reidlos1624 t1_j9avw9r wrote on February 20, 2023 at 4:13 PM

Reply to comment by ItilityMSP in What about the jobs ChatGPT could create? by Ok-Cartoonist5349

Thing is demand for a lot of what you listed hasn't dropped despite there being several tools to massively improve productivity. We've seen huge increases in productivity since the 50's and we are now at 3.5% unemployment. I'm not familiar with cardiovascular specialist demand but I am an engineer.

The decrease in manufacturing wasn't driven by automation so much as it's been driven by offshoring manufacturing to other countries. As an engineer who works in automation, demand for engineers is still super high even with tools and software that vastly improve productivity. From a labor perspective we are automating many jobs but only out of a need because there aren't enough people willing to work at the wage we offer.

Which brings me to another point, my bigger concern is wages not jobs. Wages have not correlated with productivity. While this is related it's not the same issue and some solutions are similar and others are not. The wage issue is a problem now, not some theoretical future decades from now.

Hobbs512 t1_j9dnzwq wrote on February 21, 2023 at 3:51 AM

Businesses have a habit of growing when productivity increases occur and they scale-up. But is it feasible for every industry and company to do this indefinitely? What if we start producing an over-supply of goods and services? Surely that would contribute to deflation no? Obv it's more complicated than just that tho. But of course a company in a capitalistic economy is going to take steps to increase profits and they don't do that as well when they start paying their employees higher wages.

reidlos1624 t1_j9dwhcr wrote on February 21, 2023 at 5:09 AM

Right, which is why I think we need to move past capitalism. Capitalism does some stuff really well (the whole problem of scarcity as seen by developments of industrialization and automation) but even Adam Smith saw the dangers of wealth being concentrated at the top and wrote about the duty of the government to regulate industry and capital. AI and automation may finally force us to change our perspective on the notion that profit is the only good thing and start focusing on the well being of the people, since that is the government's primary goal. We see right now how profits over people hurt the economy as the largest and wealthiest corporations record record profits while the inflation they created is sucking the middle and lower class dry.