Does any government in the world have a sensible plan for what happens when (probably) 1 in 10 of the workforce become unemployable when self-driving cars/trucks take over their jobs?
Automation is coming for these people's jobs and there is nothing that can be done about that. Retraining is the only hope for these people but they have to stop acting entitled and start voting for people who will help them get retrained.
Retraining we can do. However, we can't create massive new job sectors to hire those retrained workers, unless it's make-work government jobs (in which case we'd be better off paying those people a basic income and not removing value from government services by making them more complex and bureaucratic than they need to be).
They need new and dynamic industries that treat the employees with respect and agency. Something entire communities can benefit from.
He apparently plans to revive the coal industry by repealing environmental regulations and to put them back to work mining coal[0,1].
[0]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/coal-jobs-trump-...
[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-27/trump...
Nevertheless, that is the plan, to somehow force the world to turn the clock back on globalism to a time when American coal, steel and auto workers were relevant, and to beat back the tide of modernity until the world makes sense again.
The G.I. Bill is very good for military professions that don't have a common civilian analog and the person is going to start again anyway.
Spending on directly helping people seems like a very humane way to deal with shifts in employment but I don't see us choosing to invest that kind of money, not to mention the problem with attitudes complicating shifting a heavily-male worker surplus into traditionally female fields.
"Because at 54 years old, nobody wants me. I can’t retrain for anything else. For older people, you kind of get trapped. For every one that does well, there’s 30 that it destroys."
That feeling that nobody wants you is a killer. It may be true, it may not, but that lack of hope just prevents anything good from happening. "I can't retrain for anything" - you're defeated right from the start, and it's obvious people don't even want to take the leap to try.
It's hardest on people that had it good, and then lost it. Much worse than those that never had it, in that you feel like you're losing something. (endowment effect)
Here's an interesting article the WaPo did about whites and a lack of hope. While there is a race component to it, I think it'd equally apply to other races where people have had a good/stable life, but lost it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/15/the-w... http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/23/52108333...
It suggests that the group having higher status previously does not change things all that much.
"These deaths of despair have been accompanied by reduced labor force participation, reduced marriage rates, increases in reports of poor health and poor mental health. So we are beginning to thread a story in that it's possible that [the trend is] consistent with the labor market collapsing for people with less than a college degree. In turn, those people are being less able to form stable marriages, and in turn that has effects on the kind of economic and social supports that people need in order to thrive."
Like you said, the rates are converging when they have a high school degree or less. These are the kinds of people that get hit the hardest when the labor market is collapsing.
It's not that "whites had it before and now they don't", it's "I used to believe I was entitled to a job if I wanted to work hard, and that would pay enough to live, but now that doesn't seem to be true." People just don't know what to do now and are feeling hopeless.
Other comparisons in article always compared different socioeconomic groups - whites without degree with all blacks - that is not the same because it counts in middle class blacks.
I agree it's hard and hopeless for both groups, and I think it's only going to get worse. Comparing hopelessness I don't think really provides much insight though, but what that hopelessness might cause people to do. (increased drug use, suicide, etc.) What my point was is that that hopelessness isn't going to help them retrain and it might actively keep people from seeking it. I think we're missing out on a whole mental health component.
I say that as a developer who is one of the classes that will benefit more from automation (until we are also replaced).
[1]: https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-j...
This is an interesting allusion to the fundamental problem with this proposal - it doesn't bother to define what a robot is, the value of a robot's labor, or how to tell when the robot has replaced someone's job. If you start thinking about the implications for even a moment it's clear this is absurd.
If company A makes product X using 100 workers, and company B enters the market using machine C to make X at a lower cost that drives A out of business, how do we decide what to tax B? Does B pay the payroll taxes of 100 workers? What if B's lower cost expands the market for X and now they're selling ten times as much? What if the product A makes is hand-knit sweaters, and B is using knitting machine technology that's been around for a century? Are those the same products? Is the knitting machine a robot?
There's a very real concern here - the concern is that technology allows the proceeds of increased productivity to all be funneled to a privileged few, leaving the rest of the workforce out in the cold. Luckily we already have a way to address that - it's called the income tax.
Of course passing more progressive tax laws are impossible because you're asking the most rich and powerful to curtail their own wealth. Gate's proposal has any traction whatsoever because it won't touch old money.
Asymmetric growth between those with and without capital (automation/AI) will only worsen. Add in a few more upcoming innovations such as human genetic and cybernetic modification, and a highly segregated (if not fully biologically divergent) world society seems unavoidable. The poor will no longer be lower castes by social fiat, they will truly become physically and mentally inferior. Revolution, which was possible in a time when the oppressed had equal capabilities and access to relatively competitive weaponry, will become impossible.
