The BBC have been soliciting stories about boring jobs. An example:
I put pepperoni on 14,000 pizzas per day at a factory in Nottingham. If the conveyor belt broke down, we made smiley faces on the pizzas with the pepperoni. So if you ever see a smiley pizza, that’s why.
It is mostly a list of things that can be automated away, because boring implies repetitive. In software development we try to never do the same thing more than a few times. Software is easy to automate compared to physical things like putting toppings on pizza, but any boring job looks to me like an opportunity for an inventor.
Food production seems to be the source of a lot of these jobs. Perhaps robotics lecturer Steve Davis can offer some insight:
More recently, the availability of highly effective pick-and-place robots allowed automation to move upstream and undertake operations with actual food products on production lines. However, these systems are currently only generally installed on the high-volume, long-life, single-product lines. Smaller companies, which constitute over 90 percent of European food manufacturers, have been much slower to incorporate automation. The reasons for this include limited low-cost labor and expertise, market volatility, a belief that automation is unsuitable for the assembly of soft, variable, fragile, slippery/sticky natural products and the predominance of short-term orders, which discouraged capital investments in automation.
The cost of the machinery might be reduced by making more general purpose machines that can be sold off the shelf in larger quantities. And the skill level required to configure the machines can probably be reduced, to a point, with clever user interface design.
Humans are good ‘pick and place’ robots and readily to hand.
Humans might not want the leftover dregs of employment.
Being the idle rich is boring as well.
On the other hand war is not and is currently rather popular.
Humans are OK pick and place robots. But that doesn’t mean actual robots won’t be able to do the work cheaper and better. Luddite attitudes to machinery do ignore the huge wealth gains and price cuts derived from higher productivity; and it’s true that we have no idea what goods and services might be demanded in future, providing jobs currently unimagined. The collapse of employment opportunities caused by automation has been predicted many times before.
All the same, there’s no economic law that the free market will provide jobs for everyone at a wage sufficient to keep them alive. (Nemesis advises me to adjust that “them” to an “us”.) The market’s treatment of plough animals in t’West is, thanks to automation, simply to demand fewer of them than before. It can certainly reach the same conclusion for humans with skills that can be easily bettered by machines, at the same or lower cost.
But they are fun to watch!
So turn yourselves into robots! If you can’t beat them, join them! I’ve already used the name Andy Roid, but there are plenty of others!
There does seem to be an opposite trend.
Ie – Make work for females in a great many human contact jobs. Carers, teachers aids,outreach workers, social workers, home help etc.
Soon everyone with be employed by the state taking in each others washing.
I believe that the Romans discovered that idle citizens were dangerous citizens. So ‘bread and circuses’ for them.
.
As well remember that Europe 1943 had little citizen unrest.
Whoa – for a minute I thought the BBC had done a piece about the “living wage” leading to low skilled workers being replaced by automation and so condemned to a life of unemployment.
This could be tricky. During my industrial placement in the fourth year of my engineering degree I worked in a small company making machines for production lines, some of which were associated with food (I worked on machines that ended up on the McVitie’s Penguin and Jaffa Cake production lines in Manchester). Each machine we made was bespoke precisely because the picking, turning, filling, etc. operations were in themselves unique…each machine had to be designed and calibrated to do a very precise repetitive action, with absolutely no scope for doing anything else. It simply wouldn’t be worth the cost to attempt to design flexibility into the machine, aside from perhaps being able to change a few tooling heads and change the set points.
I don’t buy the idea automation leads to unemployment, simply because it has not so far. But every new wave of automation has involved the same worries. And each time we have ended up with a richer population, with practically full employment in at least some places. Automation might reduce participation in employment (as the need to be involved reduces due to lower prices or received income) but this is also against the trend – automation has increased participation in employment by reducing the time required at home or in subsitance activities (note that the development of the bow and arrow or the plough was also automation…).
If we look at unemployment, it is not normally caused by automation, but by obsletion or by government involvement. The high-unemployment areas of the UK are not actually those where automation has taken over (e.g. car manufacturing) but areas where the big twentieth-century heavy industries were based (mining, steel, shipyards) which are no longer cost-efficient in the UK and therefore obselete. Countries with high unemployment (e.g. Greece, Spain) are actually generally less automated than countries doing better (e.g. Germany) but are also less-well governed with much greater state intervention. In all cases I know enough about to comment the problem is in effect inelasticity of labour (either through a misplaced job-for-life culture as in some mining areas (I come from one that got over that) or through statist regulation) not automation.
The US rust belt might be an example of automation replacing jobs, but someone else will have to explain the pockets of unemployment there as I don’t know it well enough.
Lee Moore: “there’s no economic law that the free market will provide jobs for everyone at a wage sufficient to keep them alive”.
