The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerisation? | Hacker News Reader

The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerisation?

eldis.org

29 pointsanigbrowl64 comments

If people want the tl;dr then I suggest loading the pdf at the article and jumping to page 37, which has a stack graph of automative potential broken out by employment sector. If you have a little more time, I urge reading the whole paper, which is quite elegant.

The tl;dr in one sentence: 47% of US jobs have a >75% chance of being replaced by software and/or robots within a decade or two.

[edit to clarify timeframe as the authors state it.]

In what time frame though, that's important as well.

And how do we get out ahead of the curve? How can we help prepare our societies for this change?

IMO:

1) Basic income

2) Tariffs linked to basic income provisions and OHS standards.

The point of 2) is to stop a race from the bottom occurring. You remove the ability to profit by under-mining working and social conditions, because everyone agrees to put a tariff on your goods if you break ranks on 1).

For convenience, a little more infomation from that page:

"According to our estimate, 47 percent of total US employment is in the high risk category, meaning that associated occupations are potentially automatable over some unspeciﬁed number of years, perhaps a decade or two."

Here are the categories they list:

    Management, Business, and Financial
    Computer, Engineering, and Science
    Education, Legal, Community Service, Arts, and Media
    Healthcare Practitioners and Technical
    Service
    Sales and Related
    Office and Administrative Support
    Farming, Fishing, and Forestry
    Construction and Extraction
    Installation, Maintenance, and Repair
    Production
    Transportation and Material Moving

The ones most susceptible to computerisation (probability > 0.7) seem to be

    Sales and Related 
    Service
    Office and Administration Support
    Production
    Transporation and Material Moving

"Our ﬁndings thus imply that as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerisation – i.e., tasks requiring creative and social intelligence. For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills."

I'm having a hard time thinking of the millions of job openings of this kind.

Hospitality sector is one off the top of my head.

So is that sector then facing an acute shortage of millions of workers?

Nope. Just missing quality workers.

How are robots and automation going to replace sales? I find that hard to believe with all the networking and human interaction required.

Are they including retail sales associates? When I was a kid you couldn't go shopping anywhere without being molested by a handful of sales people. Now I can walk freely around any department store or costco or best buy or whatever for hours without have to resort to human interaction until checkout (and even then, some stores are self-serve checkout now with 1 person per 4-6 lanes of checkout).

If you continue on that trend you're fitting the prediction pretty well.

Also one has to question how many of those low-skill workers are capable of "reallocating" to more creative jobs, particularly the older ones.

>> I'm having a hard time thinking of the millions of job openings of this kind.

Supposedly after manufacturing, the economy will naturally transition to services. What I never got about this theory is what would account for the huge increase in demand for services to support such growth. It seems like the thinking is that, since there will be nothing else to drive the economy, services it must be. The people have no bread? Let them eat services!

Once we finally fully lost our ability to form bonds with others naturally and with ease, "services" might turn into what's going on in Japan already, stuff like "rent-an-uncle for $10/hr -- he gives life advice and goes to the mall with you". Not kidding, they have that there, targeted at apparently single women.

I'm concerned that services tend to be luxuries and unreliable sources of work. I don't think they'll replace the manufacturing jobs that supported a stable and growing middle class for decades.

I see the collapse in demand for human labor as the key political issue of the 21st century. So many of us are just not required by our economy.

The economy should serve man, not the other way around.

It's funny how once you are inside a certain ethical paradigm, you automatically take it for granted. For example - Samurai in Edo Japan were forbidden from working, and if you didn't have a master to defend, the honorable thing to do was either starve to death, or find another master who would give you permission to kill yourself.

That's a great way of putting it with an excellent example. I see so many man-made problems in the world that people just accept as "how things are" as if they were physical laws of reality.

Communist, eh?

Funny how you can take an innocuous statement like that and fit it into your fucked up worldview. Says more about you than me.

I was trying to make a joke. I like the idea that the economy should serve the worker, but I think that's essentially what Karl Marx was saying. The Cold War is over, and the future seems to belong to robots.

You could argue

   Communism + Robots = The Culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture

To me the comment was quite clearly ironic.

This is just a classical definition of Communism by inventor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abil...

I was taught this in school. Socialism, on the other hand, is "to each according to their contribution".

