Brave New World

 

A week or so back we were discussing the implications of America’s declining birth rate. Amongst other points, I wrote this in response to Ross Douthat’s argument that we needed relatively youthful, growing populations to keep the show on the road:

We live in an age in which production relies ever more on technology and ever less on a large workforce. And when it does still need the latter those factories have a nasty habit of migrating abroad.   

The traditional idea that (per capita) economic growth relied on population growth has been looking a little tired for quite some time, and the increase in the numbers of the elderly depending on social security does not alter that fact: the unemployed are not going to be able to pay for the pensions of the retired.

Given that, these comments from Paul Krugman (I know, I know) and the Daily Telegraph’s Jeremy Warner are worth noting.

Krugman:

Consider for a moment a sort of fantasy technology scenario, in which we could produce intelligent robots able to do everything a person can do. Clearly, such a technology would remove all limits on per capita GDP, as long as you don’t count robots among the capitas. All you need to do is keep raising the ratio of robots to humans, and you get whatever GDP you want.

Now, that’s not happening — and in fact, as I understand it, not that much progress has been made in producing machines that think the way we do. But it turns out that there are other ways of producing very smart machines. In particular, Big Data — the use of huge databases of things like spoken conversations — apparently makes it possible for machines to perform tasks that even a few years ago were really only possible for people…

And this means that in a sense we are moving toward something like my intelligent-robots world; many, many tasks are becoming machine-friendly. This in turn means that Gordon is probably wrong about diminishing returns to technology.

Ah, you ask, but what about the people? Very good question. Smart machines may make higher GDP possible, but also reduce the demand for people — including smart people. So we could be looking at a society that grows ever richer, but in which all the gains in wealth accrue to whoever owns the robots.

Warner:

On the positive side, robots ought to progressively free people from the need for human labour. They also have the potential to create unlimited economic growth, since the more robots you have, the more they can produce. On the negative side, they also have the potential to create massive unemployment. We’ve already seen this in action across a wide range of industries as they move from labour to capital intensive. For instance, it no longer takes nearly as many people to make a car as it used to. Vast numbers of white collar jobs have already been disintermediated by the IT revolution. Eventually this will spread to basic manual and service work as the robots move progressively into the workforce.

Again, this doesn’t necessarily matter if the rewards of this revolution are spread equitably through society, but it obviously matters a lot if the owners of the robots – or the capital – monopolise all the wealth that they create.

Indeed, it can reasonably be argued that this is already happening, with inequality steeply on the rise in both advanced and developing economies.

And if you think about it, that’s actually what did occur in the early stages of the industrial revolution, when an extreme divide developed between capital and labour.

None the less, society eventually managed to get through it, and the spoils of these productivity revolutions became more widely shared. Capitalism has repeatedly adapted to survive, and it will do so again. When societies don’t, their leaders tend to be quite swiftly dispatched to the guillotine.

From the Luddites onwards, every technological breakthrough has always produced the same hand-wringing about the effect on jobs and wealth distribution, but in the end, each one creating far more jobs than it has destroyed – generally in more rewarding and less health hazardous forms of work – and greatly raised living standards in the round.

True, so far. And even if history does repeat itself in that happy way, are we going to have to go through a 1917 or two before we get there?

Remind me again why we still need rising populations. I must be missing something.

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  1. Profile Photo Member
    @DavidFoster

    Technology-driven improvements in labor-force productivity have been going on for a long, long time. Even a hand-powered Spinning Jenny, circa 1764,  could replace about 5 women at spinning wheels, and the effects of power spinning equipment and the power loom were even more dramatic. Robots, in the form of numerically-controlled machine tools, were introduced to factories in large numbers in the 1970s. Mainframe computers replaced vast clerical forces throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Recorded sound and music eliminated the need for the orchestras which once served every movie theater. And so on.

    I haven’t heard a persuasive argument that today’s improvements in productivity will really have an overwhelming impact abovt the trend line.

    BTW, an interesting book on historical debates about technological unemployment is “Automating Ourselves Out of Jobs,” by Amy Sue Bix.

    While rising inequality may have something to do with automation, I think it has much more to do with the insane increase in  credentialism and the simultaneous collapse of much of the public school system.

    • #1
  2. Profile Photo Member
    @DavidFoster

    Correction: the title of the Amy Sue Bix book is “Inventing Ourselves Our of Jobs.”

