The dangerous fallacy of "You can do it."

[Rhizomorph13]

Empathy has nothing more to do with it than wishing makes things so.

Worries of "automation taking over" overlooks historical precidence.


At one time there was a push for a legal ban on sewing machines - as they "put seamstresses out of work."

Not what happened of course - clothing simply got better quality at lower costs.

Automation will not replace human workers. They will just make jobs easier and yield better results. People will also need to train for new jobs.

Automation already HAS replaced human workers. It is the biggest reason that many middle class jobs have gone away. For example I work in ATE (Automated Test Equipment) in an Intel lab. Two of the machine I work on are AXI (Automated X-ray Inspection) and Scorpion Flying Probe. Not too long ago there would be a need for multiple people to operate multiple x-rays to perform the task that is now done with a few machines operated by me and a couple other people. Same with electrical testing done by the flying probe.

I'm not anti-automation, in fact my utopia would include no need for any menial task to be done by a person with robots or AI doing all the necessary work and people would be left to pursue whatever makes their monkey jump.The problem with my utopia is that there is a resource cost associated with all the things and I haven't done the math to figure out whether it is possible or not, but something worth striving for I think.

The U.S. has a problem, and you can see it plain as day with a simple stroll through downtown Portland. There is a reason, even pre-Covid, for the rising homeless population, and it isn't apathy; at least not apathy within the homeless population.