The new jobs in robotics or software development will not be enough to replace all the walmart or china factory jobs that will disappear.
The fact that there will be more robots and computers does not mean that the new jobs have to be in those areas. As it is, it is probably the case that more people spend more hours using computers in their work than people spend developing computer hardware and software. It's like a
jembe: one guy spends a couple of hours to make one, another guy spends hours and hours using it to farm.
There's also another way to look at robots, an argument that has been put forth by some pro-robotics types. Consider for example a factory that uses manual labour to produce bricks. Say it produces 10,000 bricks per day. That means a certain number of houses can be built per day and only so many people can be employed building houses . Now replace the manual labour with industrial robots that 1,000,000 bricks per day; more people can now get to building houses. Take the retail industry as another example. How many jobs there rely on the fact that industrial robots are busy producing tons of a large variety of stuff to be peddled? Or, at a "higher level": how many jobs are based on the availability of cheap electronics, produced by robots?
Self-driven cars doing taxis and driving trucks ... drones diriving commercial jets.
I think it's going to take a while---and very long while---before those do away with humans. Right now, the pilot of a commercial plane does almost nothing, except during take-off and landing, and drone technology has shown that those don't strictly require a human being. But how many people are prepared to board a flight without a pilot? Similarly, I expect that "driverless" cars will actually have drivers in them; they just won't be doing much.
I just feel we can rely on human nature to ensure there is work to be done. Something similar happened when people stopped eating wild fruits after they discovered farming. The consensus then must have been that there is nothing more left to do. Then population explosion and famines followed.
We already have thriving industries whose business consists primarily of catering for people with nothing to do---hospitality, entertainment, etc.---whether the "idle time" is long or short. Historically, industrialization and the endless introduction of machines have not done much to end work ... people buy labour-saving devices (robots next) and then go to work to pay for them. In fact many people in places with the least automation wouldn't mind being in the places with the most automation---because that's where the jobs are.
Another thing is that ideas like universal basic income are luxuries that only the rich places can afford to imagine. In places like Africa, the poverty-stricken masses are:
* not enjoying "unimaginable levels of economic efficiency and productivity",
* hardly in a position to afford the robots, and
* mostly have no jobs to lose.
They should be "safe" for at least another 50 years ... perhaps 100, the way things are going. In the meantime, they should work to get to where others are right now.
If Pundit's idea is to extrapolate to, say, 200 years from now, then, to my mind, a first question is whether people will still need "income" as we now think of it. Maybe robots will do everything that needs to be done and supply everything that needs to be supplied. The question might then be one of the supply of robots. Not a problem: robots will make robots, just as we procreate and therefore don't have to worry about a supply of humans. A truly brave new world.
Topic: There Goes Walmart Jobs (Read 4510 times)