The inevitable automation of a large part of the job market & how to profit.

[wachtwoord]

Sounds like a nice future where wage-slavery as it exists today is abolished.

[petec]

 

There isn't a finite amount of stuff to do.  It isn't as if you can say, OK now we have these jobs filled that is it, there is nothing left.  Human wants are infinite, thus there will always be more to do.  That isn't to say that someone who works 25 years in a factory and loses his job to automation won't be in trouble.  At a certain age learning new skills is difficult. And who wants to start over at the bottom in a new industry late in life?  Those people will likely remain unemployed, but the next generation will simply learn different skills.  This is capitalism's creative destruction and there are always people hurt in the shuffle.  It isn't a new phenomenon.

 

It is not new that a machine becomes able to do a thing a human can do, but better and cheaper.  That has always been a good thing as it allows humans to focus on other things that add more value.

 

But it would be new if machines get to the point where they can do *everything* that humans can do better and cheaper.

 

Or, more likely, and recognising that not all humans have the same abilities, it would be new if machines get to the point where they can do what most humans can do, but better and cheaper.

 

That is what the video is arguing will happen, and it would be very new.  It would not matter then that there is an infinite amount of things to do because machines would do all of the new things.  This change would not free humans to go and do something more value-added.  It would render them economically useless.  And that would be catastrophic, since demand (and societies) would collapse.

[Fat Pitch]

That is what the video is arguing will happen, and it would be very new.  It would not matter then that there is an infinite amount of things to do because machines would do all of the new things.  This change would not free humans to go and do something more value-added.  It would render them economically useless.  And that would be catastrophic, since demand (and societies) would collapse.

 

Who needs humans when you can program these robots/machines to have wants and desires to create that artificial demand to propel industries? The bigger question is what you do with “surplus” population? This will probably usher in the post human era  :P

[yadayada]

But if society would collapse, that would not mean they would do it cheaper. Since demand would dry up, these automated factories would not make more money. Since there are now far fewer people to sell it to.

[Guest longinvestor]

An outcome of replacing human effort is that there is less to do for humanity. I hope some day, the current stifling paradigm of production of 8 hour workdays/ 40 hour work weeks, 2 to 3 hours of consumption on weekdays, 10 hours over weekends etc. changes to another paradigm, perhaps production and consumption happen as and when necessary. Being products of the Sun, I sometimes feel that humans suffer because we are busy doing other things when the Sun is out. The rest of nature is in harmony with the Sun.

[rkbabang]

An outcome of replacing human effort is that there is less to do for humanity. I hope some day, the current stifling paradigm of production of 8 hour workdays/ 40 hour work weeks, 2 to 3 hours of consumption on weekdays, 10 hours over weekends etc. changes to another paradigm, perhaps production and consumption happen as and when necessary. Being products of the Sun, I sometimes feel that humans suffer because we are busy doing other things when the Sun is out. The rest of nature is in harmony with the Sun.

 

It is amazing how many people think that getting more output for less human effort is a bad thing.  If you want jobs, you could pay people to dig holes and then pay them to fill them back in.  I think this horrible future will see unemployment skyrocket and these "poor" people will be living lives that even the rich today couldn't imagine.  But of course, there will be much blathering about the wealth disparity between the masses and the insanely rich. Humans get wealthier and our lives get easier, but we never really change.

 

[oddballstocks]

One thing that will never go away is the small batch/craft stuff.  There is always going to be demand for higher quality non-scalable goods.

 

Think of an artist, they can make one off paintings or make mass produced prints.  You can't mass produce or automate creativity.  The problem is right now some of this stuff is inaccessible to most because the cost of other everyday things are too high.  Hopefully if everyday tasks are automated their price will fall and people will have more income to support the small niche stuff.

 

A friend of mine said something to me that's been bouncing around in my head.  It's that some of the luxuries we have would have been absolutely unimaginable to kings and world rulers 100-200-300 years ago.  We dress, eat, and relax better than most historic royalty.  Yet we also do tasks typically assigned to the servants, clean toilets, laundry, yard work.  I want to see those things automated.  Why hasn't anyone designed a cheap self cleaning toilet.  Imagine the marketshare that'd take, the toilet just has a little robot arm or something that cleans itself daily.

