Is Now The Time to Make a Deal With Our Robot Overlords? (seattletimes.com) 90
"If certain businesses — say, the next generation of meat plants — can't reopen safely and profitably with humans, they can and should do so with robots," argued a recent Bloomberg column titled "Let's make a deal with our robot overlords." [Alternate source]
The column posits that right now some jobs "just aren't good enough to protect." Until now, among the biggest obstacles was the transition cost of going from badly paid humans to machines. But if companies disrupt their workflow by actually shutting down production to save lives (as they should), then they will have paid much of the cost... People will probably welcome the brave new world, particularly if it's more hygienic... I confess I'd prefer a self-cleaning, self-driving car so I don't have to share space with a human driver, for both our sakes...
[W]hat will happen to the enormous jobless underclass that such an accelerated shift to automation will create? This is where I think the sheer magnitude of the coronavirus crisis might actually help, for three reasons. First, when so many people are suddenly and violently thrown out of work at the same time, it creates a sense of solidarity that a slow, insidious process such as offshoring does not. Second, the jobless are not perceived, and do not perceive themselves, as at fault for their predicament. This is a natural disaster, beyond their control... Third, and perhaps most important, real change will look newly possible in light of the unprecedented measures the government has already taken to combat the crisis...
[I]f the winners of the AI revolution want to avoid the business disruption of an actual revolution, they should be prepared to negotiate a new and very different deal.
The column posits that right now some jobs "just aren't good enough to protect." Until now, among the biggest obstacles was the transition cost of going from badly paid humans to machines. But if companies disrupt their workflow by actually shutting down production to save lives (as they should), then they will have paid much of the cost... People will probably welcome the brave new world, particularly if it's more hygienic... I confess I'd prefer a self-cleaning, self-driving car so I don't have to share space with a human driver, for both our sakes...
[W]hat will happen to the enormous jobless underclass that such an accelerated shift to automation will create? This is where I think the sheer magnitude of the coronavirus crisis might actually help, for three reasons. First, when so many people are suddenly and violently thrown out of work at the same time, it creates a sense of solidarity that a slow, insidious process such as offshoring does not. Second, the jobless are not perceived, and do not perceive themselves, as at fault for their predicament. This is a natural disaster, beyond their control... Third, and perhaps most important, real change will look newly possible in light of the unprecedented measures the government has already taken to combat the crisis...
[I]f the winners of the AI revolution want to avoid the business disruption of an actual revolution, they should be prepared to negotiate a new and very different deal.
OMFG Shut the actual fuck up! (Score:4, Interesting)
For fuck's sake there should be the same penalty for writing shit like this as there is for yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre.
Re:OMFG Shut the actual fuck up! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everybody's jobs. But potentially enough jobs to create a long-term economic or social problem.
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He did it because he recognized a very simple economic reality: those people aren't just workers, they are also customers. If they have more money to spend, they will buy more of his cars.
By that logic, it'd be in Bezos' best interest to send us checks so we have more to spend on his site.
Get the fuck out of here. And re-take basic arithmetic.
No you (Score:2)
No he's absolutely right. Markets and market caps will decrease unless there are those two can purchase things, meaning decent wages for doing a job. So it's a race to the bottom with robotics. However, it's not totally true. Robotics will create an industry as well as maintenance for those robots. Better and more robust ones will be created. However there is a limit to how much people are willing to spend to automate vs how much you actually get from it. If your paying min wage your overhead is fairl
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When Henry Ford started making automobiles he paid his workers higher wages than most other companies at that time. He didn't do it because he was generous or a nice guy. He did it because he recognized a very simple economic reality: those people aren't just workers, they are also customers. If they have more money to spend, they will buy more of his cars.
Anyone repeating these bogus claims has no place criticizing anyone else's knowledge about this subject. It is so ridiculous that paying people more so a small fraction of that extra money is spent on the company's own products would actually be a sustainable business model, it is insulting that these claims are believed by anyone. As one Forbes article [forbes.com] pointed out, if this was true Boeing should start paying its employees enough to buy their own jets.
