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Why do people fear automation?

SDET

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I see this recurring narrative that says people will be sidelined as automation expands to cut business costs. Don't people consider the new projects that stop being unworkable due to automation? In other words, automation can also enhance revenue as opposed to cutting cost. I find it curious that some people say that Socialism is the wave of the future because it will supposedly be needed to sustain all the people sidelined by automation. If anything sidelines people economically, it will be socialism that stifles economic creativity and the ability to grow the economy through automation.
 
I see this recurring narrative that says people will be sidelined as automation expands to cut business costs. Don't people consider the new projects that stop being unworkable due to automation? In other words, automation can also enhance revenue as opposed to cutting cost. I find it curious that some people say that Socialism is the wave of the future because it will supposedly be needed to sustain all the people sidelined by automation. If anything sidelines people economically, it will be socialism that stifles economic creativity and the ability to grow the economy through automation.

People fear change. They fear change that they do not understand even more. Add to that, that the change way make their current skill set obsolete and their fear rises to the level needed to spur them to fight against it.
 
I see this recurring narrative that says people will be sidelined as automation expands to cut business costs. Don't people consider the new projects that stop being unworkable due to automation? In other words, automation can also enhance revenue as opposed to cutting cost. I find it curious that some people say that Socialism is the wave of the future because it will supposedly be needed to sustain all the people sidelined by automation. If anything sidelines people economically, it will be socialism that stifles economic creativity and the ability to grow the economy through automation.

There are several reasons, among them:

1. The loss of jobs.

Despite the "we are all winners" narrative we hear these days, and which our children have been indoctrinated in...all people are not objectively equal either physically or intellectually. Automation replaces "hands on" jobs that a sizeable proportion of any population are best suited intellectually and personality-wise to do.

Claiming that education will change this flies in the face of human reality. Some people are born with the capability to be astrophysicists, others to be good teachers, other mechanics, and still others to be janitors. You can try to teach them ALL to be astrophysicists...and IMO you will fail.

2. The fear of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).

As automation progresses, currently business still needs human technicians to run the machines. However, A.I. is also progressing as is the field of robotics. I foresee both making major in-roads in our economy within my remaining lifetime.

This further reduces jobs, but also raises the threat fancifully portrayed in the Terminator Series and even Johnny Depp's Transcendence. I can go further back to one of my old-time movies:

Creation Of The Humanoids shill.jpg

How to address these concerns is the issue.
 
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It depends on the quality of the automation. Full AI, where robots design, build, and maintain robots, will certainly eliminate the need for humans. I doubt all of it happens in my lifetime, but much of it will.

Truck drivers, engineers and pilots will be eliminated by self-driving trucks, trains, ships, planes, etc. 20 years, tops.

Most, but not yet all, clerical, middle management, accounting and other "paper pusher" jobs will be eliminated as orders are streamlined, going from point of sale directly into the computer, where it is then processed, routed, and the end product pumped out. AI will also handle all the logistics for shipping and crunching the numbers via automatic billing and accounting. We are well on the way to do that today.

Home building, maintenance, landscaping, etc is still human labor intensive. As is roadwork and providing utilities like gas, electric, water, etc. But, we'll start seeing that become more and more automated as time moves on. Just look at farming for an idea of how rapidly that can happen.

FYI:




Couple this with what I wrote in the first three paragraphs, and you can see how humans will eventually be cut out of the employment loop.
 
It depends on the quality of the automation. Full AI, where robots design, build, and maintain robots, will certainly eliminate the need for humans. I doubt all of it happens in my lifetime, but much of it will.

Truck drivers, engineers and pilots will be eliminated by self-driving trucks, trains, ships, planes, etc. 20 years, tops.

Most, but not yet all, clerical, middle management, accounting and other "paper pusher" jobs will be eliminated as orders are streamlined, going from point of sale directly into the computer, where it is then processed, routed, and the end product pumped out. AI will also handle all the logistics for shipping and crunching the numbers via automatic billing and accounting. We are well on the way to do that today.

