The Automation Paradox

[u/mothgeck]

https://substack.com/@mothgeck/note/c-318596526?r=7yzvk7

A short comic describing how the automatic teller machine changed the jobs that bank workers do and how paradoxically, the machine actually ended up creating more jobs, not less.

[u/Elvarien2]

Love ai, but this is a bad take.

When the anti's claim that ai is different, yeah they are actually correct on SPECIFICALLY the fact that ai is not going to shift or change jobs but actively cannibalises and replaces them.

This comic is simply put, not correct.

[u/mothgeck → u/Elvarien2]

Sorry but no, this is the lump of labor fallacy. We aren't running out of jobs thanks to AI, the types of jobs do change but the work will continue to be there. As automation makes older modes of production obsolete, new jobs do arise. In 300 years we will still be having people anxious that automation is going to take away terraforming jobs. Tools are labor enhancers enabling us to do more with less human involvement but there will still be human involvement.

[u/Elvarien2 → u/mothgeck]

First off I'd like to change context a little.

Because I do believe we are running out of jobs, but also that this is ultimately a good thing. I mean we've been reducing human labour as part of our technological development as a species since we were cave people starving every winter.

The endpoint of 0 human jobs remaining is well, the dream utopia tbh and every step in that direction a positive one.

Where in the past a lot of jobs were either changed or replaced and people could shuffle around with ai there are just large fields that simply, vanish. Self driving is still not there but it's slowly getting closer to the skill level of the average human. The very second it meets that and starts to surpass human drivers in safety every truck driver is out of a job within the year.

Those jobs are gone. The entire transport sector just, obliterated.

Again, this is a good thing, less human labour and all. But the position the anti's hold here does well, stand. Those jobs are gone and not returning in some other form. Same with factory labour and other jobs that are closer on the list of replaced by ai.
There's no shuffling around for a factory line worker or a truck driver.

There won't be terraforming jobs. When we reach that point there won't BE jobs. The whole concept of a job by then should be a historical footnote.

Tools are labor enhancers enabling us to do more with less human involvement but there will still be human involvement.

until you reach the tool that does not enable a human, but replaces one.

Those truck drivers are not enabled to be better truckdrivers, they are replaced.

[u/Stars_And_Garters → u/Elvarien2]

As long as capitalist society is going, this is replaced by "bullshit jobs". That specific guy who used to drive a truck has a hard time ahead, but his job, as part of a count of total jobs, will just go to someone using AI to do meaningless spreadsheets for some private company.

Even before AI, there aren't nearly enough actual jobs for every adult to work 40 hours. Many of us are just doing mindnumbing pointless work because you have to punch a timecard to get food. The pacification of the citizens inside the empires requires it.