jobs.
In a good economy, report reveals grim news for Florida families
https://www.tampabay.com/news/in-a-good-economy-report-reveals-grim-news-for-florida-families-20190206/
Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/business/economy/productivity-inequality-wages.html
Amazon job applications doubled after it raised its minimum wage to $15 — Quartz
https://qz.com/1539536/amazon-job-applications-doubled-after-it-raised-its-minimum-wage-to-15/
I'm starting to notice that Debbie is not an optimist...
Worse, she's an economist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science
It's not a
future problem. We've just not been keeping count as it nibbled away at the edges. We're alarmed now because we can easily foresee it reaching critical mass very soon. I like to use toll booths as an example.
When I was a kid, you couldn't get up to speed on the Jersey Turnpike because the damn (seemingly) back-to-back walls of toll booths with 2 (high-paid, union) men sitting in each one raking in the quarters.
QuoteThe first automatic tolls collection station went into service this month in 1954. It was installed at the Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.
https://thebronxchronicle.com/2018/11/13/tolls-for-thee/
How many humans do you see manning the toll barriers nowadays?
>We've just not been keeping count as it nibbled away at the edges.
I'm just old enough to remember when being a cashier at a grocery store was a relatively hard job where all the data had to be manually put into the cash register. Often those jobs were union and paid well. Then, some time during the Reagan years scanning machines made those jobs a lot easier and the pay for those jobs have been dropping ever since. Now, a lot of those jobs are vanishing as self-checkout machines spread. One of the stores I went to recently didn't even have a human option any longer.
>cashiers
Good one! A friend just commented yesterday that her town's Walmart Supercenter had expanded self-checkout and cut the number of cashiers to 6.
A typical long distance operator work room this one is Dallas Tx, and had over 160 positons *Poof* Gone decades ago.
http://www.atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/63193.jpg
>>> Often those jobs were union and paid well.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map
Quote from: rcjordan on February 06, 2019, 07:59:28 PM
We're alarmed now because we can easily foresee it reaching critical mass very soon.
We're alarmed because they're comin' for us. In other words, it's not the problem of uneducated slobs who work routine jobs. It's everybody, including insurance adjusters and journalists and paralegals and so on.
"First they came for the socialists..."
>journalists
brb==>
Saw this a couple of days ago.
The Rise of the Robot Reporter - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html
>"First they came for the socialists..."
With this issue I am not sure if that analogy applies (though I would say it is relevant for many today's social issues). IMO the de-value of labor, like global warming, is mostly being ignored or denied by most people because the problems are overwhelming and it is easier to live in denial than face the feeling of helplessness and dread.
Also, there is a class of influential people who benefit from the status quo and really do not want people to think about these issues.
>people who benefit
Someone here posted a link about what execs were saying publicly vs candidly re employment at Davos. In short, there is no room for altruism on your balance sheet. To paraphrase Bezos; then their margin is a competitor's opportunity.
Have you been following the Rutger Bregman thing at Davos?
He's the guy who said he had been asked to speak at Davos, but you can't talk about taxes. It's like being at a firefighting convention and not being allowed to talk about water. It's gone viral, but apparently the audience at Davos was "quite aggressive"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-07/rutger-bregmans-viral-tax-speech-but-didnt-go-down-well-in-davos/10791322
If you haven't seen it, the speech itself is amusing.
The videos on that page wouldn't play for me.
Here's the Youtube link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5LtFnmPruU).
So, how many machinists, welders, and assembly crew did this replace?
Take a look at the world's largest 3D-printed rocket engine
https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/08/3d-printed-rocket-engine-orbex/
QuoteCompany is also rapidly deploying its 'FAST Unloader' machine
Walmart Cuts Some Overnight Shifts in Latest Streamlining Move - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-01/walmart-cuts-some-overnight-shifts-in-latest-streamlining-move
Cause, meet effect.
Walmart is doubling down on robot janitors. Here's why - CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/business/walmart-robots-retail-jobs/index.html
Just back from Korea, saw a few of these robots on the roads.
2 robot flagmen would cut some buck$ from a contractor's payroll. Seem pretty simple, by modern-day sensor standards. I expect we'll see some here soon.
Amazon acquires autonomous warehouse robotics startup Canvas Technology | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/10/amazon-acquires-autonomous-warehouse-robotics-startup-canvas-technology/
>Past and present computerization
Check this out:
The massive FBI's fingerprint files, 1944
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/fbi-fingerprint-files-facility-1944/
Whoa!
