Trump wants to increase tariffs On china again .

a reply to: Aazadan

And yet, they are... You will never have 100% automation, and even if you do, you still need support staff composed of skilled and unskilled labour. I've worked for manufacturers in those "other" positions like R&D which would not exist independently without the manufacturing side.
Some processes are easier to automate than others, and even if automation was feasible for all the unskilled jobs, some of those jobs will still exist because not all companies will have the capital to invest in automation and the savings amortized over the course of years either do not justify the investment or the work product will not be produced over a long enough period/large enough amounts to justify the investment.
Money today is always worth more than money tomorrow. So if I need to invest $10 billion upfront or take out a loan with interest to automate a process that will save me a billion dollars over 20 years, I would much rather continue paying unskilled workers than throw capital at it.
And where it does include heavy automation, I still have unskilled workers doing general maintenance on the facility, operating my cafeteria, doing administrative tasks in support of the larger skilled workforce I need to design, maintain, repair, and oversee my automated production line.

It has nothing to do with being lazy, and everything to do with production.

The more advanced AI becomes the fewer jobs there will be. It is just getting started.

One day factories will only have one employee and a dog. The Employee will be there to watch over the machines and the dog will be there to keep the employee from messing with any of it.

a reply to: Grimpachi

Even if that were entirely true, you will still need people to build and repair the machines. You will still need vets to care for the dog. You will still need one guy to watch X-number of machines. And if we live the automated dream, costs come way down, and guess what happens to demand? Now we need more machines. We need more people, dogs, vets, machines, etc.

It's not entirely a downhill race. And as pointed out, many companies, especially smaller ones, will not have the capital or not want to invest the capital to automate simple tasks. So while McDonald's corporate restaurants have no problem shelling out $200,000 for automated kiosks to recoup their money in savings over the next decade, individual franchisees will probably have a harder time making that decision. They may or may not have $200,000 in capital to automate, may not want to pay interest on a loan to do it, may not wish to decapitalize for limited return over a long time-frame.

It's not as simple as "well, long-term, the machine saves money". Buying a car with cash saves a LOT of money over taking out a loan. How many people and businesses buy cars cash? Most either do not have the money, or they would rather not spend it all on the car upfront when it can be amortized. And the business case for saving money on the car purchase is a lot more clear than many automation costs.

There have recently been quite a few studies about automation, which sectors will be hit the hardest, how many jobs will be created vs. lost, and so on. I think it's going to worse than people realize, and not as expensive to automate as some people think.

originally posted by: fleabit
There have recently been quite a few studies about automation, which sectors will be hit the hardest, how many jobs will be created vs. lost, and so on. I think it's going to worse than people realize, and not as expensive to automate as some people think.

That's fine. Experience says things are rarely as bad (or good!) as the narratives that get airtime. Those narratives are generally the sensationalist narratives that drive ratings. Fear sells.

Let's assume production is headed to 100% automation by 2050. All the low skilled production jobs replaced by low cost machines:

Can you think of a single reason, we would not want the jobs (unskilled and skilled) associated with manufacturing until 2050 and beyond? If automation is cheaper than actual labourers, we are more competitive domestically than Chinese slave labor factories by 2050, are we not? And even if low-skill jobs disappear en masse at 2050, we have thirty years of job openings (that increases everyone's wage, not just those workers) that otherwise would go to China, right?

originally posted by: rickymouse
We already have lots of dishes, I won't be buying any China.

Most of the stuff we buy we really do not need, we can afford it so we buy more things we should not be buying. It is way better than the green new deal at correcting the polution that is contributing to climate change. At least we won't be paying mega bucks for gas to go to the new job created because we are now competative with China.

I think a consumer based society is a lot like having junk food in your house when you want to diet... If it is there you tend to want to eat it if it is not there then you do not think about it. How much crap do we buy each year that we really do not need or hardly use after we get it. How many phones, cars, electronic upgrades, clothing, shoes, gadgets etc. do we buy because of compulsive buying and not based on true need?

As far as speed to switch to US base one just needs to look at oil fracking of how fast that industry went from nothing to huge in a very short period of time.

a reply to: RadioRobert

The problem is AI can learn. The people required to operate automation is lessening.


Automation is lessening manufacturing jobs. Now yes we will switch the job market to different applications but those people are not currently trained. Nor does economic expansion done the way trump is doing create an environment for innovation.

So in a sense yes automation will create more AI developers and tech industry jobs over time but not equal to those lost. Unless we plan a new economy model based 9n long term protection and gains rather than print and spend like the modern economy.

I am not sure you understand as we head towards AGI that the humans needed become less and less. Your model doesnt show reality of the markets where automation destroys jobs. There are not net gains in auto for instance.

Personally I just dont think tariffs as a negotiating tactic work or ever had long term. We would do better making small changes in policy over time. We haven't even discussed the rule of unintended consequences in economic interventionism.

a reply to: midnightstar

Usually being a leader in exports means your economy is worse than people buying. Automation does change that a bit but not in this example.

a reply to: RadioRobert

Machines will be able to build and repair machines with AI and...

The food industry is already starting to be automated and that isn't even with AI. Assuming AI doesn't go all kill kill then it will make a lot of human jobs obsolete.

