Universal basic income in the future

[RoadRunner79]

The 'new wave' of automation is different from previous developments, which has people who really do understand economics thinking that this time might be different. Previous industrial revolutions still required a lot of simple labor since it has been very hard to replace bipeds with opposable thumbs who can learn a variety of tasks quickly...most 'simple' labor is very complex to a robot.

I feel that there will be lots of new jobs in the future but how many of them will really be necessary to keep people in the basic necessities? How many social media ranking consultants do we really need? Is there any job that absolutely can't be done by an advanced-enough robot?

I work in automation (building, programming, and troubleshooting).  I don't think the advancements are as much as you think.   Machines do very well at repetitive tasks, with little change. I work in places, that still have quite a few employees, even though for the most part, they are fully automated.  Things fail, and get jammed, or need someone to make a choice. There's a brick making facility, that still has a fair number of people, just to pick up the brick that fall over, and to do change overs.     You also need to look at the cost of downtime.    What I mostly hear from companies, is that they have difficulty finding good people.

Interestingly enough I had just heard the other day, that since 1950 (I believe that was the date; may have been the 40's)  there has only been one job, that has been essentially eliminated through technology.  Care to guess what it is? 
Often, the increase in efficiency, while it may reduce certain jobs; it increases others.

[The Grand Nudger]

No one is even remotely close to replacing cheap and almost unfathomably skilled (to a robot) human labor

Disclaimer:  The work I do is in automation.

I dunno about that - it's at least not universally true.  I share the view that a lot of manual labor is not so easily automated, but if the job you do is able to be done by an expert system - it will be.  (That's not to say UBI is needed or not, at least not for that reason, I'm woefully unqualified to make that assessment.)

I was speaking in specific terms of ag labor.  The problems they handle, even the worst of em, are very sophisticated machine problems.  The tougher issue is that all current ag automation is going to go the way of the dodo faster than ag jobs do.  

What would be needed to keep the ag labor sector from growing is automation that does what all current farm automation does -plus- those sophisticated problems still left to human labor.  Then...that machine would need to be cheaper than equivalent human labor.  

It's a very, very tall order...meanwhile, our population keeps growing. I think it's an interesting example, since we generally think of laborers as the bottom of the heap.

(all that said...if you have a machine, or an idea of a machine that could do it..you should toitally talk to me first, we'll be partners, 50-50... )

[Jehanne]

I KNOW my job is going to become automated. I am the teller supervisor and tellers in general are just as much at risk as the new accounts people. In the four and a half years I've worked at a bank our transactions and foot traffic are down drastically. People can do so much online without even talking to another human. I get paid way more than I deserve and I have no education past high school. This is all going to come to a horrible crash and burn ending. Good thing my husband will be able to pay the bills cause here soon I will be worthless.

Tellers will always be around!  Old men can't ask ATMs for kisses.

[Mister Agenda]

The 'new wave' of automation is different from previous developments, which has people who really do understand economics thinking that this time might be different. Previous industrial revolutions still required a lot of simple labor since it has been very hard to replace bipeds with opposable thumbs who can learn a variety of tasks quickly...most 'simple' labor is very complex to a robot.

I feel that there will be lots of new jobs in the future but how many of them will really be necessary to keep people in the basic necessities? How many social media ranking consultants do we really need? Is there any job that absolutely can't be done by an advanced-enough robot?

I work in automation (building, programming, and troubleshooting).  I don't think the advancements are as much as you think.   Machines do very well at repetitive tasks, with little change. I work in places, that still have quite a few employees, even though for the most part, they are fully automated.  Things fail, and get jammed, or need someone to make a choice. There's a brick making facility, that still has a fair number of people, just to pick up the brick that fall over, and to do change overs.     You also need to look at the cost of downtime.    What I mostly hear from companies, is that they have difficulty finding good people.

Interestingly enough I had  just heard the other day, that since 1950 (I believe that was the date; may have been the 40's)  there has only been one job, that has been essentially eliminated through technology.  Care to guess what it is? 
Often, the increase in efficiency, while it may reduce certain jobs; it increases others.

And of course that's the way things are now and there's no reason to expect it to change....

