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Automation & jobs pt 1 - the economy (1 Viewer)

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bostonfred said:
1) A customer orders over a tablet. A drink machine makes the drinks in the back room instead of using valuable real estate st the center of the room. Servers deliver them.

2) A customer goes directly to a drink kiosk. The kiosk checks sobriety in one of a variety of ways.  The customer pays for and gets their drink without human interaction.

The human doing the mixing is the most expensive part of the labor costs and they're also the biggest bottleneck in delivery times.
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3) table-side kiosk

4) automated delivery of drink ordered via tablet.  I had a roommate that built a train-set that could deliver a beer from the kitchen to his couch.  May be tricky to implement, but why not?

 
Jrodicus said:
And you believe this is going to be more cost effective than servers?  What kind of capital investment is it going to take to have multiple taps at every table (unless you only want to offer one type of beer)?

Mixed drinks?

If I'm going to go to a bar and pay more money for the same beer I can have at home and pour my own beer....why am I going out to a bar?
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these are technical challenges.  Technical challenges are solvable.  I'm not here to argue what we should do, just state that this is all possible.

You tell me why you go to a bar.  You are most definitely paying someone to pour you a beer you can easily do for yourself from home.  Hell, my beer at home is better than you can get at a lot of bars.  

 
moleculo said:
You are assuming a transfer of liability from the driver to the manufacturer.  Of course, that liability could be factored into the cost of the car, right?  We pay for insurance now, under your scenario the manufacturer would be paying for insurance, and they would simply back that into the purchase price.
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Manufacturers already have liability insurance for their parts failing.

I'm not assuming a transfer of liability from the driver to the manufacturer - in your scenario there are no drivers.

In your scenario, there are no drivers, only a control system responsible for steering, speed, acceleration, detecting failure, getting fuel, etc.  What if one of those fail?  Say a faulty camera causes the vehicle to veer off road into a little-old-lady home.  Who is liable?  The owner of the vehicle initially, but ultimately the manufacturer of the vehicle would be the next in line if the owner can prove the part was defective (the vehicle manufacturer may then try to push it onto the supplier depending on the cause).

 
moleculo said:
3) table-side kiosk

4) automated delivery of drink ordered via tablet.  I had a roommate that built a train-set that could deliver a beer from the kitchen to his couch.  May be tricky to implement, but why not?
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As long as you aren't trying to make a profit and aren't worried about how much it costs, you can do all sorts of things.

 
moleculo said:
these are technical challenges.  Technical challenges are solvable.  I'm not here to argue what we should do, just state that this is all possible.

You tell me why you go to a bar.  You are most definitely paying someone to pour you a beer you can easily do for yourself from home.  Hell, my beer at home is better than you can get at a lot of bars.  
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I agree 100% that it is possible.  I'm just saying that it will not be main-stream until it is cost effective.  That's not purely a technical challenge.

 
Jrodicus said:
Manufacturers already have liability insurance for their parts failing.

I'm not assuming a transfer of liability from the driver to the manufacturer - in your scenario there are no drivers.

In your scenario, there are no drivers, only a control system responsible for steering, speed, acceleration, detecting failure, getting fuel, etc.  What if one of those fail?  Say a faulty camera causes the vehicle to veer off road into a little-old-lady home.  Who is liable?  The owner of the vehicle initially, but ultimately the manufacturer of the vehicle would be the next in line if the owner can prove the part was defective (the vehicle manufacturer may then try to push it onto the supplier depending on the cause).
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the manufacturer is liable.  That's why they have an insurance policy against failure.  Let's assume they are paying $150/month for liability insurance on that car.  You have leased the car from them for a term of 4 years, and the $150 is baked into your lease price.  i'd assume you probably would purchase your own insurance policy as well.

Also, in the terms of the lease is that the car will return to the dealer periodically for inspections and repairs, which helps reduce their insurance.

Now, the entire fleet of cars is not only safer because of the elimination of human error, but it's safer because regular maintenance is guaranteed. 

 
Jrodicus said:
Manufacturers already have liability insurance for their parts failing.

I'm not assuming a transfer of liability from the driver to the manufacturer - in your scenario there are no drivers.

In your scenario, there are no drivers, only a control system responsible for steering, speed, acceleration, detecting failure, getting fuel, etc.  What if one of those fail?  Say a faulty camera causes the vehicle to veer off road into a little-old-lady home.  Who is liable?  The owner of the vehicle initially, but ultimately the manufacturer of the vehicle would be the next in line if the owner can prove the part was defective (the vehicle manufacturer may then try to push it onto the supplier depending on the cause).
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Under product liability law, the owner would not be liable.  The manufacturer would be strictly liable.  This really wouldn't require a new legal scheme under tort law. 

 
mr roboto said:
Wat?  We are talking about insurance costs to large logistics companies. If they have less risk of accidents, they pay less in insurance. Your question is irrelevant. 
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Cost, risk, and liability are not interchangeable terms.  Before you become petulant, you may want to learn what each means.

 
moleculo said:
it's happening now.  The table-tap I liked to earlier has existed for some time.  
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(Thanks for sharing another link.)

I've seen this before.  They still have a wait staff, so it doesn't reduce the labor costs.  It does, however, reduce time and likely the amount served, so there is an improvement in margin.

I can see this model gaining in popularity...but not one that involves eliminating the wait staff entirely.

 
moleculo said:
the manufacturer is liable.  That's why they have an insurance policy against failure.  Let's assume they are paying $150/month for liability insurance on that car.  You have leased the car from them for a term of 4 years, and the $150 is baked into your lease price.  i'd assume you probably would purchase your own insurance policy as well.

Also, in the terms of the lease is that the car will return to the dealer periodically for inspections and repairs, which helps reduce their insurance.