    Also, Krugman’s assertion that “all the gains in wealth accrue to whoever owns the robots” is very bad economics. If the robot technology is available to all the companies in the industry, then the profit potential will be competed away and the gains will accrue mainly to the consumers (depending on the labor situation in the industry, some of the gains may accrue to the workers as well.) Warren Buffett made this point a long time ago when asked whether he didn’t think that highly-advanced textile equipment might make the textile trade continue to be attractive to him.

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    @Pseudodionysius

    Remind me again why we still need rising populations?

    Because if you are not interested in war, war will be interested in you. Unless, of course, you believe the future will be decided by Clone Wars and Queen Amadala reclining with Anakin Skywalker under the Moons of Naboo asking him to hold her tighter.

    (A shout out to my 1970’s Gangnam style posse leader and fellow hipster John Podhoretz, with apologies to Troy Senik for invoking the dreaded Gangnam word, though it may generate some increased google search traffic for Ricochet. No need to thank me.)

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    @Spin

    “…Jane, his wife…”

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    @SchrodingersCat

    Remind me again why we still need rising populations. I must be missing something.

     

    metropol1.jpg

     

    metropol2.jpg

     

    metropol3.jpg

     

    Where does the consumption needed to drive GDP growth come from when 99% of the population are unemployed?

    We are not talking not Inventing Ourselves Our of Jobs. We are talking inventing ourselves into extinction.

    • #5
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    @Pseudodionysius
    Schrodinger’s Cat

    Remind me again why we still need rising populations. I must be missing something.

     

     

     

     

    Where does the consumption needed to drive GDP growth come from when 99% of the population are unemployed?

    We are not talking not Inventing Ourselves Our of Jobs. We are talking inventing ourselves into extinction. · 0 minutes ago

    I think this is where we queue up the 1930’s style German printing presses for runaway hyperinflation to keep the gun free zone bullet trains running on time.

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    @TheSophist

    “Remind me again why we still need rising populations. I must be missing something.”

    Yep, the something you’re missing is culture. As Mark Steyn points out in America Alone, is France still France if Frenchmen are replaced by Algerian Muslims?Similarly, this video makes a point that’s worth pondering robot workforce or no. Even if you believe that the relative ratio can be held the same and population overall declines, unless that population decline is worldwide, in a couple of generations, you’re going to need some as-yet-unseen robot military to stop the non-technologically advanced societies/countries that have a surplus of young hotblooded men who want what you got.And… that leads to Skynet scenarios, of course.

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    @RedRules

    It will be interesting to see how further modernization shifts human labor. Could we be looking at a future where the retirement-service sector explodes? After all, when there is less need to flip burgers, or track stocks, or dig ditches, or even fight wars, what will people do to make money? Maybe they become care-givers for the young or the old. Could we see a resurgence of the stay-at-home parents? Multiple generations living under the same roof? 

    • #8
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    @ThomWilliams

    I imagine a balance between innovation, productivity growth, and demand will be achieved. That’s what markets do, afterall. Invisible hand and all that. What I wonder about is whether we will find a floor to our declining birth rates and a ceiling to the increase in the average age of our society. Once the average age of our society goes above child bearing age and the birth rate goes below one child per woman of child bearing age, how many years does the society have left?

    Maybe we’ll have robots that can take care of us just fine in our dotage, eliminating the need for younger, able bodied generations to take care of the majority of tired and retired seniors that will make up the population. But eventually there is a tipping point where a society no longer functions, right?

    Maybe Asia and Europe will answer these questions as to what the leveling off point of declining birth rates and aging populations is, if they exist at all.

    • #9
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    @BarbaraKidder
    Thom Williams: I imagine a balance between innovation, productivity growth, and demand will be achieved. That’s what markets do, afterall. Invisible hand and all that. What I wonder about is whether we will find a floor to our declining birth rates and a ceiling to the increase in the average age of our society. Once the average age of our society goes above child bearing age and the birth rate goes below one child per woman of child bearing age, how many years does the society have left?

    Maybe we’ll have robots that can take care of us just fine in our dotage, eliminating the need for younger, able bodied generations to take care of the majority of tired and retired seniors that will make up the population. But eventually there is a tipping point where a society no longer functions, right?

    Maybe Asia and Europe will answer these questions as to what the leveling off point of declining birth rates and aging populations is, if they exist at all. · 5 minutes ago

    Edited 4 minutes ago

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    @BarbaraKidder

    I believe you are right, Mr. Williams, that there is a tipping point where “the average age of our society goes above child-bearing age, and the birthrate goes below ‘one-child-per-woman of child bearing age”.

    Undoubtedly, Asia and Europe will be where this becomes self-evident, but at the point at which we realize this, we will be unable to correct our dilemma.

