De Grasse Tyson Takes on Luddites

estebanrey · 27 Jan 2016 at 21:33

I've heard plenty of people on these boards, in various topics, talk about how in a few years'/decades' time they'll be less jobs as we're replaced by computers/robots/automation.

I've never understood this logic seeing as it's an argument that is already several hundred years old and still hasn't come true yet.

Thankfully one of the most respected (and let's face it coolest) scientists on the planet seems to agree with me and says it better than I...

http://www.techinsider.io/neil-degrasse-tyson-robots-taking-jobs-2016-1

So is De Grasse Tyson wrong? Will we really see mass unemployment in the future as automation becomes more prevalent?

adolf hamster · 27 Jan 2016 at 21:41

One of my old tutors showed us a study in our robotics module that showed that robots "create" on average 2.9 jobs, as in many cases whilst automation might look on the surface to show companies laying off staff, the very fact that the company survives in an ever more competitive market keeps the majority of staff in employment where they too would otherwise be out of a job.

Theres also plenty of cases of for example welders keeping employment as managing the welding robots as lets face it who better to say if it's doing its job properly?

My view is its a good thing as it increases the availability of skilled labour with "menial" tasks being done by machines, i've never seen a robot doing a job i imagine a human would be very happy with being paid minimum wage to do.

estebanrey · 27 Jan 2016 at 21:44

adolf hamster said:
i've never seen a robot doing a job i imagine a human would be very happy with being paid minimum wage to do.

I dunno, I would do the job of a Sybian for minimum wage

adolf hamster · 27 Jan 2016 at 21:47

estebanrey said:
I dunno, I would do the job of a Sybian for minimum wage

You really should have explained that, i had to google it

SexyGreyFox · 27 Jan 2016 at 21:47

It happens especially if you are in Engineering like I was for 33 years.
eg When I was 16 and a Michelin Apprentice I worked in a department for 3 months that invented machines that would do the work of multiple people. One machine they were working on would replace around 25 workers.
I then went to a Gear Company working on Lathes, Milling machines & Shapers and one day a new CNC arrived and a couple of months later that one machine and one worker put 12 of us on the dole.
When I was at Creda/Hotpoint there were many automated machines that replaced multiple workers.

Participant · 27 Jan 2016 at 21:59

estebanrey said:
Thankfully one of the most respected (and let's face it coolest) scientists on the planet seems to agree with me

You agree with him, not the other way round

.

SexyGreyFox · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:02

adolf hamster said:
Theres also plenty of cases of for example welders keeping employment as managing the welding robots as lets face it who better to say if it's doing its job properly?

We had a welding shop at Creda/Hotpoint with many workers spot welding ovens together and other parts.
Along came the welding robots and one welder could check the work of all the robots while a shop floor were all made redundant.

Glaucus · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:06

SexyGreyFox said:
It happens especially if you are in Engineering like I was for 33 years.
eg When I was 16 and a Michelin Apprentice I worked in a department for 3 months that invented machines that would do the work of multiple people. One machine they were working on would replace around 25 workers.
I then went to a Gear Company working on Lathes, Milling machines & Shapers and one day a new CNC arrived and a couple of months later that one machine and one worker put 12 of us on the dole.
When I was at Creda/Hotpoint there were many automated machines that replaced multiple workers.

Far to simplistic view and wrong. It's bot about specific jibs. It's about overall. Robot designers, builders, programmers and all the other support staff.

As said this has been happening for thousands of years. With machines making work more efficient and requiring less man hours. Yet there's still plenty of jobs out there.

Obama was very right in his state of the union speech. Modern economics is very different and jobs aren't for life. More needs to be done to give people time to retrain, money to retrain, take pension pot with them etc. Technology is ever increasing it's rate. It's actually a good thing people should be far more free to move about rather than feeling stuck in a job they dislike.

Jokester · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:07

adolf hamster said:
My view is its a good thing as it increases the availability of skilled labour with "menial" tasks being done by machines, i've never seen a robot doing a job i imagine a human would be very happy with being paid minimum wage to do.

It won't just be menial tasks that are replaced by robotics, it's anything that doesn't require a level of creativity (and even then that will eventually go as AI advances).

We can't all earn a living as artists.

Glaucus · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:09

Jokester said:
It won't just be menial tasks that are replaced by robotics, it's anything that doesn't require a level of creativity (and even then that will eventually go as AI advances).

We can't all earn a living as artists.

When it gets to that people won't need to work. Which then leads to what would we do with all our spare time.

Jokester · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:11

Glaucus said:
When it gets to that people won't need to work. Which then leads to what would we do with all our spare time.

Yeah, because someone is going to give us all free stuff aren't they?

Glaucus · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:15

Jokester said:
Yeah, because someone is going to give us all free stuff aren't they?

Why not, it already happens we have social care,some countries even go further. You silly cant look at it like you do today. It'll be a huge shift.
It will get to a point where everyone can choose to do nothing and live a comfortable life, or do extra and earn more.

People should also check out Tyson rap battle tiff, with one thick rap person who believes in flat earth. It's amusing.

