It seems like a ton of the gig economy jobs are services that are on their way to being automated (Uber, instacart, FedEx, and others like them). As this seems inevitable, even if it takes 20 years to completely automate these, what happens to those just scraping by and surviving in the gig economy. It's like modern sharecropping where the workers doing all the work are at the whim of those who own the service. There are constant complaints about changing algorithms on these platforms that are designed to make more money for shareholders and squeeze the ones who really make the company work even harder. I don't really see things trending any other way, after all companies exist to make money. It would be ideal if that meant supporting the working class as well but I figure it's prob a matter of time when all of this gets automated. Which gets to the last part, is Musk right? Will we just have to instill some kind of basic universal wages to cover those jobs that are wiped out by automation, globalization, and AI? Even if that's what "needs" to happen do you think it actually will in the States? If not, what will happen instead?
Automation has been replacing workers since the beginning of the economy. If you look at the number of human hours needed to make a car or generate a ton of food they have fallen almost 90% over the last 100 years. The same is true with jobs across the vast majority of the economy as computers and the internet automated processes that involved human. While this happened the economy continued to find new jobs. It is possible this time is different and we need universal income, but my guess is we will just find a different set of things to focus on to keep people busy while earning a wage
Both are fair replies. I agree this has always been happening and people either adapted or sunk into oblivion. But I do wonder if this time things will be different or not like you mentioned EXwk33. Which is why I posted. I was curious what others thought. I also think universal income will never pass. For a variety of reasons, although the base issue would be people being assholes, greedy, and just a lack of empathy and perspective. So since that option is likely to never come to pass if automation accelerates and wipes out even larger amounts of the low skill job market what happens? It'll be interesting for sure.
I agree universal income wouldn't pass, but at some point I could see a government job guarantee passing to make sure everyone who wants a job can earn a wage. At first people may dislike this, but it's easier to build empathy for people who are trying compared to people who don't try to get a job
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I think fear of automation is overblown. Historically there have been uncountable number of jobs that have become obsolete and the people in those jobs have been hit with unemployment. The ones who adapted, continued to live their lives and the ones who didn’t were pushed into poverty. Within the last few decades we’ve seen jobs like switchboard operators, vcr repairman, elevator operators etc. disappear. At the start of the 1900s jobs like horse poo cleaner, lamp lighter, milkman, ice cutters etc. existed which no longer do. What do you think happened to all those people? The same will happen to the people now. It may seem harsh but the reality about low skill jobs is that anyone else can do it, including a robot. So you always have a threat of losing it. In the end the only thing that will happen is that these set of jobs will be replaced by another set of jobs that require lower skills. People just will need to adapt.
Totally agreed and you were faster as posting this than me :)