    Sadly, we play the roll of a Cassandra…

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    @donaldtodd

    We are actually in the midst of another discussion of the value of human beings.  

    That value was discussed in Turkey in regard to the Kurds.  

    That value was discussed in Germany in regard to non-Aryans, in particular Jews and Slavic peoples.  

    That value was discussed in the US in regard to slavery, and later to the Jim Crow laws and the harassment and killing of black Americans.

    That value is being discussed in the US (and elsewhere) in regard to avoiding children being conceived, to children in the womb, and – with a nod to Obama – to children who survive the abortionist.

    The value of children is being seen in Scandinavia where the native peoples (Norwegians, Swedes and Danes) are becoming minority populations in their own countries.  The virile Vikings are replaced by the mild Scandinavians and the mild Scandinavians are dying out.  They found something more important than children, that being a desire for a degree of comfort as they proceed to a date with death.

    Having achieved this stupendous position, lets talk about the value of robots and money.

    • #12
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    @rayconandlindacon

    Reread comment #7, below:

    TheSophist: “Remind me again why we still need rising populations. I must be missing something.”

    Yep, the something you’re missing is culture. As Mark Steyn points out in America Alone, is France still France if Frenchmen are replaced by Algerian Muslims?Similarly, this video makes a point that’s worth pondering robot workforce or no. Even if you believe that the relative ratio can be held the same and population overall declines, unless that population decline is worldwide, in a couple of generations, you’re going to need some as-yet-unseen robot military to stop the non-technologically advanced societies/countries that have a surplus of young hotblooded men who want what you got.And… that leads to Skynet scenarios, of course. · 20 minutes ago

    The robot/invention scenario pales in relation to the above.  And lest we all forget, the Dark Ages were the result of the fall of civilized Rome and it’s aftermath.  When civilizations collapse they are not necessarily replaced by stronger civilizations. 

    Sometimes they are replaced by the vacuum of un-civilization.

    • #13
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    @ThomWilliams

    Another aspect of this discussion is the point that the pace and quality of  innovation is a numbers game. The more people we have working, the faster and better our innovation is. That is assuming we are training those people in the sciences and giving people proper incentives to take risks and discover. So, if we want innovation to continue rising, we cant let our numbers dip too low.

    Also, concerns about tech eventually leaving people without enough work to do seems to drastically underestimate the human imaginations capacity to come up with new things to do faster than our ability to develop the technology. There will be jobs, if we have the population to fill them. We just can’t possibly figure out what they will be.

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    @Pseudodionysius

     They found something more important than children, that being a desire for a degree of comfort as they proceed to a date with death.

    A Portrait of Dorian Graybeard in the 21st Century:

    “A secular Scandinavian sipping cappuccino at an outdoor French cafe, blissfully unaware of the monastic origin of his beverage, the Italian origin of its namesake, the former religion of his coffee houses’ nation state, the point of the French Revolution, the faint smell of burning Citroen tires from the annual New Year’s Eve tradition of the running of the cars, or the reason that his drink costs so much in Euros, as he can’t seem to recall the name of the fellow heading the European parliament — its in Brussels, isn’t it? — as he troddles off to another tourist site like Diane Fossey looking for sasparillas in the mist.”

    • #15
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    @NickStuart

    1. We’re a long way from robots able to do everything (e.g. design, program, and repair the robots; make creative improvements; come to my house and rod out the sewer; etc.)

    2. The EMP from a single 3rd world nuke over Kansas takes us back to 1850 in an instant.

    • #16
  17. Profile Photo Member
    @
    RedRules: It will be interesting to see how further modernization shifts human labor. Could we be looking at a future where the retirement-service sector explodes? After all, when there is less need to flip burgers, or track stocks, or dig ditches, or even fight wars, what will people do to make money? Maybe they become care-givers for the young or the old. Could we see a resurgence of the stay-at-home parents? Multiple generations living under the same roof?  · 2 hours ago

    Vancouver is a retirement city for the rich, old Chinese. It has pushed out the Canadians born and raised for generations, who paid the taxes and created a safe, welcoming culture.

    The rich retirees live in Vancouver while the servers live in dormitory cities linked by train.

    The socialist government prevented Canadian businesses from doing mining, forestry and development. Now, decades later, they are letting Chinese companies come in and they pay the taxes.

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    @
    Andrew Stuttaford: 

    Remind me again why we still need rising populations. 

    On top of the preservation of the culture already mentioned, people are still useful, will continue to be useful, and moreover their quality follows a Gaussian distribution.

