas dominate, "losers" forced to go away into another 2 blocks. Silicon Valley probably will center of it.
2. Socialist - state manages the economy and provides full employment. Medium level of technology, tries to copy products that elitist block create. Probably Russia, South America, China will be forced to switch to this model.
3. Anti-modernist - society based on religion and traditions, almost no automation, manual labor. Africa and many Asian countries likely will be here.

[Rassah]

Valid thread.

The problem is market forces do not prevent mass uprisings and riots.

I'm very much a capitalist and libertarian, but how will people handle rioting in the streets from the unemployed?

Market forces can create killer robots to handle riots.

[Misesian]

when you say machines are going to take over the jobs, yes maybe the ones today but that's because we're becoming more productive and as humans advance new industries start to form. Those who anticipate where the new demand will be are the ones who start it off, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world, extraordinary humans unlike you and I, so just because you can't think of where the jobs are gonna come from in the future doesn't mean there aren't gonna be any because if you did know where the jobs were gonna come from you'd probably become very rich.

There are no doubts new industries will appear and new jobs created, but the problem is the number of jobs created is less than destroyed. This trend become very clear now!

Maybe another part of the problem is that we have totally incompetent government driving the economy into self destruct mode by borrowing, spending and printing excessively, destroying the incentive to work with welfare programmes and excessive taxation, destroying the competitiveness of a markets with overregulation, creating a generation of sheep with government schools and more welfare programmes.

[henryreardon]

This is a long thread and I admit I did not read in detail beyond the first page or so, so apologies if my response here is redundant with others.

Let us briefly contemplate the life of Nashon Zimba, a twenty-five-year-old man who lives with his wife and baby daughter in Malawi. There is no question that Mr. Zimba is a hardworking man. He built his own home, as The Economist describes: He digs up mud, shapes it into cuboids and then dries it in the sun to make bricks. He mixes his own cement, also from mud. He cuts branches to make beams, and thatches the roof with sisal or grass. His only industrial input is the metal blade on his axe. Working on his own, while at the same time growing food for his family, Mr. Zimba has erected a house that is dark, cramped, cold in the winter, steamy in summer and has running water only when tropical storms come through the roof.1 For all that work, Mr. Zimba is a poor man. His cash income in 2000 was roughly $40. He is hardly alone. Malawian GDP per capita was less than $200 at the time that story was written. Even today, the nation’s entire annual economic output is only about $12 billion—or about half the size of Vermont’s economy. Lest anyone naively believe that there is something pleasantly simple about this existence, it should be pointed out that 30 percent of young children in Malawi are malnourished; more than two of every ten children will die before they reach their fifth birthday. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, there are a billion people in the world who don’t get enough to eat. The vast majority are in the developing world; roughly half are in India and China. How is that possible? At a time when we can split the atom, land on the moon, and decode the human genome, why do 2 billion people live on less than $2 a day?2 The short answer is that their economies have failed them. At bottom, creating wealth is a process of taking inputs, including human talent, and producing things of value. Poor economies are not organized to do that.

Wheelan, Charles (2010-04-19). Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated) (Kindle Locations 4971-4981). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.


"Employment" is not the issue; Mr. Zimba clearly is fully "employed", yet he lives a tough life, in relative squalor, with little to show for his hard work.  Standard of living is the critical issue.  Because of capitalism + the invisible hand, the poor in the USA, even without any sort of government subsidies, can work 40 hours/week and live 100 x as well as Mr. Zimba -- they can do yard work, or cooking, or wash cars, or any number of tasks that are simply not possible to outsource to China, India, or technology any time in the foreseeable future -- and they can still easily afford a modest apartment, a cheap but reliable car, a big plasma TV, xbox, netflix, and public parks.  This is absolute luxury compared to how even the wealthiest nobles from just a few hundred years ago lived.

Liberals focus a lot on "employment", but they miss the point:  The goal is in fact to work as little as possible, yet reap the highest rewards -- the standard of living:work ratio.  And that today in the USA is the highest it has ever been anywhere in the history of the world.  Government subsidies -- minimum wage, welfare, food stamps, etc. -- they give fish rather than teach to fish -- and thus distort incentives and the market, and ultimately lead to a lower SOL:work ratio.

[henryreardon]

My thoughts on income inequality, taxation, and the danger of the plebeian vote.

