Automation and Technological Unemployment

[USS Monitor]

If there is less need for human labor, maybe we can just have shorter work weeks.

[Infected Mushroom]

If there is less need for human labor, maybe we can just have shorter work weeks.

Yes. This.

[San Lumen]

If there is less need for human labor, maybe we can just have shorter work weeks.

Yes. This.

At the sake of mass unemployment? no thanks

[Infected Mushroom]

Yes. This.

At the sake of mass unemployment? no thanks

What?

You can employ twice the amount of people with shorter work weeks

[The United Colonies of Earth]

At the sake of mass unemployment? no thanks

What?

You can employ twice the amount of people with shorter work weeks

How short? Four days (my current week)? 3? 2? 1? Whatever it is I am all in.

[Infected Mushroom]

What?

You can employ twice the amount of people with shorter work weeks

How short? Four days (my current week)? 3? 2? 1? Whatever it is I am all in.

Hopefully as short as possible, and the government needs to enforce it (with guns if necessary because employers are Exploiters)

[USS Monitor]

Yes. This.

At the sake of mass unemployment? no thanks

Shorter work weeks would not mean mass unemployment.

[San Lumen]

At the sake of mass unemployment? no thanks

Shorter work weeks would not mean mass unemployment.

Not if most jobs are replaced by machines and androids.

[Infected Mushroom]

Shorter work weeks would not mean mass unemployment.

Not if most jobs are replaced by machines and androids.

"machines" are replacing workers every day, its already happening

jobs are being eliminated everywhere

[Great Minarchistan]

If there is less need for human labor, maybe we can just have shorter work weeks.

Statistical analysis for the US shows that the American economy is as dependent on human labor to grow today as it was in the mid-20th century. Sorry Monitor

[USS Monitor]

Shorter work weeks would not mean mass unemployment.

Not if most jobs are replaced by machines and androids.

You're completely ignoring what I said.

Let's say you have a business with 2 full-time employees. You get a robot to do the job so now you just need one person to keep an eye on the robot and collect the finished products. YOU SWITCH TO A SHORTER WORK WEEK! -- which I'm putting in bright pink font because you apparently missed it the first time even when it was just about the only thing I said. Now you have a business with 2 employees that work 20 hours instead of 40.

The unemployment rate is unchanged because you still have two employees.

Labor laws would need to be adjusted, such as raising the minimum wage so people have enough to live on without working 40 hours.

[USS Monitor]

If there is less need for human labor, maybe we can just have shorter work weeks.

Statistical analysis for the US shows that the American economy is as dependent on human labor to grow today as it was in the mid-20th century. Sorry Monitor

It'll have to wait for another time then.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

Hopefully, more automation would lead to the necessary human labour to be spread out more evenly instead of mass unemployment and no compensation for those people. If 20 % of jobs get replaced and the rest are unchanged (ignore how the factory for robot job replacers is hiring), just have everyone work 20 % less. Once the level of automation gets high enough, then let people spend time however, post-scarcity has been reached. But while automating jobs, let all work less instead of some now work none, and don't automate the desirable jobs without reason, just the boring ones. Automate septic-tank maintenance, not artists/writers.

Suppose that robots replace so many jobs that the average person (including the unemployed) works only 23 hours a week. It is artificial scarcity to have some people involuntarily working none and getting paid none, but let the others work as before and make just enough money to live (or whatever they got before). Even it out.

Don't want people going around working ten hours a week because jobs got spread out? One could ramp up production a certain amount to account for less human labour for X production by increasing the production.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Never said it was an 'utopian world' just an unavoidable thing that will happen.

And those are good things, not sure how can you be so fetishized with the past when you couldn't even be on this sort of forum 10-15 years ago.

Also, that post doesn't make any sense, those technologies still exist.

If we were to implement your premise some thousand years ago, that's exactly how we would look like.

No they are bad things beacuse mass unemployment.

Thousands of years ago, we didn't have robots.

So, still doesn't make sense.

Also, that post doesn't make any sense, those technologies still exist.