    First, it will be a LONG time before robots can match the average human in all ways.  Currently, robots have an intelligence comparable to that of an insect, and it could be decades before they get to that of a mouse.  Do not be fooled by carefully orchestrated lab demos: in the real world, robots fail.

    Second, humans are getting smarter.  The average person is smarter now then the average person was 50 years ago, who was smarter than the average person 100 years ago, and so on.  Also, the average person is not at his full potential, which we are still learning how to utilize.

    Finally, exceptional people are exceptional (duh) and cannot be created.  They occur randomly, and the only way to ensure we have lots of exceptional people is to have LOTS of people, some of which will be exceptional.

    In conclusion, people are a resource.  More people means more resources.  Our problem is we don’t use them.

    • #18
  19. Profile Photo Member
    @

    “So we could be looking at a society that grows ever richer, but in which all the gains in wealth accrue to whoever owns the robots.” Just as computers used to take up rooms and only big business could afford them, now we have iPhones.

    Russ Roberts has a new podcast on the former Editor of Wired who was trying to get his 5 children interested in technology and stumbled upon his business printing gliders with a 3D printer. Now he manufactures drones for agriculture in Tijuana.

    What used to take a large factory with many workers and machinery that cost a great deal, now takes a non-educated young plant manager in Mexico.

    The real money is still made by those who create, the money or Das Kapital does not just flow like Manna from Heaven just by owning machines. Many can own machines but without creativity, they get overrun by the next competitors, Asian now.

    The US manufacturer has to work hard to keep human labour out of it due to union costs, etc. 

    I was at croissant factory last week and the owner invents machines to reduce need for workers who are non-English speaking immigrants.

    • #19
  20. Profile Photo Member
    @HangOn

    The thing Krugman doesn’t seem to recognize is that computers at the moment have the mental capacity of cockroaches. That’s not going to last for long and it is merely a matter of a few decades before computers have the mental capacity of humans.

    I completely agree with the idea that expanding populations are not necessary for economic expansion. The other reason is increased longevity combined with better health. It’s going to be a matter of people living for centuries.

    When these two trends merge, people who work will be people who want to work. And there will be plenty of people who want to work.

    As for the Mark Steyn stuff, it’s simply ridiculous. There have been periods when over half the population of Europe were wiped out by combinations of bad harvests, the plague, and war over a period of a few years. Europe survived. There is no such sudden collapse of population or of civilization on the horizon.

    • #20
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    @Pseudodionysius
    Indaba

    RedRules: It will be interesting to see how further modernization shifts human labor. Could we be looking at a future where the retirement-service sector explodes? After all, when there is less need to flip burgers, or track stocks, or dig ditches, or even fight wars, what will people do to make money? Maybe they become care-givers for the young or the old. Could we see a resurgence of the stay-at-home parents? Multiple generations living under the same roof?  · 2 hours ago

    Vancouver is a retirement city for the rich, old Chinese. It has pushed out the Canadians born and raised for generations, who paid the taxes and created a safe, welcoming culture.

    The rich retirees live in Vancouver while the servers live in dormitory cities linked by train.

    The socialist government prevented Canadian businesses from doing mining, forestry and development. Now, decades later, they are letting Chinese companies come in and they pay the taxes. · 1 hour ago

    This comment needs to be worked into something for the Main Feed.

    • #21
  22. Profile Photo Member
    @Sandy

    We need rising populations because we need families, and we need families because without them it is difficult, if not impossible, to become fully human.  Under the one-child policy, for example,  if he is lucky, for a time a child may have two parents and, if he is very, very lucky, four grandparents, but eventually he will have no blood relatives.  The robots who care for him in illness and old age may be able to feed him and change his linen, but they will not love him.

    • #22
  23. Profile Photo Member
    @HangOn
    KC Mulville: 

    Man needs a job, because he needs to work.

     · 25 minutes ago

    Some do. Some don’t.

    • #23
  24. Profile Photo Member
    @HangOn
    Pseudodionysius

    Indaba

    RedRules: It will be interesting to see how further modernization shifts human labor. Could we be looking at a future where the retirement-service sector explodes? After all, when there is less need to flip burgers, or track stocks, or dig ditches, or even fight wars, what will people do to make money? Maybe they become care-givers for the young or the old. Could we see a resurgence of the stay-at-home parents? Multiple generations living under the same roof?  · 2 hours ago

    Vancouver is a retirement city for the rich, old Chinese. It has pushed out the Canadians born and raised for generations, who paid the taxes and created a safe, welcoming culture.

