[mikeash]

It might be worthwhile to re-frame it. Rather than say "10 fewer jobs," say "10 people are no longer forced to spend eight hours a day sitting in front of a cash register."

That assumes we can find something better for them to do, of course. But man, we have to try! Forcing people to do things a machine can do is inhumane.

[rescripting]

I'm a bit worried that most of us here on HN are feverishly working on ways to automate away jobs, and there is quite a strong economic incentive for us to do so, but there is hardly any effort and no incentive for policy makers to catch those affected. Who is building and planning for this new social utopia once people no longer have to bag groceries? Right now it looks like a lot of misery and poverty on the horizon before things get better.

[mikeash]

I totally agree. Getting rid of wasteful jobs is a good thing if you can somehow handle the people who lose those jobs, whether redirecting them to something more productive or pensioning them off or whatever. And that side of things really doesn't seem to get much attention. There's a lot of hand-wavy talk about basic income, some lip service paid to continuing education and retraining, but not a whole lot really being done to prepare.

[avar]

Getting rid of wasteful jobs is a good thing regardless of whether you can handle the people who lose those jobs in the short term.

The job-saving technology will live forever, long after the people who are temporarily displaced die. You're doing an immense amount of good for the untold number of people who aren't even born yet.

Technology is also global, but the political problems associated with eliminating jobs are problems on a state-by-state basis. Is it immoral to develop a technology just because some political systems are incapable of handling the gains in productivity, while other states are?

[mikeash]

I would never say it's immoral to develop the technology. The tough question is how to deploy it.

[SamBoogieNYC]

I have a notion that one of the major ways people will be spending the time they otherwise would be working is by consuming entertainment.

If that notion is correct, moving towards an educational model focused around creating the components needed for general entertainment (video/AR/VR/Music etc) might alleviate the problems we'll face.

[darpa_escapee]

> I have a notion that one of the major ways people will be spending the time they otherwise would be working is by consuming entertainment.

Where are these people getting the money to spend on entertainment if they aren't working? I don't think this will happen.

What I do see happening, however, is that people have less free time between juggling more than 1 job and a side gig with Uber/their ilk.

[hyperbovine]

This is the right question to ask. The laborers in question could all be productively employed as artists, homemakers, social workers -- whatever. To the extent that we get lots of new workers in those categories, and still get to have groceries too, that's a net gain for society. But it's up to society to get us there, and right now society doesn't seem even remotely up to the challenge.

[sampo]

> Who is building and planning for this new social utopia once people no longer have to bag groceries?

I grew up in a country (Finland) where people bag their own groceries. The table behind the cashier just has a bit more room and some dividers, so even 3 customers have room to bag their own groceries simultaneously.

So an utopia without the "grocery-bagging class" is certainly possible.

[rescripting]

I was being a bit facetious with the grocery bagging example. My core point is "Who is building and planning for this new social utopia once 5, 50, 95% of jobs are automated away?"

[biafra]

Same in Germany. When I visited the US for the first time. It was really strange for me to have people bag my groceries. Also. I usually shop groceries with a back pack. How does that work in the US? Will they put the stuff in there for me?

[mikeash]

I've never seen someone with a backpack, but it's not uncommon for people to bring their own reusable bags and have the bagger use them. I think a backpack would work the same way. Hand it over, then get it back full of food.

[samatman]

I normally pack my own backpack. That way I can be sure the squishy stuff is on top, the glass bottle goes in the glass bottle holder, etc. As a nice bonus, the bagger can take a couple minutes rest.

[Theodores]

> Right now it looks like a lot of misery and poverty on the horizon before things get better.

So what is new? We have been automating jobs out of existence for a long time. Every era has had a lot of people that are redundant, every era has had useless governments get to grips with it.

Recently I automated three jobs out of existence, making the computer do the data entry work with the customer filling in forms. This is great for the customer as they now get what they want done instantly instead of having to wait a week for the human to do what the computer can do. It is great for the company as 3 people don't have to be managed, provided office space and paid. But as for my colleagues?

I obviously have had thoughts about automating my friends on the next desk out of existence, how I see it is that there are actually plenty of vacancies in the company, there are plenty of vacancies outside the company and the writing has been on the wall for the last year regarding the changes we put through. 2 of my 3 former colleagues are now working elsewhere, having moved on fine, but there is the one that did not step up and go for other interviews within the company or look elsewhere. Now I am sure that government handouts are available, however, if someone does not look out for their own job and assumes it will always be there for them, what can you do? Is it always the government's fault in this situation?