I wonder about this. I forget which writer it was who pointed out that there is always more work to do, since we can all imagine how useful it would be to have a full time personal assistant. Then I have encountered the idea that even if it takes a human 100 hours to do the work a machine could do in one hour, if the available machines can do something more valuable in that hour, it might as well be left to the humans. And Watchman notices that previous waves of automation have not led to unemployment.
Perhaps there is a law…
I imagine that people will end up mostly playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
And licensing people playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
And monitoring people playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
And checking diversity quotas for people playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
And lobbying for/against people playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
And lawyering people playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
And monitoring the people monitoring the people playing professional sport, cooking for each other, designing computer games and giving each other massages.
etc.
Rob,
I think you missed out innovating, cottage and artisan industries (I still think a human touch is better in baking to be honest – feel is important), art (including areas like comics which are mass production), leisure activities and prostitution (unless this is your massage class), all of which have arguably grown (cottage industries being very different in nature nowadays) as automation has progressed. Basically we are listing the luxury industries – because automation produces wealth, so people have more to spend on luxuries.
And someone will have to do machine repairs. Or machines that repair machine repairs.
And apparently plumbing. We always need more plumbers (and to be honest, that would be difficult to build a machine to replace – although for the pipe under the bath that we needed to get my five-year-old nephew (have you tried to teach a five year old to use adjustable wrenches in a tight space? Fortunately he likes to learn new skills) to replace I can see the virtue of it).
The big difference now is that it is amazingly easy and cheap for people to entertain themselves and in non-collective ways if they wish.
john malpas,
On the other hand war is not and is currently rather popular.
What a dummy. Human violence is at an historical low. The 24 hour news cycle is distorting your perception of reality.
Although any given repetitive job can be easily automated, we haven’t yet reached the point where we can make machines that can do as many repetitive jobs as one human.
This is important, because it’s usually quite tricky and/or time consuming to figure out what jobs result in sustainable (let alone profitable) businesses, or how to break those jobs into repetitive tasks that can be either automated or else taught to unskilled labor.
The other overlooked advantage humans have over automatons is that the person figuring out what the product is will first make it using human tools, rather than an automaton, and so the initial process will be optimized for humans. Of course, the amount of time it takes to figure out how to make a robot do it will only decrease, but being first-to-market can still be a viable short-term strategy.
In a free market, humans would actually have a greater advantage over machines, since this process
would occur spontaneously, whereas automation would require either some planning or else the subset of people who think programming & building automatons is nifty.
One point about automation not having caused unemployment: yes, but maybe it has freed up people from blue-collar jobs which they were capable of doing, and forced them into white-collar knowledge-work that is a little beyond them? Look at all the people in journalism who would be vastly more competent on a production line somewhere.
PersonFromPerlock,
Having read a Polly Toynbee article earlier (she somehow managed to argue that market failure explains low wages for truck drivers whilst acknowledging the existence of cheaper alternatives from the EU and the requirement to have a government qualification to participate in the market…) I would suggest you would not want her on a production line. She would reliably put the head on the doll back-to-front…
To be fair, most journalists seem to live in their own fantasy lands but have transferrable skills – imagination, creative writing, the inability to notice what is outside your front door. I am sure there are a lot of non-production-line jobs that would be able to use these if only the journalists would deign to consider a less noble position – advertising, copywriting etc all exist and are not in danger of automation yet.
And the internet is slowly automating journalists out of work as well – well done this blog (I assume the contributors are actually bots – they always have the same perspective, and criticise the same things… Although I did hear a rumour this was actually the work of a consipiracy of hippos intent on world domination).
Shhhh.
FWIW, one benefit of having (reasonably intelligent) humans on the production line is that they can spot opportunities for process improvement, which machines cannot. At least, not yet.
Lee Moore said,
Well, I understand that the dead aren’t very productive, unless we count rotting as a job skill. 😉
‘Joking of course. Yeah, the “living wage” crowd don’t seem to understand that if people didn’t do jobs either part time or jobs that provided just enough income but not too much (like for social security receiving folks for example, who can’t make too much lest it reduce their SS), said job and it’s “inadequate” compensation package wouldn’t exist.
Too bad most leftists don’t even have a 5yr old’s understanding of supply and demand/cause and consequence.
Watchman said,
Well, if you work for the New York Times, or as I call it, the New York Slimes, you ignore breaking stories about hillary lying to congress, hillary lying to the FBI, hillary lying to the American public and lying over the graves of people she was implicit in the deaths of, whilst whispering lies in the ears of their crying mothers…literally.