 

What about a cheap home carwash system?  You park your car in the garage and it's cleaned top to bottom (inside too) nightly.  Or what about a robot that can do interior painting, or trim bushes?  What about some sort of digital paint that lets you change the room color with a button?

 

Here's another, what about a refrigerator that you upload your menu to.  Then the grocery store delivers the food.  As items get low things are reordered for you.  The interface a user would have into this system would be "I want a mushroom omelet Thursday and Sunday" everything behind the scenes would be taken care of.

 

I'd like running shoes that know when they're about worn out and order me a replacement of themselves.

[rkbabang]

Yes, there are still so many PITA jobs that need to be automated.  I'm still waiting for a good robotic lawn mower. Yes, I know they have them, but they are nothing but useless toys right now.  I want something that can cut any lawn that a human on a lawn tractor with a full tank of gas could cut, without burying any guide wires around the property.  That means slopes, large yards with many landscaping features, and powerful enough to cut high overgrown grass covered in leaves. 

 

I'd also love a robotic snow thrower.  Something on tracks and powerful like the Honda snow throwers, but smart enough to do any driveway automatically.

 

Speaking of fridges, I want something like a microwave for cold.  You put a warm drink in it, hit a button and it is ice cold in a minute and a half.  We'd need much smaller refrigerators if we could get all the non-perishable stuff out of them, like drinks.

 

[Liberty]

Yes, there are still so many PITA jobs that need to be automated.  I'm still waiting for a good robotic lawn mower.

 

Have you looked into low-lying plants that cover the ground and never grow much?

 

http://eartheasy.com/grow_lawn_alternatives.htm

http://www.gardenista.com/posts/fields-of-green-5-favorite-lawn-substitutes

[randomep]

An outcome of replacing human effort is that there is less to do for humanity. I hope some day, the current stifling paradigm of production of 8 hour workdays/ 40 hour work weeks, 2 to 3 hours of consumption on weekdays, 10 hours over weekends etc. changes to another paradigm, perhaps production and consumption happen as and when necessary. Being products of the Sun, I sometimes feel that humans suffer because we are busy doing other things when the Sun is out. The rest of nature is in harmony with the Sun.

 

It is amazing how many people think that getting more output for less human effort is a bad thing.  If you want jobs, you could pay people to dig holes and then pay them to fill them back in.  I think this horrible future will see unemployment skyrocket and these "poor" people will be living lives that even the rich today couldn't imagine.  But of course, there will be much blathering about the wealth disparity between the masses and the insanely rich. Humans get wealthier and our lives get easier, but we never really change.

 

I believe a lot of the longinvestor argument comes from thinking along the path of least resistance (sorry don't really mean to offend). It comes from some observation which then extrapolates easily infinitely into the future. But the minute you dig deeper, you see the argument has lots of problems. For example regarding global prosperity, while it is true that we are marching towards higher and higher standards of living, parts of the world are also marching back to medieval times. I am talking about the middle east. The Bushes tried twice to democratize Iraq, and now it is back to basic feudal tribal warfare. For selfish reasons lots of leaders in the world aren't interested in progress. So it isn't a given that the world is marching lockstep towards greater prosperity for all. It is plausible that the world will destroy a big chunk of progress through war and conflict every decade or so. People will suffer, and the more sane societies will make money reconstructing those places. So, there is more reason for the owners of capital to get richer.

 

We have had many false starts towards utopia, after the first world war and second world war, and cold war leaders touted a new world order... boy were they wrong.

 

I think value investing has a similar problem. Value investing is hard because it requires lots of original contrarian thinking. Even people who are sold on Graham and Buffett find it hard to think for themselves and following through against the grain.

 

I see it in work also, people love parroting whoever they think is the thought leader, even when facts don't support what they say.

 

.... a bit of a tangent.....

 

[leftcoast]

MIT Tech Review did a good piece on this topic last year:

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/

 

Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.

 

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.

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/destroying.jobs_.chart1x910_0.jpg

[randomep]

MIT Tech Review did a good piece on this topic last year:

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/

 

Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.

