15 Comments

As a frequent sweetgreen customer, I found this quite interesting! Here in Palo Alto, we're still using human beings (for now)

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With that minimum wage, not for long

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Automation is coming no matter what. The choice is we can reduce unemployment to near zero by deporting about 30 million illegal aliens and visa holders collecting welfare, or we can have 60 million+ angry underclass that will swell past 100 million once the welfare costs overwhelm the budget and collapse the currency.

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Option B is likely

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Isn't this also in response to demographic changes and potential labor shortages? A la Japan's demographic composition catching up to RoW (developed world)? I think there will be applications where robotics are successful & others where they are entirely unsuccessful. For whatever reason, corps are starting off with low-wage, unskilled work.

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Here is the link. https://www.lisep.org/tru

Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.

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If you count $25k annual earnings as a living wage in unemployment ..unemployment in America is 24%. What labor shortage?

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*potential, future labor shortages. The kind that an aging population with more geriatric dependents than productive working-age population segments can sustain. The research & dev in this field will ultimately be meant to plug these deltas so that the economy doesn't shrink by a commensurate amount to population decline.

The BLS statistics you cite above could also be read to mean there is an oversupply of low-skilled, unskilled labor in this economy; or even a glut of menial work that is being absorbed by higher *nominal* growth. Immigration also a big factor in this category.

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What would you hypothetically do with those not dying still making less than $25k annually USD? or 1/4 of the US population?

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Assuming this % of the population making <=$25k annually, meaning underemployment (what I've previously heard it referred to as, eg. PT vs FT work), is dynamic & persistent, I think we'd need to assume that it fluctuates. Based on the LISEP site data it currently looks to be near a low since the lookback period from '95. Will it continue to trend lower? is automation partly responsible for this trend lower? would automation greatly accelerate this trend lower going forward? would more roles/people fall into this segment as automation adoption increases? Is this $25k pegged to inflation?

I've not read the white paper yet, but these all seem like important questions. What is evident is underemployment has been with us for some time now, and whether this segment of the population is more vulnerable to displacement from automation isn't entirely clear. What would I do with them? -> what have we been doing with them? Nothing much is seems like, other than undercounting for the bassackwards purposes of policy making.

Will we still have functional poverty as the population ages? No doubt. Maybe even more so. Ironically -- or not -- one of the research fields for robotics that I've been made aware of is elder care. Because WTF is going to take care of all the old people? Apparently not the poor people.

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What if people get bored with robotic service and outlets with real live fallible humans become the rage?

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The corporations are 1st gonna try this automation thing with or without our votes

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I dig it ! There will be unlimited new ways and opportunities to make money.

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Robot pump?

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I am def long robots. I watched the entire keynote last night. Aside from his jacket I was very impressed. It's going to be very exciting times ahead.

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