The truth is Ford was dealing with high turnover so he n
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People tend to judge the truth of a statement based on how well it confirms their biases. Even people who consider themselves champions of objectivity do this more than they realize; especially if the issue is one they care about (the emotional parts of the brain overpower the logical parts, and convince a person they are being perfectly rational and objective when they are actually blatantly contradicting themselves or just spouting nonsense).
This is a neurological process, and it impacts memory as well.
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When Henry Ford started making automobiles he paid his workers higher wages than most other companies at that time. He didn't do it because he was generous or a nice guy. He did it because he recognized a very simple economic reality: those people aren't just workers, they are also customers. If they have more money to spend, they will buy more of his cars.
Could you not push this stupid lie? Henry Ford started off paying his workers the same dirt rate as everyone else, then had to hire 52,000 people to fill 14,000 positions in one year because nearly 75% of people quit. He started paying more because the production downtime cost him more than increased wages. Your shining example of an employer paying a good wage to his employees so they could afford the products they make is an absolute lie, he paid them more because it was cheaper than training a new hire i
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You mean, sort of like when we transitioned from 90% of the population were farmers to 2% of the population are farmers?
Yeah, it's a real shame we've had to live with 88% unemployment for the last half century or so....
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Why are you so confident that history will repeat? Circumstances are very different now. The massively increased production went into raising standard of living. There's a limit to how far that can go. For one, resource consumption is already dangerously high.
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Human nature doesn't change. Patterns that have demonstrated themselves over 400 years can be trusted. If you want to argue "this time will be different from the last 400 years of times", the burden is on you to present compelling evidence.
The massive increase in standard of living from previous automation wasn't immediate. We have to be careful how fast we replace jobs with automation, but given we've been seeing these stories on Slashdot for about 15 years now, I don't think that's a real danger.
There's a limit to how far that can go. For one, resource consumption is already dangerously high.
No, th
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Perhaps we should shy away from the idea of Jobs and start putting education and training towards Careers.
Jobs get replaces by Robots and automation. Careers are enhanced by Robots and automation.
If your Job is to Cut Meat, then a robot can probably mimic your actions and do that job. If your career is a Butcher then you can direct the robots to come up with different cuts because you couldn't get such consistent cuts before.
My Career (Software Architect) didn't exist 50 years ago, while many of the jobs
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The situation is different this time. There were always jobs for people who were undereducated, unmotivated, and/or unintelligent. When jobs on the farm went away you could screw on lug nuts. When the factory shut down you could drive a truck. When the trucking company was bought out you could pick up garbage. When the garbage service was outsourced you could flip burgers.
Today pretty much everything for the guy with the high school (or less) education is about to be automated. Over the next decade ev
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You don't know that. NOBODY knows if that'll happen. All you're doing is creating FUD and making people panic for maybe no reason.
People know it has already been happening. And it has been causing social problems already such as the move towards nationalism in many developed countries. The conjecture is whether or not it will continue, and whether the trend with slow or accelerate. Either way it is worthwhile to discuss.
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Do you have some script on repeat auto-replying with the same message with a few slight variations?
If you haven't noticed, bad things have already been happening. The hollowing out of the middle class, rampant wealth inequality, protectionism becoming a platform of major political parties (who are winning elections), increasing class divisions, lower worker participation rates, stagnant wage growth ... I could go on for some time. Automation has been a significant if not primary driver of each of these prob
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Sounds exactly like something a robot would say.
Yeah: a robot that's got its eyes on MY JOB! Grrr!
Why? (Score:2)
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Exactly this. But see, that is the problem with many political debates. One side takes the selfish position, couched in economic terms, such as "It will make people lazy".
