The Boy Who Cried Robot: A World Without Work

Started by jimmy olsen, June 28, 2015, 12:26:12 AM

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What should we do if automation renders most people permanently unemployed?

Negative Income Tax
26 (52%)
Communist command economy directed by AI
7 (14%)
Purge/sterilize the poor
3 (6%)
The machines will eradicate us, so why worry about unemployment?
7 (14%)
Other, please specify
7 (14%)

Total Members Voted: 49

Maximus

Quote from: Razgovory on June 28, 2015, 06:56:27 PM
Also computers will never think.
Your brain is a computer that can think.

Ok, bad example perhaps, but computers can think.

As for the OP, a guaranteed minimum income would be most likely to smooth the transition to whatever we come up with IMO.

Tonitrus

Where will all of this magical, free money come from? :hmm:

All of the profits from automation will be going to corporate bosses, and you they'll being doing their hardcore best to tax shelter that shit...or just building all the automated factories in places that don't care about your Euro/American tax base. 

The Minsky Moment

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 28, 2015, 02:09:29 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 28, 2015, 01:37:10 PM
Didn't vote.  Can't rationally vote in the absence of a actual phenomenon.

I don't see why not.

Because circumstances matter.

QuoteThe article makes the point that capital tends to replace labor more during recessions.

It can unless it doesn't.  But let's say it's true.  So?
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
--Joan Robinson

The Minsky Moment

Quote from: Ideologue on June 28, 2015, 06:04:18 PM
See, this is why I'm glad I didn't go to a better law school, because apparently in the T1 they gouge out your fucking eyes.

Data. Facts.  Evidence.
Everything else is cheap talk.
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
--Joan Robinson

jimmy olsen

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 28, 2015, 01:37:10 PM
Didn't vote.  Can't rationally vote in the absence of a actual phenomenon.

Throughout the developed world the key post-GR economic trend is declining productivity and unemployment.  I.e. the opposite of one would expect to see if automation was displacing vast swaths of the work force.  As for the three reasons:


• "Labor's losses"- this was the key takeaway of Piketty's book.  The share going to capital is not historically unusual. The outlier was the relatively low capital share during the postwar Trente Glorieuses.

• "The spread of nonworking men and underemployed youth "- employment ratios are also not unusually low given demographics (the persistence of boomers) and the extension of benefits during the GR.  The article focuses on the decline in prime male employment rate, which it correctly dates back many decades. Of course, as women enter the workforce and men take on more caretaker roles one would expect convergence in employment rates by gender . . .

• "The shrewdness of software." More like the shrewdest of software companies, whose bug filled releases and planned obsolescence drive continued sales of "upgrades" and services.

You may have a point with number one, however the data clearly shows to be wrong about number two. The percentage of women in the workforce peaked around 2000 and has declined from 59.9% to 57.7% since then. In that time the percentage of men in the workforce declined from 74.8% to 70.2%

http://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/facts_over_time.htm

The third one is incredibly snarky dismissal of technology with no data to back it up.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Ideologue

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 28, 2015, 11:30:07 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 28, 2015, 06:04:18 PM
See, this is why I'm glad I didn't go to a better law school, because apparently in the T1 they gouge out your fucking eyes.

Data. Facts.  Evidence.
Everything else is cheap talk.

The trouble with your commitment to arch-empiricism is that it'll take 50% U-3 unemployment for you to admit, "Oh, maybe I was wrong about automation."
Kinemalogue
Current reviews: The 'Burbs (9/10); Gremlins 2: The New Batch (9/10); John Wick: Chapter 2 (9/10); A Cure For Wellness (4/10)

jimmy olsen

#21
Employment in every single cohort is down since 2000. Interestingly, Hispanic Men have the highest employment rates for the last 40 years.

It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Monoriu

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 29, 2015, 05:45:27 AM
Employment in every single cohort is down since 2000



That's what we have observed.  There could be different reasons to explain the reductions.  Does not necessarily have to be automation. 

Martinus

Minimum guaranteed income seems to be the most mainstream response from the today's left. Surprised it is not in the poll.

Martinus

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 28, 2015, 05:39:02 PM
Quote from: LaCroix on June 28, 2015, 02:27:01 PM
this scenario will never happen. just like malthusian theory and all the others.
The reason why the malthusian outcome will not occur, the continued advancement of technology, is the reason this scenario will occur.

Is the "Malthusian outcome" something about people being too poor, living on their double academic salary, to afford enough $2000 strollers for their ever growing number of offspring?

The Brain

Supposedly there's work for robots. Give everyone a robot. PROBLEM SOLVED
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

The Brain

Btw, in South Africa they have robots everywhere. What's their experience?
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

jimmy olsen

Quote from: Martinus on June 29, 2015, 06:22:32 AM
Minimum guaranteed income seems to be the most mainstream response from the today's left. Surprised it is not in the poll.
That's basically what a negative income tax is.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

The Brain

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 29, 2015, 06:55:05 AM
Quote from: Martinus on June 29, 2015, 06:22:32 AM
Minimum guaranteed income seems to be the most mainstream response from the today's left. Surprised it is not in the poll.
That's basically what a negative income tax is.

:hmm:
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Martinus

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 29, 2015, 06:55:05 AM
Quote from: Martinus on June 29, 2015, 06:22:32 AM
Minimum guaranteed income seems to be the most mainstream response from the today's left. Surprised it is not in the poll.
That's basically what a negative income tax is.

I don't think so. Guaranteed minimum national income means that the state pays everyone the same stipend each month.