Where are things going in an automated economy? - What happens when they make a robot-fixing robot?

[robobobo]

The McDonalds close to me have all replaced their front counter people with touchscreen kiosks and offer discounts for ordering through phone apps, and I'm pretty sure I recall hearing a couple years ago that one of their execs basically said that the minute they had a burger-making robot the kitchen staff would be out of work. The number of jobs for unskilled labor are going to fall into a hole eventually, and over time more skilled labor as well.

So, what then? I can't really think of an angle where this has a happy ending; the newly automated work force isn't going to be used to make free shit for all the unemployed people, as the automation isn't being brought in for lower prices, it's coming for higher profit. We aren't going to be seeing $100 houses out of this. If we fast-forward to some Jetsons or Star Trek future where anyone can have anything by pushing a button it's not an issue anymore, but between here and there lies an ugly gulf where we don't need most of the population for production, but can't support them for free, either.

Assuming we don't go all Max Headroom with half+ the population living in shantytowns outside the cities with perpetually burning oil cans strewn everywhere, how can we possibly reconcile the diminishing job pool with the non-diminishing number of mouths to feed? Everywhere that's tried a universal minimum income thing thus far has failed, and for all the anarcho-communists who jerk off over 'Star Trek is communist, man!', communism is also founded in jobs and a workforce and also is going to have a rough time if jobs are out of the equation even in an otherwise-ideal scenario. Giving people 'work' in the form of being a professional pencil-sharpener or peanut-weigher may keep them busy, but it's not actually producing anything.

tl;dr - Economist kiwis, how do we not get completely fucked when a large percentage of jobs are replaced with automation?

 

[RG 448]

We just need to outlaw automating shit. If nobody can afford to patronize the shitty restaurant because they can’t get jobs, there’s no revenue. Humans are flawed. A handful of humans with a lot of power and no altruism are even worse. They’ve already got theirs, so there’s no reason they have to concern themselves with how fucked the rest of us are by their actions. Hell, they’re looking into bunkers and obedience collars to make sure they’re protected from the collapse of society and still have servants. That’s why we all need to fight back before it’s too late.

 

[OB 946]

We just need to outlaw automating shit. If nobody can afford to patronize the shitty restaurant because they can’t get jobs, there’s no revenue. Humans are flawed. A handful of humans with a lot of power and no altruism are even worse. They’ve already got theirs, so there’s no reason they have to concern themselves with how fucked the rest of us are by their actions. Hell, they’re looking into bunkers and obedience collars to make sure they’re protected from the collapse of society and still have servants. That’s why we all need to fight back before it’s too late.

Basically this. There becomes a point where you just have to legislate things away. Automated cars will be the first. The single largest occupation in the US is trucker, and if automated trucking becomes viable, you have roughly 7.4 million people in teamster-related business, and that doesn't include small, independent truckers. There are over 3.5 million truck drivers in the US, again, excluding owner-operators. You cannot accidentally 8 million jobs in one day. The economy would implode, instantly, especially since truckers aren't exactly hurting for money. They will ban them, and once that can of worms opens, it will be harder and harder to justify banning automation in just a single sector. It is totally plausible to see a reverse in the automation process just because of legislation.

 

[CIA Nigger]

Basically this. There becomes a point where you just have to legislate things away. Automated cars will be the first. The single largest occupation in the US is trucker, and if automated trucking becomes viable, you have roughly 7.4 million people in teamster-related business, and that doesn't include small, independent truckers. There are over 3.5 million truck drivers in the US, again, excluding owner-operators. You cannot accidentally 8 million jobs in one day. The economy would implode, instantly, especially since truckers aren't exactly hurting for money. They will ban them, and once that can of worms opens, it will be harder and harder to justify banning automation in just a single sector. It is totally plausible to see a reverse in the automation process just because of legislation.

Truck driving has gotten harder with regulations, especially with California's emission laws and the controversial electronic logging system. There's also the fact the trucker lifestyle is rough, turning people away from it despite some companies offering easy money. There's been a shortage in truckers and many regret choosing that lifestyle.

Silicon Valley CEOs will use that as an excuse to automate it.

 

[spurger king]

The horse population declined pretty drastically after cars got popular, just sayin'.

I think people who freak out about mcjobs being automated are dumb. Those jobs are arguably a net negative for society, and if automation is cheaper than paying a human a living wage, then a human shouldn't be doing that work in the first place.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

The horse population declined pretty drastically after cars got popular, just sayin'.

