Ask HN: Automation and People?
> automate away boring/repetitive/laborious works, give people more time to think, pursue meaningful work, more free time for family, cheaper things as cost of production reduce etc..
Last week a TV show: a factory bought sewing robot that replaced ~260 sewing workers. A university is wants to replace human drivers asap. Amazon is rumored to be experimenting with warehouse-bots(?) that can replace human picker. So many innovations.
But, these automation aiming to replace "boring/repetitive/dangerous/laborious" jobs but majority in society rely on these for a living. Unlike what we think, only small percentage hold big professions.
In long term, production cost reduction doesn't guarantee benefit to end-user(Apple products). Replacing jobs means people no longer have a job & often it is impossible to move up. May be new jobs of maintaining/assembly of robots will come up but only fraction of total displaced will be needed & retrained.
My questions:
* Why are these negative side of automation almost never brought up in media or anywhere? * What will happen to people who will lose access to their jobs being automated away? * Is there some long term plan for people who will have to gain new skills? * Are governments thinking of making trade/professional (re)trainings free? * How easy is it to re-train a huge number of people into some new skills? * What happens to people who can't be trained into more "intellectual" jobs?
Aside: Many claim that, people can go and pursue more intellectual jobs, but education is NOT cheap & student loan is a major issues nowadays. Also, many people believe that they don't have the "knack" for certain skills/knowledge, not everyone can be trained to be a doctor/engineer/architect etc.
Sorry for long post, I just had many things to say. :)