It's not impossible AI will be different. But I doubt it'd lead to nation wide layoffs over months, it'd probably be over a few years at absolute worst. And there'd be plenty of time to respond with redistributive welfare then as it's needed instead of trying to preemptively set it up when we don't need it.
Even with high tech growth, the "unemployment rate" is low. It's just most of the jobs are crappy, low-wage jobs that don't support a person or family.
Shouldn’t it be “nest of eggheads”? Also, since the unemployment rate excludes those who are not looking for work, the argument would be that technological unemployment would be invisible on such a chart, since the workers would disappear once UC/UI benefits ran out. The technologically unemployed wouldn’t show up on the chart, so the theory would go, until those workers were either ready to do something else, or were desperate to do anything. And some of those would just surf from wave to wave of unemployment as the rising tide of technology swept along. The 2020 unemployment rate, which was off the chart, both literally and figuratively, kind of refutes that thinking, since it was at least partly technological innovations that brought the rate down so fast.
I don't seriously doubt that this will hold true up to a point. Sooner or later, though, there won't be anything humans can do that AIs and their robot bodies can't do better, faster, and cheaper. You can quibble about comparative advantage, but at the end of the day I find it hard to believe that human labor will be economically meaningful in such a world. I think Bryan's point here is mostly a good one. As long as AI remains a "normal" technology, it will have normal effects. Once it becomes, you know, another sapient species on Earth...
People dread the prospect of _change_. They don’t like to lose their jobs, even if they get another, better job reasonably quickly.
People who claim to like change don’t want it to happen to _them_. They want to choose changes for themselves. Most actually like variety; temporary changes they choose for themselves.
Bryan did your read 'the rise of bullshit jobs' my David Graeber? I found it eye opening. I'd love your take on it. According to the book technology didn't replace jobs because there was a big raise in jobs with no real purpose. Jobs for complying with ridiculous administrative rules, jobs that could be replaced by technology but they are not precisely because they would imply lying people off, etc.
It's not impossible AI will be different. But I doubt it'd lead to nation wide layoffs over months, it'd probably be over a few years at absolute worst. And there'd be plenty of time to respond with redistributive welfare then as it's needed instead of trying to preemptively set it up when we don't need it.
Even with high tech growth, the "unemployment rate" is low. It's just most of the jobs are crappy, low-wage jobs that don't support a person or family.
An economist worries about unemployment trends. A normal person worries about his particular job.
This is also why normal people worry about being replaced by foreigners.
This is, further, why normal people don't worry about what economists think.
most who claim about Technological unemployment will say you will find it in the Labor force participation rate and not the unemployment rate
Shouldn’t it be “nest of eggheads”? Also, since the unemployment rate excludes those who are not looking for work, the argument would be that technological unemployment would be invisible on such a chart, since the workers would disappear once UC/UI benefits ran out. The technologically unemployed wouldn’t show up on the chart, so the theory would go, until those workers were either ready to do something else, or were desperate to do anything. And some of those would just surf from wave to wave of unemployment as the rising tide of technology swept along. The 2020 unemployment rate, which was off the chart, both literally and figuratively, kind of refutes that thinking, since it was at least partly technological innovations that brought the rate down so fast.
The smarter take is that technology increases real per hour labor costs.
I don't seriously doubt that this will hold true up to a point. Sooner or later, though, there won't be anything humans can do that AIs and their robot bodies can't do better, faster, and cheaper. You can quibble about comparative advantage, but at the end of the day I find it hard to believe that human labor will be economically meaningful in such a world. I think Bryan's point here is mostly a good one. As long as AI remains a "normal" technology, it will have normal effects. Once it becomes, you know, another sapient species on Earth...
People dread the prospect of _change_. They don’t like to lose their jobs, even if they get another, better job reasonably quickly.
People who claim to like change don’t want it to happen to _them_. They want to choose changes for themselves. Most actually like variety; temporary changes they choose for themselves.
People prefer incremental change.
Bryan did your read 'the rise of bullshit jobs' my David Graeber? I found it eye opening. I'd love your take on it. According to the book technology didn't replace jobs because there was a big raise in jobs with no real purpose. Jobs for complying with ridiculous administrative rules, jobs that could be replaced by technology but they are not precisely because they would imply lying people off, etc.