    The rich retirees live in Vancouver while the servers live in dormitory cities linked by train.

    The socialist government prevented Canadian businesses from doing mining, forestry and development. Now, decades later, they are letting Chinese companies come in and they pay the taxes. · 1 hour ago

    This comment needs to be worked into something for the Main Feed. · 0 minutes ago

    That’s_why the Japanese are doing it the smart way — Japanese only — in the face of an aging society. None_of_this_multicultural_stuff. Take_care_of_your_own.

    • #24
  25. Profile Photo Member
    @HangOn
    Sandy: We need rising populations because we need families, and we need families because without them it is difficult, if not impossible, to become fully human.  Under the one-child policy, for example,  if he is lucky, for a time a child may have two parents and, if he is very, very lucky, four grandparents, but eventually he will have no blood relatives.  The robots who care for him in illness and old age may be able to feed him and change his linen, but they will not love him. · 4 minutes ago

    The person you marry is (hopefully) not a blood relative, so the idea only blood relatives are needed for family isn’t true.

    • #25
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    @rayconandlindacon
    Hang On: The thing Krugman doesn’t seem to recognize is that computers at the moment have the mental capacity of cockroaches. That’s not going to last for long and it is merely a matter of a few decades before computers have the mental capacity of humans.

    I completely agree with the idea that expanding populations are not necessary for economic expansion. The other reason is increased longevity combined with better health. It’s going to be a matter of people living for centuries….

    As for the Mark Steyn stuff, it’s simply ridiculous. There have been periods when over half the population of Europe were wiped out by combinations of bad harvests, the plague, and war over a period of a few years. Europe survived. There is no such sudden collapse of population or of civilization on the horizon. · 7 minutes ago

    Modern ease of movement changes all that.  It took an army for Islam  to conquer Europe the first time.  Now the ship and airplane provide the means to conquer.

    And not only Islam.  Mexicans in the US Southwest are also on track to bring about the Reconquista.  Vancouver is also on the list.

    Steyn is right.

    • #26
  27. Profile Photo Member
    @Sandy
    Hang On

    Sandy: We need rising populations because we need families, and we need families because without them it is difficult, if not impossible, to become fully human.  Under the one-child policy, for example,  if he is lucky, for a time a child may have two parents and, if he is very, very lucky, four grandparents, but eventually he will have no blood relatives.  The robots who care for him in illness and old age may be able to feed him and change his linen, but they will not love him. · 4 minutes ago

    The person you marry is (hopefully) not a blood relative, so the idea only blood relatives are needed for family isn’t true. · 1 hour ago

    I agree that they are not necessary, but they are surely desirable.  Ask almost any only child.

    • #27
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    @BarbaraKidder
    Hang On

    Sandy:   Under the one-child policy, for example,  if he is lucky, for a time a child may have two parents and, if he is very, very lucky, four grandparents, but eventually he will have no blood relatives.  The robots who care for him in illness and old age may be able to feed him and change his linen, but they will not love him. · 4 minutes ago

    The person you marry is (hopefully) not a blood relative, so the idea only blood relatives are needed for family isn’t true. · 1 hour ago

    Sandy makes an excellent point;  it goes to the heart of why a nursing home can never meet the emotional needs of its residents. 

    Hang On notes the exception to Sandy’s statement, that being that one’s spouse is every bit a ‘family’ member, when it comes to wanting to be cared for by, and wanting to do the careing.

    However, statistically, the spouse is a high risk resource on which to stake your ‘childless’ claim!  

    The oddsmaker is betting on your spouse dying before you, if you are a man;  and leaving you via divorce, in the case of both sexes.

    • #28
  29. Profile Photo Member
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Instapundit linked to an interesting Smithsonian magazine article last week, on a sort-of related topic.

    The key quote (in my opinion):  “if you say we’re creating the information economy, except that we’re making information free, then what we’re saying is we’re destroying the economy.”

    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Turned-Jaron-Lanier-Against-the-Web-183832741.html

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  30. Profile Photo Member
    @ZinMT

    I think you are missing much of the point.  It is not necessarily about rising populations it about preventing drastic declines in populations.  If the demographic trends continue the world population will be in a tailspin by the end of the century.

    It used to be Catholic countries that provided most of the babies, today it is the Muslims.  But the birthrates of both these groups have been trending to the less than replacement rate levels of advanced countries.  I hope that we are not a species committing collective suicide.

    However as Mark Steyn notes in this weeks column over at NRO,

    “Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive.”

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