Home building, maintenance, landscaping, etc is still human labor intensive. As is roadwork and providing utilities like gas, electric, water, etc. But, we'll start seeing that become more and more automated as time moves on. Just look at farming for an idea of how rapidly that can happen.

FYI:




Couple this with what I wrote in the first three paragraphs, and you can see how humans will eventually be cut out of the employment loop.


I strongly doubt that. to fully automate those types of vehicles to where no human is needed you need many systems. driving is only a small part of my job driving trucks. you a fully autonomous truck needs to be able to drive itself, fuel itself, do customer service, make deliveries, put on snow chains, hitch trailers, drop trailers, make mechanical repairs (I make a repair at least three times a month of the type where a single road service call would be my entire weeks of wages) and provide a deterrent to theft of the load. No one machine can do every task and they have to do it all cheaper then I do. I'm looking forward to the autopilot feature that I'm managing while I'm driving, but a fully autonomous vehicle is more then twenty years away.

Airliners likewise, pilots do many tasks not directly related to flying, and in those cases federal law mandates staffing anyway. The systems on airliners only work in predictable situations, they cannot function when confronted with emergency/unpredictable circumstances. no computer today can do what the aircrew on British Airways 9 did in Malaysia back in the 70s/ Technology will be developed to compliment labor and make it safer and more efficient, none of these systems come close to replacing it entirely.

and if it does and we're faced with millions upon millions of permanently unemployed people the government will just start regulating the technology or begin taxing it to such a point where it's not viable over hiring humans.
 
I'm not afraid of automation but I am afraid of the effect of automation on the American worker. People are getting just plain stupid. They rely on their computer to spit out answers to their questions and no longer have the capacity to determine whether those answers are accurate or even make sense.
 
I strongly doubt that. to fully automate those types of vehicles to where no human is needed you need many systems. driving is only a small part of my job driving trucks. you a fully autonomous truck needs to be able to drive itself, fuel itself, do customer service, make deliveries, put on snow chains, hitch trailers, drop trailers, make mechanical repairs (I make a repair at least three times a month of the type where a single road service call would be my entire weeks of wages) and provide a deterrent to theft of the load. No one machine can do every task and they have to do it all cheaper then I do. I'm looking forward to the autopilot feature that I'm managing while I'm driving, but a fully autonomous vehicle is more then twenty years away.

Airliners likewise, pilots do many tasks not directly related to flying, and in those cases federal law mandates staffing anyway. The systems on airliners only work in predictable situations, they cannot function when confronted with emergency/unpredictable circumstances. no computer today can do what the aircrew on British Airways 9 did in Malaysia back in the 70s/ Technology will be developed to compliment labor and make it safer and more efficient, none of these systems come close to replacing it entirely.

and if it does and we're faced with millions upon millions of permanently unemployed people the government will just start regulating the technology or begin taxing it to such a point where it's not viable over hiring humans.

Great points. Thanks for bringing some real world perspective to the discussion.
 
I'm not afraid of automation but I am afraid of the effect of automation on the American worker. People are getting just plain stupid. They rely on their computer to spit out answers to their questions and no longer have the capacity to determine whether those answers are accurate or even make sense.

lol...that reminds me of what happened about a week ago.

I created a quick spreadsheet to see how much steel I still needed to put on order this year to meet the demand for a certain product and what the cost would be. However, instead of just figuring out how many pounds of steel I needed for the year, digesting that number, and then dividing it by the number weeks remaining, and then calculating the cost per week, I got all fancy with it, writing a single formula that spat out a single answer in Dollars.

The number came out all screwy. Something like 5% of the price we were selling the parts. I knew that couldn't be right. Making it worse, I could not find my mistake until I rewrote the whole damned thing in stages, like I should have done to begin with. Turns out, my original formula pulled down a number that was in Kilograms instead of Pounds.
 
