This is one of the big problems we need to find a solution for in the next 100 years. I don't think that Schmidt has the right solution, but his perspective definitely offers some insights into the problems that lie ahead. He is onto something.
This is one of the big problems we need to find a solution for in the next 100 years. I don't think that Schmidt has the right solution, but his perspective definitely offers some insights into the problems that lie ahead. He is onto something.
Does increasing the size of the labor pool have a detrimental or beneficial effect on workers? Overall it has a positive effect. The more people are in the labor force the greater amount of total work gets done, and thus the richer we all become. The same math also works with robots. Treat the robot like a worker. They have an effective wage in the form of maintenance costs, and they provide a benefit in the form of the value they create. Just as with workers every robot generally has a net positive effect on the global value of the entire economy.
They don't take away jobs, they don't destroy wealth, they create wealth and they create additional jobs.
Robots do free up parts of the labor pool, but the world needs to adapt to this extra "labor". I hope you're not misunderstanding what I'm saying; I believe that automation is unequivocally a good force. But our current system isn't built to handle a very high degree of automation. When the winner-take-all effect of the Internet starts becoming more visible in additional parts of the economy, reform will be necessary.
To sum up my opinion in a single soundbite: The labor dislocations caused by current and future automation efforts won't resolve as easily as they have until now, where everyone simply switched to a new, profitable job right away.
One possible outcome is that the now obsolete hunter class amongst the tribe would revolt. The sudden loss of their jobs would leave them with no purpose, so why wouldn't they revolt? Another possible outcome is that they would find a new purpose and help push their tribe in to the future.
In a lot of ways, we're facing the same shift today. We need less labor to make "things" than we ever have in the past. Resenting the loss of this need is only one solution. If we look back over human history, we know that the lost of labor requirements for the current status of living has only resulted in an elevation of the tasks we set ourselves to.
That is our choice, and that is why I'm so excited to see people like Elon Musk set themselves against tasks that others cower in fear of. I'm glad for people like Paul Graham who are looking for ways to make entrepreneurship available to more people. I'm thankful for people like James Cameron, who use their wealth to explore parts of the earth for the benefit of all.
I'm not saying it will be easy, but I don't see the wall that you're seeing.
You're assuming they'll all find productive employment, which is far from guaranteed.
Besides, a robot doesn't need to sleep or rest, it doesn't complain about working conditions, and it doesn't take days off. The incentive to replace manual labor with robots is huge.
First off, note that any individual with a job is denying someone else that specific instance of that job. If the total piano tuning revenue in a city can only support, say, a multiple of 5 times a "decent" wage for a piano tuner then any one of the piano tuners in that town who has a job is keeping the 6th, 7th, 8th, etc. potential piano tuners out of a job. This is true all over the place. And this sort of truth becomes very painfully obvious when automation or technological advancement replaces the need for a worker in a specific job. It's easy to see a robot as replacing a worker. It's easy to see the rise of electric lighting putting candle makers out of business.
However, these are flawed and incomplete ways to look at economic and technological change. What actually happens when a robot does a job, or when a person does a job, or when technology makes an existing industry obsolete is that value is still being added to the economy. Jobs and wealth are not part of some fixed pie that everyone takes a slice out of and then robots can steal someone else's slice, that's not how it works. When someone does a job they add value to the whole and they take compensation. And the value they create is greater than the compensation they receive. Now, sometimes this isn't always the case, but in almost all cases it is, even the half-incompetent teenaged register operator at the local fast food place.
And this is true of robots as well, who can also be viewed as workers in a way. They increase the size of the pie much more than the amount of the pie (wages in the case of workers, maintenance and operating costs in the case of robots) they consume.
The incremental bulk economic impact is almost always positive for every worker with a job, even robots. This is why we shouldn't be concerned about foreigners "stealing our jobs" (or "jerbs" if you like), or about automation "taking away" jobs. The jobs that are available will change but the addition of positive value to the economy benefits everyone.
The trick is making sure the economy and individuals are agile enough to keep people working even as the job makeup of the economy changes.
However, change has always been a constant in the job market not just in the last half century but also throughout the industrial age, back to the medieval period, and even back to the stone age. We're just fooling ourselves if we think that the economy has been anything other than dynamic and ever changing, at any time in our past.
Again, the economy isn't based on a fixed pie of jobs or wealth that falls on us from the sky like manna, jobs and wealth are created by individuals. Not just entrepreneurs but ordinary workers create wealth and add value to the economy, the value of their labor.
Viewing the economy as an always-shifting game whose total score almost always rises is a grand view to take. Problem is, it's a view from the top, a view that you can only take when you've got a sufficient number of points to keep yourself in the game indefinitely.
There's also the problem that "new jobs" are not made-to-fit. There is no guarantee we will always need 40-60 hours/week of work from everyone. In actual fact, simply reducing the total amount of work that constitutes "one full-time job" has always been one of the simplest ways out of an overproduction crisis (such as our present one).
the facts on the ground don't adjust to the social systems
the next Marx will come up with a theory that fits the facts, and if it makes enough sense to the people on the ground, it'll gain steam and political momentum, and then there will be a new social system in place