Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

http://www.economist.com/node/21525432

by jkuria • 15 years ago

54 86 15 years ago

economist.com

realize2• 15 years ago

yet

molecule• 15 years ago

but that would be a trivial instruction set to upload.

geogra4• 15 years ago

So where will the low wage jobs run to? Perhaps African nations will pick up the slack. What happens to the unemployed chinese laborers then? Marx is still relevant after all these years....

InclinedPlane3• 15 years ago

Automation.

Does NOT.

Destroy.

Jobs.

Is the economy smaller today than in 1911? Are there fewer jobs today? Are there less worthwhile jobs today? Exactly the opposite in every case. Automation may eliminate A job in the near-term but in the long-term it creates and enhances wealth. Ultimately every dollar spent makes its way from one person to another person.

Robots don't have bank accounts.

realize2• 15 years ago

Can you imagine a future where most of the menial and factory tasks that are now jobs are performed by robots? In this case it certainly does eliminate jobs, with no guarantee that others will be created.

The wealth created goes to the company that made the robot, and the one that utilizes the robot. The people who used to have jobs get left out of the wealth transfer.

I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, just that it will happen and maybe we need a new economic model to deal with this future.

Hawramani• 15 years ago

Building on Donald Knuth's definition of an artist (someone who does work that cannot yet be automated, such as a programmer), it seems like today the most efficient economy is one that automates everything that can be automated, so that all of its population work as artists.

The argument that automation destroys jobs assumes that at least part of the population does not have the propensity to be artists. This is the crucial point that this whole debate rests on.

In other words, are there people who are so un-creative that everything they could produce can be automated? If there are, then such people will lose jobs due to automation and will not gain back any alternative jobs.

I think on a site like HN the debate is skewed because most of us are high IQ people who, so far, don't have any trouble competing with robots. If there were robots who could do everything I can do and do it cheaper than I, why would anybody hire me?

lallysingh2• 15 years ago

Well, there is one fix to that:

Automation does not destroy skilled jobs.

Unskilled jobs, however, are hit by automation.

For theUS, the problem is how off-track our education system has gotten in terms of job preparedness.

We have lots of people who worked hard, got lots of student debt, and have no jobs. Which is actually still small (the unemployment rate for people with college degrees is what, 4-5%?). We have lots of unskilled labor who went through our public school system. That's a problem.

We need to bring trade schools back.

Also, did anyone else notice the use of the verb "hire" when talking about robots?

reinhardt2• 15 years ago

Robots don't have bank accounts.

But those who manufacture, sell and buy them do. And they won't be very eager to share the returns of their investment with the rest of the society, at least a capitalist society like the ones we have today.

felipemnoa2• 15 years ago

Automation gives you more bang for your money. Consider the wrist watch, only the rich could own one. Now is a throw away item. Even the poor can own such advanced technology. Except that instead of the wrist watch now is a smart phone.

dmix• 15 years ago

If Foxconn is the "Apple" of chinese manufacturing - high value customers, largest workforce etc, I wonder if they will be trendsetting in their move to robotics.

Many other companies in China will be watching very closely on how it works for them, and may do the same if it succeeds.

InclinedPlane3• 15 years ago

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Look at the history of manufacturing in any country, at any company. They may start off by taking advantage of lots and lots of inexpensive low-skill labor (even Ford did), but as they grow over time and become more successful they start taking in more and more revenue. And that revenue allows them to accelerate their capital investment, making increasing use of automation for example. It happened with manufacturers in America, and Japan, and Korea, and Taiwan, and it's happening again in China. I don't think it's necessary to invoke any other motivations.

jacques_chester• 15 years ago

Automation is bad for the economy. Think of the tens of millions of phone operators put out of work by rotary pulse dialling exchanges. Where are they now? Those 100 or 200 million phones worldwide won't connect themselves!

zizee11• 15 years ago

This won't last forever though. Once true strong AI is created we will be able to automate everything. It might not happen for centuries but eventually we will be forced to rethink the way society functions.

