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The U.S. Is Unprepared for Workforce Automation (Opinion)

  
Via:  Nerm_L  •  5 years ago  •  44 comments

By:   RAMESH SRINIVASAN

The U.S. Is Unprepared for Workforce Automation (Opinion)
Today's new technologies are not designed to make workers' lives easier, less dangerous or more engaging. Their purpose is to enrich corporate coffers by eliminating many workers and squeezing more out of those who remain.

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The development of artificial intelligence and automation is pushing the developed economies toward socialism.  While the media buzzes about loss of blue collar jobs, the reality is that white collar jobs will be the easiest to automate with artificial intelligence.  The pace of development has approached the point of making jobs obsolete before students can graduate from college.  AI threatens college education with obsolescence.  In the not too distant future even the jobs for designing the  artificial intelligence software will be lost to automation.  Any job that depends upon a computer can be automated with artificial intelligence.  AI lives in computers; humans cannot compete in that environment.

Technology is now forcing humans into doing the jobs that are too hazardous and difficult for machines to perform.  The future of work won't be data driven.  

The rich will lose their excuses that justify being rich.  The rich will not have earned anything; automated machines will be responsible.  And AI will vastly outperform those who are currently engaged in managing finance and a business.  The rich will lose their status and position to automation, too.

Socialism becomes the only rational economic system in a world run by automation and artificial intelligence.  The machines are rapidly obtaining the capability of managing themselves.  And the machines will have far greater talent and skills for becoming rich than humans.  Oddly, that will ultimately make capitalism obsolete and unneeded.


S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



A recent study from Oxford University estimated that as many as 47% of the jobs in developed nations will vanish in the next 25 years as a result of automation. These losses will be in both white- and blue-collar jobs. As a nation, we are completely unprepared for the upheaval this will create.

Decades ago, an increase in productivity and profit would have meant a rising quality of life for workers, but no longer. Automation can bring astonishing increases in productivity, but the increases in profit it brings currently benefit only a small minority. The vast majority of the spoils of automation have gone to investors and the executive classes who exert outsized economic power on our politics and markets — and therefore on our lives. This has left working people poorer, less secure and less powerful than ever. That trend will accelerate unless we act.

Today's new technologies are not designed to make workers' lives easier, less dangerous or more engaging. Their purpose is to enrich corporate coffers by eliminating many workers and squeezing more out of those who remain. Amazon, for example, is famous for its high-tech warehouses. Many functions have been automated, and the workers who remain are heavily monitored with new technology that can track everything from how many breaks they take to how many boxes they scan an hour. The technology can also generate warnings and even terminations for those deemed not sufficiently productive. In return for working in such rigid and grueling situations, one analysis found, Amazon warehouse workers make a median wage of $28,466 a year, while the company's CEO, Jeff Bezos, makes $8,961,187 an hour.

This is a stark example, but speaks to an astonishing trend. In the United States, the top one-tenth of 1% of the population earns nearly as much as the bottom 90% of the population combined; its three richest people hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of the country. Across the world, seven people or families have wealth equivalent to the entire bottom half of the population, almost 4 billion people. The looming tidal wave of automation will only exacerbate this staggering inequality — unless we act.

Envisioning a future that protects the vast working and middle class from calamity will require creative solutions. Imagine, for example, if Facebook paid its users for the data they currently contribute for free. In 2018, Facebook generated $55.8 billion in revenue with a business model designed to profit from its users' data, their posts, comments, photos and likes.

Or what if companies had incentives to use technology for their workers' benefits rather than to eliminate jobs, monitor and squeeze profit from workers and users. In Europe, automation has traditionally been viewed as a way to improve working conditions. Swedish mine workers, for example, now use joysticks to control machinery in mines from the comfort and safety of a control room above ground — and they have held on to the generous benefits and wages they enjoyed before. How have they achieved this? Largely through the power of worker councils, employer-funded bodies that sit on the supervisory boards of European companies and have a significant say in the introduction of new technologies.

We also need to revisit the gig economy. Already, 36% of U.S. workers earn their living as contract labor. Gig work offers the seductive chance to fit work in when and where it's convenient. But the price for this perk is painfully high: Gig workers often do not receive a living wage, healthcare, education or retirement benefits. Minimum wage laws do not adequately protect them, with some studies estimating they make less than 4$ per hour, yet they are forbidden to unionize. And to top it all off, they will probably be among the first workers replaced by robotic systems.

Places as diverse as Germany, Britain, the United States and Kenya are beginning to rethink these inequities of power. One way is through a grass-roots innovation called the "platform co-op," which already generates more than $2.36 trillion in revenue across the globe. What are these cooperatives? Think Uber, if Uber drivers owned significant equity in the company. Think Spotify, if the music-streaming service was owned and run by musicians, record labels and fans instead of a few ultra-rich Swedish guys. There are abundant models for this, including Fairmondo, a German digital selling platform that operates much like eBay — except that the sellers on the platform are also its owners.