Consider what capitalism is, again, from a Marxist perspective. It is an economic mode of production that has two main classes: the capitalist class, which is characterized by the ownership of the means of production (aka capital); and the worker class, which is characterized by the lack of said ownership. The capitalist class, by virtue of owning the means of production, also owns any surplus value created using them.
However, because your average capitalist has too much capital to be able to utilize it to its full extent, in order to maximize the surplus value generated from that capital, they need the workers. So, they effectively rent out the means of production to the workers (note: this includes the entire managerial chain involved, up to CEOs, and even owners themselves to the extent that they operate in a managerial capacity), who generate the actual surplus value, but then pay most of it back to the owner of the capital as rent. On the other hand, the workers, without access to means of production, cannot generate surplus value for themselves. So they have to go and rent those means from the capitalists who own them.
The resulting arrangement manifests as employment and wages, and that's how we nominally describe it. But fundamentally it's all about rent and rent-seeking. The reason why this arrangement works in practice is because, within this established framework (i.e. unless you dispute legality of ownership of capital), both classes need each other to get any value out of it.
Consequently, the reason why it's breaking apart with advent of widespread automation is because it breaks the dependency of the capitalist class on the workers. Automation is essentially capital that generates surplus value all by itself. This means that the entire production/consumption cycle that drives the economy becomes contained to the capitalist class. Simply put, if you have a robot that can do X for free, and the other guy has a robot that can do Y for free, and both of you need X+Y, then you only need to trade between each other. You don't need to trade with (e.g. hire or contract) anyone who does not have any robot that does anything useful. Effectively, everyone who doesn't own any means of production - i.e. the majority of the population in modern societies - become economically redundant in all respects, and cut off from the economy as a result.
This is the point at which the question of who owns the capital - i.e. the automation - becomes paramount. The existing owners can try to avoid pressing that point by willingly taking a part of the surplus value that automation generates for them, and sharing it with all those that don't have any capital of their own, as a direct wealth transfer. This is UBI and other similar schemes. It's probably where we're heading in the medium term, but I doubt it would be a stable arrangement for too long - there's just too many inherent questions about fairness here, and such a scheme would also have basically zero social mobility between the have-automation class and the have-nots, that would further accelerate resentment.
Longer term, we're probably looking at some form of shared ownership of the means of production. Which, combined with the post-scarcity that automation should result in, would, in fact, be communism in the strictest definition of that term. If we do get there, it would be the ultimate irony in that it would be capitalism as a socioeconomic system, rather than socialism, building the road there, for all the efforts of the latter and the indifference of the former...
Capitalists who achieve post-scarcity may look around and see "high" humans, beneficiaries of advanced biotech, and masses of apparent troglodytes, with whom they have less in common than we do with dogs.
[1]: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bill-gates-tax-...
The absolute best scenario is for a country to automate as much as possible as quickly as possible to capture the productivity gains available on the global scale and then figure out how to tax gains (from automation or otherwise) domestically after the fact to support those in its population that have been displaced.
If you think instability from unemployment is bad, it's certainly worse if you also have the problem of not having the resources to even try and address it.
There's no reason to push for exponential growth any further until we can correct income and wealth inequality a bit.
The former gives you options, the latter affords you none.
This is reminiscent of the prisoner's dilemma in a way. All the rich of all the countries in the world will make the same claims: "look, we don't want to fall behind big scary China or Russia do we? So cut me some slack on taxes and regulation, let's all pitch in to bail me out when I fail (just a few billion here and there--I'm too big to fail, remember?), and we'll see about redistribution once we've won the war. I promise to remember you all."
A country that follows this path ends up like Korea, selling its soul to Samsung.
I don't care if there is economic unrest in China nearly as much as economic unrest in America. Do I wish economic unrest in China? No, of course not. But if I had to choose between economic unrest overseas or in my own backyard, overseas it is.
I only use China as the example here because they are the only ones actually executing an economic game plan that is competitive with taking economic gains from America and Americans.
That is obscenely optimistic and almost Randian.
Those people are gonna have a much harder time. Any owners of property will see the values of their assets plummet just as their jobs disappear.
Or maybe the tank range is enough that trucks don't stop between Fairbanks and Deadhorse the way it is now, and I'm talking out my ass. All I know is that the traffic I saw last time I was up there consisted of a lot of trucks, a minivan, one camper at the Arctic Circle that said they were going to Deadhorse, and the remainder of tourist traffic consisting of a bunch of dumbasses like me on motorcycles.
