Psychomadeye t1_ja8tkgs wrote on February 27, 2023 at 6:19 PM

Reply to comment by Cerulean_IsFancyBlue in Their future is AI, not ours. by [deleted]

I in fact, took classes on the history of technology for humanities requirements for my degree in robotics and AI and both industrial revolutions were covered heavily. The takeaway was that automation almost always results in more jobs, and technology doesn't really have any agency itself. These are concerns from the early industrial revolution that somehow have not gone away despite the opposite being proven repeatedly through all three industrial revolutions. For hundreds of years economists have disagreed with the idea that technological unemployment is a significant issue. It even has a name: The Luddite fallacy. This has come around again in the 21st century because of confusion about the limits of what correlation engines can do. They're really good at throwing darts but can't tell you any of the rules of the game.

Cerulean_IsFancyBlue t1_ja8uglv wrote on February 27, 2023 at 6:25 PM

Sure, and the black plague resulted in improvement in labor mobility. Win! :)

These things can be true, but you’re still skipping over a fairly large amount of human suffering that happens during the transition. Remember that a lot of the jobs provided by Industrial Revolution factory work were often less healthy than even subsistence farming. Livings conditions as well, in the growing cities required by the centralized factories using the new large expensive equipment.

And of course, this was not directly the fault of the steam engine. In many ways, the loss of jobs in the farming sector was the result of agricultural policy, and not technology. The surplus rural population, then got fed into the industrial workforce as desperate needy workers, which was as much to blame as “progress”.

The idea that in a generation or two will still have plenty of jobs, does not mean we should ignore the fact that you’re going to have a bunch of people in one or two generations, who can’t earn a living because we don’t have a society that has a proper safety, net or proper retraining systems.

The ideal response would be, to fix those systems. Not to try to stop the inevitable progress of technology. But it’s also not good to get lost in the long term picture and forget about the short term social cost.

EDITED one million typos

Psychomadeye t1_ja9013o wrote on February 27, 2023 at 6:59 PM

And we've seen exactly this in the second industrial revolution. The quality of life and recovery time from technological unemployment improved dramatically right up until the great depression. The depression itself is where real financial technology killed banks that didn't know how to use it and the fallback was the gold standard causing the biggest monetary contraction in US history. In the third industrial revolution (now) we've seen multiple recessions but the great recession, which was approximately half as bad as the great depression, dissipated in just about two years. Then there was Covid quarantine that lasted one year. Now people are seriously considering a 4 day work week right after a bunch of corporations stick with WFH because trials have shown an increase in revenue even providing the same pay and benefits. In one or two generations they might be talking about a 3 day work week or short shifts. We're also seeing major issues being addressed like never before. We have unemployment insurance, medicaid, medicare, social security, section 8, snap and a few other things that I've definitely forgotten. The US could spend more on these things but isn't right now because political games. At the end of the day though, the best political strategy is good policy. Right now I'd imagine the biggest challenge we have is climate change and we will need to bring every worker and technological advancement we have to bear on that one for the next one hundred years if we want to make it.

Cerulean_IsFancyBlue t1_ja93ah1 wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:20 PM

EDIT: I wanted to have that I’m enjoying your responses and I hope I’m not coming off as combative. It’s nice to have a good interaction on Reddit and this is the best of my day so far. :)

I agree that good policy is good for all in the long term. Hope we get there.

If you look at the industrial revolution in Britain in isolation, then it is an arc upwards. If you look at the British empire, it’s not quite so rosy.

The destruction of the Indian textile industry was essential to the success of Britain’s domestic wonder. Since it wasn’t an area I had directly studied in school, up until recently I assumed that it was mostly the consequence of Britain being a first mover, and overwhelming the inefficient, unfortunate textile producers in India, and other places. After reading a few histories of the British east India company, it became pretty clear that the British monopoly on textiles was not a matter of efficiency. It was imposed by tariffs, laws restricting, the importation of machinery, and at least three spectacular instances by force of arms and the destruction of property.

Real income and GDP in India took a severe hit from Britain’s Industrial Revolution, and continued to be suppressed to provide a market for British finished goods output. India is still recovering.

Again, this is not a necessary outcome of technology. I’m bringing this up to note that the external costs of past revolutions, especially the global winds, have to be looked at globally. It’s very dangerous to look justify the people who benefit. And in this case, even the working class people in the UK benefited. Yes, the arc went up. But it didn’t go out for everybody, at least not for a few centuries.

But it is unfortunately a common and likely outcome of our current system, where productivity games are assigned, almost exclusively to the owners, and, that group has a tremendous amount of leverage when it comes to creating laws and steering government spending.

Psychomadeye t1_ja9pmai wrote on February 27, 2023 at 9:40 PM

It seems that the industrial revolutions mainly benefit the countries that they happen in, and can be quite dangerous to others where it is not happening. Places that these revolutions see as raw materials to be consumed. The people who end up paying for the current digital industrial revolution would be in the places where it is not really taking place. And it is as you say, technology itself does not have agency. A common example is that the compass was invented by the Chinese but it would be another 800 years before they used it for navigation.

In the third revolution, it seems that there will be less imperialism. I'm not 100% certain as to why this is, as I'm an engineer, not a historian or economist. It's possible that the "colonies" are already established for the most part. It's also possible that the refinement of existing industry is the real issue. In the end though, I'm thinking this one is going to be mostly the same deal as last time but faster. That seems to be the pattern so far. Both of the previous revolutions brought about big social changes as well. The second industrial revolution gave us the 5 day workweek and the 8 hour day. The common counter that I've read about to technological unemployment is large scale public works projects.

EDIT: I am also enjoying the discussion. It's nice to talk to someone who isn't full tilt doom.