[KaiserJeep]

This is a Swedish documentary, meaning that the writer/director was Magnus Sjöström, his third work. All of the footage was shot in the USA in English, with the exception of some interviews, those are open captioned in English. The production company is the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR). There is an edited 58 minute version of this documentary streaming on Amazon Prime under the above title, which is where I watched it.



The topic is similar to the earlier documentary Obsolete, discussed in this thread: http://peakoil.com/forums/obsolete-t73001.html

This documentary is more focussed and in-depth than Obsolete, and even more unnerving. They estimated herein that the technology to automate and replace 47% of the current existing human jobs already exists. It is virtually certain that almost all will disappear as the capital equipment gets replaced in the varying-length capital cycles used by businesses. Once again, the expected ratio of employed/unemployed in 2046 is 25%/75%, and human labor is largely obsolete.

This documentary also discussed the impact of pro-jobs actions by politicians and labor unions. When forced to retain humans in place of automation, without exception all of the corporations studied became uncompetitive, either going entirely out of business or off-shoring to another country where they were free from political and union influence. In all cases, the result was fewer jobs than the same company would have retained under automation.

I was reminded of this as I watched the UPS delivery van this morning. There was a driver who got out and carried my package to the door, then returned to the waiting van and pushed a button. The rotating scanner on the roof began revolving, and the van moved away. This was obviously an experiment, a converted minivan instead of the large brown truck most of us are familiar with, and this is Silicon Valley, but I worried for the small children on my street.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')This documentary is more focussed and in-depth than Obsolete, and even more unnerving. They estimated herein that the technology to automate and replace 47% of the current existing human jobs already exists. It is virtually certain that almost all will disappear as the capital equipment gets replaced in the varying-length capital cycles used by businesses. Once again, the expected ratio of employed/unemployed in 2046 is 25%/75%, and human labor is largely obsolete.

[MD]

I spent my entire working career in the business of automation/robotics, with the philosophical position that I/we/the industry were eliminating dirty, dangerous, and dull jobs with the additional benefit of enhancing standards of living for all humans.

Now what to do with the idled humans? They become consumers, and nothing more. Ideally we would be moving towards a society where humans can pursue creative endeavors and "enjoy the good life".

Instead we have created a resource consuming machine of global scale with populations consuming at an ever accelerating pace.

Automation is not the problem. It's supposed to be, and can be, part of the solution. The problem is our economic system that's designed to operate under growth conditions.

Thus, we're trapped by our own success!

Oh and thanks for the reference. I have Amazon Prime and will definitely give that one a watch.

[KaiserJeep]

No, our economic system was never "designed". Capitalism is the natural result of primate behaviors plus the intelligence of humans. Our genes are insisting that we consume more and more, that we have a place where only our tribe or family group exists, and that we mature males have a harem of females. Civilization, agriculture, medicine, money, and marriage/divorce/etc. are the human conventions we use to prevent a constant state of ape warfare and cannibalism.

More properly, they WERE the conventions that applied before automation, especially that automation driven by digital electronics, made human labor obsolete. Now here we are in the 21st century, with all those ape instincts intact, no real way to change those behaviors that are inspired by evolution, simply excess humanity with no more purpose.

The take away message is that the vast majority of humans today will never even grapple with these concepts, as they are too busy trying to find food, water, and shelter, just like the majority of the 7.5 Billion human contemporaries. The Kudzu Apes, who are unsustainable in any numbers exceeding about a billion worldwide.

Once you have figured out that we are so screwed by our ape natures, one thing you might do is get a bunch of guns, go up some where high, and reduce the excess humans by firing into the crowd below. Don't forget to shoot yourself before the SWAT guys do it for you, you have to be sure.

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'N')o, our economic system was never "designed". Capitalism is the natural result of primate behaviors plus the intelligence of humans. Our genes are insisting that we consume more and more, that we have a place where only our tribe or family group exists, and that we mature males have a harem of females. Civilization, agriculture, medicine, money, and marriage/divorce/etc. are the human conventions we use to prevent a constant state of ape warfare and cannibalism.