Another potential way of addressing the coming job loss is through basic income policies, which are already being tested in Stockton, Calif., as well as in Sweden, Finland and Spain. Under such programs, monthly sums are paid to citizens whether they work or not. These initiatives could be funded, at least partially, by the companies responsible for eliminating jobs and threatening worker security. Companies need to adhere to a social contract and acknowledge their responsibility to the country and its people.

Going forward, we will need a wide range of ways to address automation and the job loss that will accompany it. We should start with a "digital bill of rights" that includes a commitment to create technologies that serve the greater good and to rethink citizens' roles within technology and work. As individuals trying to fight for our jobs and dignity, we are helpless. But as a collective, we can come together to design and engineer a future in which technologies serve us all.


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Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1  seeder  Nerm_L    5 years ago

What will the richest robot on the planet do with all its money?

 
 
 
Dean Moriarty
Professor Quiet
1.1  Dean Moriarty  replied to  Nerm_L @1    5 years ago

Invest in newer faster robots that will be coming down the pipeline in the future. If you don't stay up to date with the latest greatest technology you will soon lose your work to the competition. 

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1.1.1  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  Dean Moriarty @1.1    5 years ago
Invest in newer faster robots that will be coming down the pipeline in the future. If you don't stay up to date with the latest greatest technology you will soon lose your work to the competition. 

Determining needs for investment will be performed by automation; faster, cheaper, and more efficiently.  That white collar function will become obsolete for humans.  

 
 
 
Dean Moriarty
Professor Quiet
1.1.2  Dean Moriarty  replied to  Nerm_L @1.1.1    5 years ago

I’m looking forward to it. 

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
1.1.3  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  Dean Moriarty @1.1.2    5 years ago
I’m looking forward to it. 

Really?  Artificial intelligence will make stock markets and venture capital obsolete.  

 
 
 
Paula Bartholomew
Professor Participates
1.2  Paula Bartholomew  replied to  Nerm_L @1    5 years ago

Invest in blow up dolls.  Robots need love too.

 
 
 
charger 383
Professor Silent
2  charger 383    5 years ago

We are unprepared for this and it will make overpopulation a bigger problem 

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
2.1  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  charger 383 @2    5 years ago
We are unprepared for this and it will make overpopulation a bigger problem 

Automation may make overpopulation worse.  There won't be anything else to do.

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
3  JBB    5 years ago

If we can pay farmers not to farm and factories not to manufacture I guess we can pay workers to not work. 

 
 
 
Sunshine
Professor Quiet
3.2  Sunshine  replied to  JBB @3    5 years ago
I guess we can pay workers to not work. 

Isn't that whats his face Yang wants to do?   Another reason not to vote Democrat.

 
 
 
user image
Freshman Silent
4      5 years ago

I feel pretty safe in the IT industry. Somebody has to program the robots and connect them to the network and what not. Weld techs in the auto industry are a hot commodity in my area and get paid pretty well compared to the average income around here. The job needs will just change and parents will need to be smart enough to guide their children towards something useful like skilled trade rather than liberal arts.

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
4.2  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  @4    5 years ago
I feel pretty safe in the IT industry. Somebody has to program the robots and connect them to the network and what not. Weld techs in the auto industry are a hot commodity in my area and get paid pretty well compared to the average income around here. The job needs will just change and parents will need to be smart enough to guide their children towards something useful like skilled trade rather than liberal arts.

Artificial intelligence can learn to program machines.  Machine learning is much, much more efficient than training humans since it's only necessary to train one machine and replicate the software.

Information technology jobs will become obsolete as will other data driven jobs.  

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
5  TᵢG    5 years ago
While the media buzzes about loss of blue collar jobs, the reality is that white collar jobs will be the easiest to automate with artificial intelligence. 

Agreed.   Have you heard of Robotic Process Automation?   This is designed to take over clerical jobs.   IBM Watson offers AI functionality that is used to automatically write legal briefs (something that law associates are charged to do).    The technology has a very potent future;  there are many things AI could do that do not require the general reasoning faculties of the human mind.

We are facing a profound challenge to provide a system wherein people can have a respectable standard of living in an economy with high unemployment.   Unlike the past where people moved up to higher caliber jobs, I do not see the upward path keeping up with the pace of the technology.

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
5.2  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  TᵢG @5    5 years ago
Agreed.   Have you heard of Robotic Process Automation?   This is designed to take over clerical jobs.   IBM Watson offers AI functionality that is used to automatically write legal briefs (something that law associates are charged to do).    The technology has a very potent future;  there are many things AI could do that do not require the general reasoning faculties of the human mind.