Perhaps people will pay a premium for a "human made" sticker on the side?

mahyarm• 15 years ago

Saying true strong AI is like saying once teleportation is available, we can live anywhere in the world! Or that if we use nuclear fission for our power production, it will be too cheap to meter. Reality is a bit more sticky, and strong AI is a long ways away.

nTsplnk2• 15 years ago

If strong AI exists.

Humans think they can control everything. We can't. Even if Robots were to automate everything, what happens when a tsunami hits Japan? Destroys sources of power, robots, the power grid. What do they do then?

We talk about all this "AI" as if it's close to fruition. It is not close to fruition. The "robots" Foxconn is getting aren't autonomous. They're just machines that do what they are told to do.

pilgrim6892• 15 years ago

Rodney Brooks stressed how the first nation that embraces new robot technology in their industries will have huge economic advantages over other nations. (he's a highly influential roboticist, MIT AI researcher, co-founder of the company that makes the Roomba and other robots (military mostly)).

He stated in a conference (2009) that for robots to be successful in manufacturing, they needed :

1- object recognition skill of a 2 year old child

2- language capability of a 4 year old

3- manual dexterity of a 6 year old

4- social understanding of an 8 year old

I guess Foxconn is eyeing robots that are close to reaching those numbers.

ref. : conference I mentionned: http://fora.tv/2009/05/30/Rodney_Brooks_Remaking_Manufacturi...

burgerbrain• 15 years ago

Surely robots are already successful in manufacturing. Just look at.. well.. just about anything you own that has a weld in it..

I guess that's not the cool sort of robotics though.

pilgrim6892• 15 years ago

Oh yes, definitely. The robots used, however, are still "first generation", so to speak. They do not adapt to the product. They are designed to build one thing, to automate one task, and they do that (insert screw of shape X into hole of shape Y).

What Brooks speaks of is a new generation of robots. Robots that can be shipped from a factory that builds iPods to a factory that builds car wheels. They take way less space than the first generation, and they adapt. So if your product decides it's going to use nails instead of screws, you don't need to redesign your robot line.

In the US, it's mostly behaviour-based AI that got a big push at MIT in the 90s and have been used in the US military for the passed decade... seems like they're ready for manufacturing now :D

forensic10• 15 years ago

This debate isn't about jobs.

The question is this: will the powerful still value human life when robots are better than manual workers?

Wealth keeps concentrating in the hands of a small minority.

Unskilled workers increasingly look like nothing but a drain on resources, unable to produce anything valuable or afford education.

Many many billionaires have little respect for unskilled human life and libertarians do not believe in free education or social services.

When the bottom 50% of society finally ends up with no money, no marketable skills, and no military prowess, what is going to happen to them?

zizee11• 15 years ago

When it eventually happens, society will have to change.

viva la revolution baby!

felipemnoa2• 15 years ago

This. You do not want to have too many poor people or somebody will take advantage of this and use them to overthrow whomever is in power and put himself in power.

forensic10• 15 years ago

This is the classic view, but things have changed.

Robots do not just make better workers, they are also better warriors. How many Chinese peasants does it take to kill a single UAV? How many protestors can modern riot police crowd control using sophisticated psychological warfare combined with advanced nonlethal weaponry?

Once the violent, unskilled, uneducated, unmoneyed lawbreakers are rounded up by the riot police and thrown in jail... then what? The Chinese are not shy about executions. How about humane lethal injections for everyone?

lionhearted• 15 years ago

> ...libertarians do not believe in free education or social services.

I'm an ex-libertarian and have moved to a more centrist position, but this is disingenuous. Libertarians generally want the right to make their own decisions and are anti-coercion. However, many of them are big believers in philanthropy and true voluntary social contracts - just not the kind enforced by the barrel of a gun.

They're not opposed to education or social services - just of funding them by force. It might seem like a small thing, but it's not - if a society could built that achieves high levels of education and prosperity without coercion, most people would think that's a good outcome.

