The automation myth

[Chris]

Great article by Matthew Yglesias on The automation myth. It opens with...

Over the past five years, American politics has become obsessed with robots.

President Obama has warned that ATMs and airport check-in kiosks are contributing to high unemployment. Sen. Marco Rubio said that the central challenge of our times is "to ensure that the rise of the machines is not the fall of the worker." A cover story in the Atlantic asked us to ponder the problems of a world without work. And in the New York Times, Barbara Ehrenrich warns that "the job-eating maw of technology now threatens even the nimblest and most expensively educated."

The good news is that these concerns are wrong. None of the recent problems in the American economy are due to robots — or, to be more specific about it, due to an accelerating pace of automation. Moreover, even if the pace of automation does speed up in the future, there's no real reason to believe that it will be a problem.

The bad news is that these concerns are wrong. Rather than an accelerating pace of automation, we've actually been living through a slowdown in the pace of productivity growth. And that slowdown is a huge problem. Unless it reverses, we'll be waking up soon to find ourselves in a depressing world of longer working years, unmanageable health-care needs, higher taxes, and a public sector starved of needed infrastructure resources.

In other words, don't worry that the robots will take your job. Be terrified that they won't.

It goes on at length to look at history and data to support that.

[kilgram]

Nice, is showing a raise of the top 1%.

Later shows a very small reduction of hours worked from the 70s.

The myth is that automation does not benefit more than the workers to the employers. The myth is that automation does not destroy employment. The myth is that as robotics improve more human work will be necessary, is the opposite.

Never, the technology has advanced so fast. The only solution that no one believes will happen (work harder says the right) is that benefits of the technology distributes, it means reduction of hours worked. But much more, for the increase of the GDP, productivity... today we should be working 6 hours/daily, 30 hours/weekly as much. And, in my opinion even less hours.

The problem is not the automation... The problem is the automation in capitalist systems (free market or crony-capitalist, I don't care, consequences are the same).

[Chris]

Huh?

It says "Wages rose steadily at a pace of about 2.23 percentage points faster than inflation in the average year....And the growth was widely shared. There were rich people and poor people, of course, but the share of overall national income accruing to the very wealthy was modest and generally falling."

The small reduction in hours demonstrates robots are not taking over jobs.

If you think automation destroys jobs, demonstrate it. An make sure you demonstrate destroys rather than displaces.

Technology has advanced, but they're not taking over our jobs, and that's the problem, it should and thus free us from labor. Wait, isn't that the communist promise?

Ansd there you go with your anti-capitalist propaganda. Stop for once, and just address the topic at hand.

[kilgram]

Ok, I am going to have to do a lot of research, and I am bit lazy of it. For the last time and first time and last time I am going to try to refute a post of yours with data (don't get used to it).

Well, I am going to give a few data from the EPI about the wages and productivity. Productivity has raised from the 40s a 200% and obviously the wages has not been increased those amount even in dreams, neither a 100%.

http://www.epi.org/publication/chart...ge-stagnation/

http://www.epi.org/publication/stagnant-wages-in-2014/

I am sorry, I am going to give you answers in chapters I am going to answer later the part of destruction of jobs.

[Chris]

I think you're saying the same as him ...



Wages have been flat for other reasons.

[OGIS]

Nice, is showing a raise of the top 1%.

Later shows a very small reduction of hours worked from the 70s.

The myth is that automation does not benefit more than the workers to the employers. The myth is that automation does not destroy employment. The myth is that as robotics improve more human work will be necessary, is the opposite.

Never, the technology has advanced so fast. The only solution that no one believes will happen (work harder says the right) is that benefits of the technology distributes, it means reduction of hours worked. But much more, for the increase of the GDP, productivity... today we should be working 6 hours/daily, 30 hours/weekly as much. And, in my opinion even less hours.

The problem is not the automation... The problem is the automation in capitalist systems (free market or crony-capitalist, I don't care, consequences are the same).

Here's an article about the automation of 90% of the jobs in a Chinese factory. I wonder what the fate of unemployed workers is in a "Communist Paradise"?

(China, AFAICS, is now simply an authoritarian, State-Enterprise-heavy crony-capitalist system at this point.)

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/...duction-soars/

[Dr. Who]

Huh?

It says "Wages rose steadily at a pace of about 2.23 percentage points faster than inflation in the average year....And the growth was widely shared. There were rich people and poor people, of course, but the share of overall national income accruing to the very wealthy was modest and generally falling."

