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Wage pressure will not be tolerated. The parabola has begun.
December 11, 2012
Jobs, Productivity and the Great Decoupling
As we move ahead the Great Decoupling will only accelerate, for two reasons. First, computers will keep getting cheaper over time. Digital labor will become cheaper than human labor not only in the United States and other rich countries, but also in places like China and India. Off-shoring is only a way station on the road to automation.
Second, technologies are going to continue to become more powerful, and to acquire more advanced skills and abilities. They can already drive cars, understand and produce natural human speech, write clean prose, and beat the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital progress has surprised a lot of people, and we ain’t seen nothing yet. Brawny computers, brainy programmers, and big data are a potent combination, and they’re nowhere near finished. The implications of their work for the labor force are nicely summarized by the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who says: “The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories: People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do.” Only one of these two job categories will be well paid.
Second, technologies are going to continue to become more powerful, and to acquire more advanced skills and abilities. They can already drive cars, understand and produce natural human speech, write clean prose, and beat the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital progress has surprised a lot of people, and we ain’t seen nothing yet. Brawny computers, brainy programmers, and big data are a potent combination, and they’re nowhere near finished. The implications of their work for the labor force are nicely summarized by the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who says: “The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories: People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do.” Only one of these two job categories will be well paid.
Humanoid robots with eyes and ears, arms and legs are still in their early stages of development. A division of Dongbu Robot is working in this field.
Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
8 comments:
Sarcasm failure.
I couldn't find anything to heckle.
This chart reminds me of the "Parabola of the Good Samaritan". It is mentioned in only one of the gospels of the New Keynesian Testament. According to the Gospel of Yellen, a worker (who may or may not have been a robot) is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road.
I thought there was more to the Parabola, but apparently it ends with the worker dying on the road.
Mr Slippery,
I have faith that your parabola teaches us all a great morale lesion! Hahaha! ;)
I am forward looking to the days of the cyborg, when traumatic brain injuries normally resulting in death along the road are merely cybernetic implant opportunities which will help us all be permanently more productive for our sentient robotic overlords.
Death and taxes? Both sure things? No, just taxes. Praise be.
a worker (who may or may not have been a robot) is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road.
A worker? There haven't been any of those around since we shipped all our jobs to China back in the 90's.
BTW - to make this comment I had to enter a 4digit number to prove I am not a robot. Irony much?
I wonder if we can protect ourselves from future robot marauders by presenting them with increasingly difficult capta images.
"Before you kill me, prove you're not a robot!"
"captcha"
Anonymous,
There haven't been any of those around since we shipped all our jobs to China back in the 90's.
I thought it was late December, back in '63. Oh wait, maybe I was thinking about the world's oldest profession. Hold on now, I was born in late July, back in '64! Just what am I trying to imply here? That's 7 months, not 9! Whew! Oh, man. Close one! Nearly boxed my mom in there, lol. ;)
Mr Slippery,
I fail blogger's captcha test fairly often. I swear they must be making it harder. I'll need a robot helper someday just to solve it!
Hey! Invention idea!
Captcha One!
Not only will our robot help you prove you're not a robot, but it will prove you aren't a missing NASA astronaut!
Retail Price: $125
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