Reddit mentions of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future

If you're interested in reading more on the subject, I'd recommend reading "The Lights in the Tunnel" which explores this hypothetical outcome further. Given the current state of globalization and extreme wealth inequality, we are looking towards a very real possibility that AIs will eventually supersede a human work force resulting in massive unemployment and worldwide poverty - unless we (economists, politicians, etc.) start treating this a lot more seriously.

I suggest you take a couple days to read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474

It's quite telling and it debunks the idea that the majority of the wealthy are what is depicted in those pictures.

Also a great book: Lights in the tunnel; : http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating-Technology/dp/1448659817

This one focuses specifically on how to approach post scarcity without collapsing the economy. I'm not sure that it's the approach I 100% agree with, but we have to start the conversation somewhere. I'm hoping someone picks this one up to make a documentary out of it.

The last jobs to go will be some low pay jobs, like housekeepers and janitors.

This book gives a good example why. Imagine you've left your sunglasses on the couch. How easy would it be for a robot to see that? First, a robot must know how sunglasses look. It would need to identify sunglasses folded as well as sunglasses open or worn on your face. It would need to know that sunglasses on your couch should be picked up, folded, and stored in the proper place.

Add all the different situations that may happen in any house and you'll see why it's difficult to train a robot to do that job.

An investment trader has an easier job than a housekeeper, and gets paid a much bigger salary, which means it makes perfect sense to automate the trader's job first. The trader's job is two-dimensional, it's market prices versus time. There's a huge reward for doing it right, so there are many experts working hard at automating that task.

You hit the proverbial nail on the head. Make-work bias has been around for centuries and there is usually only temporary unemployment for those whose jobs get replaced by capital. But like you said it's not really worth worrying about at this point.
If anyone has any interest in technological advancement or capital from an economic standpoint, these are some great books to check out:

[Capital in the Twenty-First Century] (http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0ETBP81SYG4890W6R34T)


[The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Machine-Age-Technologies/dp/0393239357/ref=pd_sim_b_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=0N2W244G0SF4XT3Q5MDB)

[The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating/dp/1448659817/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0Q1BR5DDQRM29TZPTGBN)

The question is wether the slowing of economic development is greater than the economic and social costs of inaction.

For instance, access to preschool has been shown to dramatically lower the likelihood of adult criminal activity and incarceration, and greatly increase an individual's long-term earning potential. In general, it makes for more productive adults. If that productivity offsets the cost of daycare (incarceration is EXPENSIVE), then it makes sense for the state to invest in daycare.

France, Germany, Belgium, the Scandinavian countries, The Netherlands, etc. all have more generous social programs then we do here in the States. With the exception of Germany, those countries all have slightly to moderately less-dynnamic economies than do we. And yet the quality of life for the poorest in all those countries is much higher than it is for the poorest in the US. Hell, even the middle class have a generally-improved quality of life. If the relationship was merely between economic development and the quality of life of the poor, then the American poor would be much better off.

If I may be so bold to recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating-Technology/dp/1448659817/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309792255&sr=1-1

>But to have an impact on the macro level you don't need only to have a gap on individual productivity, you'd also need that the relative price between capital and labor in all sectors to favor capital accumulation, adding a lot more variables to be accounted for.

Yeah, and as much as I've looked at the question of technological unemployment I haven't seen anyone capture all the complex dynamics into a theory. It's all pretty hand wavy based off a few charts and tables. The best source I read though was the book [The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future by Martin Ford] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1448659817).

What I've come away believing though is that when you look across the jobs in different sectors most are susceptible to technological unemployment and few are new jobs created by new technology. I'm a software engineer, and my industry creates a lot of value with relatively stingy hiring practices.

The industrial and information revolutions killed many manual and paper pushing jobs. The growth in robotics, which already dominates a lot manufacturing, is moving into service industries very quickly and filling the void between the industrial and information revolutions.

>If you mean by that that people won't need to look for jobs then you'd still be in full-employment, they're just droping out of the work force.

True, my terminology was poor.

>Can you elaborate?

If technological unemployment is one of the major macroeconomic issues in our economy, then investment in technology may cause short term job growth for a relatively small number of the highly skilled but long term job destruction for the less skilled. Jobless growth of the economy. There are big exceptions like the surge of jobs laying fibre for the Internet though. I liked Chris Anderson's book [Free: The Future of a Radical Price] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1401322905) that talked about how technology removed inefficiencies in the print and music industries, created a race to the bottom, and destroyed lots of revenue and jobs.

This is a really good (Free or donation) work on the huge changes coming due to technology.:

Amazon.com
The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (Paperback or donation or free ebook)
Martin Ford

Donation or paperback: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1448659817

Free: http://ieet.org/archive/LIGHTSTUNNEL.PDF

I have one paperback copy of this book and I rarely buy physical books anymore. I just wanted to have a copy to have in my bathroom bookshelf for when friends are over. :)

Honestly.... I am in favor of capitalism.


However, I still think that a lot of things are better off socialized. Healthcare, education, law enforcement, roads, power, and other forms of infrastructure and necessary services should be tax funded and transparently operated.


The government should also prevent private industry from abusing citizens and the environment.


If that makes me a socialist, then paint my ass red.



.....


On a side note....


I think that automation of America's workforce is going to escalate very dramatically in the next 20 years. Millions of truck drivers, delivery workers, taxi and bus drivers – well... ANYONE in the transportation industry really – face a very real threat from the coming automation of vehicles. We'll also soon see restaurant workers replaced by touchscreen kiosks and robots. Retail workers too.


I'm not a Luddite or anything, but I think we're getting to the point where automation will significantly outpace the rate of new jobs created.


Eventually we're going to end up with an economy that requires very little human labor. Kind of like the way farming and manufacturing used to involve tons of human labor, and now requires very little... that will happen to more and more industries.


When this happens socialism may be necessary... how will capitalism survive when there's almost no work? How will people keep spending money?


The only solution seems to be forcing companies to redistribute profits back out to the consumer base... or outright public ownership of industry.


I'm hard pressed to find a better solution.


P.S.

Interesting read about automation and the future economy:

The Lights in the Tunnel

You may want to check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating/dp/1448659817/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1342190948&sr=8-7&keywords=end+of+the+tunnel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

http://www.amazon.ca/The-End-Work-Decline-Post-Market/dp/0874778247

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating/dp/1448659817

Its really too wide of a concept to provide evidence for in a simple fashion. At the same time it's easy enough to say that large sectors of the economy will be massively downsizing their human resource component while still meeting demand, while other sectors that are also currently meeting all demand don't need more people. Unless some magic new sector comes along to employ people in a way that robots or software can't accomplish, there will be massive structural unemployment.

A couple of related books are:

a) [The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies] (http://www.amazon.com/Second-Machine-Age-Prosperity-Technologies/dp/0393239357/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407946623&sr=1-1&keywords=the+second+machine+age)

b) [The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future] (http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating-Technology/dp/1448659817/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407946576&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lights+in+the+tunnel)

They are both pretty sobering

>You realize, thanks to the glut currently on the job market, you're talking about decades before the numbers shrink to the point that this would actually happen. There would still be plenty of grads coming out every year.

Better late than never.

>And otherwise, it's a symptom of having too many people for the work at hand. We're getting too good at automation, and we're running out of make-work for people.

We're already at that point with auto production. Auto unions fight to give jobs to union employees that can already be done by machines.

>Giving people an education is the only thing that will give them a chance to find decent work.

Giving people an education in areas that can not be replaced by machines, or an education in areas that create and maintain said machines, will give them a chance to find work.

This book would interest you. http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating-Technology/dp/1448659817?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254087521&sr=8-1