Technological unemployment is (almost) here

[Milotyc]

At 5% unemployment it would just reduce a typical working week by 2 hours, so with some clever economics it could be possible
But generally I agree - there is no economic incentive for a government to significantly reduce unemployment without reducing their competitiveness.

lolwat

[Rassah]

See, that is exactly what I'm talking about. People like Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, and others like them didn't have jobs, or capital to live off of, yet they live pretty damn well. Capitalism is not finding an employer and hoping he will give you a job

I just love this kind of arguments ... ( love to laugh at it )
This is a one in a million exception not a rule.
And yet those twisted free-market minds somehow treat it like a revelation.

Ok, do you know Joanne H., Bill B., Oleg T., Sewchand B., or Jeff R.? They are people I know who don't have jobs, they own businesses or do their own work as consultants. But they are not famous, or even well known, so they don't make good examples. But there are millions of examples like this. The only thing laughable is that you are still so dependent on a job that you think you will die without someone giving you one.

In this topic I tried to draw a macro-model, i.e. what will happen for the society a whole. Of course exceptions exist for some sectors, but these small niches not affected by automation where you can work for yourself not being a superstar (e.g. hairdresser, plumber, mechanic, repairman etc) will evaporate very quickly as crowd of unemployed will try to take these jobs! Also don't forget that AI capabilities are not static, so after 20 years there may be even robo-mechanic and robo-hairdresser.

Well, let's look at the macro model of agriculture. Do you need to work from 6am to 7pm, doing difficult manual labor, in order to feed yourself? No. Automation replaced farming, so now you can do much simpler and easier work, and still get enough food.
How about the macro model of manufacturing? Do you need to work for weeks just to put together a car, or some other gadget, or pay close to $100,000 just to buy a car? No. Automation replaced most of the manual labor required to manufacture goods, and now you can do much simpler and easier work and still get things like cars and gadgets.

Do you see where the trend here is? Less work, and simpler work, to get the same type of stuff that required a lot of back breaking labor just a few decades ago. In the future, you may be able to afford food, a car, and whatever else you need, just for the labor of wiping down some robots with rags, and replacing a few screws.

Or, if you don't want to do that, you can always go do the hard labor of growing food yourself from scratch on some plot of land to survive.

[giantdragon]

Well, let's look at the macro model of agriculture. Do you need to work from 6am to 7pm, doing difficult manual labor, in order to feed yourself? No. Automation replaced farming, so now you can do much simpler and easier work, and still get enough food.

Transition from the Argriculture -> Industry -> Services was discussed a lot of times above, as well as assumption that there is no 4th sector after "Services".

How about the macro model of manufacturing? Do you need to work for weeks just to put together a car, or some other gadget, or pay close to $100,000 just to buy a car? No. Automation replaced most of the manual labor required to manufacture goods, and now you can do much simpler and easier work and still get things like cars and gadgets.

Do you see where the trend here is? Less work, and simpler work, to get the same type of stuff that required a lot of back breaking labor just a few decades ago. In the future, you may be able to afford food, a car, and whatever else you need, just for the labor of wiping down some robots with rags, and replacing a few screws.

I am wondering why some people still believe automation will make anything "cheap as dirt"! This will never happen because your fundamentalist faith in the free markets is just a pure theory having nothing with the real world where do exist monopolies, patents, cartel agreements etc!

[Rassah]

Well, let's look at the macro model of agriculture. Do you need to work from 6am to 7pm, doing difficult manual labor, in order to feed yourself? No. Automation replaced farming, so now you can do much simpler and easier work, and still get enough food.

Transition from the Argriculture -> Industry -> Services was discussed a lot of times above, as well as assumption that there is no 4th sector after "Services".

That's your falacy right there. There's no transaition from one to the other. Otherwise we wouldn't still have agriculture and industry. We still have those things, but the jobs just changed. Aggriculture is now more about biological engineering, and industry is more about supply chains and making more efficient automation. We still have just as many people working, but now our farmers are working in bio and genetics labs, trying to improve plant growth and fertilizers, and our industry workers are figuring out how to source and transport materials in a more efficient way, ahd now to design robots that will assemble things in the quickest way possible while using the least amount of resources.

I am wondering why some people still believe automation will make anything "cheap as dirt"!

Because that is the very purpose of automation: make as much as possible, as quickly as possible, for as little as possible. Capitalism is all about efficiency (less waste = more profits), and by extension so is all the automation that capitalism has been pushing.

This will never happen because your fundamentalist faith in the free markets is just a pure theory having nothing with the real world

It's not faith, it's how things are actually working in the real world, right now. It's as much of a theory as any other science theory, like the theory of gravity. Automation, efficiency, things getting cheaper, and everything else. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[giantdragon]

There's no transaition from one to the other. Otherwise we wouldn't still have agriculture and industry.