Not in the slightest, I'm afraid I'm a plain ol liberal. I also have a great job that I love.

I just think it's interesting how, aside from a few moral rules which are fairly common to all of humanity (don't steal, don't kill, etc), a lot of the rules that we follow and take for granted in our current historical milieu, would be considered completely arbitrary by the rest of humanity.

What is wrong with that? Just because an idea was ahead of time and too idealistic does not mean it's not useful or worthy. Socialistic Sweden is doing better than capitalistic USA. Look at Switzerland considering a quite generous guaranteed basic income.

"What is wrong with that? Just because an idea was ahead of time and too idealistic does not mean it's not useful or worthy"

Because human nature.

"Socialistic Sweden is doing better than capitalistic USA."

I guess it depends on what you define as "better". Innovation is very low (I don't see companies flocking there) and it's not easy to start your own business because of regulations and high taxes. Social mobility is also very low. So your choice is to move or work for a big company.

I've been traveling all around Europe and Asia for the past year and I haven't found a place better than the US. Of course it has its problems, but every country does.

"Look at Switzerland considering a quite generous guaranteed basic income."

It was shot down rather quickly. If you know the culture of the people that live in Switzerland, it was never even an option.

> It was shot down rather quickly.

The referendum has not happened yet. You're probably confusing it with the referendum on limiting CEO pay.

What if there is an overproduction of those "man"?

A functional definition of 'the economy' to me is the interaction between people trading goods and services. To try and separate it out as some type of entity seems like faulty thinking, like saying the chess game should serve the players.

If people avoided seeing labor as a problem and started looking at it as to what it is, a resource just like any other (petrol, energy, etc.), they would stop making comments like this.

Once you free humanity from a task, people will just do something more important.

Are you just not thinking through the road that will maybe lead to that outcome or what?

Before we live in this utopia that you are describing that will probably not happen, a lot of people will find themselves destitute and a lot of people will die from that and the ensuing revolution that will probably be required.

Also based on what has happened historically in the real world and in the past decade, it seems far more likely that we are moving towards a dystopia that will not be what you are imagining. However it will still require making a large portion of humanity destitute or on the dole living hand to mouth at the leisure of those who retain power/employment.

>Before we live in this utopia that you are describing that will probably not happen, a lot of people will find themselves destitute and a lot of people will die from that and the ensuing revolution that will probably be required.

And may be lost. "Soldier" is an occupation that can be automated.

>If people avoided seeing labor as a problem and started looking at it as to what it is, a resource just like any other (petrol, energy, etc.), they would stop making comments like this.

And what happens to the value of a resource for which there is much supply and little demand? What is so important that isn't being done today?

Dunno, there's lots of potholes and worse issues in poor corrupt countries the world over. I can foresee a huge wave of next-gen Western "voluntourists" (on Basic Income or mum's allowance or whatever other scheme) coming over here to Cambodia for example fixing up the roads and installing solar panels, while at the same time admiring the locals' relaxed hammocky approach to life :D

If we get to the point where machines are so good they replace all human labor, everything we require to live will be incredibly cheap. Which means becoming an entrepreneur will be much easier than it is now, in much the same way that being a web app developer is much easier now than it was a decade ago.

But what if a large number of people can only do the work they are doing today? There's no reason they can't keep producing what they currently do and trade their products and services with each other.

The Amish are doing exactly that and their standard of living is still probably better than it was when being Amish was first invented.

So I don't think it would be a disaster.

But I don't think replacing all human labor is going to happen before we also invent technologies that will radically improve how fast we can learn new skills and change limiting mental patterns.

Either way, such a society will be incredibly wealthy and able to do things like remove all the mercury from the oceans and cover every structure with solar cells.

We'll be able to deal with the issues.

How do you square this with the idea that deflation is bad? That's what I've never understood.

I don't hold that view. Keynesian economics doesn't make much sense to me, as a change in the value of our medium of exchange is not what creates prosperity.

Its investment in technology that makes things cheap and makes a country prosperous. Not manipulating the medium of exchange.

Austrian economics makes a lot more sense to me, although not everything they say does.

I think deflation occurs when the economy is in a downturn, therefore economists think it is bad. I myself would refer to "good" or "bad" kinds of deflation. It's OK when prices are falling due to technological advance (the "good kind"); that happens all the time and is not the same as a downturn (the "bad kind" of deflation).

