Returning to this thread, MinnPost published an article by Ibrahim Hirsi on robotics in Minnesota in November of 2016. Amongst the observations was this:
[University of Minnesota robotics and AI professor Maria] Gini says that robots are mostly filling specific occupations that don’t require skills or are too dangerous for humans — positions that employers have long struggled to fill. In the car industry, for instance, robots have taken over most of the soldering and painting jobs. “These were well-paying jobs, but not really nice jobs for people,” Gini added. “But painting cars is dangerous; you’re living on fumes. So robots are replacing those kind of jobs.”
[Todd Bauernfeind, president of Summit Machine] added that companies mostly don’t bring in automation to get rid of people. Instead, they repurpose them to do other tasks. “I’m seeing it saving their jobs because the end product has become more competitive in the marketplace,” he said. “And if they didn’t do that, they risk losing the whole factory.”
Not everybody has such a rosy view of automation, of course. Matt Ehling, a Minnesota-based media producer who has written on the subject, said that many of the manufacturing jobs that have been lost in recent years have been lost to automation. “With the advent of more capable automation such as artificial intelligence software that can be trained to perform multiple, complex cognitive tasks, intellectual labor is now at risk of being automated,” Ehling said.
I find striking the contrast of the viewpoint of Ehling vs those of Gini and Bauernfeind. Ehling’s is a static view of the workplace, where jobs are replaced with little concept as to where the workers go, while the other viewpoint takes more of a resource viewpoint – the robots take over the repetitive & dangerous jobs, and the people who were filling those jobs can now move to other jobs at the same employer where they can use both their creativity and their domain knowledge to improve the company. And there’s room for both viewpoints because employers who are moving to automation will land all over the spectrum, as their wisdom and needs vary.
The latter viewpoint is what a libertarian would expect to hear, and would rejoice in, and I do find it interesting. As a knowledge worker, it doesn’t sound that bad, either – but I have to keep in mind the general anti-intellectualism gripping the United States these days. In this atmosphere, too often we hear this disdain for experts, for education, for learning in general. People get out of high school or get their college degree, and once they’re working, they don’t want to have to learn entire new subjects. Too often it’s unaffordable. (And then horror stories like these come tripping along.)
And if they’re working 40+ hour works (more likely 50+), it’s hard not to sympathize. Given the staggering amounts of entertainment available, coming home exhausted and plopping down in front of the computer or TV and enjoying some common cultural activity – being part of society, no matter how passive – is tempting for anyone who’s not on the autism spectrum.
