The article has points, but unless wages rise and workweeks shorten, the quality of life for the majority of workers will drop. The reduced need for people across the board will result in...
The article has points, but unless wages rise and workweeks shorten, the quality of life for the majority of workers will drop. The reduced need for people across the board will result in unemployment, at least in the short-medium term.
It would be nice if I could shorten my workweek when I automate aspects of my job, but the sad reality is I'm still expected to put in 40+ hours. So I have an incentive to hide my automations from my employer and work on side projects during work hours instead.
I agree the article has some very salient points, and is very well written. One of the topics I think it missed was the speed of change. While the industrial revolution reduced the need for...
I agree the article has some very salient points, and is very well written.
One of the topics I think it missed was the speed of change. While the industrial revolution reduced the need for farmers, and society adapted and people found new lines of work, this current change will be different. The adaptation to automation in farming has happened over the better part of a century. The automation of jobs by computer started in the 1970s and is only getting faster. Automated trucks exist right now. The transition to a world where the majority of trucks are automated will probably take less than a decade unless Congress legislates a roadblock. Assuming that the current fleet of truck drivers will either quietly switch careers or retire is a grave mistake. And that's only one example.
Anecdote: This matches my experience as someone providing bookkeeping and business ops consulting as automation has risen in the bookkeeping business in the last 5 years. In 2012, most...
Anecdote: This matches my experience as someone providing bookkeeping and business ops consulting as automation has risen in the bookkeeping business in the last 5 years. In 2012, most transactions were manually entered. You'd get the bank statement and manually transcribe that info into the financial software. Two people working full time could handle the bookkeeping for 10 small businesses.
Today, 1 person working half-time can do the same bookkeeping for 20 businesses. We aren't doing manual data entry but for a few last things that aren't easily machine-readable. (Handwritten checks are pretty much the final frontier, and I'm working like mad to get people to use online bill-payment.) If I set a rule like (Iff Bank Text = SAFEWAY, Vendor = Safeway & Expense = Groceries) I never have to manually touch it again.
Because of this, I'm spending a lot more of my time providing business management & operations consulting for my clients, and a lot less typing away trying to move data between incompatible systems. Some tasks fell away, and new tasks entered our repertoire.
And there are people who haven't moved with the times. Who are still doing it the old way and working twice as hard for half the compensation. Who didn't have the expertise to add on higher-end services. Who didn't have the flexibility to change when change started happening to them. This new reality won't work for everyone, and there's no net to catch the people who can't keep moving.
The article has points, but unless wages rise and workweeks shorten, the quality of life for the majority of workers will drop. The reduced need for people across the board will result in unemployment, at least in the short-medium term.
It would be nice if I could shorten my workweek when I automate aspects of my job, but the sad reality is I'm still expected to put in 40+ hours. So I have an incentive to hide my automations from my employer and work on side projects during work hours instead.
I agree the article has some very salient points, and is very well written.
One of the topics I think it missed was the speed of change. While the industrial revolution reduced the need for farmers, and society adapted and people found new lines of work, this current change will be different. The adaptation to automation in farming has happened over the better part of a century. The automation of jobs by computer started in the 1970s and is only getting faster. Automated trucks exist right now. The transition to a world where the majority of trucks are automated will probably take less than a decade unless Congress legislates a roadblock. Assuming that the current fleet of truck drivers will either quietly switch careers or retire is a grave mistake. And that's only one example.
Anecdote: This matches my experience as someone providing bookkeeping and business ops consulting as automation has risen in the bookkeeping business in the last 5 years. In 2012, most transactions were manually entered. You'd get the bank statement and manually transcribe that info into the financial software. Two people working full time could handle the bookkeeping for 10 small businesses.
Today, 1 person working half-time can do the same bookkeeping for 20 businesses. We aren't doing manual data entry but for a few last things that aren't easily machine-readable. (Handwritten checks are pretty much the final frontier, and I'm working like mad to get people to use online bill-payment.) If I set a rule like (Iff Bank Text = SAFEWAY, Vendor = Safeway & Expense = Groceries) I never have to manually touch it again.
Because of this, I'm spending a lot more of my time providing business management & operations consulting for my clients, and a lot less typing away trying to move data between incompatible systems. Some tasks fell away, and new tasks entered our repertoire.
And there are people who haven't moved with the times. Who are still doing it the old way and working twice as hard for half the compensation. Who didn't have the expertise to add on higher-end services. Who didn't have the flexibility to change when change started happening to them. This new reality won't work for everyone, and there's no net to catch the people who can't keep moving.
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