It won't matter if super high-tech houses cost $1 if you have no way of earning 50 cents.

I share your optimism for the long term, but I fear the transitional period of millions of economically unemployable people. These people will be absolutely committed that they need a job for society to function and frustrated that there are none available to them.

Set aside a dollar now just to be safe.

I don't worry about technology creating unemployment. The vast majority of unemployment is created by government interfering with the price of labor.

If left to their own devices, people will trade with each other. They always have, regardless of what people they are not trading with are doing.

The people who own all the robots shouldn't feel too smug, because robots will not buy their products.

They won't need the consuming masses at this point. Just a robot army protecting the resources (from those who don't own the robots) and serving the needs of its master.

Perfect. As long as programmer hasn't slipped a backdoor into their robot code...

Well.. I've been writing phone games, backend system for gambling sites, written crm sites, spent years on billion dollar companies projects that got nowhere, fixed spelling errors in forms applications used by <3 users, and so on.

All while drawing a reasonable salary coding in a cozy office. But is my work "required by the economy" for any reasonable definition of "required by the economy"? I can't say I'm sure about that.

Maybe someday I'll write an extensive rebuttal to the idea that jobs will be destroyed by automation and a significant fraction of the populace will be left permanently unemployable or unable to earn a living.

Here are two factors that are important though.

First, money has to be spent somewhere, and robots don't have bank accounts. Money saved through reduction of costs due to automation will naturally end up being spent elsewhere. We'll end up with a much different mix of jobs than previously, but overall employment levels will not diminish. This has already happened numerous times even in the last century. Far fewer people are employed in mining and agriculture. Far fewer people are employed in manufacturing. And so on. Jobs change, the economy changes, people adapt.

Second, wages for "the lower castes" won't fall or be left behind as much as people imagine. A big reason why being Baumol's cost "disease".

Personally I don't view "labor" as a sad, helpless group of unwashed masses a la the "proletariat". I don't think they need to be babied or rescued from the terrifying advance of modernity, I think they need to be empowered to make the adaptions that they've always been capable of. The "labor" of the future that I imagine is a labor of skilled and passionate people, many of them self employed. We're already seeing trends in that direction happening with things like craigslist, etsy, and kickstarter. A considerable amount of growth in the 21st century economy is coming not from "professionals" like software devs but from effectively blue collar folks, people who craft or cook or build or provide services.

>> First, money has to be spent somewhere

Not really. When business owners save money on labor and have no need to reinvest in production, the money goes to corporate profits and gets siphoned off by Wall Street and wealthy investors. They can't spend it all, and it basically accumulates. I have a pet suspicion that all this idle money is what fuels the investment bubbles that we seem to be having more and more of.

For that to be true, then you have to imagine rich people sitting around on hoards of gold and gems or stuffing cash into mattresses. For a start, the largest groups of investors are pension funds storing aggregate savings of normal workers. For a second, even when companies like Apple hoard cash, it's not just sitting in a Cupertino vault. It is in a bank account, and that bank is then lending the money out for other uses.

Your example also assumes that businesses automatically get to keep surplus earnings through cost savings. This may. Be true in some cases but overall will be dictated by the elasticity of the market they are in. Most markets face significant competition, and so most of the benefits of automation flow through to the customers, who then either get a better product for the same price, or the same product for less. This leaves them with more cash to spend on other things, which, coupled with innovation and newly freed resources, as well as surplus capital, creates entirely new businesses and jobs. This cycle has repeated many times over many centuries and is likely to continue unless capital formation, entrepreneurship and market freedom are messed with.

Every generation has a quota of Luddites who think that this time things will really turn out for the worse, but he evidence doesn't support that theory.

Paul Krugman has written at length (exhaustive length) about this. The rich invest money rather than spend it. Investment doesn't automatically create jobs. Jobs are what redistribute money back to a large number of people, who then turn into consumers and spend. The proof that money is being permanently redirected to the rich is the income inequality that's well-documented and increasing.

The idea that jobs have come back in the past and history must repeat isn't comforting. It's not simply automatic.

The data simply doesn't support your claims.

