Dave's talking "total cost of labor per employee hour". So that includes FICA, insurance, and all those other things that come out of the employer's pocket but not into the employee's pocket.
On a similar note though.... At what point does the government step in and start increasing corporate taxes on "employers" who only "Hire" robots. That's A LOT of matching SS tax and state taxes that the employers is not collecting, and even MORE income tax that that Aunt? Sam is not getting...
I have a hard time invisioning an economy with little or not non-skilled laborers and NO tax revenue generated from the're taxes, income or sales?
Like the idea of "Free Energy" I almost see more problems short term then solutions long term.
Ender, I'm still trying to formulate my thoughts on this (and have been for years); but in brief, I think we're soon going to reach a point where a form of socialism/welfare state is practical -- and I'm one who has long argued that such states were always impractical. I have states for years that if the American people were willing to live in what would've been considered the height of luxury in 1920, then no more than 20% of the populace -- maybe no more than 10% -- would have to work productively to maintain that standard of living for everybody. The flaw in this idea, of course, is that people living far more luxurious lives today still feel like they have it too rough.
But I think Moore's Law and related trends may soon move that standard of living up by several decades, maybe close to a century. It would take a massive, fundamental change in how we think about the economy and wealth. It might be horrendously redistributionist, and I'm no fan of redistribution. But I just have this feeling that, if you look at only very basic economic variables like production and productivity and consumption, robotics and nanomanufacturing and other forms of automation will make it so that vast numbers of people can be supported without actually working at anything they don't like.
I'm not saying this is desirable. But I'm starting to think it may be inevitable, so we should try to find the most desirable variant of it. If the automata are doing most of the work and only their owners profit, that's a recipe for populist propaganda and revolution, even if it's fair and proper from a strictly capitalist view. Merely as a matter of pragmatics, we may have to find a way for the leisure class to enjoy the benefits of the automation, lest we see a revolt.
This troubles me greatly. I'm philosophically pretty wedded to the capitalist system and a strong work ethic, and I think they're essential elements of our economic success. But I almost feel like the rules of economics are about to see some revisions, whether we like it or not. The fundamental concern of economics is scarcity and how you choose to allocate your scarce resources. Automation means that one of our resources -- labor -- is becoming relatively a lot less scarce. Something has to change.
As I said, my thoughts on this are still developing, and so I'm rambling here a lot. But I just wonder if we're soon going to see a society of the leisure class.
And it may very well be that this will all shake out very organically through the market. As a group, baby boomers are retiring younger and healthier than any generation before, and at a time were medicine is prolonging their life expectancy every year. Well, since many of them are now part of the investor class, they may face long later lives in the leisure class, living off the profits generated by robots that at least in part were founded by their investments in the first place.
But I don't see an easy way to transition working age adults whose skills are no longer valuable into a leisure class. Maybe something WPA-like.
I see nothing clear here, but I see turmoil coming. I also see tremendous upside if we can navigate through that turmoil.
Excellent read and it touches on this topic in a big way.
Funny to see the discussion of what consitutes low pay. I was just musing this morning that it's pretty sad that the price of not sinking in over your head around here has gotten to be 30 - 40k a year take-home. Also meaning net of the cost of health insurance.
Well, it might be lower if you have the right circumstances, but when your jumping off point is that 12-13k a year rent is normal and reasonable, and low compared to a mortgage, then you add everything else from there, it's pretty rocky.
Yes, the days when you could live a comfortable life for a family of four, earning $16/wk in a single-earner household are gone.
While not pure robotics, machines are increasingly taking away jobs that used to be done by manual labor. But that's been happening since the Industrial Revolution. It was the purpose of that revolution, actually.
We do have fruit-picking machinery that replaces scores of laborers (including illegal immigrants). Check out the fruit industries in WA and OR and their employment of these machines.
And, instead of Dad and his six sons pushing a plow behind a mule to till a corn field, we have tractors. Instead of 300 women sitting in a dark hall sewing shirtwaists, we have fully automated machines doing it. And when's the last time you saw an actual brakeman on a trolley, in addition to the driver or conductor?
