Hillegass 1

Alex Hillegass

4/28/2017

ENC 1102H

Automation and Employment

John Keynes the founder of Keynesian economics once claimed that:

We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard
the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come - namely,
technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means
of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for
labor. -John Keynes (Keynes)

He believed that technology would become so advanced it would eventually make humans an

obsolete source of labor. Just 16 years before Keynes published his essay Economic

Possibilities for our Grandchildren; Henry Ford was looking for ways to make his factories

more efficient. One of the first major uses of automation in manufacturing was Fords Model T

factory. In 1914 Ford introduced the conveyor belt to his factory and started changing the entire

car industry. Because of this new technology he was able to outproduce the rest of the industry

while also using fewer workers. Ford could produce 20 cars per worker a year while the rest of

the industry averaged making 4.3 cars per worker per year (Henry). His early adoption of this

revolutionary piece of technology enabled him to cut prices and dominate the market.

Automation in the 1914 only meant increasing efficiency, but today it means working

towards the complete elimination of jobs for human workers. My research studies three areas

where computers and technology are doing the jobs that humans have been doing. I will then

examine how the technology could affect employment and how the United States can provide for

people whose jobs are replaced by technology.

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The three technological advances I will be studying are self driving cars, automated

manufacturing processes, and automation in music production. I selected these three areas to

highlight the capabilities of technology. Self driving cars show how technology is able to quickly

analyze and handle fast paced situations where human lives may be at stake. Automation in

manufacturing proves that robots are more efficient than humans at tasks that require heavy

lifting, precision, and repetition. Computers in music production shows that something

resembling creativity can be taught to artificial intelligence. Each of these examples was chosen

to illustrate how technology can be more effective than humans.

Effects on Employment

One of the important things to realize is that technology has been taking peoples jobs for

a while now; however, the effects of this have been somewhat limited. A worker who used to

lose their job in agriculture could usually learn a trade and still made a living. We have dealt

with the jobs lost by pushing education. The reason some people are worried about where jobs

will come from this time is because of the number of jobs that may be lost in a short amount of

time. One of the technologies that could cause unemployment soon is self driving cars.

The self driving car has been on the cusp of changing the world for the last few years.

Predictions for its disruption of the automotive industry have ranged from being only a year from

now to ten years down the road. Nobody truly knows when self driving cars will become the

norm but we do know that they will have a big impact on the economy. Uber recently

experimented with using autonomous cars but the program did not go as expected. The cars

drove an average of one mile between incidents where the driver had to take over (Bhuiya). The

program was also eventually shut down because they stole information from Google but this

example shows how the technology is progressing.

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Self driving cars may not be ready to replace humans yet but technology will reach the

point of replacing human drivers eventually. In the transportation industry alone 4.1 million

jobs are at risk, including chauffeurs and drivers of trucks, cabs and ride-share vehicles

(Langlios). What this figure does not include is jobs lost in the automotive insurance industry

and other industries related to it. Transportation is just one of the few industries being changed

by technology.

The manufacturing industry in the United States employs over 12 million people and is

also one of the industries on the biggest decline (Employment). The reason for this decline in

manufacturing jobs is a hot topic of debate. President Trump believes that outsourcing the

manufacture of goods is the leading cause and that may play a part. Companies move the

production of their products overseas to save money on labor but soon the most cost effective

thing to do is to move production to robots whose only cost is the electricity bill.

The current generation of robots is not exceptionally intelligent. They are able to repeat

the same action over and over again without fail but they are unable to easily adapt to new jobs

and situations. The next generation will be much different. Here at UCF we currently have

researchers working on the next generation of robotics. Rouhollah Rahmatizadeh, a Computer

Science PhD student at UCF is working on teaching robots new ways to interact with the world.

One of his research foci is on teaching robots to manipulate small objects from watching human

demonstrations and constructing its own virtual demonstrations (Rahmatizadeh). The creation of

robots that can easily adapt and change their job is a huge step in technology. Ultimately these

robots will affect more than just manufacturing. Eventually they will assist people in everything

from cooking to assisting elderly people in their daily lives.

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Workers who lose their jobs because of automation are not out of luck in the job market.

The demand for a human's ability to quickly learn and adapt is still very useful for companies. In

the past when people lost their jobs, they would learn a new craft or look for some way to

educate themselves. Elevator operators are no longer needed in todays society but that does not

mean they remain unemployed for the rest of their lives. In 1910, farmers and farm laborers

made up over 30% of all occupations (Wyatt) but agriculture only made up 1.4% of jobs in 2014

(Employment). The people who lose their jobs are usually only unemployed for a relatively short

time. They gain skills that are employable and find new jobs. We have dealt with the loss of jobs

before but some people believe this time is different. Stephen Hawking believes that automation

of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial

intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the

most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining (Larson). Unfortunately advanced artificial

intelligence is also learning how to do creative work too.