> First, money has to be spent somewhere

Financial instruments such as derivatives and hedge funds do very little to put money back into the real economy. If they did, then you would not see wealth becoming concentrated in a historically unprecedented way among the upper 0.1%. For your first claim to be true, you'd have to show that this is not occurring, when of course it is.

> Second, wages for "the lower castes" won't fall or be left behind as much as people imagine.

Since the mid 1970s, in inflation-adjusted terms -- and despite enormous productivity growth -- mean incomes have stagnated and median incomes have fallen. (And note that inflation-adjustment doesn't compensate for the cost of housing or education; if those were included in the calculation then "The lower castes" would already be worse off than at any time since the Depression.) For your second claim to be true, you'd have to show that this has not happened, when of course it has.

Note that the decoupling of productivity and wages coincides with the advent of microcomputers and industrial robotics, and job losses have been greatest in the industries which those innovations affected. So the story of technology-driven wage stagnation and unemployment is not some speculative story about the future: it's the story of the developed world's economic development over the last 40 years.

> Financial instruments such as derivatives and hedge funds do very little to put money back into the real economy. If they did, then you would

.. see run-away inflation on store shelves before year's end ;)

Sounds flip but think about it.. are you really suggesting there's not enough money circulating in the real economy? Are you sure that's what you want? The vast expansion of dollars over the last decades was never a real problem because the new cash largely didn't enter the real economy and ended up abroad or in ultimately arbitrary asset valuations, from stocks to houses to bitcoins to xyz.

You want all those dollars to circulate in your local real economy? Think hard and long on this one ;D

> Note that the decoupling of productivity and wages coincides with the advent of microcomputers and industrial robotics, and job losses have been greatest in the industries which those innovations affected. So the story of technology-driven wage stagnation and unemployment is not some speculative story about the future: it's the story of the developed world's economic development over the last 40 years.

You're right but that all that automation could instead very well also have led to real wealth gains for the masses of people, middle class and low income -- if the wealth tech created hadn't been fully gobbled up by Fed, Wall St. and US Govt. That's my own crazy theory.. ;)

The issue isn't the total amount of money in the real economy -- it's the distribution and accessibility of money within the real economy, as workforce participation falls off due to the lack of jobs. While the financial economy does hoover up vast amounts of money, the people who own the "wealth" in the financial economy (and you're right: they're pretty much arbitrary asset valuations rather than real actual wealth) are also increasingly the only ones with real access to the real economy.

The gains from automation weren't gobbled up by the Fed, "Wall St." (generically), and the US Govt. They were gobbled up (specifically) by the IP holders and financiers who enabled that automation. Those entities not only lack any incentive for their gains to be redistributed to the poor and middle classes -- they don't even have the means to perform such redistribution (shareholders' rights prevent banks and technology firms from acting as charities).

The only solution I see is for a portion of those gains to be channelled into a Universal Basic Income, in which case automation would genuinely enable real wealth gains for everyone. At present, however, it is not.

>> For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.

What?? I have to acquire social skills or a robot will take my job? I'm pretty sure I have more social skills than a machine...

No, it's saying you have to acquire social skills to get a job that a robot can't take from you.

As a programmer... damn I'm doomed in the long run ;)

You'd always have the job to code the robot which would be able to take your current position :-)

Yeah. Why cultivate social skills, when humans are being replaced by robots? I'd rather have programming skills.

I already replaced that job with a small perl script.

I believe it means that flipping burgers do not require you to have any social skills (besides flipping a bird to your "manager" when he/she doesn't see it). And this position is very likely to be automated really soon [0].

[0]: http://gizmodo.com/5962656/this-robo+griller-can-flip-360-bu...

"Momentum Machines estimates that every fast food franchise in America spends an average of $135,000 annually on staffing."

Think about that for a second.

$135,000 is all the entire staff of a McDonalds sees per year, in pay and benefits.

It's already almost a vending machine, for all it contributes to our population's welfare.

I believe it's "staffing" as is, i.e. efforts to fill the open positions. It's not payroll.

You'd expect hiring to be touchy-feely work that couldn't be done by machines. But, ironically, that seems not to be the case, as companies outsource to "recruiters" with computer-driven systems.

I hope robots will not run to me before I even had a chance to browse the store. "Do you need any help? - No, thank you."

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