Opinion is labor intrinsically at odds with technology?

[reveler]

when we were kids, we watched the jetsons and saw their hover cars, wondering if we would get there in our lifetimes.

we never got hover cars. instead we get self-driving cars.

seems like technology is being positioned not as a way to augment humanity, but to replace it. through popular fiction, we know this is not a novel idea. lots of movies and literature are devoted to humans being overtaken and replaced by machines.

but lately it feels like its accelerating. the elites seem to have figured out that they can make more money using tech to get salary and benefits off their books through automation than by making a new product that consumers will pay for and benefit from. feels like there is a big economic crunch coming and that elites are preparing to do more with less, in terms of labor, making themselves less reliant on human capital. google will use predictive analytics to see that you are a terrorist/dissenter before you even know it, and the predator drone will be automatically dispatched.

are economies that are based around ever-expanding GDP and populations ultimately unsustainable? is this just the next stage of capitalism? does this explain why western nations are hostile to their own (expensive) native citizens but trip over themselves to import unskilled immigrants? an economy of fully-automated industrialists and janitors, with no more middle class?

is it possible for technology to accelerate without also accelerating the wealth divide and concentrations of power?

 

[NoDak]

The only thing truly accelerating at the moment is the workforce shortage crisis and skills gap in the industrial sector. Contrary to popular belief, the transition towards cyberphysical systems is actually creating a need for more human capital and labor, is creating more jobs than it's eliminating. The United States just added 284,000 manufacturing jobs in 2018 alone, the most since 1997. There are over 520,000+ positions which are currently unfilled.

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

Is labor intrinsically at odds with technology?

No.

That would only be the case if you found an immobile and static workforce to be desirable.

 

[MayhemMonkey]

we never got hover cars.

and we will never forgive them for that!

we didnt even get fucking hoverboards ffs..... the bastards!

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

is it possible for technology to accelerate without also accelerating the wealth divide and concentrations of power?

When soneone invents a new technology, necessarily they will be the first to profit and utilize this new technology. Any useful technology by virtue of being useful will benefit most the inventors and early adopters.

Any attempts at redistributing these profits will result in far less innovations coming to the market.

A wealth divide is a natural and desired effect in regards to bringing new and useful technologies to the market. There's absolutely no logical reason to interfere with that process.

 

[djacobox372]

In the past... not really... there was always newer and better uses for labor. Because the human mind was irreplaceable.

In the near future the need for a human to be behind the machine will dwindle and in the next 100 years there will be zero need for humans to do anything productive.

You can't use the past the argue against this dire prediction because there were no thinking machines in the past... it's a game-changer.

 

[7437]

no. labor donig repetitive tasks is at odds with technology.

 

[7437]

In the past... not really... there was always newer and better uses for labor. Because the human mind was irreplaceable.

In the near future the need for a human to be behind the machine will dwindle and in the next 100 years there will be zero need for humans to do anything productive.

You can't use the past the argue against this dire prediction because there were no thinking machines in the past... it's a game-changer.

the human mind is still irreplaceable. Logic in a PLC sense works much differently than how a person thinks. they have different uses.

 

[ocfightfan]

The only thing truly accelerating at the moment is the workforce shortage crisis and skills gap in the industrial sector. Contrary to popular belief, the transition towards cyberphysical systems is actually creating a need for more human capital and labor, is creating more jobs than it's eliminating. The United States just added 284,000 manufacturing jobs in 2018 alone, the most since 1997. There are over 520,000+ positions which are currently unfilled.

I wonder what level of intelligence is required for people to fill these jobs? If it's too high then that is a problem.

 

[NoDak]

I wonder what level of intelligence is required for people to fill these jobs? If it's too high then that is a problem.

In terms of qualifications a fair amount do (or will) need workers with four-year, university STEM degrees or higher. The entry for a majority of them require no more than an AAS or completion of short term certificate programs, which are really quite accessible. As a result of reshoring in recent years, a significant minority can be filled without any of the aforementioned but it's not something people would want to comfortably bank on being there beyond the short term.

 

[VivaRevolution]

The only thing truly accelerating at the moment is the workforce shortage crisis and skills gap in the industrial sector. Contrary to popular belief, the transition towards cyberphysical systems is actually creating a need for more human capital and labor, is creating more jobs than it's eliminating. The United States just added 284,000 manufacturing jobs in 2018 alone, the most since 1997. There are over 520,000+ positions which are currently unfilled.

If they really needed someone, they would hire them and train them. Of course that would prevent them from externalizing their training costs.

 

[Cash Bill 52]

Yes, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m all for technology eliminating toil and drudgery.
I hope AI doesn’t create an economy where we have to drive further to work harder at a job that pays less.

