Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says labor should not fear automation

[applegrove]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says labor should not fear automation

Brian Heater, Jonathan Shieber at TechCrunch


https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/10/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-says-labor-should-not-fear-automation/

"SNIP....

We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work,” she said in an answer reported by The Verge. “We should be excited by that. But the reason we’re not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem.”

The response to an audience member’s question is a take that doesn’t too often get repeated in broader conversations about automation. Oftentimes industry spokespeople will discuss technology’s potential to replace jobs that are deemed “dull, dirty and dangerous” — menial tasks that many roboticists will suggest no one really wants in the first place.

.....

“We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in,” The Verge quoted Ocasio-Cortez as saying. “Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage.”


.....SNIP"

[ck4829]

1. K&R. Read the list of emerging technologies on Wikipedia, it's amazing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies

We need to be able to quickly train people to develop, make, research, market, etc. this stuff. If we're going to develop this stuff quickly (Which is the only way we're going to progress as a species IMO), automation will have to be a part of that.

[RelativelyJones]

2. Her utopianism does not appear to be well thought out.

[empedocles]

3. ' . . . if you don't have a job, you are left to die, . . . '.

[Other than that very immediate, present, and pervasive problem], moving right along, do not fear automation . . .

[ck4829]

4. Except automation isn't the proximal reason people don't have jobs and are left to die

I've received plenty of form-reply boilerplate emails and letters telling me 'We are not moving forward with your job candidacy at this time. We are focusing on other candidates with experiences and/or skills that more closely match our needs for this opening... Best of luck in your job search' (As in aside, I went to that much detail with my paraphrase before the ellipsis because that's the exact quote from 3 different employers) and I know it wasn't the boilerplate guide's fault, there was a human who decided to press the send button.

Yes, don't fear automation, fear the people who use automation to cut out human connections.

[empedocles]

6. Historically, employers using automation are not 'primarily'/ or much concerned', with

human connections. That seems to be a serious reality.

The impact of the huge labor supply and resulting decades long 'sluggish wage growth' [something big here], among the masses of all sorts of employees, [despite all sorts of technological advances], seems to be more of a problem than the automation enthusiasts want to concern themselves with. Even campaigning Republicons have long recognized this huge pressing problem, with their hollow 'jobs, jobs, jobs' campaign slogans.

[For liberal spokespersons, there can be more immediate rewards of promoting [cover for?] automation enthusiasm].

Or so it seems.

[Sherman A1]

5. It would be great if we finally realized

the utopia of more time for art, leisure and learning but as indicated you are left to die. This is why we need to rethink our valuation of people, their work and how we all survive. The UBI concept discussed by Andrew Yang along with his other ideas seems to me the best of the ideas out there right now.

[TheBlackAdder]

8. What good does fearing automation do, when it's inevitable? It's best to embrace and plan for future

.

Most of the people I know, who are older than 40, just hope that they can ride it out until they can retire.

It seems that many, in the workforce, are purposely not making contingency or exit strategies if their job goes to shit.

.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. Misleading headline. Her view is more that labor should not HAVE to fear automation

As she said in the quote above "But the reason we’re not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem.”

I think that pretty much captures the basis on which labor, justifiably, currently does fear automation. AOC doesn't disagree.

[hunter]

9. In a world that wasn't run by selfish shortsighted accumulators of wealth and power...

... automation would lead to higher wages, shorter work weeks, more good jobs, and better working conditions for everyone.

A job that doesn't pay a comfortable living wage isn't worth doing. Likewise a job that damages body and spirit. Dangerous jobs ought to be automated. Work that can't pay a comfortable living wage ought to be automated. Work that is soul-crushingly dull ought to be automated.

Ocasio-Cortez is absolutely correct. The failure of our society is that people who lose these undesirable jobs to automation are often thrown into worse situations. They don't get better jobs, they might not find any work at all.

[USALiberal]

10. Throughout history, technology has improved. And there is no stopping it. nt

[treestar]

11. That needs study though

It would create jobs as someone has to build the automatons and keep them programmed. People never look at that side. There are no more jobs making buggy whips, but then there were jobs making cars. There are fewer jobs making cars but more programming the computerized items in them. How could there be robots doing these jobs without people to program the robots?

[hughee99]

12. This sounds like a fancy way to say "Learn to code".

Giving people more free time is an admirable goal, but if you're doing it by taking away their source of income, you're trading one problem for a bigger problem.

[kcr]

13. It's not about giving people more free time

It's about acknowledging that innovation won't be stopped and isn't the real problem in the first place. "Learn to code" is the modern "let them eat cake," directed at the working class who are expected to fend for themselves. The OP is distorting AOC's point, which is that automation shouldn't have to be feared. That automation wouldn't be a problem if we didn't leave people to die without work. Automation is merely another form of innovation. In other words, focus on the root of the fear and realize that is the cause. Even if we could prevent automation from taking over everything, the root problem would still exist.

[hughee99]

15. Actually, her statement is quite literally about people having more free time.

If you get automated out of a job, you will have all sorts of time to pursue other interests, and you won't be motivated by wage (since you won't get paid for them). The "root of the problem" is that people have to spend time working at things they may not want to do, because those things need to be done, in order to earn a living. AOC's point is that if we can, innovate, and automate those tasks people will no longer have to do these mundane thing, and doesn't address the "root of the problem" at all, which is that people still have to work to make a living.

[kcr]

16. Seriously? It's the free time people are worried about?

Then how come people aren't terrified about going on vacation? Come on, now. You know it isn't the time people are scared of. It's the starving and homelessness. It isn't about free time.

[hughee99]

17. Yes, thank you. People are concerned about not being able to afford what they need.

For some people, the idea of automation (the one that AOC says not to worry about) is something they do worry about, because it's a threat to their livelihood. Having more time to pursue other interests (as AOC suggests they would) is NO consolation to them, and having someone tell them not to worry about it is, in my opinion, at the same level as telling them to "learn to code" or "eat cake".

[kcr]

19. They're only concerned because right now they'd be out on the street.

How is it the same if the point is they shouldn't have to learn to code/eat cake/die in the streets just because they lost their job? You make no sense.

[hughee99]

20. Because right now, automation is coming but a system

Where they don’t have to worry about basic income is not.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. We shouldn't have to, absolutely. But that's only half the message.

Power and capital need to understand they shouldn't have to fear sharing the fruits of automation and letting go of the idea of controlling resources for people who "deserve" them or "don't." That's where the real revolution will be.

[RandySF]

18. It doesn't add up

Planet Money visited a factory that automated in South Carolina and number of people who remained were minimal compared to the job that were lost.

[WeekiWater]

21. I much prefer her direction of thought in this area to that of Yang. NT