My first instinct was "That's fake." But no, it's a real photo. So I see how they had prints filed by name... but clearly they could not match a print without a name to start with.
Also... I look at the sheer number of people involved in that effort. All wearing nice, professional clothes. Damn computers!
Creeping in. You'll hardly notice the job decimation.
Robots are working retail jobs at Walmart now
https://bgr.com/2019/08/29/walmart-robots-in-stores-growing-presence/
"The overall trend we're seeing is that automating certain tasks gives associates more time to do work they find fulfilling and to interact with our customers," CEO Doug McMillon said last year.
hahahahahah
More time with their families too.
>automating certain tasks gives associates more time to do work they find fulfilling
Study:
"Automation increases the likelihood that workers will be driven away from their previous jobs at the companies—whether they're fired, or moved to less rewarding tasks, or quit—and causes a long-term loss of wages for the employee.
The report finds that "firm-level automation increases the probability of workers separating from their employers and decreases days worked, leading to a 5-year cumulative wage income loss of 11 percent of one year's earnings." That's a pretty significant loss.
Worse still, the study found that even in the Netherlands, which has a comparatively generous social safety net to, say, the United States, workers were only able to offset a fraction of those losses with benefits provided by the state. Older workers, meanwhile, were more likely to retire early—deprived of years of income they may have been counting on."
Automation's Slow-Motion Impact on Modern Workers
https://gizmodo.com/the-trickle-down-disaster-of-automation-1838974516
This can lead to massive social instability and unrest in society.
Quote from: Brad on October 13, 2019, 11:11:35 AM
This can lead to massive social instability and unrest in society.
I've been listening to some episodes of Nick Hanauer's Pitchfork Economics. Hanauer became a billionaire, which he thought was pretty great, but then started looking around and worry that if things continued the way they were going, people were going to start coming after the Nick Hanauers of the world with pitchforks, thus the name of the podcast.
He's no socialist - his vision of the world is one in which he would have three billion dollars instead of seven billion because, you know, if you tighten your belt, you can live pretty well on three billion dollars.
But he's quite worried about the instability and unrest problem. Some interesting stuff that has changed my mind on a number of issues.
And at the behest of a friend, listening in alteration to the Schiff Report, which basically believes government = oppression and taxes = theft.
Interesting combo for a weekly headspin.
>>automating certain tasks gives associates more time to do work they find fulfilling
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Study: Robots aren't taking warehouse employees' jobs, they're making their work harder
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/22/20925894/robots-warehouse-jobs-automation-replace-workers-amazon-report-university-illinois
I am shocked! I worked for a year or so as a warehouse picker/packer and it was pretty monotonous, but when I read about the changes in warehouses with automation, it always strikes me that everything that made the job bearable is being stripped away a bit at a time.
I grew up on the loading docks at the wholesale company and worked there part-time into my college years. The relentless pace robots are able to keep would be a killer. That, and they never forget. It'd be a PITA.
Taking airline reservations in 1945.
https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/l37rkc/taking_airline_reservations_in_1945/
It suddenly occurs to me that the reason there were so many direct flights between relatively small destinations is because figuring out routing for millions of people is dramatically simplified. Obvious, but I had never put the two things together.
How makeup was made in the 50s
https://i.imgur.com/GceCDx5.gifv
>So, how many machinists, welders, and assembly crew did this replace?
"Virtually all new rocket companies and space startups are adopting 3D metal-printing technology. It accelerates their development phase, helping them survive the crucial years before they manage to get anything into space. Of note are Rocket Lab, which uses its 3D-printed engine to launch rockets from New Zealand, and Relativity Space which is 3D printing its entire rocket. In the UK there's, Skyrora and Orbex. The latter aims to launch a rocket using a 3D-printed engine as early as 2022.
3D-printed rocket engines: the technology driving the private sector space race
https://theconversation.com/3d-printed-rocket-engines-the-technology-driving-the-private-sector-space-race-168146
The article does not mention that a robotic process reduces the chance of misreading blueprints and using the wrong part somewhere or, ahem, using the wrong units of measure.
<update>
Amazon added 400,000 robots to its facilities in just two years
https://www.techspot.com/news/102884-amazon-robot-revolution-expanding-automation-raises-more-job.html
As Amazon's robot ranks swell, workers worry about their future | TechSpot