Libertarians frequently believe this is possible. They might be wrong, but the attitude is not "let them eat cake" - it's "my life, my choice for what I do with it, take your hands off of me." But many or most believe in learning and prosperity.

forensic10• 15 years ago

It's unrealistic because the people with the money are not going to give it away unless you force them. In the industrial revolution the wealthy had a motivation to educate the masses: get better workers and fill the military.

What now though? Robots are better soldiers AND workers. Carnegie and Rockefeller were motivated by foreign competition to help people with education and social services. Rockefeller in particular focused his social services on birth control to reduce overpopulation because he saw little value in human life at the bottom of society.

Now that masses are simply not needed for anything, and the masses no longer are a military threat due to extreme military tech, the masses have no bargaining chips other than appealing to the humanity of the plutocrats.

And I fear that many of the plutocrats agree with Ayn Rand when she says, "I don't want your appeals to my better nature. Appeal to my self-interest."

How does someone with no money, no marketable skills, no way to afford education, no ability to exert physical power, continue to survive when the upper class only accepts appeals to their self-interest?

reemrevnivek• 15 years ago

When they have no marketable skills, they'd better learn some. In the absence of mental or physical handicaps, I don't see any reason why people would be incapable of doing this.

bdr2• 15 years ago

It seems like the mental/physical floor required to get a job is getting higher.

forensic10• 15 years ago

Education is expensive and hard. If the people at the top don't reach down with a helping hand, few from the bottom will be able to stand. Is this the world we want to live in? Social Darwinism?

nodata• 15 years ago

Why marketable skills? Why not useful skills. I find the focus on marketing as much as a problem as everything else.

zizee11• 15 years ago

Many many billionaires have little respect for unskilled human life

Which billionaires do not value unskilled human life? How many billionaires are their in the world? Are there really many, many of them that feel that way? Are they really all that selfish that they would happily destroy millions of lives? What does that benefit them?

forensic10• 15 years ago

Actions speak louder than words. Billionaires stand by while the miserable and hopeless suffer.

Billionaires fund FOX News to indoctrinate the middle class and push them toward self-destruction. Which billionaires are funding universal liberal educations or a culture of empowerment?

By their actions the upper class is saying that they don't want a middle class. They are saying: if the middle class is so stupid to fall for Rupert Murdoch propaganda and Evangelical Christianity, then they deserve to be enslaved.

The alternative would be to fund liberal educations, fund free mental health services, fund enlightening media like PBS rather than saying, "If the middle class won't fund it it doesn't deserve to exist."

So many of the elite put all the burden on others. It's true that people should take care of themselves, but they don't. Mental illness is epidemic. Are the wealthy going to stand by and watch as the middle class implodes? Not all plutocrats are malicious, but the majority are indifferent, and their actions speak this.

reinhardt2• 15 years ago

Any system that relies on people's (especially powerful people's) good will and voluntary charity is doomed to failure.

DannoHung2• 15 years ago

I know that the suggestion that these are going to eliminate human positions is an unpopular sentiment here at HN because economics. However, are we really so sure that there will always be a human labor demand to effectively meet the human labor supply?

What do we do when there is an excess of human labor? Everyone here is opposed to make work for good reason. But a suggestion that solves the moral issue of what to do with an unemployed human who is not contributing due to a lack of labor demand has not been proposed in the general case. It is typically waved away by saying, "There will be a new industry." But can we really not imagine that this new industry will remain un-automated for long? What about the new industry that begins by being automated?

I am not opposed to automation in the slightest. I think that if we can automate every task in the world, that would be the best thing. If anything I am just opposed to insisting that as technology changes, we must maintain the same social values and behaviors.

OpenAmazing• 15 years ago

What do we do when there is an excess of human labor?

We get to work building some really awesome space ships and start colonizing other planets. Seriously.

Joakal• 15 years ago

USA seems to have an excess of human labour and they're scaling back the space program in favour of private enterprise. From what I see of the private enterprise is that not much is happening as they seek those specialised in certain skills.

You could put faith in several people groups like Copenhagen Suborbitals, CSTART, OSM and the like, but like above they seek those specialised in certain skills.

