Hardly sad, first of all. Second, we’ve been reasonably successful, or there’d still be at least twice as many such jobs now (likely more). Third, recent advances in multipurpose robotics have a strong likelihood of having major effects in this area before much longer - especially when combined with AI tech.
So you don’t think that automating production and freeing people to do what they enjoy while improving their standard of living is a worthy goal? Yes, we are moving in the right direction, but there’s still an astonishing amount of manual labor in terrible conditions happening in poor countries to produce cheap stuff. For things that are automated elsewhere, but it would cost more than the cheap labor there. As I said, it’s sad.
In general, it obviously is. The standard of living is rising over the last few hundred years. Many people can quite easily get things and amount and types of food that would be unthinkable just several decades ago. Many of which wouldn’t be possible to manufacture at scale, if at all, without progressing automation. Jobs shifting from production (agriculture and manufacturing) toward services are clear indication of this.
Enriching the rich disproportionately more is also happening. But that is somewhat different story with partially different causes.
If you compare recent history to a hundred years ago, sure. Now, analyze the trajectories of trends from that recent history and extract where things are going over the next century.
Yeah “while improving their standard of living” sounds great except the wealth generated isnt being spread out among the population.
If there are 5 factory workers on a line, and a machine comes out that means there’s only 2 on that line now, are the 3 who are out of a job still going to get paid the same, or are the 2 remaining going to get any kind of pay rise? Are they bollocks. The 3 losers need to “Just get a job” and the 2 people left need to start producing more for the same pay.
Maybe the value is getting passed onto the consumer? Probably not with shrinkflation, regular inflation and skyrocketing CEO bonuses.
And yet we’re still far from succeeding. It’s sad.
Hardly sad, first of all. Second, we’ve been reasonably successful, or there’d still be at least twice as many such jobs now (likely more). Third, recent advances in multipurpose robotics have a strong likelihood of having major effects in this area before much longer - especially when combined with AI tech.
So you don’t think that automating production and freeing people to do what they enjoy while improving their standard of living is a worthy goal? Yes, we are moving in the right direction, but there’s still an astonishing amount of manual labor in terrible conditions happening in poor countries to produce cheap stuff. For things that are automated elsewhere, but it would cost more than the cheap labor there. As I said, it’s sad.
If improving people’s standard of living were actually the end result, but it’s not been the case thus far.
In general, it obviously is. The standard of living is rising over the last few hundred years. Many people can quite easily get things and amount and types of food that would be unthinkable just several decades ago. Many of which wouldn’t be possible to manufacture at scale, if at all, without progressing automation. Jobs shifting from production (agriculture and manufacturing) toward services are clear indication of this.
Enriching the rich disproportionately more is also happening. But that is somewhat different story with partially different causes.
If you compare recent history to a hundred years ago, sure. Now, analyze the trajectories of trends from that recent history and extract where things are going over the next century.
Yeah “while improving their standard of living” sounds great except the wealth generated isnt being spread out among the population.
If there are 5 factory workers on a line, and a machine comes out that means there’s only 2 on that line now, are the 3 who are out of a job still going to get paid the same, or are the 2 remaining going to get any kind of pay rise? Are they bollocks. The 3 losers need to “Just get a job” and the 2 people left need to start producing more for the same pay.
Maybe the value is getting passed onto the consumer? Probably not with shrinkflation, regular inflation and skyrocketing CEO bonuses.