Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
If you’re not aware, look up the automation paradox: https://ideas.ted.com/will-automation-take-away-all-our-jobs/
Every* automation advancement has lead to an increase in employment, not decrease. Most often jobs in the immediate sector are lost, but the rise in supporting sector jobs are bolstered.
Classic examples are the cotton mill and combine harvester. The number of agricultural workers declined, but the number of jobs processing agricultural product increased. Or with ATMs, the number of tellers needed per bank location decreased, but the total employment in the banking sector increased (banks opened more branches, namely in places where it was previously cost prohibitive).
As more things are automated, what’s being automated becomes cheaper and more prolific, often increasing (or creating) new opportunities. There are so many historic examples of this, it’s hard to justify “this time is different” predictions… Even for things like AI automating white collar jobs.
*Edit: almost every. It depends a bit on how you count the secondary jobs, and where those are located (automation combined with offshoring results in a net decline in some countries, but increase overall).
I think the underlying dynamic there is that automation in one industry led to cheaper goods, which led to consumer savings, which led to greater demand, which led to increased employment in other industries that eventually absorbed the displaced workers.
The differences with the current situation are that, firstly, decades of corporate consolidation have reduced competition and enabled automators to channel most of the savings to corporate profits instead of lower prices; and secondly, the fact that automation is affecting the whole economy at once instead of a specific industry means that an economy-wide increase in demand doesn’t cause a corresponding increase in the demand for labor.
So if the difference is corporate consolidation… Sounds like that’s the real underlying issue then, not automation.
Economics has well established that monopolistic behavior by firms harms consumers & the overall economy (that’s why we have anti-trust laws in the first place).
Don’t conflate the one problem with another, as I agree the erosion of anti-trust laws is a bad thing and needs to be reversed. But that doesn’t mean firms further automating things is now also bad.
I’d also say “automation affecting the whole economy at once” isn’t unique. The industrial revolution was not isolated to one industry, its effects were economy-wide. Also true for the transportation revolution (trains & steam boats moved everything), telecommunications, and the internet…