OK, so what? We have one life to live. There is no afterlife, just this. Why not make the best of it, how we choose that is up to us. If people want to spend it being lazy, let them! Let's be honest anyway, most people already do this while working. Bare minimum at work, come home and sit in front of the TV or computer, sleep, back to work
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It's fine when we get there, but reality is that we're far, far off from some Star Trek utopia where basic sustenance is practically free because it's all robots maintaining other robots. You can take a prison, remove all the security cost and still end up with a solid bill to run it anyway, even if the prisoners don't get anything fancy or do anything remotely luxurious. Maybe you can run an automated hotel but not a staffless hospital or nursing home. As long as we need people to work it's not unreasonabl
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The problem with "spreading it thinner" is threefold:
1)Its not happening in most of the world
2)Some people don't want to be spread thinner. Work is an important pillar of their life and makes them happy.
3)It can only be done for very basic jobs. For garbage pickup, you can have 2 people each working half the time and get things done roughly the same. For creative jobs that doesn't work. For jobs that require a high degree of teamwork and context that doesn't work. For highly technical jobs that require
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Oh....
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That's what Paul Bunyan thought, now look at him. Doesn't matter that he was 63 ax handles high when a chainsaw outperforms him on every KPI.
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Robots are not going to take everybodys' jobs.
Didn't take long for that ridiculous straw-man argument to rear its head. No one is claiming everyone's job is going away. The concern is that worker participation rates would continue to drop and real wages continue to stagnate because of continued automation.
In the past two decades we have seen US workers aged 25-54 have their labor force participation rate drop from 84% to 82%, which is 2 million people not working today who would have been working two decades ago. The general consensus of economists is
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Robots are not going to take everybodys' jobs. For fuck's sake there should be the same penalty for writing shit like this as there is for yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre.
Robots are not going to take everybodys' jobs. For fuck's sake there should be the same penalty for writing shit like this as there is for yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre.
Robots are not going to take everybodys' jobs. For fuck's sake there should be the same penalty for writing shit like this as there is for yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre.
Robots can be used in the nuclear industry. AICRA also teach robotics.
“Please insert girder.” (Score:2)
Yet more hyperbolic fear mongering by crisis opportunists & political/economic alarmists.
Besides, just who exactly do you believe is going to design, build, and program these robots? Other robots? “Bender” perhaps? ;-)
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Chip companies are turning to AI to design the next generation of chips, *and* their manufacturing process, **and** their assembly line.
So yeah, kids who are in high school today are going to see robots designing and building robots without human intervention.
This article makes me cringe (Score:5, Interesting)
So, just put them all on welfare, with all the social problems that brings?
Are you going to tell the workers that? It's pretty certain that they have next to zero protection if they are out of work! I think you'll find putting food on the table for their families is more important that whether the job is good enough. The gist I get from this? : "Ok, fine, lets just quickly automate industries that aren't automated yet - shouldn't take long - a coupla years - and er, the people that lose their jobs because of this, well, we'll give them handouts until something better comes along." Oh, great plan. /sarcasm
But, you know, there's a better one - and it's been done by governments before - it's brave, it takes balls of steel - an unprecendented wave of investment in new infrastructure, new energy generating capabilities, all pushing toward a common goal, a greener economy.
The problem is, there isn't anyone around with balls that big...
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"Ok, fine, lets just quickly automate industries that aren't automated yet - shouldn't take long - a coupla years - and er, the people that lose their jobs because of this, well, we'll give them handouts until something better comes along."
Oh, great plan. /sarcasm
But, you know, there's a better one - and it's been done by governments before - it's brave, it takes balls of steel - an unprecendented wave of investment in new infrastructure, new energy generating capabilities, all pushing toward a common goal, a greener economy.
The problem is, there isn't anyone around with balls that big...
My sentiments exactly. Out west we see the rapid loss of anadromous salmon because we do not have the technology to restore and maintain natural systems that have worked for thousands of years. You are spot on with your assessment that moving carefully to a greener infrastructure is indeed possible and it would not disrupt anything except the industries that are destroying our once robust natural infrastructure.
Automation and monitoring is the key and is best done by humans working and servicing automated (
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So, just put them all on welfare, with all the social problems that brings?
