Robots are shifting income from workers to owners
- Thread starter sglowrider
- Start date
Meh. We will always have workers and we will always have owners. Our economy will produce more and more owners. Our society will produce fewer and fewer workers. That is inevitable. Of course economic returns will follow the bulk of the population. At the same time we must understand that we deliberately chose this path. “Free college for all” proposals are a case in point. We have a shortage of diesel mechanics and we have labor shortages in many dirty jobs, but we have a surplus of those who want to sit in a cubical and stare at a computer screen.
In the book Soonish, construction robots are discussed. In particular a discussion on brick laying robots. Bricklayers are a specialized group, it takes years to become a bricklayer. At present a robot cannot do their job. But they are learning. One robot is showing promise, it works at the speed of three humans. It requires one semi-skilled human. So if the robot pans out, 3 skilled jobs will be replaced by one semi-skilled.
As they point out, the result may be brick becomes so cheap that far more is used and less unemployment results. But those employed will make less.
That already discounts the robot that appears able to build a 2000 square foot home in under 48 hours. It is actually going into use in China. It cannot in America, we have building codes and there is no way to time inspections around it.
As they point out, the result may be brick becomes so cheap that far more is used and less unemployment results. But those employed will make less.
That already discounts the robot that appears able to build a 2000 square foot home in under 48 hours. It is actually going into use in China. It cannot in America, we have building codes and there is no way to time inspections around it.
There are a lot of parallels with global trade. On the whole, the economics of trade are clearly a net plus. However, the benefits are not evenly distributed. Globalization of trade has made a small group very wealthy. I would think the same will happen with automation.
Extrapolations from the number of graduates is meaningless. Denver is at almost full employment yet there are labor shortages in dirty hands jobs. There a myriad of reasons, including drug testing, social skills, and absenteeism.
Did you read these 3 points, the middle one is interesting.
- What the vocational programs are teaching are not the skill sets neededby the trucking industry.
- Productivity from new graduates, despite that skills “deficit,” is expected on day one. “That was never expected of our generation,” Arrants noted. “Today we beat them up over it and are surprised when they go elsewhere.”
- Other industries, especially the wind energy and mining sectors, are snapping up new diesel technician graduates faster.
Things like this are usually where I have an OH WOW moment in these discussions. We solve (and equally create in other ways) a huge problem, but we can't get an inspector out there fast enough is your comment. Shirley I am missing something here, aren't I?
Buildings are inspected in stages. So there is an inspection after the foundation, and then at a couple other points (I should know, my son-in-law is a building inspector). If one can build an entire home in 48 hours, there isn't much time to stop building and wait on an inspector to come out for the foundation, the walls, the wiring, the plumbing and whatever else. I guess inspectors could just be on site during the whole build, but that comes with a cost. It turns out it is 24 hours and not 48.
This is the guy in this case, but there are many more using other approaches trying to build buildings with robots. Some are trying swarm robots.
OK, so the displaced workers are retrained for inspection, maybe. Or much of the inspections can be omitted as we validate the robot process. Or different construction methods are used (think modular design) where the inspection landscape changes drastically. My point is that even worrying about the inspection step (of today) is equivalent to $.01 hold up $10,000.
I hear (ok I've actually witnessed it) that Inspectors can have a very good "secondary" form of income. What's the SIL driving these days?
Interesting. I wonder if the economics still work out that it's cheaper to have one building robot paired with one full-time inspector who simply does those inspections at each stage over those two days. Seems more efficient than driving around to a large number of sites multiple times, and you're going to save on the construction labor which should make up for paying for the inspector's time.
These are the kinds of changes that I think get glossed over in a lot of discussions about automation. Self driving cars are going to change more than the jobs of people who drive for a living. We'll need a lot fewer car salesmen if we shift toward large fleets and away from individual ownership, even if that's only in denser areas. Same with insurance salesmen, you'll need one account manager for a fleet of cars instead of working with as many individuals who each purchase their own car insurance. The deeper you dig the more things like that you find; small mechanic shops, parking attendants etc. And that's just with one specific case of automation. I think it's yet to be seen how well we adapt to that, but it's a very interesting time to be alive.
He doesn't own a car, he has use to and from work of a department car. My daughter has a 4 year old Kia. If he's in the game, he's hiding the results really well. Especially since my daughter makes good money.
It may be we certify the robot code that it meets certain criteria. There will always be companies out there willing to set a robot to Montana building code in the earthquake zones of California. As long as there is some way to verify the code running the robots, it may be possible to skip steps.
I suspect much of building inspecting is the bank's doing, they probably have been burned loaning money for homes expected to be build to a standard quality that were not. How quick will they be to trust robots? I don't know. It may be since homes would drop so much in price they will be willing to take a risk. But I wonder what that does for us? Part of my "retirement savings" is my equity. If robots can build a superior home at 1/10th the cost, my home is worthless. I suspect you will see existing homeowners wanting to slow down robotic homes for that reason.
Any repetitive job would be looked at by an owner. Wages are just one part of the equation, the other major part is insurance/benefits. The healthcare industry is killing this country...the amount entities have to pay for premiums is insane (that is not including that the individual still has to pay out of pocket). So if i can replace a human with a robot (whose cost are going down) why wouldn't I? Servo motors and sensors (basically a robot), under right loads, last millions and millions of cycles and don't need vacations/insurance/hired/fired. I do think there are just a lot of jobs they can not do though.
Vote for me, and i will fix healthcare.......i wouldn't be the worst president.
Vote for me, and i will fix healthcare.......i wouldn't be the worst president.
Everyone in construction know you are having a good day if you can get 3 bricklayers to show up on a job...
OK now you just gave me another Oh Wow moment. That last part about home prices and all that would go with it. Of course that is obvious, I just had not went that far down this path yet to think about it. Of course I am very interested in the technology, but the pricing side of it could cripple things for decades before we could adjust. Good point man.
I would love to hear an economist weigh in the issue, because it sounds like a major bubble pop to me.
How much was undergrad and law school when you went? Just curious.