I strongly doubt that. to fully automate those types of vehicles to where no human is needed you need many systems. driving is only a small part of my job driving trucks. you a fully autonomous truck needs to be able to drive itself, fuel itself, do customer service, make deliveries, put on snow chains, hitch trailers, drop trailers, make mechanical repairs (I make a repair at least three times a month of the type where a single road service call would be my entire weeks of wages) and provide a deterrent to theft of the load. No one machine can do every task and they have to do it all cheaper then I do. I'm looking forward to the autopilot feature that I'm managing while I'm driving, but a fully autonomous vehicle is more then twenty years away.
while i doubt any ONE vehicle would fulfill all of those functions, i am not convinced that an array of devices would be unable to displace the function of the humans in any of those non-driving endeavors you listed

Airliners likewise, pilots do many tasks not directly related to flying, and in those cases federal law mandates staffing anyway. The systems on airliners only work in predictable situations, they cannot function when confronted with emergency/unpredictable circumstances. no computer today can do what the aircrew on British Airways 9 did in Malaysia back in the 70s/ Technology will be developed to compliment labor and make it safer and more efficient, none of these systems come close to replacing it entirely.
while i imagine on such piloting tasks there would be a human to oversee the robots' activities and assume the task at hand in the event of a critical failure of the dedicated machine, it remains reasonable to anticipate that the numbers of human workers would be significantly reduced by the introduction of advanced robotics

and if it does and we're faced with millions upon millions of permanently unemployed people the government will just start regulating the technology or begin taxing it to such a point where it's not viable over hiring humans.
why hire humans with those taxes levied upon the successful robotic owner/operators? why not instead subsidize the living expenses of the displaced humans whose work is being performed by the robots

think about a similar situation over 100 years ago; no one suggested the car manufacturers should be highly taxed to the point that the buggy whip manufacturer workers could remain employed
 
lol...that reminds me of what happened about a week ago.

I created a quick spreadsheet to see how much steel I still needed to put on order this year to meet the demand for a certain product and what the cost would be. However, instead of just figuring out how many pounds of steel I needed for the year, digesting that number, and then dividing it by the number weeks remaining, and then calculating the cost per week, I got all fancy with it, writing a single formula that spat out a single answer in Dollars.

The number came out all screwy. Something like 5% of the price we were selling the parts. I knew that couldn't be right. Making it worse, I could not find my mistake until I rewrote the whole damned thing in stages, like I should have done to begin with. Turns out, my original formula pulled down a number that was in Kilograms instead of Pounds.

NASA understands your pain
 
I see this recurring narrative that says people will be sidelined as automation expands to cut business costs. Don't people consider the new projects that stop being unworkable due to automation? In other words, automation can also enhance revenue as opposed to cutting cost. I find it curious that some people say that Socialism is the wave of the future because it will supposedly be needed to sustain all the people sidelined by automation. If anything sidelines people economically, it will be socialism that stifles economic creativity and the ability to grow the economy through automation.

Automation does not really cut costs, what it does is increase efficiency to cost ratio. For example 100 year ago you would have had 1000 women in a factory sewing shirts for sale, they would have been paid sweatshop wages in order for that business to even turn a profit, due to the high labor demand compared to the low uotput per employees, and let's face it 100 years ago no one would be willing to pay an ungodly amount for a shirt, automation did change that.

But in that example the machinery likely costs more to buy and maintain than those thousand women did, and people still need to be there to fix the machinery and inspect the end product. But where the profit would be made is lets say one sweatshop factory woman made 1-2 shirts a day, while a single machine could make a few hundred a day.

Basically though automation does not even get rid of jobs, it just shifts them into areas of skilled labor. This is where people resist automation, because instead of needing to be unskilled to do basic tasks, a job at that same factory would require knowledge in engineering, logistics, and mechanical/electrical/hydraulic repair.
 
I'm not afraid of automation but I am afraid of the effect of automation on the American worker. People are getting just plain stupid. They rely on their computer to spit out answers to their questions and no longer have the capacity to determine whether those answers are accurate or even make sense.

