Robots are killing jobs after all, apparently: One droid equals 5.6 workers Industrial robots are depressing wages and increasing unemployment, according to a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, non-profit, non-partisan research organization in America. Written by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets" …
"... in areas exposed to industrial robots, between 1990 and 2007, 'both employment and wages decline in a robust and significant manner (compared to other less exposed areas).' "
Well, duh! If you confine your sample to those areas that are being automated then yes you will see decline in the human involvement. I don't think I've heard anyone suggest otherwise and I reckon they'd be pretty stupid to do so. For one thing, why would someone bring a robot in *unless* it was going to be cheaper than using a person over the long term?
Did they examine any areas of the economy which grew over the same period, which might have been where these unemployed or underpaid people were ending up? The period leading up to 2007 looked pretty good on paper for a number of major economies so I suspect that it wasn't all bad news.
I'm shocked by the low number replaced. I worked in manufacturing for nearly 30 years and I would have guessed the number to already be much higher than 5.6.
Still, the question is, I suppose, who is being replaced, what is the job function being replaced and what is the next job to be replaced. Production line functions relating to repetitive jobs are probably quite easy to automate today. However, design functions are less so. Furthermore, in my experience, machines can make millions of the same thing, all with the same error. So there will remain a residual benefit from human oversight for some time to come, but not forever.
But in the end, with the ever-increasing sophistication of computers, what is there that people can do that machines will never be able to do? I suspect in the long term, the answer to that is nothing. After all, if machines can now compose decent music, what's next? How big is the leap from the special effects through CGI in the film-making industry to cutting out the operator entirely by desigining a machine to do the whole job. Then, if you can do that, get the machines to design other machines.
A long time into the future perhaps but something our society needs to think about from now on. Western society revolved about working to gain income. Developing countries seek advancement through lower wages. None of that works the same in a completely automated future.
I don't think this is necessarily bad. I just think that there needs to be some good future that can be offered to everyone.
> Production line functions relating to repetitive jobs are probably quite easy to automate today. However, design functions are less so.
I've known old boys who once worked as draughtsmen, but no more. With CAD, each designer is doing more - and working in real time with more designers - but the effect is that more things are designed, or that more design is put into each product.
CAD of course isn't just draughting, it is virtual simulation, it is a knowledge base of the results of real physical testing, it is a portal to parts suppliers, it incorporates tools to assist in environmental impact assessment... just about anything pertinent to the Product Lifecycle, basically.
"CAD of course isn't just draughting, it is virtual simulation"
Hmmm. Speaking as someone who works doing finite element analysis, I've seen some utter nonsense turned out from the "simulation" packages tacked on to CAD tools.
The problem occurs if you have a background in drawing and you blindly trust the results the CAD software is giving you. It's really important to have to have experience of "proper" simulation tools to see when the overextended CAD software is churning out a pile of rubbish evidence that might get someone killed, and when to hand the job over to an expert (i.e. an engineer, not a draughtsman.)
I can kludge my way around CAD software, but we've got guys who can run rings round me using it. On the other hand, I know how to use proper simulation software to work out whether a design is safe and when not to bother and to just use a pencil and paper.
The job-creating dynamics is not well understood
See the recent paper published by the International Labour Organisation
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_544189.pdf
Since the Industrial Revolution automation has destroyed jobs, so we should not be surprised that it happens again. The quest for higher productivity in industrial production regimes has been driving - and will continue to drive - labour-saving technological change. The paper by A&R describes the market adjustment process that triggers compensating and job-creating effects. However, historical experience shows clearly that job creation is not mainly due to the expansion of existing industries. The major job-creating effects were always triggered by transformative changes in the economy and creative destruction. Product innovation, new growth industries replacing incumbent ones, new sectors were creating jobs, and such changes cannot be driven by markets, they require societal transformation and new social and political demand.
We have been focusing too much on the job-destroying process of technological waves. We should focus on analysis of the "golden age" job-creating dynamics. They are discussed in evolutionary economics and by structuralist economists.
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