- charlize burstein
- Berlin
- Germany
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Debate: Technology will eliminate the need for human employees, and the unemployment rate will increase.
Technology is an easier and faster way to get a job done. It is obvious that technology increases the profitability of companies throughout the world. So why would I hire a human rather than purchasing the technology when the costs of them are the same?
Discuss the situation where you are going to choose one of them with equal conditions (conditions means the costs and several types of expenses).
Topics:
society technology
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Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Like Krisztian Pinter has stated, we've had this conversation before.
Mats Kaarbö 10+
Wrong. We don't have infinite jobs. The 'invisible hand', which I guess you are referring to, will not simply provide new jobs over night. That is physically impossible.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Lejan . 30+
John Smith 30+
When automation progresses faster than general technology (the capacity to make more using the same amount of natural resources), the only ways to keep employment up are lowering of wages and shortening of working hours. Maybe you assumed those things would happen but I'd be very surprised if you did because the free market would never implement them unless it's ordered by to do so by governments (because it's not very profitable to lower the productivity per employee).
Elizabeth Gu 30+
Is it merely about distributing job opportunities? Or.. maybe because of lack of people’s flexibility?
I like your comment here—that’s why I gave you a thumbs-up—but despite the way it sounds, telling the unemployed that there are 'Infinite jobs' may sound some kind of sarcasm(even if you don’t mean it).
Mats Kaarbö 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Mats Kaarbö 10+
Most people still need to pay their bills and their rent. And for that they need to generate an income. Time banks and gift economies are great, but won't meet everybody's needs in the short run and will resort to much more waste and pollution than intelligently managing the production and distribution of goods and services.
"we already have a service based economy, industry and agriculture have shrunk in size."
Sure, my point was that with automation and robotics we can produce such abundance of goods and services that an exchange for goods (money and even barter) because irrelevant.
John Smith 30+
It's not that simple: most of today's services sector is actually facilitating industry and so their number is limited by the size of industry. The "pure service" jobs that would have to employ the portion of the population made jobless by automation would have to be a) not in any way, shape of form be linked to industry, b) not consume natural resources and c) not possible for robots to carry out (this condition get harder and harder to meet as robots keep getting more advanced). Your example of a musician fits this "pure service" description, as do athletes, actors and people in the sex industry, but that's about it. Is it realistic that a significant portion of the population will find employment in such fields? I have a hard time believing that.
I would also like to point out that robots are not made of, nor do they run on, magic pixie dust so the purchasing power per capita of the population will decrease up to a finite value (it converges at 100% automation), this effect will likely cause structurally higher unemployment even if the "pure service" sector explodes, unless someone forces redistribution of wealth (lowering everyone's wages so everyone can still get a wage).
Finally it's simply unethical to make people perform often degrading, physically demanding and ultimately useless jobs. We should be striving to reduce the hours a person works in their life, that will also enable us to harvest the big advantage of automation: more free time (instead of a loss of purchasing power per working hour we could have an increase) and with all that free time on our hands we won't even miss a huge "pure service" sector because we can entertain ourselves and each other when and how we want to.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
they will. in the service sector, like today.
"automation and robotics we can produce such abundance"
automation can push the cost down to any degree, but never to zero. but even if you push the cost of something to zero, it just means that you took out that thing from the economy. but the economy is still there, as there are other things with nonzero cost.
we've been through this. you claim that there will be no more jobs, because there will be no more jobs. this is not an argument.
Mats Kaarbö 10+
But what happens when companies automate the entire service sector? Hypothetical or not.
"automation can push the cost down to any degree, but never to zero. but even if you push the cost of something to zero, it just means that you took out that thing from the economy."
"Never to zero" or "even if we push the cost to zero"? Please make up your mind :)
"but the economy is still there, as there are other things with nonzero cost."
Only if we let it be, but we don't have to and if people start loosing their purchasing power they will revolt and reject the current system all together and demand a new one. We can however, peacefully, evolve from a monetary economic system to an access economic system using technology to produce abundance and sustainability. Not 'redistribution of wealth' or any of that crap from communism and socialism, but access to wealth for everybody. We would all live like Bill Gates or any other generic rich guy who has it all.
"we've been through this. you claim that there will be no more jobs, because there will be no more jobs. this is not an argument."
I've never said that. I've said that there will be no jobs left in any given sector which implements automation. That is the argument and you know that. We see this in agriculture and manufacturing and the service sector is also being automated as we speak. This is not my personal opinion, this is fact.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
you have problems reading written text? i said you can push down, but never to zero. meditate on it, if you still don't understand. try harder.
cost is not a matter of letting. cost is just there, like the weather or laws of physics. cost means that we need to put time and effort to make things as we want. automation does not lower purchasing power, it increases it.
yes, you said. you said that if we are out of jobs that exist today, we will have no more. you did not only say that, but you have repeated that many times.
Mats Kaarbö 10+
Then define 'service sector' to me, as we seemingly have two different definitions of it.
"you have problems reading written text? i said you can push down, but never to zero. meditate on it, if you still don't understand. try harder."
Well, in the same sentence you wrote this: "but even if you push the cost of something to zero, it just means that you took out that thing from the economy." Explain that to me.
"automation does not lower purchasing power, it increases it."
To those who own the manufacturing industries and service companies yes, but not the workers who loose their jobs.
"yes, you said. you said that if we are out of jobs that exist today, we will have no more. you did not only say that, but you have repeated that many times."
Paying jobs that is, not tasks/challenges.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
you don't understand the phrase "but even if"?
Mats Kaarbö 10+
Because more than 70% of all labor is currently in the service sector, therefore making it highly relevant to talk about. So, let's say that the entire service sector were replaced by automation in the course of a couple of years, what would happen to the workers?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
try to focus: there is an endless list of possible jobs. if you have machines do the first million, we will work on the next million. if you automatize the next million, we will work on the million after that.
that is the last time i tried to explain that to you. everyone else understands it already, and my patience is over.