Robots are simply a continuation of a 200+ year trend. We're still working out the details of that, of course, even when it comes to things like mowing lawns or delivering newspapers, jobs once held by teenagers.
Martin: Yes, thank you, I did mean total cost of employees to the employer. Probably should have been more explicit.
John Barnes has an interesting look at the future point of these trends in The Armies of Memory, in which AI is smart enough to do work that humans cannot do. My favorite part is the exposition about how people have to work two hours a day for five years of their life -- and complain bitterly about it.
I wouldn't worry too much about revolution; with a GDP per capita of $100,000 a year, there would be more than enough wealth to go around, and plenty of bread and circuses.
When labor is unnecessary to sustain life and health, more and more jobs will be entertainment. If you'd told people a hundred years ago how rich entertainers and professional athletes would become, they'd have thought you were crazy; their productivity simply could not support such excess.
I wouldn't worry too much about revolution; with a GDP per capita of $100,000 a year, there would be more than enough wealth to go around, and plenty of bread and circuses.
But it's how we get it to go around that concerns me. That $100,000/year will tend to cluster in the pockets of people who create the automata and creative ways to use them. If the labor class has no labor to earn with, how will they get their share?
Philosophically, I favor a low-tax, market-driven approach in most things. Maybe arts and entertainment and sports will fluorish. But I fear that a more direct form of redistribution may be necessary. That rankles me in all sorts of ways, but I'm wondering if it may prove necessary.
I still have a lot of thinking to do hear. And reading of John Barnes, it sounds like.
Robots are nothing new. In 1950, there were something like *half a million* elevator operators in the US. Almost all of them were replaced by robots in the form of automatic elevator controls.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, computers quickly began to replace the large clerical forces in places like banks and insurance companies. Numerically-controlled machine tools started to perform metal-cutting tasks that were previously the domain of skilled machinists. Process industries (refineries, chemical plants, etc) reached a high level of automation.
If you read stuff from that era, there was a great deal of concern about widespread unemployment, mixed with hopefulness about the coming age of leisure, in which everyone would devote himself to art, etc. Of course, it didn't pan out that way (although there was certainly unemployment and suffering in certain industries/geographies)
Of course, this history may not be a good guide to the future, but it's certainly worthy of consideration.
Photon, I agree that we've been here before. But man, the tech today is so much more advanced, and the tech tomorrow probably moreso. I'm just not sure there's any precedent for the scale of changes we're going to see. Maybe for once, the more things change, the more they don't stay the same.
Exponential growth is a reality in too many fields to count.
And Martin's right, we're reaching a point where it's getting harder and harder to see where we're going.
Some form of economic shift is in the making. I'm more concerned, myself, with starting work now on tackling the friendliness problem, which is probably the biggest threat we'll face from AI.
Robert West: I live in Central California. $10/hr sure as hell doesn't give you enough to live on, but since when does that make a difference?
No, really, I'm serious. Median income in California as a whole is $55K. (Mine was $15K post-taxes, because my work is somewhat seasonal too.) Most places would require a minimum income of $150K to be able to afford a home; rents are a fraction of that (and yes, the housing crash is coming) but are still at least $600-$1200 a month in my area. Does this mean that wages are higher? Not nearly so much as you'd think.
Photon stated it well. Machines have replaced human labor for centuries. And soon they will be able to replace much more.
Marx, although he was writing of capital, said a lot about where machines (efficiency) and the unavoidable surplus labor supply would lead.
Putting Marx aside (just as history has) the situation in the US is this. A large supply of (mostly illegal) immigrant labor has hurt many trades. The worst hit certainly include citizens seeking work in construction, food supply, and hotel, gardening, and janitorial services.
There are many secondary problesm. Someone contended that a capable $175K robot could dry up many of the jobs that draw illegal immigrants. That is true. But it would not stop illegal immigration or even slow it.
Immigration levels also depend on whether a person will be better off utterly poor in the US or in the home country. And for millions the answer is the US or another prosperous area. The question then becomes 'is it possible to get there?'