More properly, they WERE the conventions that applied before automation, especially that automation driven by digital electronics, made human labor obsolete. Now here we are in the 21st century, with all those ape instincts intact, no real way to change those behaviors that are inspired by evolution, simply excess humanity with no more purpose.

The take away message is that the vast majority of humans today will never even grapple with these concepts, as they are too busy trying to find food, water, and shelter, just like the majority of the 7.5 Billion human contemporaries. The Kudzu Apes, who are unsustainable in any numbers exceeding about a billion worldwide.

Once you have figured out that we are so screwed by our ape natures, one thing you might do is get a bunch of guns, go up some where high, and reduce the excess humans by firing into the crowd below. Don't forget to shoot yourself before the SWAT guys do it for you, you have to be sure.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Things can change. Maybe when people have no choice, they will.

If automation truly takes over a huge proportion of the jobs, then something like having a robot tax and a standard basic income (whether universal or not) will be needed -- or there will indeed be doom of some flavor.

So suddenly, "making it" and comparing earnings (and the trappings of success) won't be "a thing" for a huge proportion of the population, assuming they're basically all making the same income (with adjustments for things like children, perhaps).

So this could be a blessing or a curse. Will people (presumably getting socialized medicine at some point) pursue things that interest them? Will much of that be information tech. of some sort, powered by solar, wind, and batteries, and thus not overly harmful to the planet (assuming the computer materials are recycled where possible)?

Or will people be depressed, living like drug addled rats. Will education for most seem pointless since they know "I don't have to work"?

I don't think we really have ANY IDEA. I was recently reading a book on the Universal Basic Income, and one of the key things is that few meaningful (i.e. emulating what a widespread UBI provided by government over the long term) experiments have even been done.

If only 1% or 5% of people are working, then it seems like progress will slow down greatly, unless AI can actually become truly intelligent and creative and foster lots of progress on its own. So maybe capitalism won't be the primary system, and maybe rapid increases in consumption can die down.

Of course, one problem will be preventing people from endlessly having kids and causing even more massive overpopulation, if they're bored and there are no economic consequences for having lots of kids.

So I don't know, but it seems like there is plenty of room for things to become RADICALLY different as far as the core way most of society functions -- if working isn't the center point and requirement of 90+% of peoples' lives.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Thanks KJ for the pointer. From seeing that, I saw a number of related documentaries on similar subjects or branching subjects. Boring critter that I am, I tend to like documentaries if they're well made and based on thoughtful ideas.

It looks to me like, as usual, TPTB will do little about this issue until and unless it is a massive problem in our collective faces -- and then they'll act like no one could have seen it coming. And yes, we'll keep electing the same goofs anyway.

[KaiserJeep]

I get the impression that a lot of you believe that there is somebody in charge of the economy, working to fulfill a master plan made by other somebodies.

I personally believe that nobody plans the economy, nobody is in charge, and chaos rules. North Korea is by my count the 44th failed economy by somebody who believed that two fools named Marx and Engels could find their own asses with two hands and a flashlight - which they could not. The fools who follow those two fools and attempt to devise an economy that does not acknowledge and allow for ape instincts, will always fail to achieve a working economy.

Chaos rules, today and always. 7.5 Billion humans each fulfilling primate instincts in myriads of different ways. Nobody in charge, no plan, no measure of success other than by counting the numbers of Kudzu Apes. The most successful large animal the world has yet produced.

[evilgenius]

I've been thinking about the topic of artificial intelligence and human work. Will anybody have a job soon? I think the answer is, yes. I don't necessarily think that will be because people will train themselves to do this and that which is so highly skilled or only capable of being done by humans, so that they can do something in demand and yet separate from what machines can do.

What people, especially purposeless people, do is to look for any way to produce value. The best paying work is always in sales. It's those who value purpose who have always paid those people. In the absence of those who value purpose to incentivize them, people will still carry out this behavior. It's just that it shows up as very poor people gathering trash, usually at some landfill, to see if they can get any money for it. Going into business for the sake of making money does have merit as an argument for going into business, but it is by no means the argument which has lifted man to where he is now. That honor is reserved for purpose, without which we are all those garbage patch hunter gatherers.

