Beating Automation

Unfortunately what some Americans have failed to realize is that their job may not have been taken away from an illegal immigrant or outsourcing to another country that pays their people less than we do. Their job was replaced by a robot or another system of automation. Look around when you go to a major supermarket. Where once there was a person checking out food, there are now automated self-check out lines. Drive through tellers at banks are becoming increasingly rare. Auto plants have big robotic systems creating cars.

In the defense of employers or other leaders who pursue automation policies, this has been the human experience throughout history: to create quality (hopefully) products more efficiently and for greater profits through technological advancement that reduces costs (labor for example). The Cotton Gin was such a device. The same with the phone and later the internet. It is a natural by-product of progress and it will not go away.

That written, it is also natural that humans who are used to having a job in these vocational areas be resentful and distressed. Again episodes from history like the Luddite Riots, the Sabot protestors in the Netherlands and France, and union strikes in this country illustrate this. On a literary note, a very prophetic episode from the fifth season of The Twilight Zone called the Brain Center at Whipples explores the extremes of automation. Asimov's I Robot is another example.

The article below from the New York Times is interesting and contains some good ideas: Education reform, workers taking retraining classes, reshaping the workplace and work hours, shifting people from manual to caregiving positions, an expansion of the earned income tax credit, minimum wage and profit sharing, and taxing corporations more if they use automation.

However, while some of the ideas in the articles are good, they miss a point. The United States, like it did with electronics and aeronautics, needs to expand new areas for potential growth. These areas have been mentioned in earlier posts: infrastructure, alternative clean energy, health care, education, the arts, caregiving of both people and the environment, space and oceanographic exploration. Yes, there will be automated aspects to these fields but there will also be tremendous demand for human power. People also need to realize that in most cases the days of the union factory job in the rust belt are probably over. It is sad but it is reality and the people will need to find new opportunities elsewhere if they are to thrive. It should be the mission of our government to make sure people who are displaced can get a job that they can support themselves and their families as well as give them a sense of self-worth and satisfaction. The Unemployment and Welfare Departments should be renamed the Job Fair Department as people shift to a new paradigm in our culture.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/upshot/how-to-beat-the-robots.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1