You’re 100% correct

Trump is the saviour, a god send

a reply to: luthier

So in a sense yes automation will create more AI developers and tech industry jobs over time but not equal to those lost...
Your model doesnt show reality of the markets where automation destroys jobs

Again, let's accept that at face value for fun: can you explain your rationale for seemingly abandoning domestic manufacturing which under your model prediction would actually undercut foreign manufacturing benefits (labor costs) while capital improvement toward automation would cost roughly the same? That would still be a boon for domestic manufacturing would it not? Why abandon the manufacturing base in that circumstance, if you believe it to be true?
Second, assuming that turns true by 2050, why abandon the short term gain in jobs possible through policies that encourage reshoring based on a belief that thirty years from now we will not need those jobs to be mass producers?
Third, circling back to the first point, the existence of those domestic industries -- regardless of level of automation-- will always result in some jobs, and resulting revenue streams for the government through various taxes, neither of which exist in our current state of fundamental trade imbalance. Wjy are we watching them offshore instead of promoting them? Because they do not meet your arbitrary metric for job creation or revenue? Is some not always more healthy than none?I

Explain exactly why we should stop caring if domestic manufacturing disappears?

a reply to: Grimpachi

That again ignores the cost of capitalization as opposed the amortized cost of labour...

a reply to: RadioRobert

Do you not think the cost of these things will come down with time as well as them becoming better at what they are designed to do? The market for automated cooks is far larger than automating a car factory.

The cost of an employee is more than just the pay its the insurance as well as the training and job search. At some point I think automation will be far cheaper than employees.

a reply to: Grimpachi

It already is.

If a machine can do it, humans can not do it more cost effectively. Remember, machines do not replace humans on a 1:1 basis. Machines run 24/7 for virtually nothing (electricity is damn near free). That means a single machine replaces 4.2, if the machine works twice as fast, it replaces 8.4 people. Then it also replaces management, which if you take a 4:1 ratio means the machine replaces 11. If the cost of those 11 people are $20/hour at 2080 hours per year each between compensation and costs on the employers side, that's $457,600 in savings from a single machine. Even at $350,000 for a single robot (and they're much cheaper than that), you recoup your investment in just a couple of months.

a reply to: Aazadan

I bet in the next 10 years fast food becomes so automated only the cleaning staff is human.

a reply to: Aazadan

I heard a very interesting thing on the radio the other day. It was about the topic of automation. A real life example came up of a highly automated assembly line where there was one procedure which was ridiculously inefficient. The robots were perfectly happy just doing the same inefficient thing, over and over. One of the humans, who was also on the line, got fed up and came up with a solution. A simple one which didn't involve changing the code, purely mechanical.

The point being that machines just don't give a damn, they do what they are programmed to do. Frustration, a very human emotion, led to innovation. So, in a static world there could very well be no place for humans but in the real world, which changes, it's not likely that humans will be replaced. Unless lower efficiency is desirable.

meanwhile one of the world leaders in AI is owned and run by a person who attempted to automate everything in the production of vehicles. It did not work out as planned, as it turns out, humans still perform some manual tasks better than machines with AI can. The person who runs those two companies? Elon Musk.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

“We had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts. And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing," he said. "We got complacent about some of the things that we felt were our core technology. “We put too much new technology into the Model 3 all at once. This should have been staged."

As for him being involved in cutting edge AI
en.wikipedia.org...

Not to mention AI being involved in the roll out of autonomous vehicles by the end of 2020.

When it comes to production and supply chain issues, AI can be fantastic and efficient at some things. Other things however are much easier and faster (as well as cheaper) to have humans do.



Now for the PPI claim, and how I supposedly don't grasp it or CPI. Indexes are fantastic tools if and only if you can actually take into account all variables, which is impossible to do. Sure you can make the numbers ad up to meet about where they should, however this is due to creation of variables that are not static nor even fully realized as to their implications. If they were we could easily build a perfect model, and centralization would reign supreme due to perfect efficiency between steps, resulting there being no set in stone understanding of what the best model of economics are. BLS issues and reports these statistics to have a rough understanding of general economic health, they are however incomplete. This means that when people are claiming to have a better understanding of economics due to variables A B C, it is possible that the actual factors at play are X Y Z. For goodness sake in the near past monetary velocity was seen as the preeminent way to control an economy by major economists, which is a bit silly considering most money is fiat.

Economics is not a physical science, it is a set of abstract models that are full of errors and inaccuracies, which means that measurements pertaining to these are inherently abstractions and not necessarily accurate, nor correct, including CPI and PPI. Even more so for CPI and PPI when there are incentives to misreport them for financial gain.

a reply to: midnightstar

With the Next One , Trump gets Free Eggroll , Plus a Soda ...........

a reply to: Zanti Misfit

And more expensive stuff.

I'd rather pay more to combat global warming that to play in Trump's economic war game. You know who pays the tariffs, right?

a reply to: Phage

What You Personally Want here is Irrelevant , I Did Not Vote for you as my President . The Man I Voted for has my Full Support in Combating a Communist Country that has Adopted Capitalism in order to Prop Up a Dying Economy by Covertly and Outright Stealing the Intellectual Property of other Nations .Economic War Saves Lives , it's More Humane considering the Alternatives Mr. Bootae .