The small reduction in hours demonstrates robots are not taking over jobs.

If you think automation destroys jobs, demonstrate it. An make sure you demonstrate destroys rather than displaces.

Technology has advanced, but they're not taking over our jobs, and that's the problem, it should and thus free us from labor. Wait, isn't that the communist promise?

Ansd there you go with your anti-capitalist propaganda. Stop for once, and just address the topic at hand.

I'm not sure that all the bank tellers unemployed by the ATM would agree with you. I'm pretty sure that most of the gas pump jockey jobs have also disappeared. Scads of retail stores have been replaced by online sales (book stores are really disappearing) as are outlets for music sales - also going online and I think before long places like Staples/Office Depot will go turn into strictly online operations. McD's is planning to automate ordering. With online interfaces everywhere, there is less and less need for data entry clerks and certainly in an increasingly paperless world, there is now records management software than simply finds the key data on electronic documents and files them appropriately. I don't think that there are stenographers anymore and dicta typists are going the way of the dinosaur. TBH, what is disappearing are all the non-professional jobs, little by little.

[OGIS]

I'm not sure that all the bank tellers unemployed by the ATM would agree with you. I'm pretty sure that most of the gas pump jockey jobs have also disappeared. Scads of retail stores have been replaced by online sales (book stores are really disappearing) as are outlets for music sales - also going online and I think before long places like Staples/Office Depot will go turn into strictly online operations. McD's is planning to automate ordering. With online interfaces everywhere, there is less and less need for data entry clerks and certainly in an increasingly paperless world, there is now records management software than simply finds the key data on electronic documents and files them appropriately. I don't think that there are stenographers anymore and dicta typists are going the way of the dinosaur. TBH, what is disappearing are all the non-professional jobs, little by little.

No problemo! All those minimum wage bank tellers, gas pump jockeys, brick & mortar sales clerks, data entry clerks, fast food workers, stenographers, typists and other assorted riff-raff can just go back to school and get degrees in advanced programming and nuclear medicine, right? Oh, wait, that costs money. Lots of money. Well, I suppose they can just get student loans, right?

It used to be that displaced workers could be retrained. That option, however, is disappearing as automation also makes inroads in more cerebral jobs.

I'm a retired accountant. Over the years I have been an Accounting Manager, Controller and CFO. And I realize now that I contributed to this problem in a small way. How? Spreadsheets. One of my specialties was "automating" Excel spreadsheets - creating complex macros that eliminated a lot of the drudgery involved with spreadsheets (as spreadsheets eliminated much of the drudgery of manual accounting). But I also eliminated a lot of required thinking.

The result was the elimination of a lot of Staff Accountant positions, jobs traditionally held by Jr. College business grads, and sometimes "green" university accounting graduates. The Excel work could now be done by minimum wage clericals.

The result of this was a reduction in the number of entry-level jobs available for Jr. College and university accounting graduates. All other things being equal, this translates into pay decreases.

This type of process is happening throughout the economy: a gradual chipping away of options.

[Captain Obvious]

No problemo! All those minimum wage bank tellers, gas pump jockeys, brick & mortar sales clerks, data entry clerks, fast food workers, stenographers, typists and other assorted riff-raff can just go back to school and get degrees in advanced programming and nuclear medicine, right? Oh, wait, that costs money. Lots of money. Well, I suppose they can just get student loans, right?

It used to be that displaced workers could be retrained. That option, however, is disappearing as automation also makes inroads in more cerebral jobs.

I'm a retired accountant. Over the years I have been an Accounting Manager, Controller and CFO. And I realize now that I contributed to this problem in a small way. How? Spreadsheets. One of my specialties was "automating" Excel spreadsheets - creating complex macros that eliminated a lot of the drudgery involved with spreadsheets (as spreadsheets eliminated much of the drudgery of manual accounting). But I also eliminated a lot of required thinking.

The result was the elimination of a lot of Staff Accountant positions, jobs traditionally held by Jr. College business grads, and sometimes "green" university accounting graduates. The Excel work could now be done by minimum wage clericals.

The result of this was a reduction in the number of entry-level jobs available for Jr. College and university accounting graduates. All other things being equal, this translates into pay decreases.

This type of process is happening throughout the economy: a gradual chipping away of options.

Accountant huh?

That explains a lot.

[OGIS]

Accountant huh?

That explains a lot.

In what way?