Technology has been replacing manual labour for a long time, this is hardly surprising. Some jobs will be created though as the robots need monitoring and maintenance.
Using robots for dreary drudge work could be a good thing with something like UBI to go along with it. But instead of fully automated luxury gay space communism, they will implement “Gilded Age 2.0: The Worser Dystopia”, instead.
Yeah, robots doing drudge work is exactly the future we were promised. It’s just that that’s supposed to allow humans to have more free time to pursue their interests, not die in a ditch from starvation.
I think something like UBI is basically in inevitability. If government’s try to ignore the problem the entire economic system will collapse, there’ll be a lot of production going on, but there won’t be anyone to buy any of the products. So they will have to introduce UBI.
However it would be nice if they could introduce it before the inevitable civil wars and civil unrest force them to.
I certainly hope you’re right. But let’s not forget that when the industrial revolution eliminated a lot of jobs for a lot of people, those people were allowed to just starve to death in the street. It took a full generation before new jobs were created.
Basically what you’re saying is that this time round the wealth disparity is so much worse and there are so many more people living in or near poverty that the entire global economy couldn’t withstand the poorest being out of work. That feels like a weird thing to say that you hope someone is right about but…I hope you’re right about it.
But, I dunno, we’re talking about the same attitude that saw several large corporations try out a 4-day/32 hour working week, discover that productivity stayed the same or even went up…and then went right back to the 5-day working week. The same attitude that sees people seriously suggesting that people who work from home should work extra hours unpaid because otherwise they’ll be able to have the time they otherwise would have spent commuting for themselves.
Also, of course, there’s the fact that a large number of people live in poverty and already can’t afford basics like 3 meals a day, let alone buying take-out, or a TV, or going on holiday. And Jeff Bezos isn’t campaigning to end child poverty even though doing so would enable people to spend more on Amazon.
I really think the only way that we’ll ever truly get something like UBI is if one of two things happen - governments who are genuienly invested in the welfare of their people introduce it, or there is enough mobilisation to put enough political pressure on governments to force them to introduce it. At least there are places that are trialling it, so it’s not unthinkable, but I don’t think the “there will be nobody to buy goods” argument really holds up, because those that that affects already demonstrably don’t give a shit.
However it would be nice if they could introduce it before the inevitable civil wars and civil unrest force them to.
They wont because our leaders and their owners are delusional and mentally ill.
But that’s the thing, that doesn’t matter. Because as soon as anyone comes along with a policy of introducing universal basic income, it doesn’t matter how entrenched the political establishment are, people will vote for that if they are losing their jobs.
Most countries political systems are not as completely dysfunctional as the US system. It is possible for independence’s and new parties to arise provided there is enough support. Not being made homeless through no fault of your own is a pretty big motivator to change your historical political leanings.
From a UK perspective:
The pensioners would never vote for party that would introduce something like this. They HATE the idea of younger generations getting “free money”. Honestly they’re the real problem. But they’re the demographic that vote the most and have a huge sway.
Just don’t point out to them how their triple locked pensions are probably the biggest financial cost to our [UK] country…
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Destroying millions of jobs to shave 30 cents off an item, or rather pocket it, what could possibly go wrong.
The problem isn’t the robots taking the jobs. The problem are the capitalists taking it all for themselves. No one wants those jobs man. They fucking suck. Automate them.
I worked there for three years, there’s lots of people who wants those jobs since they pay decently, it certainly better than no job.
I’ve heard conflicting stories. I know three people who’ve worked in three different Amazon warehouses and two of them tell me it’s fine (I haven’t heard that the pay is very good however) and a third telling me it’s basically hell.
I don’t know any of these people well enough to really be able to tell how much their personality is factoring into their assessments but statistically speaking we have a problem, we now have four different interpretations from four different people. Two saying it’s basically fine but not great, you saying that it’s actually well compensated, and the third telling me it’s awful. So what is it?
Admittedly, that’s a fairly small sample set, but there is significant variation across it. I suspect a little bit of astroturfing.
They can find some other way to be useful to society.
If they love those jobs so much, they can do them for free.
We shouldn’t stifle technological process and keep jobs people don’t want to do around so the people currently doing them don’t have to adapt.
Good people create bad times.
Nukes create no times.
Fuck the clankers!
I love that we’ve come up with a slur for AI, but I do think it’s kind of stupid. Clankers are robots, but there’s plenty of AI taking people’s jobs that has no effective physical presence. We need something more original.
When the job requirements are so unsustainable and the safety is so sketchy that they plan for a high turnover rate, robots are the better option.
Yes, people have paid their bills because of these jobs. But I have a hard time believing that the money makes it worth the damage to their health that will follow the worker through their career. There are many other jobs like this that are better left to a machine or else lower the expectations per worker to improve working conditions
I guess there must be other facilities that are much worse, or it depends who your managers are, but when I worked at a FC I thought it was one of the easier jobs I’ve held.
Maybe if the robots get damaged at the same rate their workers get injured they’ll get more interested in safety.
This has already happened.
Robots get AC. Humans do not.
Gonna have to replace Amazon orders with humans soon.