So as long as the US borders can be easily crossed and we are a sufficiently better place for the poor to live our problem will continue.
They've had robotic milking machines for years in Holland, where the state generally makes it too expensive for business owners to hire human beings. Sure, the parts and labor for robot milker maintence aren't exacly cheap, but it still beats the alternative.
I wonder...most American slave owners were not rich, and they were (predominantly) using slaves for agricultural prodcution. And these automatons are essentially just perfect slaves...(Please, please, set aside the moral component of American slavery for this discussion)
Of course, what you are describing also intersects Dean's complaints about big corps, were larger corporate farms would be able to buy the cheapest labor (robots) and thus be able to expand even more...
Perhaps the radical rethinking is less redistributionist, and more along the lines if everyone can 'afford' (even with a governement subsidy) a nanofactory or some such things, perhaps the need for mega-businesses would be eliminated?
BTW, Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' touched on some of these themes, at least tangentially...
Is it too early in the discussion to discuss the power cost of maintaining the machines? Or is that comparable to the "benefits" portion of a human worker's salary?
2.12.2007 3:28pm
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
Ummm... that's my salary, and I'm in a semi-professional job!
I have a hard time invisioning an economy with little or not non-skilled laborers and NO tax revenue generated from the're taxes, income or sales?
Like the idea of "Free Energy" I almost see more problems short term then solutions long term.
But I think Moore's Law and related trends may soon move that standard of living up by several decades, maybe close to a century. It would take a massive, fundamental change in how we think about the economy and wealth. It might be horrendously redistributionist, and I'm no fan of redistribution. But I just have this feeling that, if you look at only very basic economic variables like production and productivity and consumption, robotics and nanomanufacturing and other forms of automation will make it so that vast numbers of people can be supported without actually working at anything they don't like.
I'm not saying this is desirable. But I'm starting to think it may be inevitable, so we should try to find the most desirable variant of it. If the automata are doing most of the work and only their owners profit, that's a recipe for populist propaganda and revolution, even if it's fair and proper from a strictly capitalist view. Merely as a matter of pragmatics, we may have to find a way for the leisure class to enjoy the benefits of the automation, lest we see a revolt.
This troubles me greatly. I'm philosophically pretty wedded to the capitalist system and a strong work ethic, and I think they're essential elements of our economic success. But I almost feel like the rules of economics are about to see some revisions, whether we like it or not. The fundamental concern of economics is scarcity and how you choose to allocate your scarce resources. Automation means that one of our resources -- labor -- is becoming relatively a lot less scarce. Something has to change.
As I said, my thoughts on this are still developing, and so I'm rambling here a lot. But I just wonder if we're soon going to see a society of the leisure class.
And it may very well be that this will all shake out very organically through the market. As a group, baby boomers are retiring younger and healthier than any generation before, and at a time were medicine is prolonging their life expectancy every year. Well, since many of them are now part of the investor class, they may face long later lives in the leisure class, living off the profits generated by robots that at least in part were founded by their investments in the first place.
But I don't see an easy way to transition working age adults whose skills are no longer valuable into a leisure class. Maybe something WPA-like.
I see nothing clear here, but I see turmoil coming. I also see tremendous upside if we can navigate through that turmoil.
Voyage From Yesteryear
Excellent read and it touches on this topic in a big way.
Funny to see the discussion of what consitutes low pay. I was just musing this morning that it's pretty sad that the price of not sinking in over your head around here has gotten to be 30 - 40k a year take-home. Also meaning net of the cost of health insurance.
Well, it might be lower if you have the right circumstances, but when your jumping off point is that 12-13k a year rent is normal and reasonable, and low compared to a mortgage, then you add everything else from there, it's pretty rocky.
While not pure robotics, machines are increasingly taking away jobs that used to be done by manual labor. But that's been happening since the Industrial Revolution. It was the purpose of that revolution, actually.
