[sousousou]

This reminds me of one of Russell's essays, "In Praise of Idleness". Despite the fact that collectively, we would be extremely comfortable working very little if we all worked the same amount, in reality some of us work extremely hard while others work not at all. So an innovation that makes work less necessary is seen as an evil (reduces the number of jobs), where it could instead reduce work for everyone uniformly in principle (assuming massive job training and education opportunities). I think it's an interesting argument.

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

[EGreg]

Yeah. I think most people in HN don't view automation as a bad force. But we do have to note there's no guarantee that jobs will come back for EVERYONE and that over time the demand for human labor won't decrease. Most people already don't concern themselves with growing/hunting food, obtaining water, warming/cooling themselves, etc. We've moved on to other things, freed up by advances in technology. Perhaps the current "busywork" of blogging, accountants, lawyers etc. is the future. But ultimately, outside the engineers that build and take care of the technology, there are tons of people whose jobs are being disrupted. There should be a way to make sure these people remain consumers and don't starve.

[vinceguidry]

I think it's a natural outgrowth of specialization. Right now the largest bottleneck our society has is the fact that knowledge is painfully difficult to transfer. You can send a kid to school for four years and he still more economically useful than a plumber's apprentice. If you take work away from the busy people and give it to the less busy people, the net result is an overall lowering of quality.

This problem does not seem to be surmountable with the level of social infrastructure we have. I doubt even more societies with a greater level of public organization, like Norway, could do this. Knowledge and experience are just best when hoarded.