[coldtea]

>Every time we automate something the luddites cry out about the coming mass unemployment. It has never happened

It has happened each and every time, it just haven't affected you personally. Starting of course with the original luddites - they didn't complain out of some philosophical opposition to automation.

Each time in changes like this a huge number of people lost their jobs and took big hits in their quality of life. The "new jobs", when they arrive, arrive for others.

This includes the post 1990s switch to service and digital economies and outsourcing, which obliterated countless factory towns in the US - and those people didn't magically turn to coders and creatives. At best they took unemployment, big decreases in job prospects, shitty "gig" economy jobs, or, well, worse, including alcohol and opiods.

With AI it's even worse, since it has the capacity to replace jobs without adding new ones, or a tiny handful at a hugely smaller rate.

[tim333]

Strictly speaking outsourcing to cheap labour isn't automation.

[coldtea]

Strickly speaking yes, I say the "switch to service and digital economies and outsourcing" though, which also includes lots of automation, but also because it's not just automation where people say removes jobs and others say it's fine, but also switches to different kinds of economy (which see the same arguments).

For the purposes of the discussion, even considering automation and outsourcing alone, the effect is the same though: the human job dissapears from the local market, but the company still gets the thing made.