It should be clear that the concept of ownership under capitalism is one of exercising purpose. The very structure of the system reserves purpose to the shareholder. It's what really fails, or goes away, when a firm declares bankruptcy. While true that it isn't possible to glean singular purpose from the diversity of shareholders in today's very large public companies, the typical organizational structure of boards and executives does a pretty good job of approximating it so as to run the company with purpose.

Those who don't have purpose work for the company. To an accountant, they are expenses. Their productivity brings in value above what they cost. People will still be perceived as capable of doing that when the machines take over. In the same way that web page development has become pejoratively about SEO above all of the other skill sets involved, the workforce of the future will become all about focusing upon those niche segments where humans can enhance sales. People can't get away from other people. It's not in their natures to do so. Doing so, they love to pick winners and triumph over losers. Humans have a love affair with suffering that has economic dimensions, with ramifications that strip us of purpose. That's exactly the realm that future workers will thrive in. The best that machines will every be able to do is arrive at a status quo that endures, like how the dinosaurs ruled the earth with no end in sight before the meteor strike. Everything in machine land will be 'just so.' It's those pesky people finding value who will always do things even the machines never thought of, like how to flip that big whale of a customer or influence that child to buy that pet rock.

[KaiserJeep]

Interesting thoughts. We beat this topic to death last year in this thread:

https://peakoil.com/forums/obsolete-t73001.html

Start by watching the documentary linked in the first post, then read the thread posts, then re-read your own post above.

[evilgenius]

I found Obsolete to be too conspiracy theory oriented. I don't see big business adopting technology in order to disenfranchise the %99. I do see them doing it in order to cut costs. The bottom line is that automation will never fully replace human influence when it comes to people making buying decisions. So, unless monopoly is going to arrive necessarily from the automation revolution, there will still be choices to be made regarding which company's product to purchase. That's where human beings working comes in. People influencing other people will always be a part of making those decisions. Yes, almost all, maybe all, other work will become automated.

Ok, why does it matter? It only matters if the automation of work results in shrinking the money supply so much that whatever economy that results cannot support so many people as earth is projected to have by then relative to the cost of capital which it took to get us there. That could happen if the only work left were in sales, probably. Fortunately, there are other places where the necessary money could come from. The one most people are considering is transfer payments. Most people are worried about some sort of moral hazard attached to that. The critics of that concept can't always articulate what that moral hazard might be, but they make a good case that if it does exist it could be a real problem.

At the heart of the criticism is the idea, as far as I can see, that money in the hands of people for which some sort of suffering isn't attached in order to define its value for them will result in such profligacy that the world would not last. Yeah, except markets define the value of money, not some lingering emotional anchor left in people's psyches. Lingering anchors like that are responsible for a lot of suffering. They are the main reason why arguments to increase the minimum wage in many places fail. Even as prices go up all around them, those lingering anchors set $7.25, or whatever, as some kind of huge benchmark that it is some kind of economic sin to surpass.

But the lingering anchor is pertinent to today's not so automated economy. And, in any case, it is an excuse dreamed up by those who don't want to see people get money for doing nothing. There still could be a certain moral hazard that exists well outside of the jealousy of those who value judgement above reason. That moral hazard could be tied to purpose.

For all of my explanation of workers being solely expenses to business, those workers don't view it that way themselves. I see this at my job, when at a nursing home I interact with a nurse and there are sometimes many hangers on surrounding her. Those people are sometimes there to get their medication, sometimes jonesing hours before the time, but not always. Sometimes even the most degraded by dementia can still regard the nurse at her station as having something to do with purpose. Those people, along with probably most who make the moral hazard argument, seek purpose in the activity. They can't understand it in the philosophy behind the activity.

