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So instead of getting those things which you are saying we need, you're proposing we artificially impede progress? I'm sure that cancer patient is ecstatic that we're focusing on keeping people doing unnecessary jobs rather than progressing with technology...

If you can argue that a robot that makes a certain manual human work obsolete is not good for society, then you may as well argue against all technology that reduces unnecessary manual work in order to create more jobs for the less capable.

The whole point of technology is to reduce the amount of work we need to do so that we can do more complicated things. If you're artificially impeding such progress in order to create useless busy work for people, then you're avoiding the main issue: we have too many useless people. However in my opinion people aren't useless and can always be repurposed for higher order tasks that robots or AI cannot master yet.

The issue though is that the person whose job this is taking likely is not going to be the same person that is going to help the cancer patient. If that was the case, they would have already been helping the cancer patient and not scanning things at Walmart.

This is a critical point to the whole conversation around automation and globalization.

Ask my neighbor the ex-steel worker how his work in Oncology is going.

There are benefits, for sure. But the cycle is too fast and people get push aside. Those people suffer.

Of course not, but cancer research is not the only society benefitting line of work that can't be automated yet. I used it as an extreme example of something that clearly isn't automated yet and that which resources (overall in society) can be freed up for to pursue.

If you use a bit of imagination, robots at the lowest level can free up jobs so that the lower level say coal worker or walmart worker can be freed to pursue something slightly higher level, which can free up options for jobs at an even higher level, and so on and so forth, until pressure is relieved to allow for more cancer researchers.

Imagine if we had automated cars that could drive us anywhere. The decreased costs of transit would make everyone else wealthier as we can do more things in the workday, go to new places, get more done. Former Uber drivers can now go back to school or training for less menial tasks, and the ability to train for jobs that can improve society even further (in the same way that automated driving did). Such improvements would make the job of a cancer researcher easier in and of itself, but also the labor force that is now relieved of duty, but more importantly now forced to pursue more useful tasks, will lead to further improvements in society that ultimately benefit the cancer researchers at the top of the pyramid.

Over 600 million people in developing countries have to walk miles to get fresh water. Arguing that automation should be impeded to save jobs is the same as arguing that these people should continue walking so they don't lose their jobs walking for water. It's pretty clear if you look at that that before any of those developing country citizens can cure cancer, they'd have to solve their water problem first (by automating it with pipes and filtration), fix their mosquito and public health issues, and other things that should be solved/automated away so that no more manual labor is required.

Sorry to respond so late, but I want to get things clarified.

> If you use a bit of imagination, robots at the lowest level can free up jobs so that the lower level say coal worker or walmart worker can be freed to pursue something slightly higher level, which can free up options for jobs at an even higher level, and so on and so forth, until pressure is relieved to allow for more cancer researchers.

I don't understand this connection. They are already "free" to do those things but can't for varying socioeconomic reasons or simply because they don't want to. Suddenly losing their job isn't going to free them into making their life better.

> Over 600 million people in developing countries have to walk miles to get fresh water. Arguing that automation should be impeded to save jobs is the same as arguing that these people should continue walking so they don't lose their jobs walking for water.

I, and I assume most people, are not arguing that. What we are arguing is that when these things happen they are painful and hurt people and that often their lives don't get better. When we, as people in tech, automate out a career we also have a responsibility to help those people whose life we ruined. Collecting water to survive != working at walmart making some goober in a suit a ton of money. Of course when people's basic needs are met better their lives get better. We are taking away their ability to meet their needs (income), not freeing them from those needs to improve their lives.

The "less capable" are a part of society as well. What do you think causes cancer and other fatal diseases? Alcohol, smoking, drug addiction, shitty food, all types of vices that are endemic to people who don't have a place in society. Seriously, lifestyle factors are so key in health.

I mean, there is actually an incredibly utilitarian reason to curb the rate of technological growth as people are given a chance to catch up and adapt to the changing world. This isn't a reversion to the stone age, but more like checking unbridled growth that kills the organism - we have a term for that.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

"I don't understand why some people propose this as inherently a bad thing."