I think people who freak out about mcjobs being automated are dumb. Those jobs are arguably a net negative for society, and if automation is cheaper than paying a human a living wage, then a human shouldn't be doing that work in the first place.

So engineering, car assembly, driving, data analysis, finance, music, mining, geology and construction are things people shouldn't be doing, got it.

 

[Some Manajerk]

See, i think theres less danger of Mcdonalds going fully automated than you think, for one reason: Franchises. most stores aren't owned by the company, they're leased out, and I can promise you this, they are absolute misers when it comes to buying new equipment. the Kiosks we get? Corporate pays for those, and they only take cards, not cash. they break once a week, and our tech support is indians who will take hours to solve simple problems i can fix in 5 minutes.

SO if mcdonalds Made such a machine, i doubt most of the smaller O/O's would buy it, unless Corporate reached down with a heavy hand and said "you will pay us 100k for a machine for each of your stores, and if it breaks there is only one man in 200 miles who can fix it, and he charges per minute" For reference, the owners in the region once stonewalled Corp. when they were told "oh yeah, you now need to shell out 5k per store for a toaster add on.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I'm looking forward to the possibility of spit not being in my next McDonald's meal. Also, never having my order done wrong.

The problem here is that not enough people at the highest level are really taking this impending problem seriously and aren't talking about it because it bums everybody out. I'm not saying I have a solution, but the way to fix a problem isn't to pretend that it's not happening.

It's not as far away as people like to think it is.

 

[CIA Nigger]

See, i think theres less danger of Mcdonalds going fully automated than yoiu think, for one reason: Franchies. most stores aren't owned by the company, they're leased out, and I can promise you this, they are absolute misers when it comes to buying new equipment. the Kiosks we get? Corporate pays for those, and they only take cards, not cash. they break once a week, and our tech support is indians who will take hours to solve simple problems i can fix in 5 minutes.

SO if mcdonalds Made such a machine, i doubt most of the smaller O/O's would buy it, unless Corporate reached down with a heavy hand and said "you will pay us 100k for a machine for each of your stores, and if it breaks there is only one man in 200 miles who can fix it, and he charges per minute" For reference, the owners in the region once stonewalled Corp. when they were told "oh yeah, you now need to shell out 5k per store for a toaster add on.

Pretty much this. Anyone who's worked fast food knows just how clueless the employees can be when the tech breaks.

 

[Red Hood]

Guess I need to get started making .308 rounds with an EMP function.

 

[OhGoy]

automated fast food = lower chances of minorities and drug addicts spitting in your food

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

automated fast food = lower chances of minorities of drug addicts spitting in your food

= increased chances of narcotics market growing exponentially.

 

[SJ 485]

I don't think it will be the problem people fear it will be and to heavily legislate automation as a kneejerk response to preserve jobs would be cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Truckers will NOT be out of a job overnight, companies shouldn't and won't trust a fully automated system to transport valuable goods cross-country when things like this still happen. How would a robot truck driver even deal with something like this? If they were actually stupid enough to hand over total control to a computer you'd see a surge in the number of incidents like this just because it would be so easy to pull off. So you'd still have a truck driver along for the ride to make sure the truck actually reaches its destination, he'd still need to be paid well for working long hours far away from home and sacrificing his social life. Those factors alone make investment in automation for long-distance transport pretty unattractive to business owners.

As for service jobs, human wants are infinite and the service sector is likewise infinitely expandable. There will be room for service workers in more upmarket places, though there probably wouldn't be jobs for shitty teenagers with 0 enthusiasm for the job, since they'd be more socially focused jobs where the whole point is to provide the customer with a luxury service experience. Like a hotel concierge except broader, I couldn't say exactly what shape these new service jobs would take but that's roughly what I imagine will happen.

Maybe the prospect of the new generation of working class people being a servant-class seems quite ugly to some (though to be honest I think it's easy to argue that the function of the working class is already to be servants to those higher on the socioeconomic ladder,) but they'll still live better than today's working class and benefit from the increase in standard of living that automation brings.

I can't help but compare it to the industrial revolution; I'm sure people also thought there was more dignity in being a farmhand than a factory worker, but look at where it eventually lead us. In both cases there are fewer people doing dangerous and highly strenuous work, they have more leisure time and the cost of living for the poorest in society is reduced. The goal of society is not to have people working more, it's to have them living better.

