kissell@flairvax.UUCP (Kevin Kissell) (07/14/84)
(Responding to judy@ism780) > I think the assumptions you make in the base note are 1) no new > products and a static economy and 2) machines available to perform all > menial tasks. Since neither of these are true I don't think there is as > much need for concern as you think. I tried not to make any assumptions of stasis in the economy, and I was not talking about a present-day crisis. I was trying to point out that the liberating goals and potential of automation are in conflict with the attitudes that govern our present society ("Ya don't work, ya don't eat.") As a friend of mine pointed out, we will probably blow our civilization off the planet before it becomes a real problem. If I may be permitted to be optimistic, I still think we need to look hard at what we want to do to resolve the conflict. > Robots are better suited than people to welding. Let's face it, welding > is unpleasant. But they are not better suited for being masseuses, > therapists, child care workers, etc.. The service > industry will provide jobs to those workers displaced by technology. > How much those services are worth will be measured by a free market. Many people view the growth of the service sector to be unbounded and a solution to industrial and agricultural sector unemployment. This does not hold up under closer scrutiny. As one economist put it, you cannot have a nation of people selling hamburgers to one another. The service system requires net input. The input must come from some form of real production. With regard to job sharing, as some have proposed it (and as is being practiced in some industries in the Netherlands): when the cost of machine labor becomes so low that the value of a day's labor cannot feed one person, how can it feed two? Kevin D. Kissell Fairchild Research Center Advanced Processor Development uucp: {ihnp4 decvax}!decwrl!\ >flairvax!kissell {ucbvax sdcrdcf}!hplabs!/ "Any closing epigram, regardless of truth or wit, grows galling after a number of repetitions"
judy@ism780.UUCP (07/27/84)
#R:flairvax:-65300:ism780:20200014:000:1825 ism780!judy Jul 18 16:34:00 1984 > Many people view the growth of the service sector to be unbounded and > a solution to industrial and agricultural sector unemployment. This > does not hold up under closer scrutiny. As one economist put it, you > cannot have a nation of people selling hamburgers to one another. The > service system requires net input. The input must come from some form > of real production. Isn't the stability of the economy based on a balance between inports and exports more than in the actual GNP? If we make 500,000 cars but don't export any of them, is our economy better off than if we made only 100,000? (Not if we imported the steel). Really, there cannot be an infinite demand for anything, including robots. But, as long as some people are able to make money making robots (and selling them overseas, of course) then there will be a demand for service industries. And the more people in those industries the more creative they will be (more than just selling hamburgers to one another). Actually, the only truely productive people in society are the farmers. They provide the one thing none of us can get along without. Then we can put carpenters and tailors in because we need clothing and shelter. You might even include doctors. But beyond that, the rest of our industry is based on luxury items. And I feel that is just as shaky as service industries. After all we can't have a nation of people selling each other refrigerators either. (Or better yet, how about if we all became insurance salesmen). Robotics will not remove diversification from our society. It will relieve humans from inhuman jobs. It will cause some economic upheavals. But it does not put everyone on the street. (In fact, it will probably displace more third world slave laborers than anyone else if robots become cheap enough).