I never said previous sector being completely destroyed after each transition. Just number of employed people falls to insignificant numbers (e.g. there is still agriculture in the U.S., but it provides just 2% of jobs).

It's not faith, it's how things are actually working in the real world, right now. It's as much of a theory as any other science theory, like the theory of gravity. Automation, efficiency, things getting cheaper, and everything else. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

May be it is true for few products like electronics and IT, but for the most stuff its completely false! Houses, education, healthcare, energy, food (agriculture already automaded by 99% now!) don't show any signs of price reduction and even opposite if we count median workers' wage (which is falling due to automation and offshoring).

[Bitcoin Machine]

It's seems to me as more things become automated the more work I have to do.

Technology seems to increase my production but now I must produce more work to compete in the market place. I must continually learn new skills every year based on upgraded technology.  If I don't keep up then the new kid on block will take my work.  What use to take 3 people now only takes 1 to do the same job.   But that comes with a price.

But there is no question that through technology life has become much easier historically.  Now we have time on our hands to sit around messages boards and complain to one another without worrying about how or where we find our next meal.

[knightcoin]

It's seems to me as more things become automated the more work I have to do.

Technology seems to increase my production but now I must produce more work to compete in the market place. I must continually learn new skills every year based on upgraded technology.  If I don't keep up then the new kid on block will take my work.  What use to take 3 people now only takes 1 to do the same job.   But that comes with a price.

But there is no question that through technology life has become much easier historically.  Now we have time on our hands to sit around messages boards and complain to one another without worrying about how or where we find our next meal.

// good one

[giantdragon]

It's seems to me as more things become automated the more work I have to do.

Unfortunately, increase in productivity throw away from the market whole countries and regions (e.g. Spain, Greece, Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria) however providing some extra work to the people in the industrial centers where automated machines are located (e.g. Germany and Netherlands). But if you count number of job gains and losses EU-wide, you will see strongly negative number!

[Jcw188]

It's seems to me as more things become automated the more work I have to do.

Technology seems to increase my production but now I must produce more work to compete in the market place. I must continually learn new skills every year based on upgraded technology.  If I don't keep up then the new kid on block will take my work.  What use to take 3 people now only takes 1 to do the same job.   But that comes with a price.

But there is no question that through technology life has become much easier historically.  Now we have time on our hands to sit around messages boards and complain to one another without worrying about how or where we find our next meal.

Maybe you have to do more work, I agree with that, but it used to be done by 2 people but now you're expected to be able to do it yourself because we have technology.  It's funny this even hurts jobs like lawyers because with less economic expansion there is less for people to argue about and seek advice from lawyers for.

[Rassah]

There's no transaition from one to the other. Otherwise we wouldn't still have agriculture and industry.

I never said previous sector being completely destroyed after each transition. Just number of employed people falls to insignificant numbers (e.g. there is still agriculture in the U.S., but it provides just 2% of jobs).

Agriculture used to be plowing, seeding, tilling, and picking. If you look at just that, then yeah, there's even less than 2% of that now. Almost no one does it anymore, since that is done with machines and tractors. But that's not what agriculture means anymore. Now agriculture includes land surveys, irrigation systems, chemical research for new types of fertilizers and pesticides, product delivery and storage systems and research, and an enormous amount of research into genetic and biological engineering to make the food cheaper to grow and more resistant to disease and insects. All those people who used to be employed to move dirt around by hand are now free to do much more advanced (and less labor-intensive) things, and as a result we are able to grow a lot more food with a lot fewer resources. And yes, food is cheaper now. The price might not have changed, or maybe even seemed to go up, but you're forgetting inflation.

But if you count number of job gains and losses EU-wide, you will see strongly negative number!

Of course. You will see the same thing in US if you look over the last decade. But if you look at the world as a whole, you see strongly positive number of new jobs (HUGELY strongly positive), which means, as I've said, that jobs are not disapearing, they are moving away to other developing countries.

[giantdragon]

And yes, food is cheaper now. The price might not have changed, or maybe even seemed to go up, but you're forgetting inflation.

In Latvia where I live in its false completely. Other EU countries also don't experience food price drop as I now (adjusted to inflation of course).

But if you look at the world as a whole, you see strongly positive number of new jobs (HUGELY strongly positive), which means, as I've said, that jobs are not disapearing, they are moving away to other developing countries.

World population grew by 1 BILLION last decade. You have to see at labor participation rate, which looks completely different!

[Rassah]

World population grew by 1 BILLION last decade.

And the number of unemployed has increased by more than a billion around the world?

[jdbtracker]

You know what we are forgetting?

What happens next? What happens when technology is advancing beyond our capability to comprehend...
That the pattern of innovation accelerated to the point that it is a blur to human understanding... we can only observe and try to accept what we are learning.

