Automation: A massive problem mostly ignored.

Yesterday I posted about the singularity and how it seems to be a front for exceptionally unpleasant people. In the process of looking into that Martin Ford and his book "Lights in the Tunnel" was mentioned a lot on Wikipedia (I think he was stealth advertising) and it raises a problem that I'd been kind of hazily aware of, not least because of a Paul Krugman article I read last week.

The essential idea Ford (and others) puts forward is that with improvements in technology and increasing automation an increasingly large sector of the economy will not require human workers at all. While this has already happened to an extent automation up to this point has mostly complemented human workers, that is to say labour saving devices meant fewer employees doing more work and other jobs created by the technology taking up the slack. Well for the past couple of decades that slack has been taken up by the service sector. The bad news is automation of the service sector seems to be imminent, with self service checkouts and Online shopping we are already seeing the beginnings of this. In a piece written a few years ago (so it sadly doesn't cover the most recent financial crisis) Marshall Brain wrote a piece detailing how rapid and large scale automation of the service sector is likely to be.(Marshall Brain is the founder of HowStuffWorks.com with a surname like that I suppose it was inevitable)

Something he highlights, which in retrospective seems painfully obvious, is the existence of Jobless Recoveries. Traditional economists have explained away improved growth alongside continuing unemployment because jobs are apparently a "lagging indicator" but it would seem increased automation would explain this equally well if not better. Ford notes that offshoring is linked to automation, deskilled jobs and computers / high bandwidth long distance communication allow jobs to be much more easily exported to places where labour is cheapest. However with automation seemingly poised to replace these jobs altogether it seems China and India's current economic booms may be shortlived.

The general way of things up to now, or at least up to recently, has been that as automation has eliminated some jobs the slack has been taken up elsewhere but as Brain points out (scroll down to "Creating new jobs") there seems to be little place for new jobs to be found, Ford argues an exception is Green Jobs and building a renewable energy infrastructure but even that is short term, once its built the new of jobs required to maintain it will not take up anywhere near all the slack. Worse still even in the near term it wont just be low skilled jobs that will be automated, as mentioned in Krugman's article above and by Ford in an excerpt from his book.

This leads to two possible scenarios, the more optimistic one being that the massive efficiency increases of robotic labour are shared with the general population and the large numbers of people placed into long term, or likely lifelong unemployment are given a decent standard of living funded by the massive surplus robots can create. This is potentially possible and I'm inclined to believe that to some extent the Middle Eastern and now Spanish uprisings are the first wave of backlash against economic automation. The truly massive levels of youth unemployment, Spain has a Youth unemployment rate of 45% are leading to the young taking to the streets and demanding change. They may not get it but it is a potentially hopeful sign.

The less optimistic scenario is much less optimistic. The evidence of US wages being stagnant since the 70s would suggest the benefits of automation and increased efficiency have flowed solely to a very small part of the population who are at the very top of the pile. Without intervention automation, with massively reduced labour costs and no wages going to an increasing slice of the population, the rich will get even richer even faster. We have seen evidence for this in the aftermath of the 2008 crash with Billionaires getting much richer even as the rest of society faces financial crisis and austerity measures. Indeed austerity measures are a good example of this trend, with the poorer in society becoming worse off even as the amount of wealth in society increases. Then you have movements like the Tea Party wanting to cut Medicare and privatise social security, this does not bode well for a future American society looking after the permanently unemployed.

Indeed, as an increasingly large amount of the population becomes essentially surplus social unrest could well increase. This however may not happen due to increasingly powerful surveillance systems in the West being used to prevent organisation and action. While western troops / police might not fire on civilians (the 2008 RNC Protests suggest that they might well do so) Blackwater / Xe mercenaries and automated drones definitely would. The counter to this is a probably vain hope the human elements of the military (if they existed) would revolt if this happened. Thus there is something of a timelimit, once humans have been removed from military and policing operations (if that is indeed possible) the super wealthy minority would likely be utterly secure and looked after by automated systems and robotics. This in turn could lead to a slow genocide as the majority of the population were left to starve to death or perhaps even a more rapid active genocide.

Three things are factors in this happening. Firstly there is the speed and range of automation, if for whatever reason important parts of infrastructure can't be automated or automation is slow allowing things to build to a head a more egalitarian distribution of the benefits of automation may occur. Secondly there is the issue of Awareness if people become aware they're likely to be out of a job permanently in a decade they may well start to look to softening their landing before they become powerless. This is likely why there is no mention of automation in the mainstream media. Thirdly there is the possibility of robotic efficiency being so great that it is inevitably shared more widely. This a very optimistic scenario but there may simply be an upper limit to what the tiny elite can use and control meaning the crumbs left to the rest of society are big enough to allow the global majority to lead decent lives. I certainly wouldn't count on it happening but it is possible I suppose.

I think point two has the most potential to avert catastrophe for the majority which is why I'm going to make a request of you. Spread the word about this. You need not link my blog post, just cherry pick links or even just explain it to people you know. This is seemingly a major factor in the current state of things and yet no one is talking about it, not even dedicated left wing media outfits. People need to know this stuff.

Here are a few key conversation points:
1)Jobless recoveries amid continuing growth.
2)Robots in the service sector, especially self service checkouts, What will replace those jobs?
3)Krugman and Ford's point about higher skilled jobs such as radiology being replaceable.
4)If those jobs can't be replaced what on earth is going to happen?