I can't quite agree with that. I don't think people generally are somehow getting dumber, I just think people who are dumb have increased in population. What makes you think people were on average actually smarter back in the day before automation and computerization? I seriously doubt that was so. Were average Joes working in manufacturing really that much more enlightened? Was there something about doing the same repetitive physical task over and over and over again making Joe more intelligent? Were workers who hand-harvested produce all hours of the day for hundreds of years prior to the digital age really that much more educated and informed and intelligent than people today? No, actually I would bet people were significantly dumber back then in many (not all) many ways.

Technology delivers at least as much good as not-so-good, because of the virtually infinite amount of information we can access in the palm of our hands from virtually everywhere using our smartphones and other computerized devices. Within a single generation, search engines have gotten so good that you can literally verbally blurt out a question and the technology will listen and produce an answer. That is insane. How could it be that not even having the easy access to this infinite amount of information makes us "dumber" than when we didn't have easy access to it?

Why do people need to internally store knowledge in their brains in order to be qualified as "smart?" If I suck at straight mental math but I know how to format an Excel spreadsheet in seconds with accurate and complex formulas, am I stupid (because of the mental math) or smart (because I can create perfect information quickly)? Who cares that I'm reliant on the technology? The technology produces the solution much more efficiently. All I need to know how to do is wield it.
 
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I can't quite agree with that. I don't think people generally are somehow getting dumber, I just think people who are dumb have increased in population. What makes you think people were on average actually smarter back in the day before automation and computerization? I seriously doubt that was so. Were average Joes working in manufacturing really that much more enlightened? Was there something about doing the same repetitive physical task over and over and over again making Joe more intelligent? Were workers who hand-harvested produce all hours of the day for hundreds of years prior to the digital age really that much more educated and informed and intelligent than people today? No, actually I would bet people were significantly dumber back then in many (not all) many ways.

Technology delivers at least as much good as not-so-good, because of the virtually infinite amount of information we can access in the palm of our hands from virtually everywhere using our smartphones and other computerized devices. Within a single generation, search engines have gotten so good that you can literally verbally blurt out a question and the technology will listen and produce an answer. That is insane. How could it be that not even having the easy access to this infinite amount of information makes us "dumber" than when we didn't have easy access to it?

Why do people need to internally store knowledge in their brains in order to be qualified as "smart?" If I suck at straight mental math but I know how to format an Excel spreadsheet in seconds with accurate and complex formulas, am I stupid (because of the mental math) or smart (because I can create perfect information quickly)? Who cares that I'm reliant on the technology? The technology produces the solution much more efficiently. All I need to know how to do is wield it.

Technology (automation) brings the potential for better results but also provides the user a bridge across actual understanding of what they are doing and why they are doing it. The classic example is the cashier who can count out the correct change when the machine tells them what the answer is but struggles when that crutch isn't available.

In my line of work I deal with government agencies all the time and see the results of automation first hand on a daily basis. Low level employees rarely have any capacity to understand that the information coming out of their computer may well not reflect the entire circumstances of the situation they are dealing with and then to get them to adjust something in the system often requires a supervisor or an act of God.
 
Automation does not really cut costs, what it does is increase efficiency to cost ratio. For example 100 year ago you would have had 1000 women in a factory sewing shirts for sale, they would have been paid sweatshop wages in order for that business to even turn a profit, due to the high labor demand compared to the low uotput per employees, and let's face it 100 years ago no one would be willing to pay an ungodly amount for a shirt, automation did change that.

But in that example the machinery likely costs more to buy and maintain than those thousand women did, and people still need to be there to fix the machinery and inspect the end product. But where the profit would be made is lets say one sweatshop factory woman made 1-2 shirts a day, while a single machine could make a few hundred a day.

Basically though automation does not even get rid of jobs, it just shifts them into areas of skilled labor. This is where people resist automation, because instead of needing to be unskilled to do basic tasks, a job at that same factory would require knowledge in engineering, logistics, and mechanical/electrical/hydraulic repair.

