Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

reidlos1624 t1_j9tmetn wrote

Reply to comment by DunkingDognuts in Almost 40% of domestic tasks could be done by robots ‘within decade’ | Artificial intelligence (AI) by Gari_305

Automation adoption is mostly driven by the current condition of the labor market (unemployment at 3.5% in the US with similar issues in other countries). Automation adoption has largely correlated with job growth not loss. Everyone seems to forget that offshoring is the reason for the majority of job loss to the US manufacturing core. In fact, anecdotally as an engineer who consults in manufacturing, automation is allowing many companies to bring jobs back to the US since the chaos of Covid has shown the dangers of an optimized supply chain.

Key word here is also "could". We could automate most industrial applications but the tech is unreliable and there's a lot of limitations that drastically increase costs.

Furthermore most domestic tasks aren't done by an employee so this just represents an opportunity for people to get time back, not an impact to jobs.

7

Outrageous_Nothing26 t1_j9tsqms wrote

Yeah i hate management consultants for the myopic views and incredibly damaging decisions

2

reidlos1624 t1_j9ucba0 wrote

I don't consult on a management level, we helped with automation implementation. Specifically how automation systems could be designed to solve problems that the client's engineers already found and worked closely to provide expertise and band width that they currently didn't have. I've worked with bad consultants (currently have one that I gotta keep tabs on cause his ideas are stupid and insane) and what we did was very different, far more collaborative approach.

1

Outrageous_Nothing26 t1_j9uho79 wrote

I wasn’t referring to you, i was referring to the outsourcing. Instead of innovation they always go for the low hanging fruit, the hell with everything else, that’s my experience with them

2

EconomicRegret t1_j9xtoa0 wrote

They are the same everywhere. They are not gods, thus can only have myopic views, anything else is almost impossible.

However, in the 90s and 2000s, Nordic countries, Switzerland and Germany chose instead to keep jobs at home and heavily automate their industries instead. While their industry leaders, elites and consultants were pushing for outsourcing to Asia, just like America.

And that's not because they are smarter, but because their unions and workers are free. They have their "myopic" views too (e.g. wages, jobs, mouths to feed, etc.). So they resisted (e.g. general strikes). Thus forced renegotiatons and found good compromises (e.g. huge investments in automatization, in up-training workers, in updating education, and in social safety net for those that can't keep up).

Nobody is a god. We need each other to find good solutions, that work for everybody. Unfortunately however, it's illegal in America to organize general strikes and solidarity strikes (also piquetting, joining a union outside your company, and having unions represent whole industries, instead of branch levels.)

US capitalists have shut down certain nerves and almost all pain receptors (e.g. 1947 Taft-Hartley act, that strips US unions of their fundamental rights and freedoms that Europeans take for granted). While in Europe, in general, the elites still get horrible "headaches", whenever they "blink wrong".

1