I've been trying to say for some time that capitalism is about owning the philosophical high ground. At its most simple that means for whom is an activity done. Simply saying for whom, though, is too simple a way to look at it. The philosophical high ground can be parsed into more characterizations than that. The best way to see this is to look at how value is gotten from ownership over time. Owners don't just gain by seeing the price of their shares go up. They also see gains by receiving dividends.

In an automated future, ownership doesn't have to remain as tied to the single package idea that it does today. Stock can have more classes, which reflect this. This would especially apply to larger companies. Purpose can be parsed, and those groups which result played off of each other. Some shares might have a much more static value, which wouldn't rise so much, or not at all, with market speculation. Other shares may be wholly subservient to those machinations. Taken all in all, those who own, via all of the different mechanisms for ownership in future, as well as those who still work and those who receive transfer payments could constitute an economy as they bought and sold as they deemed fit for their own lifestyles. That sort of economy ought to be sufficient to sustain the value of money relative to the cost of capital associated with it.

[KaiserJeep]

Well, now you are getting away from the topic, IMHO. I focussed on two central concepts, the first being that many people are involuntarily unemployed, and the actual figure is nearer to 22% than the figure published by the government. Then the second concept was that at least 40% of existing jobs have already been obsoleted by existing technology, and that in the next capital equipment renewal cycle, people will be replaced by machines, because they still have jobs only as an artifact of obsolete technology.

I believe that a society where 78% work and pay taxes is very different from a future society where possibly only one person in four is employed and paying taxes, and three quarters depend upon the government dole. That seems like a level of change that puts us in a very different place. The scary part being that silly ideas such as the UBI become all too likely. The UBI, like welfare, would seem to be destructive of the motives to earn income, through labor rather than crime. In fact, the UBI might be a destructive force for society, unmatched by any others.

[evilgenius]

I agree about the UBI, when it is seen as a panacea. I think a form of it, transfer payments, will be needed in the future, however, because some people simply will not find a place in the order. Either through taking risk and failing, or simply being totally incompetent at use of capital, certain people who are no good at sales will need to survive off of transfer payments. Many are not any good at sales, so there may be a need. There are loads of things that may have to happen as the new order forms. Understanding the role of the government as an injector of money into the economy in that way is only one of them.

One thing that strikes me is regulating ownership of automated devices. It may not be a good idea to allow a manufacturer of automated devices, let's say Ford Motor Company, to own the goods it produces as they are then used within the economy. Perhaps such a thing ought to be called monopolistic? The reason I say this is that I think we will see a continuation of the trend toward independent contracting replacing workers, but with outsourcing of automated devices instead. If manufacturers of those devices are allowed to own them for lease or contract with those who use them, then it cuts out those who might buy the devices from that manufacturer and then go into business providing them to the company which desires to use them.

In the case of Ford, they apparently want to go whole hog in the direction of self-driving autos. They plan on providing fleet service. Which means they plan on owning all of the cars that are used to provide transportation that they can, instead of selling them to capitalists who would then provide them for that purpose. I'm not sure that's a good idea because of the loss of not only competition, but also opportunity. We would be talking about a world where people take the risk of buying a self-driving car in order to put it into service. They wouldn't have a job per se, but they would have an income. Competition would probably lead to them needing to own several self-driving cars as the price they were contracted at was set by the market. If the manufacturers also compete, that price could be so low that no ordinary person could afford to take the risk because the initial point of entry into competition would be at the level of a fleet. So, regulation will also be very important, at least as much as transfer payments.

Incidentally, I don't think this type of regulation would prevent Ford from getting into manufacturing house building robots or surgery bays. It would simply limit them from also becoming the big house building contractor or the surgery provider, amongst other things. Regulation in the new environment doesn't have to mean that large scale corporations (and there probably would be distinctions under the law between large and small scale corporations) wouldn't have options. In fact, it might mean that they understood those options better.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', '
')One thing that strikes me is regulating ownership of automated devices. It may not be a good idea to allow a manufacturer of automated devices, let's say Ford Motor Company, to own the goods it produces as they are then used within the economy. Perhaps such a thing ought to be called monopolistic? The reason I say this is that I think we will see a continuation of the trend toward independent contracting replacing workers, but with outsourcing of automated devices instead. If manufacturers of those devices are allowed to own them for lease or contract with those who use them, then it cuts out those who might buy the devices from that manufacturer and then go into business providing them to the company which desires to use them.