Since we're arguing from 'my experience', I run my department with half the people it took five years ago. If my department isn't completely obsolete in five years (too few people needed to do the job to justify having a whole department devoted to it), it will be because my company is too cheap to spend money on decent tech.

Half of America has an IQ under 100, are they likely to qualify as the 'good people' companies can't find enough of?

[Isis]

Half of America has an IQ under 100, are they likely to qualify as the 'good people' companies can't find enough of?

What exactly has IQ got to do with that?

[Neo-Scholastic]

As a design professional in construction, I have a feeling I'll be stuck doing this for the rest of my life.

[SteelCurtain]

Seeing the automotive industry cull the workforce already --- there is no question that modularization and automation will impact manufacturing heavily. When the engine line I worked on was shut down and the new engine line that replaced it started up, 2/3 of the skilled workers and machinists were laid off. 3/4 of the Assemblers and low skill workers were laid off.

When it hits the service industry---and this is coming (check your supermarket self checkout and kiosks at McDonalds) --- that's when we'll be forced to have a conversation about what it's prudent to do with unemployed/displaced workers.

Never before has one thing threatened so many jobs at once. How many truck drivers, Cab/Uber drivers, Delivery Drivers will be displaced when self driving vehicles become ubiquitous? When the norm is to have an iPad at your table at the restaurant instead of a waiter, or when McDonald's needs 2 people to run the entire operation rather than 6-7, or when Amazon doesn't need 200 human pickers at a fulfillment center, or when WalMart needs back of the house people to stock shelves only, I don't believe that there's enough innovation to replace all of those workers.

Even byproducts of the current technology we have help spur this on. Think about how many of us hate talking on the phone. There's even a meme on the internet asking "Who calls anymore?" Young people, by and large, hate interacting with customer service. Kiosks and no server will be welcomed without much pushback. I'm already starting to see this. I was at Red Robin sitting at the bar and I ordered my entire meal and a drink from a little doodad on the bartop. Large companies will roll out these technologies, and large swaths of our employed low skill workforce will be unemployed, their skills being in in precipitously less demand.

[The Grand Nudger]

Always work to do in the fields.  

@Neo. Absolutely, they'll need your expertise if they're ever going to design your eventual AI overlord.

[Mister Agenda]

Half of America has an IQ under 100, are they likely to qualify as the 'good people' companies can't find enough of?

What exactly has IQ got to do with that?

Companies are not experiencing a shortage of below average academic ability workers. One of the key differences in this automation revolution compared to the previous ones is the capability to replace unskilled labor in agricultural, the docks, and the warehouses. It was difficult to automate what they do ('unskilled' is something of a misnomer, just because it doesn't require a degree or certificate doesn't mean it doesn't require skill). Automating that kind of work is happening rapidly now. Not everyone is cut out for the kinds of jobs that companies are short of. You don't have to have a high IQ to succeed at the kind of jobs needed, but it's quite a competitive advantage when all other things are equal...and any other inequality is as likely to be in the favor of the more academically gifted person as not.

Neuro-technology could change that, but that's a whole other bucket of worms, ethically speaking.

---

Always work to do in the fields.  

The fields are being automated too.

[The Grand Nudger]

Always work to do in the fields.  

The fields are being automated too.

Those field hands left in fields have resisted the strongest and earliest wave of automation in human history (ever since oxen pulled a bound moldboard along a guide-line).  They've resisted it on grounds of competence, cost, accessibility, and availability..meanwhile, the automation is becoming more expensive.... and ecologically untenable. Farms are struggling to pay John Deere, the earth is struggling for us using John Deere.

In the absence of cheap, acceptable fossil fuels and petro-products...the best plow and the best IPM... is a person. The best thresher, is a person. The best pickers for mixed operations (and most fruiting monocultures) are -already- people, and have always been people. It's conceivable that they might be replaced, someday...but it's really not, when you look at it for what it is, the sort of thing that lends itself easily to automation - or we'd have done it long ago, like we did with all of the things in ag that -do- lend themselves to automation. Meanwhile, even things that have been automated are still..largely done by people most of the time..and not for no reason.

I stand by it, there will always be work in the fields. IDK whether or not it's good work™..lol, but hey.