My above sentiment is a tad Thatcherite, it was Norman Tebbit who said 'on your bike', i.e. if there isn't a job for you in your home town then you have got to move, the government isn't going to magically create a job for you. The 'on your bike' remark didn't go down too well in the 1980's, but 'on your bike' it has been since then.

[rescripting]

Thats a highly individualistic point of view. One where as long as you're willing to put in the effort and be flexible you'll be able to thrive. I see it a lot on HN because most of us work in growing fields with many opportunities. Maybe you had to uproot your life and move to San Francisco but hey, now you work for Google and clear six figures.

There comes a point where flexibility and gumption don't get you far enough. When the pool of good quality jobs shrinks so much that the ecosystem cannot support the species.

I'm not calling for a halt to progress. If you hadn't automated away those jobs someone else would have. There are very strong economic incentives to do so. I just wish governments would see the writing on the wall and start planning for the future where the status quo leaves most people out in the cold.

[pbhjpbhj]

>That assumes we can find something better for them to do, of course. //

In practice what [is and] is going to happen is that the jobs of the poor are removed, because they are more easily automated and the capitalists will retain much of the revenue that would formerly have been spent on wages.

Nothing is going to be done politically until there is either civil unrest or until there is so much impact to those with lowest wealth in society that the capitalists start getting poorer returns because too few people can afford to purchase the goods produced. In either case the situation is going to be very dire IMO before we get there.

This on top of the apparent existing inequalities and the increasing pay gap that the gig economy is creating (the efficiencies don't appear to be improving pay for the workers nor reducing costs as much as they could), and things like zero-hours contracts are pushing [in the UK] makes for a bleak outlook for those who are not already rich IMO.

[jimbokun]

"Nothing is going to be done politically until there is either civil unrest or until there is so much impact to those with lowest wealth in society that the capitalists start getting poorer returns because too few people can afford to purchase the goods produced."

The problem is the civil unrest seems to be moving in the direction of ethnic nationalism and isolationism, which may not turn out to be the best long term solution to this problem.

[ako]

Look at what happened in the us. Unemployed people are looking towards the government to make sure that there are jobs for them to do.

But how can we be sure that enough meaningful jobs will exist for all people who want to work? It would be kind of surprising if there was a meaningful full job for everyone.

This feels like former communist countries where everyone was employed, although many jobs were pointless.

[base698]

XBox and OxyContin seems to be the current trend.

[jimbokun]

"Forcing people to do things a machine can do is inhumane."

It's not clear there's anything a person can do that a machine can never do, in principle.

So then what's the point of having people?

[Qwertystop]

Generally in sci-fi, one of:

A): None (catastrophic). People die out, or are wiped out, as advanced machines outcompete them for all resources.

B): The boundary (hopeful). AI capable of creating new ideas is either impossible or just too difficult to invent (hard to prove which way it goes), so people keep pushing it farther.

C): None (utopic). Machines do anything people would have done for society, including the creation of new things to have and/or do. However, machines don't reach the level of autonomy required for them to actively eliminate people, or decide against it because there's plenty of resources for everyone, so people have 100% leisure time (which may happen to resemble what used to be work, if the people in question enjoy the process, but is no longer necessary to society).

D): The boundary (dystopic). Machines end up being more complex than people - to the degree that people are valued less than sufficiently advanced machines, and are put to work rather than manufacturing robots to do the jobs.

A note on D: Generally relatively soft sci-fi that does this, because the stories generally put humanity's role as hard labor, which doesn't make sense. However, I could see a story in "The Thinking Machine of the Future has become so Incredibly Advanced that the Absolute Pinnacle of Human Thought is to them what Plowing Fields is to Us." Humanity as the intellectual equivalent of the plow ox (or the tractor), doing the jobs that the machines (with their much higher potential for more complex thought) find to be beneath them and refuse to subject each other to. Possibly with the assistance of basic nonintelligent machines, the way we wouldn't try to make an ox plow a field without first affixing a plow to it.

[mikeash]

Unless you believe in souls or some other form of dualism, then clearly machines will eventually be able to do anything we can do.

But we're far from that point now. Anything machines can currently do is, pretty much by definition, drudgery. I'd be happy to reevaluate that statement if and when this changes.

I have no idea what the ultimate answer to that question would be. Lots of SF authors have tried to address it, coming up with answers varying from humans always having something they can do better, to humans existing to have fun, to humans having no point at all and therefore get wiped out by the machines.

[user5994461]

Keep half of them to unstuck the automatic cash registry, watch buyers and restock the shop.

[mikeash]

That certainly seems to be the solution so far.

[milcron]

This would be great if they got to keep the same salary.

Now they're just plain out of work. Hooray?