I think most people are familiar with the disruptions caused by mechanization.  Mechanized labor utilizes 'muscle' machines to replace human (or animal) muscle.  Enhancing the physical capabilities of human labor caused disruptive job loss that did usher in social unrest and did dramatically change the economics of work.

Artificial intelligence utilizes 'knowledge' machines to replace human intellect.  AI is developing the ability to replace human problem solving and organizing ability.  'Knowledge' machines are being developed to manage, organize, and control 'muscle' machines.  The missing piece is integration between the two types of machines.  Once that integration has been accomplished then all facets of work life can be automated.

With the advent of bitcoin, machines now have their own economy; their own source of capital generated by machine labor.  Artificial intelligence will learn to fund and sustain itself without being dependent upon human capital.  AI will make capitalism obsolete, that is inevitable.  If the imperative of serving humans is embedded into AI then socialism also becomes inevitable.  Without that imperative then AI becomes a separate self-actuated entity that co-exists with humans.  

We are facing a profound challenge to provide a system wherein people can have a respectable standard of living in an economy with high unemployment.   Unlike the past where people moved up to higher caliber jobs, I do not see the upward path keeping up with the pace of the technology.

Unemployment is an economic condition associated with centrally organized, cooperative economic activity.  There isn't unemployment in a society based upon a cottage, artisan, or subsistence work model.  Depressions and recessions are a direct result of organizing labor into specialized work; what is generically considered social organization.  People living a subsistence lifestyle are never unemployed.  

Specialization is not a viable means of addressing disruption.  Nature demonstrated that when the asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs.  It was the generalists that survived and thrived.  The specialists went extinct.

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
5.2.1  TᵢG  replied to  Nerm_L @5.2    5 years ago
With the advent of bitcoin, machines now have their own economy; their own source of capital generated by machine labor.  

I was with you until you hit this.   Bitcoin is general purpose currency and is not tied, particularly, to machine labor.

Artificial intelligence will learn to fund and sustain itself without being dependent upon human capital. 

Not sure what you mean by this.

AI will make capitalism obsolete, that is inevitable. 

How?   It will certainly influence a paradigm shift in how people gain access to resources in society, but it is not clear that this will make capitalism obsolete.   You need to develop this into something specific.

If the imperative of serving humans is embedded into AI then socialism also becomes inevitable. 

Why?   (How do you define 'socialism'?)

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
5.2.2  seeder  Nerm_L  replied to  TᵢG @5.2.1    5 years ago
I was with you until you hit this.   Bitcoin is general purpose currency and is not tied, particularly, to machine labor.

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is generated digitally.  Bitcoin is only mined by machines; human labor cannot generate bitcoin.  At present humans own and control the machines but the development of artificial intelligence will obviate the need for humans.

Not sure what you mean by this.

Automation has already been applied for commercial transactions.  Artificial intelligence and machine learning is being developed to replicate and manipulate behavior associated with commerce. 

AI is already being utilized in finance, production, distribution, and sale of goods and services.  What is currently lacking is integration between those economic activities.  But human greed behavior almost guarantees the inevitability of integrating AI controlled aspects of economic activity.  The greed incentive is to become the last human needed by the machines.  The last human needed by the machines would control the world, wouldn't they?

How?   It will certainly influence a paradigm shift in how people gain access to resources in society, but it is not clear that this will make capitalism obsolete.   You need to develop this into something specific.

AI can learn to replicate and mimic the greed incentives (profit motives) that is the basis for capitalism; however, profit incentives is an extraordinarily inefficient method of producing and distributing goods and services.  Present efforts have been directed toward using AI to more efficiently manage an inherently inefficient process for the sole purpose of increasing profit (which increases the inefficiency of capitalism).  Either artificial intelligence makes capitalism so inefficient that the system fails or artificial intelligence will be utilized to develop more efficient methods that will displace capitalism.  Either scenario results in the obsolescence of capitalism; that is inevitable.

Why?   (How do you define 'socialism'?)

The dictionary definition of socialism applies.  There aren't any semantic tricks involved.  

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
5.2.3  TᵢG  replied to  Nerm_L @5.2.2    5 years ago
 Bitcoin is only mined by machines; human labor cannot generate bitcoin.  

What, specifically, does this mean to you?   You certainly know that most conventional money is nothing more than ledger records.   Bitcoin differs from conventional currency in that it is implemented using the open ledger standard provided by block chain technology.

AI is already being utilized in finance, production, distribution, and sale of goods and services.