Far better would be vehicles -- self-driving or otherwise -- on some sort of fixed guideway; given that most of the current usage of the road is for traffic solely between the two points-of-interest on either end. Special vehicles could still be used to access the pipeline running alongside at arbitrary points.
A railway, potentially with extra equipment to assist with maintaining traction and negotiating grades, would accomplish this nicely, but is avoided due to its large up-front cost. While self-driving vehicles don't come with such large non-distributed up-front cost, they would be unreliable on such a road without permanent in-vehicle supervision, at which point they're not really making any of the intervening towns that provide driver services superfluous.
Human nature is not ready for this world. We are dogmatic puritanical beasts obsessed with the idea that a person's value must be inextricably tied to one's economic output. We're more likely to see a worldwide make-work program where 1/2 of the people are paid to dig holes and the other 1/2 paid to fill them in, than we are to see something like universal basic income.
I'm not sure if that's an indication of any actual plan (certainly not a sensible one) or simply a hedge against the fact that nobody has one, or nothing at all.
In any case, ignoring even just the truckers is a bad idea (let alone ups, fedex, usps, etc), they know the highways and the trucks and if they form a new Luddite group then any self-driving trucking company is going to be in for some surprise expenses when their trucks start disappearing and/or breaking down randomly in the middle of nowhere.
All that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if certain elites have noticed that public sentiment is resembling France in the 1790s. This whole surveillance apparatus is here to intercept the next Robespierre, national security be damned.
This is really about long distance, semi truck freight only. Local delivery (as someone mentioned above) is likely to need humans for a very long time.
My point is we're already in this situation, automation be damned, and until the tsunami of anti-intellectualism backs off, then smart people aren't going to have a chance to actually figure some of this out.
As far as having a real plan dedicated to finding people decent paying and more importantly fulfilling jobs, i believe the answer is for the most part no. Finland beginning a limited basic income trial is the closest I have seen.
It is a kick the can scenario that has the possibility of massively reducing the quality of life of tens of millions of people.
Same goes for a farrier or a blacksmith or milkman, or ice delivery, or newpaper boy shouting "extra, extra - read all about it" from the street corner. In some cases, the job is simply gone. In others, the work still exists, but is nowhere as common.
A farmer with a 15 - 30 HP Ford or John Deere tractor could do the work of a team of men or horses. Rather than 40-horse combine-harvester rigs (with swingletrees to transmit force evenly through the harness), you had a draw-harvester and PTO off the tractor.
Factory productivity tracks virtually linearly with kW or HP per worker, in the form of power tools and equipment.
Humans were the control elements of such systems.
Now we're swapping out the control elements -- computers for people.
If humans don't have either muscle or brainpower to contribute, what's left?
I want to see a future where most people are hyper specialists, doing one niche thing for almost the entire world.
also, I want to see more people be capital owners where they make decisions for their own business rather than work for someone else. robots may replace humans, but can they replace being a business owner?
How many people are there?
Which of these sets is larger?
By how much?
If there is a high proportion of immigrants working in agriculture it blows the whole theory into the sky, as that would be people answering demand for labor at pretty high personal cost, the opposite of incumbents getting pushed out.
You also have an increase in the cost of living where most households require two incomes compounding the issue.
With agriculture new jobs were created as people moved to cities and new communities were created. those cities already exist. Short of a sudden civilization focused effort to colonize mars, I just don't see it.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-co...
https://howmuch.net/articles/american-spending-past-75-years
I'm saying we should eliminate governmental policies that restrict consumer choice and market competition or contribute to cost disease.
Even Level 4 automated cars debut tomorrow, we'll need truck drivers for a long time. You need someone there to watch the goods, arrange deliveries, unload, etc. It'll probably allow truckers to drive 24 hours a day instead of 14, which will cost jobs, but it won't be a complete loss.
Same goes for Ubers. You'll need full level 5 unless you want lost Ubers clogging our streets all the time. That probably means you'll need a person in the car for years to come.
Seriously, tell us what jobs these truckers are going to go find.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, self-driving cars and truck, fully deployed, are 10 years away.
In that time we might see a move to many more drivers on the road, not less: A lot of growth in food delivery, e-commerce and in particular shuttles offering a fast,affordable, shared transport mode, as an attractive replacement for private cars in many places.
Maybe, with all of that, instead of 1/10 we'll have 2/10 of the workforce as drivers. Consider the effect their salaries have on the families, and indirect support extended families has, we could see a really strong political base against self-driving cars.
And from that point, all kinds of things could happen, to better manage or prevent that change.
it doesn't matter how strong the political base is, when there's profit motive, the humans will lose to machines.
If you still disagree, please elaborate on _why_ you think this