We do have fruit-picking machinery that replaces scores of laborers (including illegal immigrants). Check out the fruit industries in WA and OR and their employment of these machines.
And, instead of Dad and his six sons pushing a plow behind a mule to till a corn field, we have tractors. Instead of 300 women sitting in a dark hall sewing shirtwaists, we have fully automated machines doing it. And when's the last time you saw an actual brakeman on a trolley, in addition to the driver or conductor?
Robots are simply a continuation of a 200+ year trend. We're still working out the details of that, of course, even when it comes to things like mowing lawns or delivering newspapers, jobs once held by teenagers.
John Barnes has an interesting look at the future point of these trends in The Armies of Memory, in which AI is smart enough to do work that humans cannot do. My favorite part is the exposition about how people have to work two hours a day for five years of their life -- and complain bitterly about it.
I wouldn't worry too much about revolution; with a GDP per capita of $100,000 a year, there would be more than enough wealth to go around, and plenty of bread and circuses.
When labor is unnecessary to sustain life and health, more and more jobs will be entertainment. If you'd told people a hundred years ago how rich entertainers and professional athletes would become, they'd have thought you were crazy; their productivity simply could not support such excess.
But it's how we get it to go around that concerns me. That $100,000/year will tend to cluster in the pockets of people who create the automata and creative ways to use them. If the labor class has no labor to earn with, how will they get their share?
Philosophically, I favor a low-tax, market-driven approach in most things. Maybe arts and entertainment and sports will fluorish. But I fear that a more direct form of redistribution may be necessary. That rankles me in all sorts of ways, but I'm wondering if it may prove necessary.
I still have a lot of thinking to do hear. And reading of John Barnes, it sounds like.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, computers quickly began to replace the large clerical forces in places like banks and insurance companies. Numerically-controlled machine tools started to perform metal-cutting tasks that were previously the domain of skilled machinists. Process industries (refineries, chemical plants, etc) reached a high level of automation.
If you read stuff from that era, there was a great deal of concern about widespread unemployment, mixed with hopefulness about the coming age of leisure, in which everyone would devote himself to art, etc. Of course, it didn't pan out that way (although there was certainly unemployment and suffering in certain industries/geographies)
Of course, this history may not be a good guide to the future, but it's certainly worthy of consideration.
And Martin's right, we're reaching a point where it's getting harder and harder to see where we're going.
Some form of economic shift is in the making. I'm more concerned, myself, with starting work now on tackling the friendliness problem, which is probably the biggest threat we'll face from AI.
No, really, I'm serious. Median income in California as a whole is $55K. (Mine was $15K post-taxes, because my work is somewhat seasonal too.) Most places would require a minimum income of $150K to be able to afford a home; rents are a fraction of that (and yes, the housing crash is coming) but are still at least $600-$1200 a month in my area. Does this mean that wages are higher? Not nearly so much as you'd think.
Marx, although he was writing of capital, said a lot about where machines (efficiency) and the unavoidable surplus labor supply would lead.
Putting Marx aside (just as history has) the situation in the US is this. A large supply of (mostly illegal) immigrant labor has hurt many trades. The worst hit certainly include citizens seeking work in construction, food supply, and hotel, gardening, and janitorial services.
There are many secondary problesm. Someone contended that a capable $175K robot could dry up many of the jobs that draw illegal immigrants. That is true. But it would not stop illegal immigration or even slow it.
Immigration levels also depend on whether a person will be better off utterly poor in the US or in the home country. And for millions the answer is the US or another prosperous area. The question then becomes 'is it possible to get there?'
So as long as the US borders can be easily crossed and we are a sufficiently better place for the poor to live our problem will continue.
Of course, what you are describing also intersects Dean's complaints about big corps, were larger corporate farms would be able to buy the cheapest labor (robots) and thus be able to expand even more...
Perhaps the radical rethinking is less redistributionist, and more along the lines if everyone can 'afford' (even with a governement subsidy) a nanofactory or some such things, perhaps the need for mega-businesses would be eliminated?
BTW, Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' touched on some of these themes, at least tangentially...
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.