 

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.

 

 

" technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them"

 

that is very plausible however, to be more precise, I believe the small number of new jobs filled is because of a lack of people of available new skills, not a lack of openings......

[turar]

The idea of basic income seems like the most sensible solution.

[yadayada]

to make a certain product or service you need a few things if you really cut off all the fat. You need people (their time basicly) and energy and materials. But for the latter two, you only really need people (and their time). That is the part that really has a cost for us. So if you cut down all the fat, everything you use has a certain time cost. Nothing more nothing less.

 

To exchange all this 'time' you need money, that way it becomes easier and simpler. But if you break down energy, you also only need people, or their time for that (factoring scarcity of those energy resources for a second). If you take an extreme here, and say everything is automated, then in theory that would mean those products would not cost anything. To get the energy you do not need people, and to then build the product you also do not need people. It is all 100% automated. So it is basicly free. The only reason you pay for stuff is because people put in their time. Someone had to mine the gas/coal/oil and mine the minerals and then build the factory, build the machines, then build the product move all this around etc etc. The only real cost here was time. People had to sacrifice their time to get this to you, and that is what you are paying for.

 

Now I wonder where risk plays into all this. Ofcourse a very small % of the people in our system had to take risks. In a way this is time too.

 

If you go 500 years into the future, 95% of jobs are automated. If everything is free, you would see a radical different system then capitalism. Not exactly socialism, but not exactly capitalism either. Socialism still implies work that needs to be done. I think you will see a different type of currency exchanged for mainly entertainment? You come up with an idea and let the machines do the rest of the work. If not, no problem because everything has close to zero cost anyway.

 

Fun to think about these sort of things :) . I just wonder how this will transition. There will be a time that things are not quite free yet. There will be jobs for a few people who are very smart, or want to serve other people in occupations like nursing. But large unemployment would mean in the mean time you will see a lot of people getting money from the government. But the amount needed from the government should come down over time to almost nothing.

 

Basicly it would bring back an extreme form of slavery without the ethical issues. Someone (or something) else would put in all the time for us.

 

Any weak spots in this theory?

[yadayada]

So to sum it up, everything basicly runs off time, building blocks like iron stone etc, and energy. We are half way solving the energy problem already. Iron etc is reusable (and we might get it from space if it gets scarce) and time can be replaced by machines. In theory in the future everything should become almost free.

[gary17]

Has anyone seen star trek?

[yadayada]

I forgot to factor in land ownership in my equation. Time/energy/land/commodities. Or Time/mining/land. In a mostly automated world only entertainment would cost money (or time). And since land is finite, that would  also have a cost. Some land is more in demand then other land. Some entertainment is more in demand etc. What will determine who will get the best of that since now the time cost of everything else is basicly gone to zero (so it is free basicly), and probably many billion people dont have anything usefull to do.

 

Anyone disagree that you can basicly boil down the cost of everything to human cost of time in a world with very smart and capable robots?

 

 

[infinitee00]

Interesting and releant interview IMO - When machines do your job

 

 

[txitxo]

  The jobs being eliminated are those of people with low to average IQ, and no redeeming graces like people skills or iron-clad honesty. That population group is fast becoming unemployable in developed economies and most of them will have to live on welfare.

 

  Automatisation is also putting strong pressure on the middle. Salaries are shrinking there.

 

  Of course the counterpart is that very high IQ, creative people never had it so good at making a living. This is being felt in academia. The best scientists used to be people with well-rounded intelligences, very good at research but with plenty of other intellectual abilities. It was obvious they could have succeeded in many other fields apart from science. Think, for instance, of Carl Sagan. What you see arriving now, more and more often, are terminal Aspergers with a zealot's mindframe (you have to be highly ideologized to resist the call of the "dark side"). It is quite revealing that the new Cosmos had to be done by a guy who is very good at science outreach, but who is not a brilliant scientist. There are very few people left with a whole brain.

 

  You could have many of the discussions in this forum (about books, history, etc.) with scientists in the 60's, people who have plenty of interests. It is almost impossible to have them with postdocs or young assistant professors. Don't get me wrong, they are very smart and good at what they do. But most of them have not read a book outside of their particular scientific area in their entire lives. That produces tunnel-vision and solidifies paradigms. Many of those people won't recognise the next scientific revolution even if chews off their asses. The younger ones are even worse. 