Income inequality increases with capitalism there is no doubt about it.  Libs have a great time pointing this out as the great evil, but they entirely miss the point of a rising tide lifting all ships -- i.e. yes the USA has the greatest income inequality in the world, but the trade off is that the "poor" in the US live far far better than even the middle class do in the rest of the world.  And so what if a few people get fantastically rich?  Let's look at a few who are well known, and attained their wealth as market entrepreneurs (not political entrepreneurs e.g. Murdoch, Slim Helu) -- Gates and Buffet.  Not only did their businesses thrive and benefit countless individuals' lives and raise their Standards of Living, but they are also giving away much of their fortunes.  This is the tendency of uber wealth market entrepreneurs.  So who cares if Gates makes 100000 x what the average Seattle barista does?  Windows benefits that barista, and that barista will benefit indirectly if Gates' philanthropy cures malaria.  This doesn't apply or at least not as much for political entrepreneurs, but if it weren't for corrupt (mostly liberal and socialist) policies, those guys wouldn't stand a chance anyway.

Taxation.  Not only have Gates and Buffet already paid a tremendous amount in taxes, but in giving away most of their billions to philanthropy, they are voluntarily relinquishing a "tax" to society, in endeavors of their choosing.  And these are smart guys, who among us wouldn't prefer they choose where society's money goes rather than some never-held-a-real-job politician like Obama and his bridge-to-nowhere boondoggle projects?  What if we eliminated taxation entirely?  Do we know that the wealthy and elite among us -- again, the ones who got there as market entrepreneurs, not political entrepreneurs -- wouldn't pony up and privatize the construction of roads, bridges, parks?  Maybe those roads, bridges, and parks would look a lot better, be in a lot better shape, if this where the case?  Taxation a couple hundred years ago was around 10-15%, now it's 50%.  That delta pays for social programs and redistribution -- to giving fish, and buying votes.  And it distorts and short circuits the transformative effects of a free market -- it harms the very people it was ostensibly intended to help.  The only people that benefit are the inept politicians -- they get to use our taxes to live lives that they would never be able to if they had to earn money on their own merit.

Plebeian vote.  This is the biggest challenge facing our country today.  Obama has figured out the formula for libs to win, and keep winning.  Redistribute, go for the plebeian vote, and you will never, ever lose.  Give them fish, keep them dependent on you, keep them holding out their hands to you -- and they will keep voting for you, the hand that feeds them.  This is a tough one.  At the end of the day "one man one vote" is a failure, and it is illogical.  There is absolutely no logical reason that 18 yo high school drop out with 4 illegitimate kids, illiterate, living off welfare -- there is no reason that her vote should count as much as mine does (I'm using myself as an example).  She does not contribute anything toward society, she only takes from it, so she really should not have a say.  Furthermore there is no way she can understand the issues like I can, so how can she cast a meaningful vote?  She can't, yet in the current system, she does, and it counts just as much as mine does.  Short of an insurrection, this system needs an overhaul.

[jdbtracker]

The politics of human capital, It works on economics as well. People tend to game the system as best they can, according to their morals, I would most definitely see people gravitating toward policies that make it easier for them; This is a trend that will continue because of automation, unemployment, the government has no choice but to maintain the masses, they are the source of a nations wealth, it is their obligation. I would put this into consideration to see which technologies would be most advantageous to implement...

[giantdragon]

Liberals focus a lot on "employment", but they miss the point:  The goal is in fact to work as little as possible, yet reap the highest rewards -- the standard of living:work ratio.  And that today in the USA is the highest it has ever been anywhere in the history of the world.  Government subsidies -- minimum wage, welfare, food stamps, etc. -- they give fish rather than teach to fish -- and thus distort incentives and the market, and ultimately lead to a lower SOL:work ratio.

I think most people in this thread see only one (and the most horrible) form of socialism - welfare state, which now unfortunately dominates in most EU countries and being increasingly pushed in the US. Its formula is very simple: rob (tax) wealthy - give to idlers! Of course in the long run it cannot lead to any prosperity!

Another form of socialism is planned economy, which is only one sustainable model for some nations that for the unknown reason cannot successfully live in the market conditions. It may be some genetic traits, mentality etc but always when you try to establish laissez-faire policies here, these countries return to the pre-modern level. Before USSR collapse some African countries had a planned economy and rather high quality life, but now they are fully impoverished. Without oil and gas revenues Russia also would be at the level of Sierra Leone now.

Also note that technology advance and automation will continuously reduce number of people belonging to the "creative elite" class in free market, winner-takes-it-all will become more and more widespread.

[jubalix]

 Government subsidies -- minimum wage, welfare, food stamps, etc. -- they give fish rather than teach to fish -- and thus distort incentives and the market, and ultimately lead to a lower SOL:work ratio.

[/quote]

completely wrong because even if  I can fish, the govt only gives out a certain number of licenses to be able to fish.

try to think a bit deeper than accept trite platitudes.