Spreading the word as widely as possible can only be a beneficial thing.

I forgot to work this into the text but Jeremy Rifkin also covered this topic in The End of Work but I can't find much to cite from this but still, worth knowing about if you're interested in the topic.

And now; some Propaganda Model news.

A hagiography was originally a biography of a saint listing all their positive virtues and painting them in the best light possible, subsequently it has come to mean a highly positive portrayal of a person, usually in print.

The propaganda model would suggest that if an event that is negative to US interests occurred and it could not safely be ignored then it will be belittled, diminished and "spun" to lessen its' impact on US policy as much as possible.

The Wikileaks document release last week was just such an event and I betcha can't guess what happened. It is consistently fascinating to me (though unsurprising) that the NYT is held up as an example of extremely liberal journalism when it is such an obvious and blatant establishment supporter. The reasons for things being such is simple and twofold: 1)It is to keep the Overton Window (do note the depressing fact right wing uber shill Glenn Beck has tried to co-opt the term just as he has tried to co-opt Martin Luther King's actions) in the very right wing place it is currently, American political discourse will stay right wing as long as people think what the NYT offer is in any way left wing. 2) To people who want to be left wing and suchlike but aren't that well informed (what with how subservient the US media is and all) will read the NYT and unknowingly consume right wing propaganda.

Glenn Greenwald while at no point referring to the propaganda model (Chomsky is Haraam in American mainsteam political discourse) does a very good job of showing how the reaction to this release of information by Wikileaks is a case study of just how the propaganda model works. Greenwald draws some solace from the fact people are questioning just how in the pentagon's pocket the NYT writers were and I suppose to an extent it is. But if nearly of ample evidence of just how blatantly Burns and his ilk lied about Iraq and Afghanistan is only now drawing some criticism rather than hair teared out outrage it would seem that the Propaganda Model is functioning well enough for the elite and US interests.

Bankers always win but this time they've won even more:

Found here.

So yeah America's Plutocratic Aristocracy is incomprehensibly rich and able to spend as much as it wants on elections. Things are going to get a lot worse for everyone on earth bar that tiny elite.

Facebook in not protecting people's privacy shocker.

For all the positive benefits users of facebook speak of, arranging overconsumption of alcohol, recording and sharing pictures of your overconsumption and helping employers decide if your alcohol consumption matches up with their corporate ethos, we all know that really all it exists to do is to get as much of your personal information as possible so as to sell it off. Kind of like how people often don't like to say they're going to the toilet but instead use a euphemism (which can be more vulgar than the truth but w/e) the general populace likes to pretend Facebook actually cares about you and your views instead of just a fungible data node. Ya know, like with shop loyalty cards.

A couple interesting privacy issues that have come up of late: The new Groups "security" feature is easily exploitable and far from under the control of the group creators. Oh and thanks to an indifference to personal privacy on the part of both Apple and Google your phone number is probably easily available on facebook even if you didn't put it there.

why yes it is ironic I am posting about this stuff on a google owned blog

German group points out website blocking is wholly ineffective.

When dealing with child porn at least which is the wedge strategy being used across the western world to make such censorship seem acceptable. The key point they make is so obvious as to be a "why didn't I think of that" moment. Simply put by blocking child porn sites the authorities are not dealing with them and shutting them down. In contrast simply contacting webhosts caused all the child porn sites they found to be shut down within hours.

The summary and report can be found here and is worth looking at. They destroy pretty much every excuse for site blocking that exists with short to the point arguments.


thanks jonny

You see, criminals understand how to prevent crime best of all!

I am not a fan of Robert Peston but this editorial is good and shows pretty clearly that not only is it business as usual for banks but they're still able to set their own opaque agenda with only the mildest of comment from the media. Oh well, at least everyone knows their proper place in a feudal society.

A video of all nuclear detonations that have occured up to 1998.

Well thats not quite technically accurate, South Africa / Israel may have carried out a test in 1979 but thats splitting hairs. A Japanese artist created this animation of where all the nuclear explosions that we know about have occurred and plotted them onto a world map. You can see it here.

Its more interesting than you might imagine.

It really reminds me of primates hooting and hollering at each other to mark their territories. But we're way more advanced than those fucking chimps, we use the power of the atom for our petty displays!

thanks jonny

Socialism works.

Ok so this article is actually about how how pervasive the pentagon system is in our every day lives (anyone who thinks this just affects America is a prize fool) but while we probably weren't it was quite as pervasive as it is we did know GE owned NBC and so on, the corporations run the world.

No no lets take something positive from this, it is clear that substantial state funding is essential for a "capitalistic economy" to function. This offer to very slim hopes for the future, firstly if people were able gain back some power from the elite, as happened during the last depression this socialism for the rich could be directed more towards the poor and secondly, hey at least now you have evidence for libertarian assholes that the free market doesn't work.

Global problem of biased medical research

One of the more trumpeted argument against UHC in America was that without gouging the sick and needy there wouldn't be enough money for research. This was proven to be wholly false with Pharmaceutical companies pending twice as much on advertising as they do research but it seems pharam companies shouldn't be involved in research at all. Not I imagine a especially surprising to anyone but it seems over 50% of drug trial results aren't published so as to make drugs seem much more effective than they are. When filthy lucre is involved it seems reality takes a distant second place in drug company's considerations.

Doesn't capitalism own?