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“AI took my job, literally”—Gizmodo fires Spanish staff amid switch to AI translator
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Automation doesn't necessarily mean a better quality of life. We're fatter than ever, more depressed than ever, and we still work more than a medieval peasant.
I always bring this up, automation is what made slavery profitable in the south. When the cotton gin was invented slaveowners didn't start using less slaves for the same out put of cotton. They started buying more slaves to increase the output of cotton with a higher profit margin. That's what happens anytime we see a new form of automation, companies don't reduce work hours and keep the pay the same, they try to increase production and the workers that were replaced will be made to do some other menial task machines can't do, and they will also be made to work 40hrs a week. This whole automation thing increasing our quality of life is a total fucking myth.
I sort of agree in that the fruits of automation shoud be distributed through government and taxes. Its cool that things get more efficient and the world isnt a zero sum game anymore, but if everything in exess of that zero goes to only a few people things won't get better for everyone.
Better policy is definitely needed. We could be living in a utopia right now working three days a week.
For that automation should be treated as a public resource rather than a private source of profits.
At a certain point automation becomes so efficient that it becomes unprofitable to produce certain goods because they can essentially be made for free. So then corporations don't invest in it and so it is no longer produced. It's already happened with other things, but this is somewhere where the public sector could step in.
It's tricky I don't know how it would be best regulated, but companies are run like totalitarian dictatorships. Large companies, especially public companies should be regulated to benefit the people and the workers. Right now publicly traded companies are incentivized legally to maximamize profit regardless if it's at the expense of employees, the environment and citizens. Maybe federally mandating a coop structure for businesses so businesses are run more democratically could be another solution.
I understand your point, and it is probably true for some companies and some jobs. However, it doesn't apply to telephone switchboard operators, bank tellers, movie projectionists, pinsetters, lamplighters, elevator operators, etc. These are jobs which don't have an impact on the production or manufacturing of a product.
I understand that you're talking about the cotton gin because it improved productivity, but the cotton gin used in the early 1800's is an example of mechanization, not automation. It's like a reel lawnmower, which is an improvement over a scythe, but there's nothing automatic about it. This distinction doesn't make much difference here, in the context of productivity.