[evilgenius]

Yes, the court system is the right place to deal with such things. Any specific example aside, as Ford draws criticism, what I mean is recognizing the problem, so that it is ever brought before the courts. After all, it's illegal to rape children, but that didn't stop the Catholic Church from hiding it, and many associated with it from silence. Because you can't help but have victims, the story has come to light. But it has come to light because for the first time society is at a place where those victims feel comfortable exposing the abuse. What happened to them, and those before them, was always illegal. It was just never prosecuted. Chances are, many of the prosecutors who failed to do so were either Catholics or had reason to sympathize, placed undo trust before the law, with the Catholic Church.

Incidentally, I only mention that kind of monopolistic threat because I was thinking about how ordinary people can become capitalists within the new order that will form when automation comes into full bloom. I suppose I was thinking about that because of the importance of competition within any capitalist structure. But the Twentieth Century taught us that such things as oligopolistic competition form under competitive environments, and both the courts and society found them acceptable. They still left room for competition, but did tend to cut out the start up after a certain phase of the life cycle of an industry was established. Those centers held, even as new companies which were almost completely beholden to the parent company were spun off. Such was the driving power of a corporation which became such an economic center within an oligopolistic environment. The same can be said for the franchise model, which many would call illegal but is a vital element within our current system. I wonder how much of that will come about under automation? What will be the natural intersections where very large corporations make more sense, for the benefit of society. What kinds of good things wouldn't we have under automation if they were prevented out of fear? And, genuinely, what kinds of things do we need to be afraid of?

To pry deeper, we could use the self-driving model. There are certain businesses which outsource delivery for them right now. They contract, usually with a general contractor, for that part of their business. I drive for one such general contractor. The only thing keeping me from being as easily replaced as a taxi driver is that people in my position have to be vetted more extensively than your average Uber driver. The company that I do the deliveries for cannot just pay somebody to make an app and post the needed deliveries on it as and when. The pool of people on the app wouldn't be large enough, as, of course, they would expect those on the app to pay for their own vetting costs and thus the pool wouldn't be large enough for them to enjoy pricing power regarding delivery costs. It's much more efficient for the company to haggle with and coerce the general contractor. When things become truly automated, and there is no appreciable difference between one driverless car and another, that would change. All that's required then is standardized loading and unloading. They could make an app and ask which capitalists out there will short-term contract their car(s). That's when competing against a fleet would be difficult. Somebody who owns ten driverless cars might not be able to pay off their capital costs, and enjoy any kind of economic gain if the pricing structure for their services was arrived at under such market conditions. I can see how a person going into this business might labor under an unreasonable expectation if they thought they could simply take the risk of getting into the business with one car, as the profit might be too slim to actually support their expectations as people. But when you consider that owning ten cars might not either, does that send up a red flag? Maybe the standard should be one of whether a properly managed activity will bring in profit, period, at any level of involvement? Maybe the ability to scale would be more important? Right now, since the human element is still so important, we haven't had to consider such things. There are fudges, of course, like how a person can implement a much more fuel efficient vehicle or how people can write off their mileage, but those still don't allow a market to exist where it is impossible to compete if you can organize the activity. I think, in all sorts of industries, we will face these kinds of questions.

[KaiserJeep]

The Catholic Church has always impressed me as an organization with above average integrity. It's not perfect, but it does have deep pockets, which makes it a target. The studies I have read suggest that the actual rate of child sexual predators is right about seven times higher in the public at large as in the CC. Of course, it is also true that family and friends commit most such heinous acts, and children often cover such up.

This is from somebody whose background is Irish Protestant, who was most recently (meaning decades ago) an Anglican.