 

[emefer]

https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2...happened-notion-leisure-society-1-december-11

 

[NoDak]

If they really needed someone, they would hire them and train them. Of course that would prevent them from externalizing their training costs.

A lot of them are, plus additional pay raises to retain talent. We know the comp could definitely be better, but the industrials (manufacturing, construction, utilities) aren't the jobs we're looking for when a "living wage" of $15 is talked about, nor are they getting cleared out by automation any time soon.

 

[Arqueto]

and we will never forgive them for that!

we didnt even get fucking hoverboards ffs..... the bastards!

I agree I'd settle for power laces at this point, it's just getting embarrassing how wrong Back to the Future was.

 

[LS1Rx7]

 

[luckyshot]

My thoughts:

Technology cuts down the need for labor. Period. End of story. Anyone who thinks differently doesn't know what a machine is or why they were first made and continue to be refined.

The global population has increased, more of that population (by percentage) has basic education than ever before, and industries have globalized production to a significant degree.

All of this means that labor has less intrinsic value than ever before.

This is only mitigated by making more shit and better shit (which we are pretty damn good at doing, too).

Still, labor overall has become more of a luxury and less of a need. That's why companies have all these "unfilled" positions.

Sure, they might be able to use a guy with this skill or that skill, especially if they don't have to pay him a whole lot, but they don't necessarily "need" those guys (or else they would fill the damn positions, as Viva has pointed out).

Just me brain droppings on the matter. @NoDak tell me why I'm wrong.

 

[Ophydian]

In terms of qualifications a fair amount do (or will) need workers with four-year, university STEM degrees or higher. The entry for a majority of them require no more than an AAS or completion of short term certificate programs, which are really quite accessible. As a result of reshoring in recent years, a significant minority can be filled without any of the aforementioned but it's not something people would want to comfortably bank on being there beyond the short term.

Yes but without ITT where are they going to get educated? Devry entrance exam might be too challenging.

 

[Quipling]

My thoughts:

Technology cuts down the need for labor. Period. End of story. Anyone who thinks differently doesn't know what a machine is or why they were first made and continue to be refined.

The global population has increased, more of that population (by percentage) has basic education than ever before, and industries have globalized production to a significant degree.

All of this means that labor has less intrinsic value than ever before.

This is only mitigated by making more shit and better shit (which we are pretty damn good at doing, too).

Still, labor overall has become more of a luxury and less of a need. That's why companies have all these "unfilled" positions.

Sure, they might be able to use a guy with this skill or that skill, especially if they don't have to pay him a whole lot, but they don't necessarily "need" those guys (or else they would fill the damn positions, as Viva has pointed out).

Just me brain droppings on the matter. @NoDak tell me why I'm wrong.

I'd say that the tension comes from thinking that there is finite demand for labor. There isn't. Technology does replace certain kinds of labor, but it can create a need for others others, or make some labor more valuable.

The cotton gin is probably the best example. It effectively eliminated the laborious process of separating cotton.

The thing is, that process was a bottleneck. It made cotton inefficient to produce. So there wasn't much demand for labor in the cotton industry because, ironically, it was too labor-intensive to be profitable.

The cotton gin changed that. So, even though there was less initial demand for cleaners, the general industry boomed. It was suddenly worthwhile to allocate labor to cotton production, creating a massive demand for labor.

Mathy version:

Making widgets costs 5 units of labor for materials, 10 units of labor for assembly step 1, and 5 units of labor for assembly step 2. At 20 units of labor, this makes the widget expensive enough that there isn't much of a market, so there is only one factory making them.

But we can add a machine that changes assembly step 1 to 1 unit of labor. Widgets now cost 11 units of labor to make. The individual factory needs less labor, but now that widgets are cheaper to make, more people want them. There are now 2 factories making them. So we now have the widget market supporting 22 jobs where it previously only supported 20. Oh, and there's a job creating the labor-saving machines for another couple jobs.


Tldr: tech can create demand for some kinds of labor by making the enterprise less costly.

 

[NoDak]

I'd say that the tension comes from thinking that there is finite demand for labor. There isn't. Technology does replace certain kinds of labor, but it can create a need for others others, or make some labor more valuable.

The cotton gin is probably the best example. It effectively eliminated the laborious process of separating cotton.

The thing is, that process was a bottleneck. It made cotton inefficient to produce. So there wasn't much demand for labor in the cotton industry because, ironically, it was too labor-intensive to be profitable.

The cotton gin changed. So, even though there was less initial demand for cleaners, the general industry boomed. It was suddenly worthwhile to allocate labor to cotton production, creating a massive demand for labor.

Tldr: tech can create demand for some kinds of labor by making the effort to more profitable.

Mmm, excellent. Lucky Luddite deserves a real answer and conversation about this (which you've started) because I don't even overlook such concerns, but I have a couple meetings this morning and only the time to make quick shit-posts from my phone.