Automation up till now has not had the devastating affect some may have predicted only because the technology is still limited. We have so far, as you mentioned, been picking the lower hanging fruit that reaps the best cost per development ratio.
However I believe it will only be a matter of time before AI and robotics will exceed their human counterpart in all things and at a cheaper price per volume / ability. When we reach that point things will be very different.

Why do people need to internally store knowledge in their brains in order to be qualified as "smart?" If I suck at straight mental math but I know how to format an Excel spreadsheet in seconds with accurate and complex formulas, am I stupid (because of the mental math) or smart (because I can create perfect information quickly)? Who cares that I'm reliant on the technology? The technology produces the solution much more efficiently. All I need to know how to do is wield it.

We are just one giant solar flare away from losing much of our electronic technology we have come to heavily rely on for years. It might not be a good thing to shift all knowledge into technology while forgetting the basics.

What Damage Could Be Caused by a Massive Solar Storm? | Science | Smithsonian

It’s hard to appreciate just how many aspects of modern life rely on technologies that could be affected. As Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics told National Geographic in 2011, ”Every time you purchase a gallon of gas with your credit card, that’s a satellite transaction.” A giant storm could disrupt our GPS systems, communication with planes in flight and other crucial satellite-based technologies.

But the biggest concern, experts say, would be disruptions to our power grid—as a 2011 OECD report (PDF) on the impacts of solar storms points out, “Electric power is modern society’s cornerstone technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend.” A surge in solar wind can blow out power transformers by melting their copper windings, and especially in highly interconnected regions (such as the East Coast), transformer failures can trigger cascading effects, spreading power outages over wide areas.

One analysis looked at a 1921 storm—which was ten times more powerful than the 1989 event—and estimated that if it occurred today, it would leave some 130 million people without power, potentially affecting water and food distribution, heating and air conditioning, sewage disposal and a host of other aspects of the infrastructure we take for granted daily. The total cost of an even larger storm, such as the 1859 event, could be enormous: an estimated $1 to $2 trillion in the first year alone, and a total recovery that could take 4 to 10 years in total.
 
over time automation aka technology has resulted in millions becoming unemployed

we will arrive at a point in the future in which there will be a new 1%; those that have a real job

the other 99%? They will be killed off because they will have been deemed non contributors & worthless

you think I'm kidding? No, I am not

who would have ever thought that 90% of the world's wealth would be in the hands of <1% of the population?

everyone just keep kidding yourselves, LOL ............
 
I see this recurring narrative that says people will be sidelined as automation expands to cut business costs. Don't people consider the new projects that stop being unworkable due to automation? In other words, automation can also enhance revenue as opposed to cutting cost. I find it curious that some people say that Socialism is the wave of the future because it will supposedly be needed to sustain all the people sidelined by automation. If anything sidelines people economically, it will be socialism that stifles economic creativity and the ability to grow the economy through automation.

I am a software developer so I am literally building computer applications that replace work formerly done by people. The problem is that all these programs need is a software developer and only minor support once they are built. Unless new fields open up that can replace all the jobs that will be done by more and more advanced computers and machines controlled by them we are going to be in big trouble.
 
while i doubt any ONE vehicle would fulfill all of those functions, i am not convinced that an array of devices would be unable to displace the function of the humans in any of those non-driving endeavors you listed

That's the thing though, any ONE device cannot, so to actually replace a driver you need a lot of machines all operating in concert. and not only do all these systems need to be both cheaper and better in order to justify their cost in replacing a driver, they have to be able to be practical.


while i imagine on such piloting tasks there would be a human to oversee the robots' activities and assume the task at hand in the event of a critical failure of the dedicated machine, it remains reasonable to anticipate that the numbers of human workers would be significantly reduced by the introduction of advanced robotics