The govt can only give me food stamps because they have taken more from me in the first instance. Eg the opportunity to practice in whatever field I want by meeting the standard, not the have a quota/state licensing system

[Murwa]

This is your claim. I don't have to have faith in, or believe, in anything, since it's on you to prove that new jobs will not come out, despite them doing so for centuries to date.

Nope, you are living in delusion.

All global statistics support my point of view. Since last 30 years or so ( depending on the country ).

Global
Real wages down
Labor participation rate down
Labor income share in GDP down. ( This was an iron division between labor share and capital share that was stable for centuries until computers arrived )
Amount of people working in private businesses down ( trend of last 10 years ). Many people hired in administration ( hidden unemployment )
More people working part time , less people working full time. ( scewing statistics of true unemployment , in many countries someone working 8 hours a week is not counted as unemployed )
Record low investments into new employees , record high investments into equipment.


All within a world of record productivity.

Sorry , the trends don't lie , they just are.
Free market is a fanatical religion , nothing more , and it makes its followers resistant to knowledge.

There is absolutely no hint that current trends will change and new jobs will come out of woodwork especially when there is a prospect of computerization almost half the occupations in the next 20 years.

This is just impossible.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

This is your claim. I don't have to have faith in, or believe, in anything, since it's on you to prove that new jobs will not come out, despite them doing so for centuries to date.

Nope, you are living in delusion.

All global statistics support my point of view. Since last 30 years or so ( depending on the country ).

Global
Real wages down
Labor participation rate down
Labor income share in GDP down. ( This was an iron division between labor share and capital share that was stable for centuries until computers arrived )
Amount of people working in private businesses down ( trend of last 10 years ). Many people hired in administration ( hidden unemployment )
More people working part time , less people working full time. ( scewing statistics of true unemployment , in many countries someone working 8 hours a week is not counted as unemployed )
Record low investments into new employees , record high investments into equipment.


All within a world of record productivity.

Sorry , the trends don't lie , they just are.
Free market is a fanatical religion , nothing more , and it makes its followers resistant to knowledge.

There is absolutely no hint that current trends will change and new jobs will come out of woodwork especially when there is a prospect of computerization almost half the occupations in the next 20 years.

This is just impossible.

You are 100% correct, the only jobs that will be generated in the coming years will be in engineering design, and architecture outside of government jobs. A great case study of the world we're rapidly approaching is from the comic book / movie "Dredd" (Judge Dredd and Mega City one). A nation where every basic need is provided for free by a robot underclass, where no one "needs" to work. Same with the sci-fi novel series "The Expanse," where on earth absolutely no one works unless they actively want to, the remaining populace is given a stipend similar to native saudi arabians.

We're getting real close to a limitless resource world once we actually pull our heads out of our collective asses and heavily invest into AI robotics.

[Rassah]

All global statistics support my point of view. Since last 30 years or so ( depending on the country ).

Global
Real wages down
Labor participation rate down
Labor income share in GDP down. ( This was an iron division between labor share and capital share that was stable for centuries until computers arrived )
Amount of people working in private businesses down ( trend of last 10 years ). Many people hired in administration ( hidden unemployment )
More people working part time , less people working full time. ( scewing statistics of true unemployment , in many countries someone working 8 hours a week is not counted as unemployed )
Record low investments into new employees , record high investments into equipment.

Hmm, don't know where you got your statistics from, but these say otherwise. It's a chart of total global labor force, employment, and unemployment from 1948 to present



Note that technology has been booming, jobs have been getting replaced, population has been increasing, and yet unemployment has remained fairly constant. So, jobs replaced by technology were apparently being replaced by new jobs.

Sure, if you just look at your country, labor participation may be down, businesses are shutting down and leaving, people are going to work at fast food and other part time jobs because all good jobs moved away. This got especially worse since 2008, when economies of your and other major countries somewhat crashed, and tons of new regulations were put in place. However, if you look at the rest of the world, that's where all those closing businesses and jobs moved to. So in there view, they went from crappy jobs such as subsistence farming,  prostitution, dusty literal sweatshops, and more recently phone support, to the kinds of things you are complaining about having to do now, which in their view is infinitely better.

Technology didn't just arrive and start taking away jobs in mid 2000. And yours is not the only country in the world.

[jdbtracker]

You know if we really pushed it, we could automate every single job on the planet in the next year.