That's to discount the paradox of technology efficiency: Food becomes cheaper but unemployed people can't pay for it.

forensic10• 15 years ago

The unemployed people are uneducated and unable to make space ships.

The educated and skilled people will be busy working on military tech, farmville, and face recognition software. You know, technologies aimed at pacifying the masses.

meow• 15 years ago

May be the future will be like Wall-e movie. Where humans do no work at all (even walking).

clistctrl2• 15 years ago

May the robot overloads find a solution to our growing fat problem.

hooande• 15 years ago

I would love to see a more accessible version of Mechanical Turk that a broader range of people could use. Maybe something in a kiosk format that could be put in low income neighborhoods. Even the most uneducated can answer a question like "Is there a person in this picture?", and anyone could earn money for a meal for several hours of work.

I'm sure there are several other examples of new types of low level employment that will arise as automation increases. In a world where everything is automated, there is no such thing as "too much training data".

wisty• 15 years ago

New industry will be service-orientated. Even if robot cooks can make a better pizza, people will tell themselves that human-made ones are more individual, and taste better.

As the price of human labor goes to zero, humans will be increasingly used as marketing props.

In a democracy or socialist state, handouts or negative taxation will redistribute wealth.

joe_the_user• 15 years ago

What evidence do we have that handout are increasing with the recent increase in automation? My sense is they're going in the opposite direction and have strong momentum.

And I will tell you that few people will chose human made pizzas just for the experience, especially if their wages are going to zero.

adaml_623• 15 years ago

I hope you realise that if you look at the numbers it's unlikely that the people who are making the human-made pizzas will earn enough to pay for human-made pizza.

It's like there is a a pyramid of salaries and we just have to admit that we're trimming bits off the bottom of the pyramid. (IMHO)

ristretto2• 15 years ago

Services like tourism and healthcare are in growing demand, however there is a shift going on there, too, e.g. airbnb, innovative medical devices etc. Unfortunately, an expensive services sector cannot sustain an economy on its own. It works in rich countries where people can afford to spend the money they make on other sectors for premium products and services. The issue of how to avoid unemployment and "keep people busy" in a socially fair way will be an active discussion in the following years.

ristretto2• 15 years ago

The 40 hour work week is a relic of the industrial age, right? Things are different today, and the technology sector is a good example: top talent produces a disproportionately large amount of work, while there are practically very few "menial" positions that could be filled in with low skilled employees. Maybe we should expect this to become a much more common pattern in the future; once construction workers, waiters, window cleaners, drivers get replaced with robots we are left with a sizeable population of unemployable people. Maybe a revival of agriculture or sth will absorb those people.

natfriedman• 15 years ago

At Foxconn in the last five years there have been 17 reported suicides out of ~1 million workers. The US rate in 2007 was, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 11.5 suicides per 100,000 people, or ~35x higher than the Foxconn rate.

Foxconners are not unusually predisposed to kill themselves. It's a jingoistic myth.

Groxx2• 15 years ago

How many of those 11.5/100k have been done at work, though? The 17 and this quote seem to imply those are just the ones happening at the buildings themselves:

>To pacify its increasingly restive workers, Foxconn has repeatedly bumped up their wages, improved facilities, provided counselling and swathed its factories with nets to catch anyone leaping from a window.

And, for comparison, the WHO gives numbers that are closer to each other, though still surprising individually: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicider...

free• 15 years ago

IIRC, foxconn provides on campus housing for the workers, so everything happens at the plant

malkia• 15 years ago

Wanted to share this - Robot comes from the slavic (czech, russian, bulgarian and others) word - rabota - WORK.

Jach• 15 years ago

My memory recalls it's not just work, but slavery.

"Origin of ROBOT Czech, from robota compulsory labor; akin to Old High German arabeit trouble, Latin orbus orphaned — more at orphan First Known Use: 1922" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robot

faboo• 15 years ago

And created by Czech playwrite Karel Čapek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum%27s_Universal_Ro...

Noteworthy, I think, because it'd seem natural for a technology to be named by the people who created it, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes its the people who dreamed of it.

Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

Related Stories