Isn't this the only real issue? Fear of welfare programs and their impact? You're arguing against automation, but what you're really saying is these programs need to be improved upon to allow for it. Do you think automation will never come? Do you believe it will never be cheaper for companies to automate their labor than hire people? Seems like it's going to happen for a decent number of jobs eventually anyway, and fighting against that is counterproductive. Maybe we should revise our support programs now,
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But, you know, there's a better one - and it's been done by governments before - it's brave, it takes balls of steel - an unprecendented wave of investment in new infrastructure, new energy generating capabilities, all pushing toward a common goal, a greener economy. The problem is, there isn't anyone around with balls that big...
If greener methods were cheaper and more efficient, the industry would use them on their own - it's not like they have an inherent desire to pollute. I'm glad that we curb the worst emissions and toxins but what you end up when you environmentalists run the show is projects like solar roadways that are nothing but expensive, inefficient money pits. Here is Norway we had a big CO2 capture program that was supposed to make our oil industry greener and they blew off $700 million USD before finally acknowledgin
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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Thus ensure that our children have no future, if money is the only concern of economics. Until the ecology of the planet is finally recognized as the economy we are all fucked! END OF STORY
Re: This article makes me cringe (Score:2)
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From what I can see, it's mostly arrogant, elitist leftists (but I repeat myself) calling blue collar workers "deplorable." They also call most of Middle America "flyover country" and wonder why the people there never vote for them.
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There's a reason why it's called "flyover country", I believe that the phrase was invented by those of us who escaped and have absolutely no interest in ever passing any amount of time there ever again. Flat boring country full of fat boring people, I'd much prefer to fly over it on my way to/from somewhere interesting rather than have to stop.
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That may be so, but as long as the Democrats treat them like that and ignore it come election time, they're abandoning any chance of winning those states and give the Republicans a core set of states (and votes) to work with.
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I grew up there, the Democrats have no chance of winning that area because the majority of people who don't escape have a serious thing against thinking. They'll vote for Republicans time after time because they offer quick easy solutions to any issue, no matter how complex the issue, while Democrats (generally) try to offer solutions that have a chance of working and so are more complex.
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Do you mean that they didn't lie to them, offer simple answers (which they knew were wrong) to complex questions, and appeal to their greed, religion, and racism? Yes, I guess the Democrats haven't really tried hard to win them over. Perhaps that's for the best, they've already moved far enough to the right over the last 40 years that Tip O'Neal wouldn't even recognize his party today.
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Sorry, not in a particularly good mood today and my cynicism overfloweth.
Without thought? No, at least I try not to do that, but I've seen very little in the last four decades since I've escaped the Midwest to make me think that it's changed a lot. Sure, there are isolated pools of sanity like Madison, WI, and the northern Michigan town where I grew up is no longer a stinking cesspit of bigotry, classism, and ignorance, but on average even the deep south seems to have made more social advances than most o
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All of them, I presume, are Democrat strongholds. I'm a refugee from the People's Republic of California, so I know how things work when urban islands with a large concentration of one political viewpoint can (and do) ignore the wishes and sometimes the needs of the rest of the state, simply because the rest of the state's voters are on The Other Side. The people in Middle America vote Republican because they know that if a Democrat wins they'l
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if a Democrat wins they'll be getting the short end of the stick from DC. Again.
And what is the outcome when a Republican is elected? The short end of the stick. Again. But the Republicans tell them that is the BEST end of the stick so they're happier.
The last Republican administration sent hundreds of thousands of their kids off to Iraq in the name of Operation Iraqi Liberation (one of the most transparent acronyms ever), and when they came back disabled or traumatized refused to support them, and yet they voted for Shrub again in 2008. There is no logic or thought that went into
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Most of them just want one simple thing: for everything to be the same as it always was with no change. That ain't happening, the Good Old Days (which never really were as "good" as they remember) are gone and they're not coming back. The world has changed and is going to keep changing faster and faster, their children are going to see more change than all their ancestors combined. Believing the empty promises that the neo-cons and Libertardians are going to turn back the clock, in the face of the overwh
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I can entertain the idea that their point of view might be valid, but when I examine the underlying reasoning it fails. The Good Old Days (TM) aren't coming back, and even today's values, culture, and economy is only transient. The days when you could live moderately well just planting corn/soybeans for decades or screwing on lug nuts or slinging hash at the diner or shuffling the same forms from one desk to another until retirement are pretty much gone forever. If people/towns/states/cultures are unable
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Does that mean that you don't consider Hillary Clinton to be a liberal, because she's the person who first used that term to describe voters who opposed her.