Now, the entire fleet of cars is not only safer because of the elimination of human error, but it's safer because regular maintenance is guaranteed. 
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In my experience, a manufacturer doesn't pay insurance based on the number of units produced.  The number of units, and thus risk, may affect the cost....but you don't buy a 100,000 vs 1,000,000 unit policy.

In the current system, at least in my neck of the woods, you must have proof of insurance when you take ownership.  You also must have insurance to drive, even if you have leased the vehicle.

If the actual driving of the vehicle is automated, there are now a lot more parts which could fail.  The diagnostic system is now responsible for detecting any wear issues.  (If an undetected flat tire results in an accident now, the driver/owner is liable; in this scenario a diagnostic system must be able to detect the flat and prevent the vehicle from operating.  A failure here falls on the manufacturer where it once fell on the driver/owner.)

Icy road conditions, or an icy bridge, or fog, or an animal in the road...those are all variables that must be dealt with when driving.  Without a driver, the manufacturer now becomes responsible for an accident caused by any of them.

 
Jrodicus said:
There are tandem drivers now that drive basically around the clock.  It would potentially be a bigger cost savings in that instance.

However, many businesses/industries don't receive product during the off-shifts.  Operating on a 24-hour cycle would require having a customer able and willing to receive the truck whenever it showed up.
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Which could be automated

 
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bostonfred said:
Not sure about this.  A lot of white collar jobs are being replaced with automation as fast or faster  Think you're safe because you have irreplaceable knowledge?  

Look at call centers  You take orders over the phone? Expect to.get replaced by a website. But some people still want to talk to a human, right? And some jobs are too technical to.be dolved by a computer!

There are numerous companies that provide outsourced call centers so when I order a new SlapChop or Ronco Rotisserie I can call a different 800 number but still talk to the same agent - just reading a different script.

There's a company that makes software that can judge the tone of your voice and predict what level of service you need when you call into a call center. So you could end up talking to a computer until you get pissed, then ring through to an agent.

Then the knowledge they need to solve your problem is in an online database that you can search yourself to provide self service. That online database you've been using makes your job easier today, but that just means we don't need as many people to do what you do tomorrow.  

There are a lot of good white collar jobs going away - not just the guy who answers the phone but the people who are there to handle the harder stuff.  

Let's move on to lawyers - how many hours of research are drying up? Watson isn't living up to its full potential yet, but it is already better at identifying rare forms of cancer than top oncologists.

Which white collar jobs are immune?
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Good post - what about teachers. Virtual classrooms already exist and why would I want that lousy teacher when I can have the best HS Math teacher in the country teach my kid virtually.  Here's one that's related and it's a minor impact to a lot of jobs.  These large mega-churches where the preacher has his congregation of 10-15k and then satellite churches all over the country/world.  

There's a ton of analyst jobs where folks are crunching numbers - as those jobs get easier and easier you don't have to have as many of those people.  Accountants - quick books and the like have put plenty of people out of a job - hell, Excel has.  

 
My industry has been shedding workers for over a decade. We used to employ a little under 50 workers at my grandmother's old company. When my mother decided to sell her percentage to a partner and strike out on her own, or with me, the title plant (database of indexed documents) was valued at $250k. That was 1999, and by 2001 the related county put all of their documents online back to the 70s, rendering that plant worthless on the flip of a switch.

That old company was finally run into the ground so much so that the underwriter stuck with the debt laughed when we considered buying back the name. Anyway, we don't run the same volume they did, but we also offer more services, aren't that far off in volume, and we still handle the big jobs.  All the while, I feel like I do relatively little most of the time, myself. We now have 5 employees.  

I expect our industry to keep shedding workers, and I'm considering other options. A lot of what I do in a day could be handled by a slightly more intelligent web crawler. I'm basically compiling information from the internet.  At this point, I can't tell if part of our relevance is being hamstrung by regulations, or if those regulations keep us relevant. 

Im not quitting anytime soon. We are finally pulling a salary higher than 2008 after a good year last year, but I am being more careful with my money, and I am definitely trying to figure out what to do with myself when people figure out they don't really need us anymore. Id love to squeeze out another decade, but I don't expect it. 

 
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Slapdash said:
The automation myth Robots aren't taking your jobs— and that's the problem

Interesting counter-take
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It is an interesting article but somewhat devoid of solutions/suggestions as to where the productivity increases should come from that would benefit society as a whole. Or at least it does not address the issue how to ensure the change is net positve rather than net negative to society. Empirical data really isn't very well suited for that, given that we are or at least seems to be in a different situation to the period the emprical data covers

 
Robots and Jobs: Evidence from U.S. Labor Markets

Abstract:

As robots and other computer-assisted technologies take over tasks previously performed by labor, there is increasing concern about the future of jobs and wages. We analyze the effect of the increase in industrial robot usage between 1990 and 2007 on US local labor markets. Using a model in which robots compete against human labor in the production of different tasks, we show that robots may reduce employment and wages, and that the local labor market effects of robots can be estimated by regressing the change in employment and wages on the change in exposure to robots in each local labor market—defined from the national penetration of robots into each industry and the local distribution of employment across industries. Using this approach, we estimate large and robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages. We show that commuting zones most affected by robots in the post-1990 era were on similar trends to others before 1990, and that the impact of robots is distinct and only weakly correlated with the prevalence of routine jobs, the impact of imports from China, and overall capital utilization. According to our estimates, each additional robot reduces employment by about seven workers, and one new robot per thousand workers reduces wages by 1.2 to 1.6 percent.

 
Going to be dramatic in the next few years when a million plus males (mostly white and most with only a half diploma) suddenly find their truck driving jobs gone.

 
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