And what is Econ 201's solution to pervasive unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment? Is that also classified as "societal value"?
They teach you economic history and show that predictions of pervasive unemployment and lack of spending power caused by technical innovation have been made every decade and never been borne out as new ways of delivering societal value are constantly being invented.
In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never.
Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effects is the at the heart of the current discussion. We’ve literally been worried about robots replacing all workers since Fritz Lang made Metropolis in the 1920s. Maybe those concerns were early and maybe we’re repeating ourselves. It’s not really clear.
This may be a slight tangent, but I always took the interpretation of Metropolis as one of humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them), less in replacement; the "moloch" scene comes to mind. The only robot in the movie seemed more an analog for questions of humanity, blurring the line of human and machine, and additionally touching on the whole classic "reviving a loved one" tropes.
(Not to distract from your point, other works such as Rossam's universal Robots definitely covered the subject matter you refer to, I'm being pedantic about Metropolis largely because the subtle difference I'm emphasizing feels to me as what makes it _so much more accurate and predictive_ to the actual relationship between man, machine, and the owners of production.)
> humans being _reduced_ to the level of machines (and in some ways subservient to them)
Oh, you mean like Uber and Deliveroo drivers?
In the last century, humans served machines. In this century, they will serve algorithms.
Lang's work is more relevant than ever. In many ways we are re-living the events of 100 years ago, only this time the US are in the driving seat, rather than Europe.
How is that any different than a waiter working for a restaurant or cafe? The old nature of things doesn't change if you replace a notepad with a web service.
> How is that any different than a waiter working for a restaurant or cafe?
This is the sort of insensitive and short-sighted remark that gives HN a bad name.
In one job, you work with a group of people, answering to people. In the other, you work alone, answering to a computer. The computer doesn't care if today you have a headache, your mother died, your child needs to see a doctor, or customer XYZ is an asshole: you will only be compensated precisely for how productive you are at any given time. The computer won't make you favours and won't help you any differently on any given day. You will not get to know the computer better over time, you won't become friends and go out together, or collaborate on a new business. The computer won't invite you to his wedding or introduce you to his children.
It's weird that we have to be reminded of this, but there is no humanity in the relationship with an algorithm.
I appreciate the clarification, and you're totally right. I grabbed at the cover image as it flashed through my mind without actually taking time to remember the film, which I haven't seen for a while.
I think we're definitely looking at, at the minimum, another day off the working week - similar to the shift from the early 20th century from 6 to 5 days, as combine harvesters triggered a movement of something like 90% of agricultural workers into cities.
Beyond that, it's hard to say. There is lots of work that needs to be done - picking up plastics anybody? - but the money is in the wrong places to pay for it, and at some point the flows in the system become so disrupted by wealth accumulation, that the only solutions is to press the reset button in any case.
US employment rate has steadily fallen over time. Currently the overall rate for working age people is around 60%. Which means ~40% of the adult working age population does not have a job.
Why the huge discrepancy with the official rate? Well some of it's stay at home parents and early retirees, but a large chunk of that is prison and disabled which have both quietly ballooned over time.
Actually the numbers including women don't look too bad. With the recent recovery in employment it actually looks like labour participation has been relatively flat since the mid-eighties.
One does have to wonder how the statistics are affected by millions of working adult residents participating in the economy as illegal aliens and therefore not counted. The reduction in male labor participation also brings to mind what is clearly now one of the biggest splits in American conservatism: between people like Kevin D. Williamson[1] and Nicholas Eberstadt[2] who focus on a moral and cultural downward spiral, vs Steve Bannon [3] who credits the decline to free trade, and both legal (H1B) and illegal immigration.
I don't agree. The combined rate for 25-55 year shows every year from 1988 to 2008 was above the rate from 2008-2016.
Now, if the current trend continues for 5-10 years then we might recover. But, based on historical trends 2018 is likely a peak right before a recession vs the new normal.
Off the top of my head, I can think of the "disappearing middle class." The trend seems to be that anyone that would have previously found themselves with a place in life, that placed them below the upper middle class rich but above the working poor, are either becoming significantly richer or significantly poorer.
For perspective, a lot of households have seen a large increase in their wealth. Comparatively, the vast majority of food stamp recipients actively participate in the work force but still need government assistance. While it appears that there are many jobs available, it also appears that these jobs don't pay enough to allow the people who work them to live outside of a life of poverty.
The 'disappearing middle class' is not what you think it is. I try to actively research the things I talk about in in searching for information on the widely reported chiseling out of the middle class I came upon this [1] paper. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. The middle class has also shrunk, going from 38.8% of society to 32%. And that's where most media reports on this generally stop, but it's incredibly misleading.
That paper also gets into exactly how the size of the various socioeconomic groups are changing. This is their change in size from 1979 to 2014, as a percent of the total population:
- Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%
- Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%
- Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%
- Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%
- Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%
Statistics like this are certainly subject to biased interpretation and 'massaging'. If one is curious about the source, wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [2]. Though the paper itself is very transparent in their methodology and extremely readable. I found it all eye opening to the point that it literally changed my worldview. Everybody is moving up at an incredibly rapid pace. I mean keep in mind this is only over 35 years! We are doing something very right from an economic point of view.
Then econ 201 clearly hasn't studied a graph of income inequality over time, and appears ready to ignore that the bulk of economic activity has shifted from manufacturing and other labor-intensive activities to the financial industry. But by all means, tell us more about how folks working "gigs", the pervasiveness of underemployment, and the frequency with which individuals have to work 3 or more jobs to survive isn't a societal problem.
Are those jobs comparable to the ones those people would have had before? Or is it just a glut of cheap labor that is exploited because it's cheaper than automating things?
Because wages are a small part of the total compensation package - leaving out bonuses, health, dental, vision insurance policies, 401k (with matching), employee stock purchase plans, stock options or stock units awards, access to food and on-site services, company cars, etc.
If my employer's group health insurance is considered part of my compensation, should I not be glad that health care costs are rising, since that drives up my total compensation?
unemployment, or lack of spending power due to underemployment?
I think you misunderstood. You are describing negative societal value. Long-term unemployment can ruin not only your life but the lives of your family members.
Econ 201's solution is to punt on the issue and start doing calculus, because the economics orthodoxy was developed by heartless market neoliberals and computer scientists, and they can't really rationalize it in human terms. You literally have to go to grad school to un-learn all this shit.
In Econ 301 they teach you to never say never.
Whether this time is different than the previous rounds of automation or will have larger dislocative effects is the at the heart of the current discussion. We’ve literally been worried about robots replacing all workers since Fritz Lang made Metropolis in the 1920s. Maybe those concerns were early and maybe we’re repeating ourselves. It’s not really clear.