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence has made great strides in improving its ability

to analyze and even create. Emily Howell is an AI but also a artist. It has an entire album out and

a record deal with Centaur Records (Cope). The computer is able to compose classical music

with multiple instruments in a way that is indistinguishable from music created by humans. The

fact that a computer program can compose music with minimal input from humans is amazing

but the impressive part is that a computer can be creative. Creativity might not be something

unique to humans if it can be taught to a computer. Emily Howell probably will not be taking

musicians jobs anytime soon but the lesson that computers can create original music is an

important one to learn.

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Technology is always improving and being able to do more new things. Each area

covered requires computers and robots to master a different type of skill, manufacturing takes

labor skills, self driving cars need to work in fast paced dynamic situations, and creative AI

requires a deep understanding of how brains function. These machines may not be perfected for

now, but eventually their skill will surpass that of humans. The reality of unemployment due to

automation is likely somewhere on a spectrum between a few million jobs and having tens of

millions of displaced workers. Fortunately, there are a few recommended ways of handling the

situation, regardless of where we end up on that spectrum.

Ways to combat negative effects

The official plan endorsed by the Obama administration is that we increase the social

safety net and push more people towards education (Artificial). The goal of this plan is to not

interfere with technological developments but to embrace it and look for ways use these new

tools to our advantage. The long term plan is to make post-secondary education more affordable

and making job-driven training more available to those who need it. The short term solution is to

increase the social security net by strengthening programs like unemployment insurance and

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Artificial). The problem with plans like this is that

they cost a lot of money which has to be raised through taxes.

Bill Gates recently proposed a solution that made headlines when he claimed that taxing

robots could solve the problem. His main reasoning being that the human worker who does, say

$50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security

tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think that wed tax the robot

at a similar level (Delaney). This plan seems to work in theory but many were quick to criticize.

A Bloomberg article challenges Bill Gates, arguing that the problem with taxing robots is that it
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might impede innovation (Smith). The problem is that adding an extra tax to robots will

discourage some companies from using the technology. Companies will not receive as many

benefits and will therefore not use robots. Some think this could set the United States behind

other nations when it comes to technological advances.

The last big theory on how to handle potential large scale unemployment is to create

something called a universal basic income. This basic income is a plan that gives every citizen a

certain amount of money regardless of their age or employment status. The money is not meant

to give everyone a good life but is meant to allow everyone to live. The failed proposal from

Switzerland would have given every adult a total of $2,500 a month to live on or a total of

$30,000 a year (Switzerland). Specific details on how much should be given to each citizen are

debatable but the general idea is that nobody has to live in poverty.

There are many criticisms of Universal Basic Income plans that range from questions on

how to fund it, to claiming it would completely eliminate people's desire to search for a job or be

productive. Charles Wyplosz, an economics professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute believes

that If you pay people to do nothing, they will do nothing (Switzerland). For some people this

may be true. There are people who currently live off of the many forms of government welfare

provided but not enough people do this to cause any problems in our economy. These people are

also not living glamorous lives. They live in near poverty. A Universal Basic Income would take

away a majority of the government programs in place and simply give people enough money to

keep them above the poverty line.

Money also becomes a major problem under this plan. James Hughes, the Executive

Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies did the math and claims that all

the current Social Security, unemployment and disability insurance, Earned Income tax credits,
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food stamps and other means-tested benefits into a BIG would only provide about $5,000 per

adult (Hughes). Pooling all of the money available would not even come close to providing

enough money to live on for anyone. To solve this problem there will have to be major changes

to the tax structure. One way to do this is to introduce a more progressive tax structure where the

more money you make the more you must pay in taxes (Straubhaar). An issue is that creating a

more progressive tax structure is very controversial and strong political opinions start to come

into play.

Conclusion

Most current plans to solve mass unemployment are either very costly or would require

the entire country to fall behind in the world economy. It is clear that there are no easy ways to

solve this problem but it is important to find a solution in the event that mass unemployment

does happen. The economic challenges that will be faced by countries without any plan for large

scale unemployment could have long lasting effects.

The importance of having a plan in place is slowly reaching the general public. Public

figures like Elon Musk and Bill Gates have increased awareness by sharing their plans but more

research is needed before the world is ready to meet the challenge. A Universal Basic Income is

one of the best theories being proposed but lots of research is needed before entire countries are

ready to put a basic income plan into place.

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