Is there a way for unions to organize machines into unions to make them less competitive?
It’s only a matter of time until some restaurant/bar starts delivering food and drinks to tables via drones. Won’t be too much harder to get an on-table robot to pour a new glass of water either.
Automation, globalization, and trade agreements have already helped to create wage stagnation, and increased productivity. The 'middle' class was great while it lasted.
when artificial intelligence finally comes online and we can replace the policymakers with machines, too.
I figured we had reached that point with Obama and Biden.
Do they even make a gaff machine yet?
There is a story told from the days of the introduction of the steam shovel...
At a demonstration of the machine’s capabilities, one observer complained:
“That machine will put one hundred laborers with shovels out of work!”
The machine operator replied:
“If that is your logic,
then why don’t you use one thousand laborers with teaspoons?”
This is what the $15/hr minimum wage activists are not thinking through, among other things.
Several years ago a Liberal friend of mine, of all people, introduced me to a bar in DC called “Red Line”. It’s across from the Verizon Center.
It’s schtic is self-serve beer. Each booth has two taps that are hooked into a table-mounted tablet that monitors how much beer is dispensed. Very neat, very automated.
He got ticked off when I only tipped the wait staff on the cost of the food. Told him that they should be thankful since the next step would be to automate that (as Applebees and Chilis are now doing) and they’d be luck you keep their jobs.
I don’t know why remote ordering wasn’t done in restaurants years ago. I recall a few where phones were installed in the booths and diners placed their orders that way. Touch screens are the modern equivalent. Now you don’t have to have some $15-an-hour booger-picker taking your McDonald’s order. And a lot of low-end employment is going to vanish.
According to those movies, we make nice little generators.
There is a really serious problem here.
As robots/machines/computers take over more and more of the "less-rewarding" jobs, at some point in time the people thrown out of work will not be capable of handling the "more-rewarding" jobs for which there is still demand.
Does anybody seriously think that the average bus driver thrown out of work by technology is intellectually or emotionally capable of becoming an effective writer of apps for Android?
For 200+ years the system has functioned as JG states, with of course many rough patches. But past performance does not necessarily predict future performance.
What we're essentially talking about here is productivity, the amount of human labor required to produce goods and services. If you extend the productivity chart indefinitely, at some point infinite goods will be produced with zero human labor.
How do we organize and structure such a society? Most people seem to derive their basic sense of self-worth and purpose from their employment. What do we do when there is no economic demand for their services? Such a society is likely to be wealthy enough to provide for them materially, but what about the psychological benefits of working? What will replace it?
When capital is free, it replaces labor. If one can't see the hand of the Fed here, they're blind.
No Workers comp or matching Social giveaways. a 30,000 per yr employee cost me 38,000 +/-. The machine was 40,000 and eliminated the need of three of them and is a fixed cost.
Government meddlers have no idea what destruction they have wrought on US creativity and small business manufacturing.
I would like to see the return of the pretty ladies who bring your meal to the car, the ladies with short skirts, long legs, and speed skates. Where did they go? Also, what about the teen-age boys on their first job pumping your gasoline and asking if you want them to check the oil. Where did they go? (Oh, some north eastern states require them).
Why don’t the union bosses buy the robots instead of the businesses buying the robots and then collect 100 percent of the robots’ wages and 100 percent of their pension contributions as union dues?
If robots increase productivity statistics sky-high, wouldn’t prices drop dramatically and quality increase as well? This has happened before but life continued and adapted. I think I’ll find a comfortable lazy hole and let the machines do all the work.
Will wars be fought only via robots? “Captain, our drones are not working! The monitor keeps showing the blue screen of death... yes, that’s the kind of software. Captain, to have people pilot the planes like the old days would be unthinkable, ghastly, and a sure act of manslaughter.”
IBTOSP (In Before The Obligatory Skynet Picture)
Panera Bread has four of these near the counter in their restaurant in Lexington, MA. They work well. You put in your order and swipe your credit card. Then you go to the pickup window. There is a large monitor turned in portrait mode with your name (read off credit card track 1) and your order status. When your order is ready, you pick it up and leave.
bkmk
I come from four generations of small business owners.
Farming, horses, blacksmiths, pharmacy, law, publishing, decorative brickwork, coal yard, hotels, and bookstores.
Our number one problem for the last 100 years?
Finding, training, managing, and retaining low skill labor, of course.
I think there will be an explosion of highly customized self-employment when robots, financial software, and Internet marketing allow highly motivated individuals to literally go into business for themselves without the chronic stress created by human employees.