Posted on 03/02/2015 4:49:50 AM PST by expat_panama
As robots increasingly adopt human qualities, including those that allow them to replace actual human labor, economists are starting to worry. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, some “wonder if automation technology is near a tipping point, when machines finally master traits that have kept human workers irreplaceable.”
The fears of economists, politicians and workers themselves are way overdone. They should embrace the rise of robots precisely because they love job creation. As my upcoming book Popular Economics points out with regularity, abundant job creation is always and everywhere the happy result of technological advances that tautologically lead to job destruction.
Robots will ultimately be the biggest job creators simply because aggressive automation will free us up to do new work by virtue of it erasing toil that was once essential. Lest we forget, there was a time in American history when just about everyone worked whether they wanted to or not — on farms — just to survive. Thank goodness technology destroyed lots of agricultural work that freed Americans up to pursue a wide range of vocations off the farm.
With their evolution as labor inputs, robots bring the promise of new forms of work that will have us marveling at labor we wasted in the past, and that will make past job destroyers like wind, water, the cotton gin, the car, the internet and the computer seem small by comparison. All the previously mentioned advances made lots of work redundant, but far from forcing us into breadlines, the destruction of certain forms of work occurred alongside the creation of totally new ways to earn a living. Robots promise a beautiful multiple of the same.
To understand why, we need to first remember that what is saved on labor redounds to increased capital availability for new ideas...
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Their=They’re, really bad grammar, I need more coffee.
In the 80’s productivity was revolutionized by computers (Moore’s Law)
In the 90’s by the internet and networks (Metcalfe’s Law)
In the mid-2000’s through now is the mobile revolution.
Robotics the next wave?
Thx!
Partial list of robotics corps:
- Intuitive Surgical
- Adept Technology
- Mako Surgical
- Anybots
- Applied Minds
- Odyssey Moon
- Stanford Racing Team
Now hiring, willingness to work required.
--and this usually happened in the face of determined opposition from non-workers blaming innovation for their unemployment.
Very good post my FRiend.
You understand two critical points, the importance of human creativity (the most valuable commodity) and the approaching age of physical immortality.
We were set on the path to full automation and immortality when the first description of a universal computing machine was made.
http://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs129/caltech_restricted/Turing_1936_IBID.pdf
The computer, in all its myriad forms, is an amplifier for the human mind and body.
The first super intellect will be a combination of man and an advanced form of the amplifier he has created.
> truck deliveries, buses, and taxi-drivers will be replaced within three decades. What occupation do you think they will take up?
Something else. Nobody is guaranteed 30 year careers anymore - unless it is a government job.
Here are two videos (1st being 4 minutes, 2nd 9 minutes) that will explain why this is happening.
It’s the Quantum chip.
Here is a 4 minute clip on PBS about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3TOWanwuO8
Here is a college professors explaining transistors and quantum computing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtI5wRyHpTg
I believe the article is correct; robots will eliminate LABOR based jobs, freeing those with the intellect and skills to pursue more productive and interesting work than many have been able to find in the past. On the flip side, those with an IQ at or below about 105-110, who have relied on skilled labor jobs in the past because they were not capable of excelling in these types of careers, will feel that robots have destroyed their lives by taking their “jobs” and become a permenant underclass.
Yep. I sell robots believe it or not. The added productivity creates more demand for labor in other parts of the manufacturing processes.
It's concept put forth in The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies - the best chess player in the world can be beat by a computer, but the best computer can be beat by not even grandmaster level opponents and their own chess computer. i.e. the combination of human and computer still handily beats the computer alone.
For myself, I can see humans staying ahead of that curve for quite a few decades.
Enlightened self interest.
Jobs a robust robotics industry would create (preferably here in the USA) just off the top of my head :
Image processing experts/engineers/technicians
Power engineers/technicians
Electricians
Mechanical engineers of all sorts
Mechanics
QA engineers/techs
Assembly line employees
Assembly line technicians
Robotics technicians
Robotics assembly factory architects/designers
Robotics facility maintenance employees
You could see a lot of abandoned land/buildings in the rust belt get snatched up (so long as the sickening unions stay away).
That was after 1 minute of thinking :-). I’m sure there are a lot more. Opportunities can span all levels of education and expertise.
All in all, think of robotics as potential boom not unlike the automobile boom of the 20th century. Hopefully, there will be no equivalent of the UAW to come in a screw it all up (I work in this industry ... no joke, unions are my biggest fear based on the regions where a lot of “stuff” is happening in the industry).
Yes, robotics will make many jobs obsolete, but the transition will be over a relatively long period of time. Sure, liberals will whine as the equivalent of a cobbler loses his/her position and will use these people in their various political antics, but the benefits to the public at large will make those people look like the regressive thinkers that they are.
Robots create robot repair services.
I think you have accidentally stumbled on the real problem. Somewhere along the line, we changed from a constitutional republic to a democracy.
Liability is a major problem in all manufacturing.
Working with dangerous materials and machinery opens your company to potential lawsuits 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the line if you produce the product in the US. Some for good reason. Some not so much.
If you are working at a cabinet door shop in Mexico and you lose your thumb in the table saw, you don’t get $100K in a lawsuit. If you make smart phones in China and the dangerous materials kill you at age 45, your family does not get $5 million from Apple.
Who said anything about weaken free-market capitalism and growing the government? Simply pointing out that past performance isn’t always a predictor of future events. And even when it is, it helps to take a broad look at that past performance and what it really mean. Everybody likes to point out how technology adds jobs as well as subtracts. What people don’t tend to look at is the force multiplier aspect which allows us to put more people at a higher standard of living with less overall labor. Eventually that graph is going to get to a point “less labor” meant not nearly enough jobs to go around. The only real question is when that eventually is, now, 10 years, 100? Honestly if you look at the welfare stats it could very well be that we crossed the line a while ago without even noticing.
Those who best answer that question will profit from it. Everyone will suffer, if a government tries to prevent whatever innovation it is that answers the question, if it seeks to subsidize the jobs that exist now.
Human nature will will remain the constant. There will always be an impulse to dominate and assert your human will, as imperfect as it may be. The person that asserts his of her will may not be capable of recognizing its imperfections and suffering will result. The question will then become the spiritual fitness of that 1%.
Yep.
I have a billionaire relative. They are incredibly effective with their money in how it helps others. Heck, they treat their 115 foot yacht like a free cruise ship. And don’t kid yourself. It’s a LOT of work.
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