 

[JustStopDude]

I automate steel Mills, ports, refineries, etc.

Trucking will be automated like port terminals. There was much resistance to compartmentalizing cargo ships. People claim that human operators were safer.

That is load shit. Human operators suck.

So one or two ports take the plunge and the rest race to follow. To stop strikes, ports agree to hang on to Union workers, but they will never be replaced. In a US port, a crane operator will sit at a remote operating desk, clicking a joy stick once every 100 or so moves, all making $250k.

In another 10 years, all will be gone except for one operator operating all the cranes at once.

I suspect one trucking line will prove it works. Then all trucking lines do it. To keep truckers happy, they can sit in truck until they retire and they are never replaced by new worker.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Truckers will NOT be out of a job overnight, companies shouldn't and won't trust a fully automated system to transport valuable goods cross-country when things like this still happen. How would a robot truck driver even deal with something like this? If they were actually stupid enough to hand over total control to a computer you'd see a surge in the number of incidents like this just because it would be so easy to pull off. So you'd still have a truck driver along for the ride to make sure the truck actually reaches its destination, he'd still need to be paid well for working long hours far away from home and sacrificing his social life. Those factors alone make investment in automation for long-distance transport pretty unattractive to business owners.

Never underestimate the limits of human stupidity.

 

[SJ 485]

I suspect one trucking line will prove it works. Then all trucking lines do it. To keep truckers happy, they can sit in truck until they retire and they are never replaced by new worker.

As long as someone can come up with an affordable security solution to the problem of having a dumb robot truck just stop in the middle of the road and allow its goods to be pillaged, yeah. If they can't do that then it's just too important that there be a human in the seat who can react to emergency situations and make decisions like that, more importantly you can blame the human in the seat for fucking up without it undermining trust in your entire business. You can't have your robot truck decide to just plough through a crowd of people if it suspects they're trying to rob it, nor can you afford to just let people steal from you. It would only take one instance of an automated truck letting people raid it for free shit for basically the whole planet to decide it was a bad idea at once and never ship their goods with a company that uses automated trucks again.

Never underestimate the limits of human stupidity.

I think you're being pessimistic for pessimism's sake, people are not that stupid, especially people with financial incentives not to be stupid about these things.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

>b-b-but anti-automation legislation!

Yeah, right.

Because we all know lawmakers would never, under any circumstance, put the economical well being of giant corporations over the working class.

 

[JustStopDude]

Trucks drivers already get rob, plow through people, etc.

The rate of interstate accidents involving trucks will drop by a massive numbers.

 

[SJ 485]

Trucks drivers already get rob, plow through people, etc.

The rate of interstate accidents involving trucks will drop by a massive numbers.

But the point is if someone does that you can fire him, people are all different and you having an employee who fucks up like that is different to you having a computer system in every single one of your trucks that is suddenly exploitable in the same way. I'm not talking about accidents, I'm talking about people figuring out that your computer system's behaviour is exploitable in a very serious and very expensive way.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

As long as someone can come up with an affordable security solution to the problem of having a dumb robot truck just stop in the middle of the road and allow its goods to be pillaged, yeah. If they can't do that then it's just too important that there be a human in the seat who can react to emergency situations and make decisions like that, more importantly you can blame the human in the seat for fucking up without it undermining trust in your entire business.

You do know that whole "driver sleeping in the back and only checking in when things go wrong" scenario is supposed to be a temporary arrangement, right? If the truck can drive itself except for in exacerbating circumstances, it removes from the driver's role as essential and places it as optional, just like their pay.

But the point is if someone does that you can fire him, people are all different and you having an employee who fucks up like that is different to you having a computer system in every single one of your trucks that is suddenly exploitable in the same way. I'm not talking about accidents, I'm talking about people figuring out that your computer system's behaviour is exploitable in a very serious and very expensive way.

Trucking companies will ignore their system vulnerabilities the same way Equifax did. Equifax held everyone's social security number, their home address, everything leaked and they took no preventative measures against it. Corporations never bother with flaws, defects or vulnerabilities until the day it backfires on them, because wisdom is expensive and initiative isn't lazy, and even then they might ignore it if they think they can get away with it anyway. Technical incompetency is the default, not an aberration and the nature of business is to coast on as little as possible to make as much as you can.