The Economist: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?(economist.com) |
The Economist: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?(economist.com) |
Similarly with the UK's decline in the value of the pound after Brexit making it superficially more competitive.
Dare I say it, devaluation is overvalued.
Was not able to read the full article in full, but title is an interesting question.
High wages in blue collar fields will be a thing of the past in an world where automation will thrust massive amounts of people whose jobs were automated onto the unemployment line. These people will have to make a choice :Either get re-educated or do simple blue collar jobs.
The good thing is the price per hour for plumbing and other Blue Collar jobs will be a lot cheaper than it is now because of an increase in Labor Supply.
Again I could be totally wrong, but as of today that is the direction we're headed.
TL;DR Automation will...
* replace some current blue collar work over time
* create new blue collar work over time
* take a protracted period of time to fully supplant all labor needs
these sorts of events aren't directly comparable to what approaches. future automation includes analysis, decision-making and adaptability such that most if not all conceivable 'new work' will be automated and a human labor market will not form.
essentially, the robots will build, design and maintain themselves.
> If you think we're on the precipice of AI/automation being able to solve complex problems without human aid I think you're overestimating the capacity of the capabilities of current generation tech.
i don't think anyone supposes it'll happen tomorrow, but it's something we should be well prepared for rather than reacting to.
How many techs do you need to repair one seamstress bot that pumps out 100 t-shirts per hour?
A new type of lifeform taking over earth is no longer an economic problem. It's an existential concern for the entire human race.
Imagine universal automation exists: .e.g a machine can improve the productivity of every human by 10x. There are two possible outcomes: Humans work 10 times less for the same standard of living or humans work the same amount of hours for 10 times the standard of living.
In theory it's actually not possible to choose the first scenario because it's guaranteed someone will choose the second option to get priority access to a rivalrous exclusionary good (like land) which often has no soft price ceiling because it's not possible to produce more of it. People who can only find part time work during the transition to a new industry still have the same standard of living as before automation but they might no longer be able to afford the non automated expenses like housing.
The primary problems that should be addressed are basic costs of living. Extreme example: If it only costs 10% of a median fulltime salary to stay alive then it doesn't matter if you're poor or not. You can still afford it.
If we ever get to that point, we’ll just start churning out bots and giving them away for free to do the work.