With the disappearance of Manual jobs still means that a great percentage will make their living doing higher level jobs, so things will start to speed-up on the innovation front. I give it another ten years and all manual jobs will be completely gone, another ten the service jobs, only research and Human arts related jobs would remain... funny. We are already gaining the capability to automate entire industries by ourselves, you know, you and me, a single person deploying an Automated Corporation, not Decentralized simply generating revenue for us, that will be another player in the future landscape.

Decentralized Automated Corporations, what a powerful idea that we have the technology now to do this, but will have to rough it for years to establish credibility... enough to generate revenue for it's investors. So in essence we are building the future network right now... Maybe we should think about it at a larger scale to skip a couple learning steps.

They need Robots to mechanize all these manual labour jobs... but we have the capability to automate any office job... and we can deploy them right now with free OpenSource software, programming after all is logic, there is a logic to all systems, it would simply need to be copied and extended for use on the web. How would we design a system, do we absorb all the profits of our DAC deployment or setup shares to spread the wealth... sooner or later customers disappear if they run out of money... massive taxation would be the result and eventual government integration since all the DAC automates it's maintenance and operation... I would rather avoid that by starting out by selling shares.

Sooner or later it'll happen, people have read the idea, I have no doubt someone is starting the long arduous journey to build it right now somewhere on the Internet, all those jobs will be gone completely in 20 years. The economy will be a place where people focus on gaining further efficiencies at ever increasing speeds, till that process itself is automated, We may even have Digital Avatars that interact with the world for you, guiding you about information in the world. We can do that now... just not enough digital infrastructure, not lack of technology stops us from doing that.

I was pretty blown away when I spotted this today, Could a future Intel chip have a neural module installed for easy virtualization of your personality for your Digital Avatar?

http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Unveils+Latest+Version+of+Spiking+NeuronBased+Brain+Chips/article33135.htm

Who will watch the watchers?

[johnyj]

First, a race to the bottom: Until all the cheap labors on the planet are exhausted, real income in developed countries will continuously decrease while the real income in developing countries will catch up

After that, human will start to compete with robots who can do much more work at a much lower price, most of the repetitive work will be automated, income will more and more concentrate to a few companies who make robots/system

Anyway, the real income will continuously drop for majority of the people, and their hope is that the government establish lots of projects and absorb more and more excessive labor force. Since the government projects  borrows money from the FED, the debt level will keep rising, FED might need to do periodical debt forgiven for government. The result will be lots of government projects like electric cars, solar power stations, quantum research center, and maybe some bitcoin mining city  

[giantdragon]

World population grew by 1 BILLION last decade.

And the number of unemployed has increased by more than a billion around the world?

Who knows, may be yes... Official stats are heavily rigged, don't trust them at all!
For example, about 1 million U.S. long term unemployed will lose benefits in January and probably will be deducted from the unemployment rate. Also don't forget about underployment (i.e. people work only 3-4 hours a day with appropriate wage reduction) which is rampant now. Better look at Shadow Stats alternate unemployment rate which looks much more trustworthy!

[Murwa]

Who knows, may be yes... Official stats are heavily rigged, don't trust them at all!
For example, about 1 million U.S. long term unemployed will lose benefits in January and probably will be deducted from the unemployment rate. Also don't forget about underployment (i.e. people work only 3-4 hours a day with appropriate wage reduction) which is rampant now. Better look at Shadow Stats alternate unemployment rate which looks much more trustworthy!

And dont forget government jobs ( which are on record high worldwide )

Those are not free-market jobs those are politics sponsored jobs. Government all around the world could employ half a population to sit a the desk and do nothing Rassak would still claim technological unemployment does not exists because unemployment is low.

This iron free-market logic ...

[Rassah]

You guys are still just looking at unemployment in US and Europe, and forgetting that billions of new jobs were created in India, China, Russia, and South East Asia in just the last decade, with probably over a billion of those being middle class jobs, which almost didn't even exist in those countries before 2000's. All these were private sector jobs, not government.

[giantdragon]

You guys are still just looking at unemployment in US and Europe, and forgetting that billions of new jobs were created in India, China, Russia, and South East Asia in just the last decade, with probably over a billion of those being middle class jobs, which almost didn't even exist in those countries before 2000's. All these were private sector jobs, not government.

Chinese boom was caused by industrial production offshoring from the US and EU, which is coming to the end now. Some corporations (Apple, GE, Caterpillar) already started bringing back manufacturing because wages in China have risen enough to make production here uncompetitive comparing to the local manufacturing on highly-automated plants (which also let to save on transportation costs).
Developing countries (China, South East Asia, partly India) will suffer at most because they won't have neither menial jobs, nor skilled population to make a transition.

[giantdragon]

US BLS issued rigged unemployment report again stating jobless rate have fallen from 7% to 6.7% in December, however labor participation rate hit lowest value since 1978 (62.8%)!

[Rassah]

Stupid government. New Bitcoin financial services alone could probably add a few 100k jobs, but most of them can't even start because it takes too long and costs too much to get licensed