Some reductions, but also one must note that these industries (truck driving, airlines, etc) are short personnel, which means it's possible that many companies may only invest in the technology as needed to plug recruiting holes. here's the deal, the jobs best suited for automation, like port containers and dedicated over the road accounts, are runs that really suck and companies can't recruit for anyway. jobs that require more judgement and customer service and negotiation with customers like food service and linehaul etc pay well and companies can find safe quality drivers. so really I don't see a future where every truck is automated, not soon anyway, we'll probably look a few decades where human driven and computer driven trucks run side by side on the roads because there is applications where human drivers are superior to the technology just as there is applications where the technology is superior to humans. these would be jobs I mentioned where driving is really only one task amongst a whole list of others.

why hire humans with those taxes levied upon the successful robotic owner/operators? why not instead subsidize the living expenses of the displaced humans whose work is being performed by the robots

think about a similar situation over 100 years ago; no one suggested the car manufacturers should be highly taxed to the point that the buggy whip manufacturer workers could remain employed

I don't know there's a functional difference between the two. to provide a universal basic income and benefits to displaced workers (and I don't believe that may even be necessary) would require a level of taxation that averages out to the per capital cost of the benefit per benificiary levied on profitable companies. so providing the subsidy versus mandating the worker be hired is functionally the same thing on a corporate balance sheet. it's do you pay trucker bob or uncle sam?
 
I see this recurring narrative that says people will be sidelined as automation expands to cut business costs. Don't people consider the new projects that stop being unworkable due to automation? In other words, automation can also enhance revenue as opposed to cutting cost. I find it curious that some people say that Socialism is the wave of the future because it will supposedly be needed to sustain all the people sidelined by automation. If anything sidelines people economically, it will be socialism that stifles economic creativity and the ability to grow the economy through automation.

Because robots remind them of clowns, and they are scared of clowns.
 
Lord Zerg said:
I am a software developer so I am literally building computer applications that replace work formerly done by people. The problem is that all these programs need is a software developer and only minor support once they are built. Unless new fields open up that can replace all the jobs that will be done by more and more advanced computers and machines controlled by them we are going to be in big trouble.

Yeah, I used to create automated or semi-automated replenishment purchasing and inventory systems, and sure, what I did created a job or two. But what I did also got rid of a bunch of jobs. For each job I created, I cut at least ten, and labor costs were reduced substantially overall. That was money taken out of the economy and put in the hands of a few people at the very top of the economic ladder.

People fear automation because automation means fewer jobs and less money being paid to human beings overall. Sounds to me like we are right to fear it.
 
I see AI and automation as a huge plus. It frees up labor from monotonous jobs and allows people to pursue other labors that can be more enriching and fun. It can be an avenue of eliminating poverty for societies and raise living standards across the board. I can see many ways it can lower the cost and improve the services of government. There will always be plenty of work to do imo. But I do understand the fears of those people who will lose their jobs and I think private and public institutions should prepare to help people to "adapt, improvise, overcome".
 
Yeah, I used to create automated or semi-automated replenishment purchasing and inventory systems, and sure, what I did created a job or two. But what I did also got rid of a bunch of jobs. For each job I created, I cut at least ten, and labor costs were reduced substantially overall. That was money taken out of the economy and put in the hands of a few people at the very top of the economic ladder.

People fear automation because automation means fewer jobs and less money being paid to human beings overall. Sounds to me like we are right to fear it.

In the industrial revolution when technology replaced a lot of manual jobs we saw the creation of new manufacturing jobs but that was about 20 million jobs when we had half the population. This new wave of technological revolution is software but there are only about 3.5 million software developers.
 
Can we use McD's FF restaurants as an example?

McD's provides countless entry-level jobs for workers new to the labor force.
There kids, some perhaps without high school diploma learn the basics:
- punctuality
- interacting with the public: "you want fries with that?"
- basic workplace etiquette,
- etc

So where are these next gens. going to get their basic training when
McD's are run by robots?
 
I would empathize greatly with the unfortunate people whose jobs got ruined by automation. But I suppose it's inevitable for advancement. I'm not scared of it.

But I'll tell you what I am scared of: AI. Probably not in our lifetime, but in our kid's or grandkid's, Siri or Cortana or Alexa could become the next Skynet.
 
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