barryqwalsh
Gold Member
- Sep 30, 2014
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Tim Worstall
CONTRIBUTOR
I have opinions about economics, finance and public policy.
Over in Wired they’ve another of those pieces talking about how the robots are going to take all our jobs. And as is usual with these sorts of articles they’ve managed to get the basic economics of the situation wrong. Here they’re wrong in a different direction than normal but still wrong. For they’re telling us that we don’t have to worry so much, while the robots will take our jobs we’ll all, or at least many of us, have jobs taking care of the robots. And that just isn’t how technological change happens nor how it makes us richer. What does happen is that the machines do take our jobs: leaving us free to go off and satisfy some other human desire or want.
Here’s Wired:
"Robots Will Steal Our Jobs, But They’ll Give Us New Ones"
No, that really isn’t what happens.
But the one thing it doesn’t do, says J.P. Gownder, an analyst with the Boston-based tech research firm Forrester, is steal jobs. In fact, it creates them. Before installing the robotic system, the airport already used automatic ticket machines, so the system didn’t replace human cashiers. And now, humans are needed to maintain and repair all those robotic forklifts. “These are not white-collar jobs,” Gownder tells WIRED. “This is the evolution of the repair person. It’s harder to fix a robot than it is to fix a vending machine.”
That some people will have jobs training or repairing the robots is true. But that’s not the effect of advancing technology on employment at all. Think it through for a moment with a simplistic example.
Say that we have to make bread by kneading the dough manually. It thus takes the labour of 100 people to produce the bread we desire. And now we invent a machine that kneads the dough for us. We now only need 50 people to make our bread. The argument here is that those other 50 people go off and make and maintain the bread kneading machines. But if that is true then we still need 100 people to make our bread for us, don’t we? We’ve not in fact advanced productivity at all: we still need the labour of 100 people to make our bread. And we’ve also not become any richer: we still need the labour of 100 people to make our bread.
What actually happens is that we now need 50 people to make our bread and perhaps one to maintain the bread kneading machines. This leaves 49 people without a job: the robots really have stolen the work. So, what do the 49 people do? Just curl up and die without work or an income?
The Robots Will Steal All Our Jobs And No, They Won't Create New Ones
CONTRIBUTOR
I have opinions about economics, finance and public policy.
Over in Wired they’ve another of those pieces talking about how the robots are going to take all our jobs. And as is usual with these sorts of articles they’ve managed to get the basic economics of the situation wrong. Here they’re wrong in a different direction than normal but still wrong. For they’re telling us that we don’t have to worry so much, while the robots will take our jobs we’ll all, or at least many of us, have jobs taking care of the robots. And that just isn’t how technological change happens nor how it makes us richer. What does happen is that the machines do take our jobs: leaving us free to go off and satisfy some other human desire or want.
Here’s Wired:
"Robots Will Steal Our Jobs, But They’ll Give Us New Ones"
No, that really isn’t what happens.
But the one thing it doesn’t do, says J.P. Gownder, an analyst with the Boston-based tech research firm Forrester, is steal jobs. In fact, it creates them. Before installing the robotic system, the airport already used automatic ticket machines, so the system didn’t replace human cashiers. And now, humans are needed to maintain and repair all those robotic forklifts. “These are not white-collar jobs,” Gownder tells WIRED. “This is the evolution of the repair person. It’s harder to fix a robot than it is to fix a vending machine.”
That some people will have jobs training or repairing the robots is true. But that’s not the effect of advancing technology on employment at all. Think it through for a moment with a simplistic example.
Say that we have to make bread by kneading the dough manually. It thus takes the labour of 100 people to produce the bread we desire. And now we invent a machine that kneads the dough for us. We now only need 50 people to make our bread. The argument here is that those other 50 people go off and make and maintain the bread kneading machines. But if that is true then we still need 100 people to make our bread for us, don’t we? We’ve not in fact advanced productivity at all: we still need the labour of 100 people to make our bread. And we’ve also not become any richer: we still need the labour of 100 people to make our bread.
What actually happens is that we now need 50 people to make our bread and perhaps one to maintain the bread kneading machines. This leaves 49 people without a job: the robots really have stolen the work. So, what do the 49 people do? Just curl up and die without work or an income?
The Robots Will Steal All Our Jobs And No, They Won't Create New Ones
