| > We're already at a point where machines do most of the work. We're at a point where machines are very clearly doing far less than a quarter of the work. I think it's more likely under 10%. If you were right, right now we'd have true mass unemployment as we're nowhere near prepared for that level of automation in the global economy. The next tier of jobs are not here yet to absorb the labor. Scan from country to country, you'll find global unemployment has never been lower. Further, if we were at that level of machine labor share, we would have likely seen a large increase in productivity or profitability in manufacturing. Manufacturers are not replacing humans en masse unless it makes a lot of business sense (in output, cost, or a combination; and we're not seeing anything even remotely close to those types of seismic-shift figures showing up in manufacturing numbers anywhere). The vast majority of all manufacturing in China is still done by hand, with minimal machine contribution. They've barely begun to scratch the surface of machines taking over their manufacturing (and naturally they're freaking out about the future unemployment prospects of that, just as people in the US and elsewhere are). And Chinese manufacturing is further down the machine-adoption curve than other countries like Mexico or Vietnam. We have hardly even automated a consequential share of the labor in your typical fast food chain. Globally we're just getting around to electronic ordering kiosks as the norm. |
More generally, the only sensible answer is probably to divide labor productivity today with that of pre-industrial labor. Which amounts to approximately the ratio of GDPs. Which means about 500/50_000 (USD, very roughly). Which again leads to the conclusion that machines & automation are doing about 99% of the work, right now.
We don't have mass unemployment because all the people no longer working with their muscles have found other jobs, providing things other than food, which their ancestors simply didn't have. Like hospitals, HVAC, websites, and food stamp programs.
BTW both China and fast food are massively automated/mechanized. The price difference between McDonalds and having a personal chef cook you a similar burger is the degree to which machines have been used instead of human hands. The fact that none of them look like C-3PO is irrelevant.