The point is that there was a time when they didn't, and if people had taken the same attitudes towards them then as some now suggest we take towards computers, AI, and robots, we wouldn't be in a position to be discussing the dilemma that our modern technology poses, because civilization would not exist or would be in a withered dark age of technological and scientific repression and stagnation.

You can't stop technology from advancing, you can just try and make sure that good people are doing their best to guide it and use it for the right ends, rather than trying to repress it and leaving the work of advancement to unscrupulous baddies with their own agendas.

Problem is, most people can't be put into the research industry, one of the only industry that would still employ humans.

You indeed stop technology from advancing. Thats part of the reason why humans will have there jobs taken over by robots.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

Shorter work weeks would not mean mass unemployment.

Not if most jobs are replaced by machines and androids.

If that many jobs are automated, then work should be optional in this post-scarcity place.

[San Lumen]

Not if most jobs are replaced by machines and androids.

If that many jobs are automated, then work should be optional in this post-scarcity place.

work would never be optional. androids and more and more jobs being replaced by automation is inevitable and will be the majority of jobs in the future but we must do it because progress.

Progress for the sake of progress is a very thing and something that isn't broken should not be fixed or replaced

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

The scenario I think likely, is that 3d printing develops to the point that manufacturing jobs can be repatriated to the developed world, because it will be cheap enough to undercut any human worker in any country, and because of climate change we will be putting more priority on not transporting things long distance.

In the developing world the opportunity to build from scratch will lead to pretty much fully automated factories and distribution, with very few workers. In the developing world the loss of manufacturing jobs will hit the economies hard.

The increase in productivity of near workerless factories, will increase the value of the companies that own them causing strong stock market rises. This raises the value of things like pensions and savings. So people with some assets and savings do well, but the people without those are going to struggle as the job market becomes increasingly competitive. The choice here is use some of the economic windfall to fund UBI, or just let a small handful of people benefit and face rapidly increasing societal tensions.

[Trumptonium1]

It's only an issue so long as nobody is doing anything to retrain individuals already in the industry.

Retraining people works up until there is a point reached where there are no longer enough jobs and too many qualified people. And that point will be reached eventually, whether it be in our lifetimes or those of our generation's children and grandchildren.

Nothing wrong with shifting the problem to the next generation, maybe they find better answers than what works temporarily.

[Valrifell]

No.

That’s what I’m saying. I say again what I said earlier. Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. We should preserve what must be preserved, prefect what can be perfected and prohibit what ought to be prohibited

I don't think you understand that more than half of all scientific breakthroughs have origins in "because we can" I.E. progress for the sake of progress.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Retraining people works up until there is a point reached where there are no longer enough jobs and too many qualified people. And that point will be reached eventually, whether it be in our lifetimes or those of our generation's children and grandchildren.

Nothing wrong with shifting the problem to the next generation, maybe they find better answers than what works temporarily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination

[Trumptonium1]

Nothing wrong with shifting the problem to the next generation, maybe they find better answers than what works temporarily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination

I'd call it strategic deflection.

[Trumptonium1]

Not if most jobs are replaced by machines and androids.

You're completely ignoring what I said.

Let's say you have a business with 2 full-time employees. You get a robot to do the job so now you just need one person to keep an eye on the robot and collect the finished products. YOU SWITCH TO A SHORTER WORK WEEK! -- which I'm putting in bright pink font because you apparently missed it the first time even when it was just about the only thing I said. Now you have a business with 2 employees that work 20 hours instead of 40.

The unemployment rate is unchanged because you still have two employees.

Labor laws would need to be adjusted, such as raising the minimum wage so people have enough to live on without working 40 hours.

Raising the minimum wage will raise unemployment.

[Esternial]

There will always be shifts, I'm sure.

Doubt we need a lot of switchboard operators nowadays.

[The New California Republic]

Raising the minimum wage will raise unemployment.

Simply untrue, if the UK statistics related to unemployment rate and minimum wage rate are worth their salt:

https://static5.uk.businessinsider.com/ ... 20rate.png

http://uk.businessinsider.com/britain-d ... nt-2017-10

[Sovaal]

If there is less need for human labor, maybe we can just have shorter work weeks.

Nah, they'll just fire as many as they can, and move on to a cheaper workforce, as per the norm.