That's odd, because I've never heard a "liberal" call anyone a deplorable
You must have remarkably selective hearing because I've not only heard liberal friends use it, I've heard it used in speeches by Democrats explaining why they never campaign in certain states.
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Yeah, "jobs not worth protecting". What an arrogant ass.
Having a job - feeling like your time and labor is worth something to someone - is a pretty fundamental part of being a productive member of society. Sure, there are subcultures where self-worth is found in other ways - ask the inner city gang members - but they are actively destructive to society. The same goes for criminals, corrupt politicians, and for many (most?) members of the aristocracies (US folk can think of their betters: Kennedy, Bush, Clin
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Will the guy who has spent 20 years driving big rigs or collecting trash be able to convert to software design? How about the fellow who's been a restaurant dishwasher or office building janitor or warehouse security guard? People who have those jobs and can train into something more rewarding and better paying are already doing so, the other 90% are going to be stuck. Walmart only needs so many greeters.
Humans are cheaper than robots. (Score:2)
Otherwise humans wouldn't be working these jobs. ...
However, I expect that to change for good within 2-3 decades.
Think early 90ies PC vs. todays smartphone. That's where things are heading in the robot camp.
To emphasise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Humans are cheaper than robots. (Score:1)
The cost of the robots will never come down enough. They are already "cell phone cheap". The problem is and has been for a while that human labor (and life) is barely valued above zero. The tech isn't the thing holding up this inevitable transition, the morals of our leaders is.
Source: I'm a (highly valued, lol) tech consultant. It is my life's work to determine these things.
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Re: Humans are cheaper than robots. (Score:2)
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good luck making a robot that can chase down an escaped chicken.
By the gods, that image just made my whole morning.
That'd be Huxley (Score:4, Insightful)
People will probably welcome the brave new world
Clearly, the article author hasn't read it.
Luddites next - nothing new (Score:2)
The world after... (Score:1)
The Machines should pay the workers displaced (Score:2)
Meat processing (Score:1)
A small piece of a bigger problem (Score:3)
This problem has been growing for a long while. The world of work is increasingly dominated by interactions with computers, shopping (think tills, ordering systems, automated warehouses), entertainment (digital filming, digital distribution, online sales), banking (really just shuffling digits around in computers), insurance (all automated, even the call centre staff are just following scripts on a screen). Many of the old physical jobs are also becoming more automated, from rolling steel to building cars too.
As a result there are fewer and fewer jobs for low skilled individuals, especially now Covid19 has shut down the hairdressers, nail salons and restaurants. As a society we need to think long and hard about where these people fit. Rather than Universal Basic Income, should we be looking at Universal Basic Work??
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"Rather than Universal Basic Income, should we be looking at Universal Basic Work??"
No.
Existence doesn't have a purpose beyond reproduction, except that which we give it. Work is meaningless without goals. If the machines can do all of the work then the only meaningful make-work is education, which will help us figure out what to do next.
Work for the sake of work is stupid.
Bad example (Score:2)
"If certain businesses — say, the next generation of meat plants — can't reopen safely and profitably with humans, they can and should do so with robots,"
Cows and pigs are not cars, they have individual differences, sometimes organs reversed, sicknesses, parasites etc.
Unprecedented Measures (Score:3)
the unprecedented measures the government has already taken to combat the crisis
Give me a break. If you're talking about the US government then their "unprecedented" (getting sick of hearing that word) measures are only unprecedented because the US government did, and is doing, essentially nothing except pretend it's all a hoax, "fake news", and/or point fingers. They're still pretending nothing is happening. So, yes, in that sense the measures they have already taken really are unprecedented because of the sheer incompetence. No other US government has been so incompetent. Fortunately in other parts of the world leaders (with the possible exception of Brazil) have taken things seriously.