 

  So the future of research may resemble old Rome, a long stagnation because the best minds were building bridges and aqueducts, not doing "philosophy".

 

  I think that trying to make money from the worsening conditions of low classes is very bad karma. Don't go there or a flower pot will fall on your head. Or at least it should.

 

  But a sure bet, although on the long-term side, is looking for companies which maintain a core of very well-paid, "blue sky" basic researchers. It has always been difficult to make money from that, but with the dwindling competition from academia it will be become easier in the future.

 

 

 

[rmitz]

  The jobs being eliminated are those of people with low to average IQ, and no redeeming graces like people skills or iron-clad honesty. That population group is fast becoming unemployable in developed economies and most of them will have to live on welfare.

 

  Automatisation is also putting strong pressure on the middle. Salaries are shrinking there.

 

  Of course the counterpart is that very high IQ, creative people never had it so good at making a living. This is being felt in academia. The best scientists used to be people with well-rounded intelligences, very good at research but with plenty of other intellectual abilities. It was obvious they could have succeeded in many other fields apart from science. Think, for instance, of Carl Sagan. What you see arriving now, more and more often, are terminal Aspergers with a zealot's mindframe (you have to be highly ideologized to resist the call of the "dark side"). It is quite revealing that the new Cosmos had to be done by a guy who is very good at science outreach, but who is not a brilliant scientist. There are very few people left with a whole brain.

 

  You could have many of the discussions in this forum (about books, history, etc.) with scientists in the 60's, people who have plenty of interests. It is almost impossible to have them with postdocs or young assistant professors. Don't get me wrong, they are very smart and good at what they do. But most of them have not read a book outside of their particular scientific area in their entire lives. That produces tunnel-vision and solidifies paradigms. Many of those people won't recognise the next scientific revolution even if chews off their asses. The younger ones are even worse. 

 

How many scientists do you know personally?  I know plenty of young scientists, and disagree with you completely.  You’re creating an exaggerated caricature here.  Sagan wasn’t a brilliant scientist either.  Some of this is just an increase in specialization, not “Aspergers” or anything else.  That’s not to say that your caricature doesn’t or can’t exist, as it certainly does.  But the politics involved in being a scientist do not lend themselves well to the kind of people you describe, either.

 

I think there are waves of focus in particular sub-fields, then counter waves where people bring together scientists in different fields to collaborate and work together.  That’s just how it goes.

[randomep]

Generally, generalizations don't work.

[yadayada]

So cost of goods will go close to zero. But land prices will go up. And costs like rent and insurance are sometimes almost half of people's budget. So how will that look in the future? Seems like government will have to interfere if almost everything is automated. Because how will most people afford land? What will determine who gets the land?

 

Also the rich being even more rich here does not fly. Since costs of making things will go to almost zero, they will not make a lot of money anymore right?

[rkbabang]

So cost of goods will go close to zero. But land prices will go up. And costs like rent and insurance are sometimes almost half of people's budget. So how will that look in the future? Seems like government will have to interfere if almost everything is automated. Because how will most people afford land? What will determine who gets the land?

 

Also the rich being even more rich here does not fly. Since costs of making things will go to almost zero, they will not make a lot of money anymore right?

 

I think the reports of scarcity's death have been greatly exaggerated.  Certainly many things we now pay for will be as free as air, but there will be markets for all kinds of things, services, entertainment, "human made" goods, vacations, sex, land, art, etc.  I would not predict the end of economics any time soon.

 

As far as land/water/population pressures go, when it gets to this point there will be millions (maybe billions) of humans living some place other than Earth.  There are many possibilities here.  The Moon, Mars, floating cities above Venus, Ceres, Ares, Pallas, other moons, automated swarms of robots mining the asteroid belt and building space station cities that can support tens of millions, etc.  If you look beyond Earth there is no shortage of living space, metals, water, or even methane.

