After your job is gone

"...It’s always hard to say whether economic changes are cyclical or structural, but I think it’s fair to say that there’s a slowly accumulating consensus that technology is now destroying jobs faster than it’s creating them..."<p>That's a strange thing to say, because I'm of the opinion that more people <i>worldwide</i> are employed in productive economic activity than at any time in the past. In fact, that we've lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in the last decade or so.<p>I was going to start this off with "here we go again" because observing this great change that's overtaking us and catastrophizing about it seems to be a cottage industry -- and has been for many decades. No doubt general purpose computers and robots are going to massively change the face of society and commerce. I'll even go so far and <i>guess</i> that parts of our coming evolution are going to be painful -- just like it always has been.<p>But our relationship to the worldwide economy is a funny thing. We can sit back, assume that we're appropriately educated, tooled, and have the right attitude for success, then complain when there aren't jobs. Or we can choose to monitor and adapt to where the economy actually is. When we read about great changes coming, we should be thinking about the great opportunities we're going to have and how to adapt to meet the future, not about "what to do when your job is gone" That's self-fulfilling horse hockey.<p>There's an infinite amount of economic activity left in the world. The question is whether we want to learn how to engage in it or sit on the sidelines worrying about terrible structural changes that will doom us all.

I once believed this was a danger, but have come to realize it doesn't need to be. As a thought experiment, all it takes is one infinitely scalable "job" to make the proposed jobless dystopia implausible. And it exists. Entrepreneurship. There is no limit to to the number of new companies that can be created. Some of them will even employ a few non-entrepreneurs.<p>As for societal tectonic shifts needed, we just need a safety net to make it safer to fail, and easier to try. Things like socialized healthcare, simplified accounting rules for small businesses, annual instead of quarterly filing requirments for small business, no corporate minimum tax (I'm looking at you massachusetts) can help make this work.

What happens when there are no human workers to service the robots when they fail? There's no such thing as a machine with moving parts lasting forever and I seriously doubt robotics is at a point where a robot can replace its own failing moving part nor replace a bad power supply or fried circuit board.<p>Anything involving a repetitive task like assembling a phone, pouring a beer, flipping a burger or folding a box is of course naturally going to at some stage be almost completely automated. You can't win in a fight with a machine when it comes to efficiency. However, good luck seeing a robot replace an electrician, a plumber, a web developer, a dentist, police officer or paramedic any time soon.<p>I think the whole, "robots are going to take our jobs" argument is a little blown out of proportion. People have been saying since the 50's that they're worried machines are going to take their jobs and it hasn't really happened on the large scale people like to think it has nor will in the next 50 years.

This idea of post-scarcity is very troubling to me. Idle hands are the devils tools. <a href="http://dcentric.wamu.org/2012/04/the-effect-of-youth-unemployment-on-crime/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://dcentric.wamu.org/2012/04/the-effect-of-youth-unemplo...</a> People need purpose and to work, it's not just about earning a wage.

Very strange article.<p>Before reasoning further you need to answer very simple question "From where wealth comes?". If your answer is "from employer", "from the bank" or "from the VC". Please, think again. I'll wait.<p>Money always come from customers. Who are the customers in this bipolar model of the world?<p>Jobless class cannot be sustainable customer. All the money they have comes from elite class. It is very strange from the side of elite to donating jobless. Jobless can pay for elite's product by elite's money. Oh, miracle, elite can has all their money back! It is stupid cycle. If there is no spoils in process, elite has no reason to start it.<p>Elite as a customer is a more gloomy variant.

&#62; I think it’s fair to say that there’s a slowly accumulating consensus that technology is now destroying jobs faster than it’s creating them<p>Maybe, maybe not.<p>&#62;&#62; We juxtapose the effects of trade and technology on employment in U.S. local labor markets between 1990 and 2007. Labor markets whose initial industry composition exposes them to rising Chinese import competition experience significant falls in employment, particularly in manufacturing and among non-college workers. Labor markets susceptible to computerization due to specialization in routine task-intensive activities experience significant occupational polarization within manufacturing and nonmanufacturing but no net employment decline. Trade impacts rise in the 2000s as imports accelerate, while the effect of technology appears to shift from automation of production activities in manufacturing towards computerization of information-processing tasks in non manufacturing.<p><a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w18938" rel="nofollow">http://www.nber.org/papers/w18938</a>

Well if we ruin this economy we can just create a new one. :-) And I think that's what people will do. If this society offers you nothing then just start your own (see the New Delhi slums as an example). That's what Mennonites, Quakers, Amish and other groups do. They are loosely connected to the economy and aren't as affected by this as people fully involved with the global economy.<p>In a way activities like urban farming and doomsday preppers share a value system we'll see on a rise. The value system shared between these two activities is being self sufficient and control of your own destiny. We'll see this value of self sufficiency rise as the economy provides less and less to the unemployed. No one wants a hand out.

Artificial intelligence wont take my programming job during my lifetime. Should it happen in the future, though, our descendants will have a completely different mindset from ours, being able to solve the problems at that time.<p>Nothing to worry about.

This is actually something I've been thinking about recently. Once we've automated all of the "manual labour" jobs away in the name of efficiency or human safety, what do we do with the people who are only fit for manual labour?<p>Ethically, we're compelled to support these people. But does it make sense to maintain a population that contributes absolutely nothing? I imagine they'd start to get restless as well... I suppose we could always put them into giant hamster wheels to generate power.

Society eventually will work it out. If you get too many idle and angry people you get a revolution, everything is broken in the process, and lots of work to get back to the beginning of the problem again. Or maybe technology allows us to move to other planets and have to start again. Or maybe a disease kills 50% of the population. Lots of possibilities. People always assume the future won't be much different than the present.

<i>"not everyone can be a tech worker..."</i><p>Why not? Isn't it possible that we are affecting our own evolution? Those with rational and logic-oriented minds will thrive, and the numbers of those who aren't able to develop that capacity will begin to dwindle. Given the inclination towards pacifism, scientific reason, and tollerance that most rational people exhibit, seems like a net win for the future of humanity.

Unskilled labour will go (first), but there will be higher demands for developers, innovators, researchers, and a push to make the tools they use more efficient.<p>I only hope the government create a free and continuous education system for those who are out of work, so that they may develop their minds. I hope education in this new world becomes cultural.

This will only be a problem if technology is monopolised by a few. So another reason to worry about intellectual property.

Yes, but the status quo has to be maintained. Robots don't buy goods, so why make something if you can't sell it?

Machine labor will become cheaper and more skilled than human labor.

A four day work week would help.

I dont think TechCrunch is right on this one. Automation is not putting people out of work. The failure of future reward for a lifetime of effort is turning careerism on its head regardless of your career field.<p>Ive been a software engineer for 15 years, I have chosen to not work for almost 2 years.<p>I could get a job tomorrow, but I would quit in a couple months because the working conditions in software shops is pretty bad and the economic reward that looks good on paper doesn't really translate into anything I need or want.<p>And its not that I cant get a GOOD job. The working conditions at big company X, Y, Z are frankly terrible. Ive been there.<p>I may not represent the average unemployed person (and no I dont collect unemployment) but I can see where people are coming from, and I empathize.<p>Economic motivation will always trump automation.