Lawyers: obsolete     Machine learning algorithms going through all the law books on the planet analyzing all case histories, looking for all viable avenues.
Doctors: obsolete      Watson supercomputer deployed across the planet.
Scientists: obsolete    Automated research centers, slicing dicing staining, robotic probes roaming the planet.
Police: obsolete         robots incapable of corruption patrolling the streets, running on machine algorithms to predict crime before it happens.
Teachers:obsolete     Online pre programmed courses teaching people whatever they wish to learn.
Military:obsolete       Robots control the battlefield stronger faster smarter, incapable of PTSD, emotionless cold machines assessing and dolling out the     appropriate             response to a threat.
Cooks:obsolete         Automated machinery designed to cook any meal you like is already available.
Government:obsolete The internet can already bring about world wide direct democracy.
Programmers:obsolete Machine learning algorithms and A.I. systems with neural chips on neural networks constructing any program required.

All we would have to do is learn everything these professions do and just script it into a program with machine learning algorithms to methodically improve their preformance.

If we can do it, I think we should. Go immediately straight into a Autonomous Corporation controlled  model or a resource based economy.

after all it is only a matter of time, we can do this now... It will only take one person scripting their entire profession into a database with machine learning to automate them.

Edit: here are a couple examples I've seen over the years.

A.I. Law

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829175.900-ai-gets-involved-with-the-law.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html?_r=0

Police

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2437206/Police-tackle-burglars-muggers-using-Minority-Report-style-technology-tackle-future-crime.html

Cooking

http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/pop-culture/article/videos-of-robots-that-cook-pancakes-pizza-burgers-and-more

Military

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_robot

Doctors:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/22/4016888/ibm-watson-could-replace-doctors-disrupt-healthcare
http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/lp22/cs237/cs237medicalxsys.html  and this one is from the 80's; The Golden age of A.I.

Programmers: Sorry man, they got an app for that too. I have no doubt... that those A.I. that are capable of programming are already out there, they're just classified.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjVDd_MDP2Q
http://primaryobjects.com/CMS/Article150.aspx

Writers

http://allthingsd.com/20130605/the-c-i-a-invests-in-narrative-science-and-its-automated-writers/

[giantdragon]

Hmm, don't know where you got your statistics from, but these say otherwise. It's a chart of total global labor force, employment, and unemployment from 1948 to present

At first, population size in the U.S. have grown significantly also, so your chart is not representative (you must look at the percentage, not absolute numbers). Secondly, have you noticed labor force participation leveled off last years even in absolute numbers (population continued to grow nevertheless)?

Programmers:obsolete

Programmer will be the last profession automated!

[PirateHatForTea]

Hmm, don't know where you got your statistics from, but these say otherwise. It's a chart of total global labor force, employment, and unemployment from 1948 to present

Two important things to note about the figures you quote

• The growth in labor force stopped in 2007 - this appears to be unprecedented in the data
• The labor force is measured in absolute numbers - a much more meaningful benchmark is the % participation rate

Most of the growth in participation rate in the last 60 years has come from bringing women into the workforce. That reversed to a massive extent, at least in the USA, in 2007, and hasn't recovered. See http://earlywarn.blogspot.com.br/2013/02/employmentpopulation-ratios.html for an interesting take - the whole blog is a valuable resource with some good thoughts on technological unemployment also.

Personally I am fairly convinced of the technological unemployment hypothesis, and think that even without strong AI there will be less and less things that only humans can do as time goes forward. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing provided we can solve the massive inequality problems that are being caused by the increasing share of value of capital vs labor.

If we assume everyone is born (economically) equal (incorrect assumption, but a nice normative one at least. I'd be interested to hear the libertarian argument against us being born into equal circumstances/opportunities) all that each of us has to offer is our labor. We accrue capital from there - some more adeptly than others. If capital is more able to beget capital than labor is, then those that begin with a head start (ie own capital) will only see that head start increase, and those without capital will only fall further behind.

Redistributive economics is anathema to your average libertarian, but if my hunches about technology leading to increasing capital share of value is correct, what do we do about it?

My personal preference is a universal basic income. This would require high taxation, but I don't see how capitalism will survive without something like this to stimulate consumption.

[henryreardon]

completely wrong because even if  I can fish, the govt only gives out a certain number of licenses to be able to fish.

try to think a bit deeper than accept trite platitudes.

I agree that there are numerous industries that are extremely distorted b/c of government meddling by requiring licenses and innumerable regulatory hoops be jumped through etc. -- e.g. airlines, sports on TV, doctors.  If it weren't for these air travel would have improved and gotten cheaper over the past 30 years, instead it is stagnant.  NBA players would not get paid 20 mill, but rather much less.  And doctors would be better and faster, rather than mostly elitist luddites like they are now.

But there are numerous industries where, fortunately, government meddling is absent or at least minimal.  Those are still meritocracies, and in those subsidies hurt, they do not help.