As for the future, I have said more than once that there will basicly exist three groups. Call them the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Toadies. The names are complete descriptions of the groups. The members of government are mostly Toadies. A few will be so corrupt as to join the Haves while in office. The most recent real world example was Bill and Hill.

[mmasters]

A lot of traditional jobs will go belly up but I think automation and advancement will create a good number of new jobs as well. We'll see if the number of new jobs is significant enough but I don't think the situation will be as dire as many are predicting.

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')he Catholic Church has always impressed me as an organization with above average integrity. It's not perfect, but it does have deep pockets, which makes it a target. The studies I have read suggest that the actual rate of child sexual predators is right about seven times higher in the public at large as in the CC. Of course, it is also true that family and friends commit most such heinous acts, and children often cover such up.

This is from somebody whose background is Irish Protestant, who was most recently (meaning decades ago) an Anglican.

As for the future, I have said more than once that there will basicly exist three groups. Call them the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Toadies. The names are complete descriptions of the groups. The members of government are mostly Toadies. A few will be so corrupt as to join the Haves while in office. The most recent real world example was Bill and Hill.

[evilgenius]

So, am I entering into a circular or incongruous argument when I say that we will need at least some limited form of transfer payments, but that if you give the average homeless person what they want they will probably squander it? Doesn't that point out moral hazard? You could say that it's fine for God to talk about taking care of the poor. After all, He's got unlimitedness going for Him. He doesn't see how it can all go south if there is a lack of resources. I have to see things from my perspective, and I don't want to spend money on the poor! It isn't fair for me to be coerced into giving, actually, solely out of the fear that I will be punished by that unlimited God when He decides to once again directly interact with the world.

Ok, though I don't think we can dismiss the possibility that any of us can arrive at being poor, let's assume a person can focus only on the conniving poor. These aren't the poor who arrive there because they took risk and failed. These are the poor who want you to take care of them. What possible reason could there be for a government to supply those people with transfer payments? Well, there's insurance against crime. That's a pretty good reason, but I could probably spend less and take care of my stuff better. Let somebody who doesn't see that take the hit, not me. There's also the fact that doing so might get those people out of the way. It's undeniable that when their numbers grow too large they can sometimes gum up the works. It's even worse when they act collectively to do so, like how they will all camp on the same streets or engage in mob activities. How many panhandlers can I see in a day before I begin to fear for my safety?

I assert that morality at its heart is really about right-of-way. In essence, right-of-way is temporally derived. The arguments within it support those who began a thing, allowing them to continue it and defining everything else in relation to the movement. If somebody walks in front of you on the road you may do everything you can not to hit them, but if you do it isn't your fault. Similarly, you can't impose your will upon others outside of their consent. To use another road example, tailgating is about attempting to usurp another's place. And they haven't necessarily given consent merely because you can squeeze around them and take their place. Of course, on the road (and in life) no harm, no foul very often does (and should) apply. It's far better to begin again and make something out of where you are now than to stew in your juices.

By far the best reason to support transfer payments is that the poor induce compassion in us. Yeah, us. Not me, but us. Because they help me become a part of something larger, when I can contribute to them through the government. I can give to a person I see because I feel compassion, but if we do it together it says something about our society. Because it is an attribute of society it means that even though there will be people who don't agree with the practice, it will remain. That's why the roads don't go away, even though many people don't want to pay taxes for them. The roadways themselves are a property of society, after all.

It's also really important because of the importance of taking risk. How many people do you think would play computer games if when your character died in one of them it meant that you as a person could never play that game again? The same applies to taking risk when everyone is a capitalist. There are plenty of things to detest about the poor, but probably fewer in your eyes if you become one of them. It isn't necessary to make that journey, but to understand it does help us realize this is all one society. You don't have to act compassionately out of fear. You only have to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the gist of the current knock on capitalism as we understand it. The lack of it sets in motion what people may refer to as the plight of the worker, as they, stakeholders though they be, really don't have any call upon the capitalist's coin other than what the market for their efforts determines for them. In the world to come, understanding that alone might make us all better capitalists.