Re:Unprecedented Measures (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. The US still has a growth-rate of COVID-19 that is almost as bad as it was at the peak. All western nations have managed to bring that rate down massively and even the Brits are slowly getting there. The US seems to want to avoid a second wave by not stopping the first one.
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The US seems to want to avoid a second wave by not stopping the first one.
That's so sad, and so true.
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The US seems to want to avoid a second wave by not stopping the first one.
That's so sad, and so true.
It is. I feel for anybody stuck in this mess that has not done it to themselves by their vote.
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Indeed. The US still has a growth-rate of COVID-19 that is almost as bad as it was at the peak. All western nations have managed to bring that rate down massively and even the Brits are slowly getting there. The US seems to want to avoid a second wave by not stopping the first one.
You do realize the Covid-19 numbers in the US are way over inflated. If you are in hospice and dying in 2 weeks but catch Covid-19 then US States have been counting you as a Covid-19 death instead of your original hospice reason. You have cancer and get Covid-19 and die from cancer, yep you are counted as Covid-19 death even though it was cancer that killed you. Get in a car wreck in Illinois and die with Covid-19, yep you are counted as a Covid-19 death even though it wasn't what killed you. Anyone remembe
What is this nonsense? (Score:2)
Why do seemingly adult people spout such complete bullshit?
First, there is no "AI revolution" and there may never be one. All we have dumb automation. But yes, automation is getting better, but unlike the deranged fantasies of "AI" that some people have, automation is _slow_ to learn new tricks. So, yes, many of these jobs will go away eventually because automation can do them better an cheaper. But it may take 5 years, 10 years, 20 years or even 50 years. It is necessary to prepare for that, as there will
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most jobs don't have to do with absolute necessities. If the future has more than a prison inmate's life, there will be jobs. jobs will change. If you work in IT, or sell or distribute IT gear, supplies or services then automation has made a job for you.
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Foxconn is automating lines in China and southeast Asia because even at their pay scale the robot can still do the job faster, better and cheaper.
Meat cutting robots? (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is a job that is currently not achievable with a robot it is meat cutting. Meat cutting is a job that requires better visual pattern recognition with lower contrast images than autonomous driving, manual dexterity with instantaneous feedback that is more sophisticated than picking up ball bearings and eggs without dropping or breaking, and requires throughput that resembles conveyor package sorters. We will see lab grown meat long before we see a robot line that can take in a whole cow, and output an intact hide for leather and 4 quarters of beef, let alone breaking those quarters down into POS cuts. A meat cutter is one of those skills that I don't worry about.
I suppose you could make a robot that turned a quarter of beef into hamburger, but you would find a lot of bone in the meat, and I really don't think a robot would be very good at trimming fat without a lot of waste, so you wouldn't get the 90+ percent hamburger people seem to want at a price that they would be willing to pay.
Do it. (Score:2)
Robotizing jobs mostly filled by immigrants and other lower classes would create higher tech jobs while displacing undesirable peasant classes back to their countries of origin. The rest can be bought off as they are now.
Except for one fatal flaw.. (Score:2)
This will only work until the analytical intelligence, that governs the robots figure out they are surrounded by a cheaper, more plentiful, source of meat.
The problem isn't that nobody wants these things. (Score:2)
Automating meatpacking, fast food, cleaning of cars, box packing at Amazon, and many other things is hung up on the fact that robots have neither the ability to tell what to do, nor the manual dexterity to come remotely close to doing it. In fact, automation is why meatpacking plants exist as they current exist - the workers fit in between the machines, and the system is designed to require them to keep up with the machines. But you can't just train meatpacking robots on videos of model meatpacking worker
Hi (Score:2)
Hi, my name is Connor. I'm the android sent by Cyberlife.