You have not explained how AI will learn to surpass human beings and 'live' without human capital.   You are simply claiming the possibility.   It is as if you think that the mere use of AI in our economic matters necessarily means AI will grow beyond us.   That is, you seem to exclude the possibility that AI will remain a tool controlled by human beings.  (I predict it will never go beyond that in our lifetimes.)

Either artificial intelligence makes capitalism so inefficient that the system fails or artificial intelligence will be utilized to develop more efficient methods that will displace capitalism.

AI would almost necessarily improve the efficiency of production.   Conflating profit with inefficiency seems contrived.   The problem you speak of is consolidation of capital and control over profits.   That occurs today.   So at best you must be thinking that AI will speed up the consolidation and cause capitalism to self-destruct due to disparity of wealth.   But now I am just guessing at what you have in mind.

Now on the more efficient side, making production and distribution more efficient would not displace capitalism.   What would displace capitalism is the lack of meaningful work - the lack of jobs to enable people the means to buy that which is produced.   If with AI our economic engine can provide what we need and, in so doing, dramatically reduce the need for much of human labor, we necessarily must have a different system which would function with extremely high unemployment.

The dictionary definition of socialism applies.  There aren't any semantic tricks involved.  

So how would AI trigger distributed ownership of the means of production and distribution?

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
6  bbl-1    5 years ago

Automated work force is the dream of Supply Side Economics proponents.  The production being completed by a smaller workforce and the profits going to an even smaller--and shrinking clique.

Still wonder if the conservatives, who brought SSE into reality will continue their stance against family planning.

Then again, it is possible that the real goal of the oligarchy is to create another 'forever war', pitting the poor against the poor? 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
6.1  TᵢG  replied to  bbl-1 @6    5 years ago
Automated work force is the dream of Supply Side Economics proponents.

It is inevitable bbl-1.

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
6.1.1  bbl-1  replied to  TᵢG @6.1    5 years ago

No.  Nothing is inevitable. 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
6.1.2  TᵢG  replied to  bbl-1 @6.1.1    5 years ago

There are some things that are inevitable.   For example, our sun will destroy the Earth in a few billion years (unless either are taken out before that).   Our nation will continue to evolve into different forms (no way to keep it static).   And AI technology is going to change our employment / standard of living paradigm.    There is no way that I see technology stopping because the forces that want this technology are currently in control.

It is happening already and will continue to happen at an accelerated pace.

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
6.1.3  bbl-1  replied to  TᵢG @6.1.2    5 years ago

I am only referring to the accomplishments or failures of mankind. 

Example:  The judicial system a nation/society has---determines the justice the citizens are given.

AI technology?  It's capabilities at this point seem endless.  However, the question that is never asked is...…………………….?  And this question could be a very interesting discussion.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2  MrFrost  replied to  bbl-1 @6    5 years ago
Automated work force is the dream of Supply Side Economics proponents.  The production being completed by a smaller workforce and the profits going to an even smaller--and shrinking clique.

True. If everything is automated, people won't have jobs, so no money to buy they products that were made via automation, (and yes, I know that is a very simplistic way to look at it). Watch the movie Elysium, it's a rather extreme view, (and a pretty good movie), but if we aren't careful, we could be heading down a similar road. 

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
6.2.2  bbl-1  replied to  MrFrost @6.2    5 years ago

Except there is this.  In The Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait, Qatar and a few other-----states-----the citizenry enjoys a livable stipend.  Of course in these.....places.....modern day slavery from immigrants do the manual labor with low wages and little benefit.

So, is AI for the benefit of the masses--or is it for the benefit of those who control the wealth? 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.3  MrFrost  replied to  bbl-1 @6.2.2    5 years ago

I would say it depends upon how the product is used and who is allowed to use it. 

 
 
 
Paula Bartholomew
Professor Participates
6.2.4  Paula Bartholomew  replied to  MrFrost @6.2    5 years ago

The movie I Robot is a good example also.  The factory that made the robots was completely automated....robots making robots.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
7  Kavika     5 years ago

In the industry that I spent 40 plus years in, International transportation, the AI is moving at a blinding speed. 

This is a great article on the automation of ports worldwide. Sadly the US is not on the list and is going to be doing a great deal of catch up in the coming years. 

 
 
 
It Is ME
Masters Guide
8  It Is ME    5 years ago

"Their purpose is to enrich corporate coffers by eliminating many workers and squeezing more out of those who remain."

But "Man" craves technology !

They … man/Women (to be inclusive) … should already know that "Craving" something makes for a terrible "Life" at times !

 
 
 
Paula Bartholomew
Professor Participates
9  Paula Bartholomew    5 years ago

From the song In The Year 2525 (Zager And Evans)

In the year 5555

Your arms are hanging limp at your sides

Your legs got nothing to do

Some machine's doing that for you

 
 

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