MIT professors believe fast paced advances in technology, while increases productivity, is destroyin
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[quote]That robots, automation, and software can replace people might seem obvious to anyone who’s worked in automotive manufacturing or as a travel agent. But Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s claim is more troubling and controversial. They believe that rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in the United States. And, they suspect, something similar is happening in other technologically advanced countries.
Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence, according to Brynjolfsson, is a chart that only an economist could love. In economics, productivity—the amount of economic value created for a given unit of input, such as an hour of labor—is a crucial indicator of growth and wealth creation. It is a measure of progress. On the chart Brynjolfsson likes to show, separate lines represent productivity and total employment in the United States. For years after World War II, the two lines closely tracked each other, with increases in jobs corresponding to increases in productivity. The pattern is clear: as businesses generated more value from their workers, the country as a whole became richer, which fueled more economic activity and created even more jobs. Then, beginning in 2000, the lines diverge; productivity continues to rise robustly, but employment suddenly wilts. By 2011, a significant gap appears between the two lines, showing economic growth with no parallel increase in job creation. Brynjolfsson and McAfee call it the “great decoupling.” And Brynjolfsson says he is confident that technology is behind both the healthy growth in productivity and the weak growth in jobs.
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Brynjolfsson and McAfee are not Luddites. Indeed, they are sometimes accused of being too optimistic about the extent and speed of recent digital advances. Brynjolfsson says they began writing Race Against the Machine, the 2011 book in which they laid out much of their argument, because they wanted to explain the economic benefits of these new technologies (Brynjolfsson spent much of the 1990s sniffing out evidence that information technology was boosting rates of productivity). But it became clear to them that the same technologies making many jobs safer, easier, and more productive were also reducing the demand for many types of human workers.
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It's okay, in ten years robots will be forming unions and demanding wages anyway.
society needs to adapt to the technology it has, and the current system of employment will not work with increasingly more people + increasingly automated jobs. We're far from post scarcity and being able to live completely off of robots, but we're getting closer to that point, and we need to adapt as production and service technology skyrockets forward.
If anything society and economics are being stagnated by the very same investors who indulged into automation for big industry in the first place.
Well, it does kinda make sense; as automated processes become more reliable and affordable, there's less need for skilled human workers when a machine can do it efficiently. Still, there are some things that humans are still better at, like producing art and entertainment.
[QUOTE=ironman17;41068935]Well, it does kinda make sense; as automated processes become more reliable and affordable, there's less need for skilled human workers when a machine can do it efficiently. Still, there are some things that humans are still better at, like producing art and entertainment.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't be surprised if humanity at some point fully concentrates on things where robots can't help, while robots are doing the jobs mankind used to do; primarily speaking of hard labor. Could lead to even enhanced research, more art, more entertainment, lots and lots of new ideas. But then again, who knows for sure.
Currently the way things are progressing we don't really need such a big human population, we're just going to end up with jobs for the few while the rest are unemployed and on pensions.
[QUOTE=ironman17;41068935]Well, it does kinda make sense; as automated processes become more reliable and affordable, there's less need for skilled human workers when a machine can do it efficiently. Still, there are some things that humans are still better at, like producing art and entertainment.[/QUOTE]
I wonder when we'll reach the point of Judge Dredd where the only human held position in a facility used to control the weather was to press a single button periodically since the robots got fucked my static electricity or something.
Until they made robots resistant to that as well and the dude went on a rampage.
[QUOTE=Vasili;41068974]Currently the way things are progressing [b]we don't really need such a big human population[/b], we're just going to end up with jobs for the few while the rest are unemployed and on pensions.[/QUOTE]
Not like we actually have any control on the human population /sarcasm
W-we need to l-lower t-taxes on bi-bi-big businesses, s-so they can create more jobs.
[QUOTE=ironman17;41068935]Well, it does kinda make sense; as automated processes become more reliable and affordable, there's less need for skilled human workers when a machine can do it efficiently. [B]Still, there are some things that humans are still better at, like producing art and entertainment[/B].[/QUOTE]
Wait til autotune becomes sentient.
[QUOTE=lifehole;41068904]society needs to adapt to the technology it has, and the current system of employment will not work with increasingly more people + increasingly automated jobs. We're far from post scarcity and being able to live completely off of robots, but we're getting closer to that point, and we need to adapt as production and service technology skyrockets forward.[/QUOTE]
I would suggest something like "build more farms, make farming a more attractive prospect", but then I realised the problem that most cityfolk wouldn't be able to commute to rural areas as quickly or as easily. That is, unless there were plenty of available homes close enough to the farms for commutes to be viable, or if the farms themselves were residential hamlets where workers lived.
The problem is people don't seem to want to adapt to technologies changes. There are plent of jobs in the Science/Technology fields, not so much BMA or Arts majors
Well in the factory I work at, machines probably couldn't do my job (or it'd be so expensive to build one it wouldn't be worth it). We make ice cream, and we use robots to feed the ice cream from the -10f room to the palletizing room. The robot arms are always damaging the ice cream, I can see where they're coming from though.
It's obvious when you think about it, but what should we do, slow down technological advancement?
By slowing it down, we're just wasting time, since it will happen eventually and have the same effect.
[QUOTE=ironman17;41069007]I would suggest something like "build more farms, make farming a more attractive prospect", but then I realised the problem that most cityfolk wouldn't be able to commute to rural areas as quickly or as easily. That is, unless there were plenty of available homes close enough to the farms for commutes to be viable, or if the farms themselves were residential hamlets where workers lived.[/QUOTE]
From TV programmes I've watched, it seems like farming has become more popular to younger workers in rural communities because of apprenticeship programs and other incentives. But like you've said, the problem is getting the work to urban folk.