I told you why I think they see it that way - because UNTIL we fix those other problems, increasing automation will make the lives of some people much worse.

If you would like to have a conversation about what to do with all of this information, I'd be glad to.

"I'm sure that cancer patient is ecstatic that we're focusing on keeping people doing unnecessary jobs rather than progressing with technology..."

I love this line of thought, because it's so wrong-headed. I worked in Medical Imaging - turning CT and MR data into 3D images for radiologists, cardiologists.

I didn't just make a radiologist BETTER at their job, I made it so that FEWER radiologists were needed to handle the same case load.

That's right, I put cancer doctors out of work.

I'm not saying my technology was a bad thing. But I'm saying that the relationship between money, jobs, and research is no where near as simple as you are portraying it (I suspect you know that, so I'm not trying to insult you.)

"If you can argue that a robot that makes a certain manual human work obsolete is not good for society,"

I literally helped put some of the most highly-trained people in the world out of work.

It's not just "manual human work" that's at risk.

"then you may as well argue against all technology that reduces unnecessary manual work in order to create more jobs for the less capable."

This is where you're putting words in my mouth.

I'm saying, "Technology is advancing so quickly that we really, desperately need to look at the fundamentals of our economy, because technology is turning Supply and Demand on their heads like we really haven't seen before."

The economists smirk that we have seen this before. I sincerely hope they're right and I'm wrong. 3.5 million unemployed truck drivers should make a good data point, shouldn't they?

What will happen to all of the people whose jobs depend on caring for horses when horses are no longer our primary mode of transportation? We don't have basic income yet! What will happen next?

The difference is that the horse phase out occurred over several decades. Mass automobile production started around 1900. Substantial portion of the Wehrmacht logistics chain still utilized horses in the 1940s.

With a properly run automation program, an entire category of jobs can be eliminated in < 1 year now.

It's time we stop ignoring two things: (1) the pace of technological employment disruption is increasing (in speed, if scale is debatable), (2) the time for an employee to reskill is > 0.

Trump was elected on neo-liberal economics failing to compassionately account for the consequences of and requirements for frictional unemployment (moving from one job to another). It'd be nice not to make the same mistake again.

"With a properly run automation program, an entire category of jobs can be eliminated in < 1 year now"

That seems..not right. Robotics companies like Bossa Nova have been at this since 2006-2010. That's a good 8-15 years and multiple changes in political offices.

Even still I think its a decade till we see any effect on the labour market. We still have time to act....for now.

I'm not just talking about hard robotics.

For context, I've been a blazing sword through 100+ person offshore teams with projects that took a month to build. :/

In what space? What types of jobs?

Software automation / ML. Customers are usually any sufficiently large enterprise client. Typically back office jobs.

E.g. "the stuff that accounting has to do every month to keep the company operating" or "half of your call center workload"

According to grandparent, we should keep horses around so people have jobs to care for them, since not everyone can be a car mechanical engineer.

> We don't have Progressive Taxation.

This is just plainly false.

Please look in to the Warren Buffett Rule. Look into the tax rate on Capital Gains.

If after looking into those, you're still convinced we have Progressive Taxation, then I'll hear you out.

But convincing me that Warren Buffett pays a HIGHER portion of his income as federal taxes than his secretary is going to be pretty dang hard, frankly.

With the new tax plan in place, we really don't have much of a progressive tax for the wealthiest in the nation.

I think GP was more abstractly: more things that humans don't need to do isn't inherently a bad thing, but yes it causes a lot of problems in the current system. If you don't take the status quo for granted, the solution is to change the system rather than break windows for the glassblowers.

The US has one of the most progressive tax structures in the world. So I am not sure where your belief comes from.

The Warren Buffett Rule. Capital Gains tax rates.

That's where.

If you have evidence that Warren Buffett in fact pays a higher share of his income in federal taxes than his secretary, I'll hear you out.