Jokester · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:19

Glaucus said:
Why not, it already happens we have social care,some countries even go further. You silly cant look at it like you do today. It'll be a huge shift.
It will get to a point where everyone can choose to do nothing and live a comfortable life, or do extra and earn more.

Yeah, they tax people in work to subsidise those that aren't. Works ok when it's 10% out of work. What if it's 90% out of work?

Fundamentally you are asking the extreme rich to agree to give up their wealth and be no different to anybody else as money would have to become meaningless if people no longer have to work.

estebanrey · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:19

SexyGreyFox said:
We had a welding shop at Creda/Hotpoint with many workers spot welding ovens together and other parts.
Along came the welding robots and one welder could check the work of all the robots while a shop floor were all made redundant.

Yes in that isolated case robots put people out of work. What you're missing though is those robots had to be invented by people, engineered by people, sold by people, and that company managed and administered by people.

The number of people employed in the company that build that robot and sold it to your company is higher than the number of people that were made redundant by it and hence in the bigger picture more jobs were created than lost.

SexyGreyFox · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:22

Glaucus said:
Far to simplistic view and wrong. It's bot about specific jibs. It's about overall. Robot designers, builders, programmers and all the other support staff.

So put 6 people on the dole but give 6 people a job behind the scenes however it doesn't work like that.
Once those bots are in place 1 man can keep the lot going on his own for years unless major maintenance needs to be done.

I forgot about the really big one in packing.
We had 20 assembly lines with an average of 6 Packers per line.
We then took delivery of a second hand packing machine and all 20 lines were diverted to this one machine with around 10 workers just before it to place packing bits on it.
That meant around 100 people lost their jobs when that machine was brought in and my mate Simon kept his eye on Lucifer (it was nicknamed). Every now & then it would break down but our own maintenance could deal with it.

The whole idea of Bots is cost cutting which all companies need to do to survive but in my experience there has NEVER been an equal amount of jobs in the background compared to the amount who lost their jobs.

Glaucus · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:24

Jokester said:
Yeah, they tax people in work to subsidise those that aren't. Works ok when it's 10% out of work. What if it's 90% out of work?

Fundamentally you are asking the extreme rich to agree to give up their wealth and be no different to anybody else as money would have to become meaningless if people no longer have to work.

It still works fine in a world filled with robots as the robots make wealth and countries tax the companies who use robots and share the wealth out. It's inevitable that this is what will happen at some point in the future.

It wouldn't work ATM as no one would be creating the wealth

Glaucus · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:27

SexyGreyFox said:
So put 6 people on the dole but give 6 people a job behind the scenes however it doesn't work like that.
Once those bots are in place 1 man can keep the lot going on his own for years unless major maintenance needs to be done.

I forgot about the really big one in packing.
We had 20 assembly lines with an average of 6 Packers per line.
We then took delivery of a second hand packing machine and all 20 lines were diverted to this one machine with around 10 workers just before it to place packing bits on it.
That meant around 100 people lost their jobs when that machine was brought in and my mate Simon kept his eye on Lucifer (it was nicknamed). Every now & then it would break down but our own maintenance could deal with it.

The whole idea of Bots is cost cutting which all companies need to do to survive but in my experience there has NEVER been an equal amount of jobs in the background compared to the amount who lost their jobs.

Except to does work like that. It's also not just jobs behind the scenes you see entirely new industries spring up. Either from the new technology, or the new technology makes something that wasn't cost effective now visavle.

If your opinion was true. Unemployment rates would have been steadily rising foe the thousands of years, which just isn't the case. Robots are just an expansion of machines that have made tasks require significantly less man hours.

Jokester · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:29

Glaucus said:
It still works fine in a world filled with robots as the robots make wealth and countries tax the companies who use robots and share the wealth out. It's inevitable that this is what will happen at some point in the future.

It wouldn't work ATM as no one would be creating the wealth

I can see the citizens of Luxembourg being taken care of, maybe not anyone else though!

Puzzled · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:29

Glaucus said:
Far to simplistic view and wrong. It's bot about specific jibs. It's about overall. Robot designers, builders, programmers and all the other support staff.

As said this has been happening for thousands of years. With machines making work more efficient and requiring less man hours. Yet there's still plenty of jobs out there.

It may not decrease the total number of jobs out there but it does take jobs away from the least skilled and least able to re-train. I heard of a factory in China that has managed to reduce it's staff numbers from 600 to 60 through automation with further cuts planned.
Now you could say that they have now been freed to find better work but who's going to pay for their living costs while they re-train?

A robot doing your job for you sounds great but it doesn't have a mortgage to pay or a family to feed and I don't see those things becoming free any time soon.

Jokester · 27 Jan 2016 at 22:30

Glaucus said:
If your opinion was true. Unemployment rates would have been steadily rising foe the thousands of years, which just isn't the case. Robots are just an expansion of machines that have made tasks require significantly less man hours.

The difference is that we're now rapidly approaching the singularity, and there will be no job that can't be carried out by a machine.