 

[txitxo]

  The jobs being eliminated are those of people with low to average IQ, and no redeeming graces like people skills or iron-clad honesty. That population group is fast becoming unemployable in developed economies and most of them will have to live on welfare.

 

  Automatisation is also putting strong pressure on the middle. Salaries are shrinking there.

 

  Of course the counterpart is that very high IQ, creative people never had it so good at making a living. This is being felt in academia. The best scientists used to be people with well-rounded intelligences, very good at research but with plenty of other intellectual abilities. It was obvious they could have succeeded in many other fields apart from science. Think, for instance, of Carl Sagan. What you see arriving now, more and more often, are terminal Aspergers with a zealot's mindframe (you have to be highly ideologized to resist the call of the "dark side"). It is quite revealing that the new Cosmos had to be done by a guy who is very good at science outreach, but who is not a brilliant scientist. There are very few people left with a whole brain.

 

  You could have many of the discussions in this forum (about books, history, etc.) with scientists in the 60's, people who have plenty of interests. It is almost impossible to have them with postdocs or young assistant professors. Don't get me wrong, they are very smart and good at what they do. But most of them have not read a book outside of their particular scientific area in their entire lives. That produces tunnel-vision and solidifies paradigms. Many of those people won't recognise the next scientific revolution even if chews off their asses. The younger ones are even worse. 

 

How many scientists do you know personally?  I know plenty of young scientists, and disagree with you completely.  You’re creating an exaggerated caricature here.  Sagan wasn’t a brilliant scientist either.  Some of this is just an increase in specialization, not “Aspergers” or anything else.  That’s not to say that your caricature doesn’t or can’t exist, as it certainly does.  But the politics involved in being a scientist do not lend themselves well to the kind of people you describe, either.

 

I think there are waves of focus in particular sub-fields, then counter waves where people bring together scientists in different fields to collaborate and work together.  That’s just how it goes.

 

Well, I've worked about 20 years as a scientist (h=47), I am married to a scientist and practically all my friends are scientists. In fact my children were astonished when they learnt that some grown-ups do not have a PhD.

 

  People were complaining about specialisation 50 years ago. It is not a new phenomenon. What is new to me is that, generally speaking, the young people coming in (and there are of course some exceptions) do not seem so bright as the people who got into science a few decades ago. It is not so difficult to see. Just sit them side by side at a conference dinner and float different conversation topics. For example you will see very few well-read postdocs (and I am not talking about Stalin's 500 pages/day quota which is often mentioned around here).

 

  I don't think it is so difficult to understand. People with high IQs are also affected by incentives. In the sixties, a household with two  Professors at a top university were upper middle class. Now they won't make it into the top 1%. Look at the houses old professors bought when they got tenure and compare them with what young assistant professors are buying now. So you tend---and remember I am saying "tend"--to get smart people who are dysfunctional and would not fit in a corporate environment, or absolute fanatics, who live science as a cult, I know of a guy who abandoned his pregnant wife because it thought it may hurt their career. Which, in the best case scenario would end up with him working 60hrs/week and earning 150$/year.

 

  Politics in science is very amateurish. The kingdom of the blind. Although some of the older folks are really good.

 

 

 

 

 

[yadayada]

I think what you are seeing could be because more people can get education (relatively speaking), so you will see more people who are not so bright. Also everything is more specialized, so you need more time to get up to date in your own profession and less time to also learn what some other fields are about. You only have so much science time. And finally there is more distraction in the form of entertainment. Back in the day you had little tv series and fewer movies, and no internet to endlessly distract you.

 

Also education is just awefull. You have the internet now but that seems still underutilized. I was curious to learn how DNA worked, tried to look up some stuff or some video's or books. But it seems difficult to find an efficient path to get a decent idea how that would work, or how much time it would cost etc. You can buy a few expensive text books designed to make you fall asleep, or read some amateurish websites. Allthough khan academy does a half decent job now. But it seems this could be much improved and made a lot more efficient and entertaining. Internet seems still very underutilized in this regard.

 

basicly if education has to compete with a lot more entertainment, you will need to make education more streamlined and entertaining to compete with that. Otherwhise people will become more stupid over time, and you will have fewer well rounded specialists who do not have man with the hammer syndrome.