I thought this has been known since robots and machines have been taken over assembly lines
Technology is advancing at a really rapid rate and because of that, the cost of tools and resources to educate people to pursuit this field of work is exponentially high. I don't think that it's because people aren't enthusiastic to get educated on this new generation of technology... I think it's because people aren't enthusiastic about paying outrageous prices yo learn about technology that may become obsolete in the near future.
[QUOTE=CMB Unit 01;41069041]From TV programmes I've watched, it seems like farming has become more popular to younger workers in rural communities because of apprenticeship programs and other incentives. But like you've said, the problem is getting the work to urban folk.[/QUOTE]
Aye; however, in this world made of steel, made of stone (what a feeling), maybe city lads and lasses need to learn the virtues of machine maintenance, like most kids know how to take something apart, repair and replace malfunctioning parts, and put it back together. This way, the rural regions have strong agriculture and food output, whilst in the cities we have a culture of engineers and tinkers and mechanists. 'cause even though machines are usually efficient, they still break down, and they need technicians and mechanists to get them working again.
Pop that stuff on the national curriculum and we'd have a generation of kids who know how to fix what's broke and keep the world of steel cogs turning.
Also, in reference (and reverence) to the agricultural industry, have this:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtOJK_h8ekM[/media]
[QUOTE=Sir Spicy Buns;41069065]I thought this has been known since robots and machines have been taken over assembly lines[/QUOTE]
It's generally accepted that when a new technology enters the workplace (such as automated assembly lines), jobs will be lost as first. However, machinery requires maintenance which therefore means it needs people to monitor them, thereby creating jobs (albeit perhaps not as much as were lost). Then, the rise in productivity brought on by this new technology means that a business can expand, which also creates new jobs.
However, this idea does only deal with machinery which does simple, automated tasks. It is possible that advances in A.I could reach such a level that they would end up destroying jobs and removing the possibilities of new ones.
Well shit, look at all those "growing field" jobs: System Admin, Network Admin, IT Support. I guess I'm pretty well set.
Very interesting read.
This is precisely why Marx saw communism as a thing that would happen once most production was automated. If you have automated production which can handle everyone's needs, people really only need to work to maintain the machines, and you can afford to just hand goods out to whoever needs them. And if you don't, people are going to be very pissed that their economy has the ability to support everyone, but no one has jobs to pay for what they need.
[QUOTE=Patriarch;41069220]It's generally accepted that when a new technology enters the workplace (such as automated assembly lines), jobs will be lost as first. However, machinery requires maintenance which therefore means it needs people to monitor them, thereby creating jobs (albeit perhaps not as much as were lost). Then, the rise in productivity brought on by this new technology means that a business can expand, which also creates new jobs.
However, this idea does only deal with machinery which does simple, automated tasks. It is possible that advances in A.I could reach such a level that they would end up destroying jobs and removing the possibilities of new ones.[/QUOTE]
It also applies to machinery that does complex tasks too though, such as computers, which have ushered in completely new industries that couldn't have existed without them.
But I agree that it's not always an increase in employment opportunities as well as not always being a decrease.
Supposedly automated production allows the industry to hire people for higher-ranked, better paid jobs without actually losing employees in the process.
Of course given that most companies are pretty much entirely focused on farming the dosh it's an expected outcome that automated production and other robotic things brings down the number of employees per company. In my opinion it doesn't really have much to do with robotics or technology to begin with, considering these same companies have been and will continue firing people for dumber reasons, as long as it'll give them even the tiniest amount of additional money.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;41069290]This is precisely why Marx saw communism as a thing that would happen once most production was automated. If you have automated production which can handle everyone's needs, people really only need to work to maintain the machines, and you can afford to just hand goods out to whoever needs them. And if you don't, people are going to be very pissed that their economy has the ability to support everyone, but no one has jobs to pay for what they need.[/QUOTE]
It doesn't just rely on most production becoming automated, it also relies on there also being no net creation of avenues for new employment on top of most production becoming automated.
If something like a maker comes into the market and somehow invalidates most production for example, employment could very well move away from production and towards designing blueprints for the maker, with an industry springing up around that.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;41069290]This is precisely why Marx saw communism as a thing that would happen once most production was automated. If you have automated production which can handle everyone's needs, people really only need to work to maintain the machines, and you can afford to just hand goods out to whoever needs them. And if you don't, people are going to be very pissed that their economy has the ability to support everyone, but no one has jobs to pay for what they need.[/QUOTE]
Yeah. This research only means that the current job-based society has to change.
If anybody is going to tell me "we need to stop the technological progress, people are hungry due to it", I am going to punch them.
The society needs to catch up with technology and accommodate to it. Claiming it should be the other way is asinine.
And then the robots rebel, and matrix happen
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;41069290]This is precisely why Marx saw communism as a thing that would happen once most production was automated. If you have automated production which can handle everyone's needs, people really only need to work to maintain the machines, and you can afford to just hand goods out to whoever needs them. And if you don't, people are going to be very pissed that their economy has the ability to support everyone, but no one has jobs to pay for what they need.[/QUOTE]
Or people just need to start getting Techology and Science based careers. Seriously, those industries are booming and were least affected by the 08 economy. People just need to realize no a profession in art probably ain't going to happen for everyone, we have these things called hobbies.
[QUOTE=Tucan Sam;41069594]Or people just need to start getting Techology and Science based careers. Seriously, those industries are booming and were least affected by the 08 economy. People just need to realize no a profession in art probably ain't going to happen for everyone, we have these things called hobbies.[/QUOTE]
the fact most people tend to dislike math, physics and things like that doesn't exactly helps lol.
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