One would also ignore the director of the FBI telling congress and the world that hillary is guilty as Satan but won’t be LEGALLY prosecuted (but rather tried in the eyes of the public), and one ignores her recovered emails that prove she lied about Benghazi, ignore the corruption in the DNC, DCCC and now it’s come to light that hillary was involves with a french company that has direct tied to ISIS. Not to mention that one would ignore how she received kickbacks totaling in the tens of millions to sign 20% of America’s uranium ore production over to an enemy state that in cahoots with terrorist nations hell bent on the destruction of western democracy.
What would one focus on instead? Trump of course. Obama saying the RNC should not support trump as a candidate…just because. Trump not going into the military because of bone spurs in his feet, etc. They have a Trump-hatred mania. But not a fucking peep about the candidate they endorse, you know, the one worse than the worst 3rd world Latin American dictator one can imagine.
What does it take to be a NYT ahem…”journalist”?
Well, it helps to be able to spell, and of course one should have one’s soul, self respect and any sense of common decency surgically removed.
This just in, Satan denies any ties to these people. He said they make his skin crawl.
John Malpas wrote,
It’s only sexist when non-statists do it. If Trump suggested as much, the libs would literally pull their hair out in fury. I’m sorry, did I say libs? I meant fascists.
PersonFromPorlock wrote,
“Look at all the people in journalism who would be vastly more competent on a production line somewhere.”
Would you trust a journalist to make your meatpies?
Here you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zw7qHxMtrY
As I understand it, this is an Aussie invention that 3D “prints” bricks on site, then robotically lays them & is capable of building a house in 2 days. No tea breaks, no Lunch, works all night & never complains.
we can all imagine how useful it would be to have a full time personal assistant
That rather depends on the personal assistant. Some secretaries I have had have been decidedly marginal on the usefulness front. With a robot, you pretty much get what it says on the tin. With a human you get a pile of negatives to go along with the, er, usefulness. There are some people who are really more trouble than they’re worth. The question is whether, as machines become capable of doing more and more stuff that was traditionally done by low skilled workers, new work opportunities for the low skilled (inc bolshy, lazy, unreliable, careless, clumsy ones) will open up to fill the gap. In the past, it has mostly been so. But in the past machines have not been quite so clever as they are becoming.
I do think it’s a good idea to consider this puzzle without making a special thing of humans. If the demand for oxen can fall to a very small fraction of what it used to be, what law is there that says the same thing can’t happen for human oxen ?
Now I quite accept that there are things in the current social set up that make the lowest productivity humans appear to be more useless than they need be – such as welfare and employment protection chewing away at the motivation to do not very exciting jobs, and the appallingness of schools. But even if you corrected all that, that doesn’t mean there will always be jobs for human oxen. Honestly there really are some people you would not want giving you a massage, cutting your hair or preparing your meals.
It has not happened yet, in spite of this being predicted since the plough, but yes, perhaps there will indeed come a time.
Tony Harrison, the unions will soon insist that the robots conform to human norms- mandatory lunch breaks, etc. I wonder if that house would ever get built? Wait until the CFMEU hears about this!
Lee,
There may not be demand for them, but there will always be jobs for them, as the government can always employ as many oxen* as are available.
*Obscure fact of the day: Calling someone a “buffalo” (Kwai, as in bridge), meaning stupid, is a common insult here in Thailand.
Automation has made my job more boring – much more boring.
Instead of selling numbered tickets to people driving in – a simple system, easy to audit. I now get called up from the “Arena” to stand by an exit gate, trying to squeeze what money I can from people leaving. Mostly I just put their tickets into the new automated system (they get a ticket from a machine on the way in now – when the machines are working), because most people have difficulty putting in tickets from cars into the machines – and the machines jam and break down a lot. So I stand there shoving in tickets into a machine – for hours on end, I did not before, because the machines did not exist.
And those people who have not “validated” their ticket during their stay? That is where the squeezing money out of them comes in.
Instead of tacking six Pounds from each car (as I used to) – I now take various amounts of money depending on how long the car has been here (or how much they are able to pay) it all gets incredibly complicated (the customers do not understands it – no one understands it) – and incredibly boring (boring because it is stupid and pointless).
Audit? The new system is impossible to audit – I could be walking off with money every day.
“Teething troubles”? No the new automated system has been in place for two years – repair people are on site most days.
Is my experience exceptional – or is most automation just an expensive waste of time and resources?
There till 2030 last night – when I left the barriers were (most likely) opened, as wedding guests (there were two weddings going on) would not understand the system.
Which means everyone else got out for free.
I suspect that more cases of “automation” may be like this – just a mess, lots of machines introduced (because “machines are good”) machines that do not work (because the tasks are more complicated than the designers of the machines think they are) – and actually make the jobs HARDER.
Much knowledge is “tacit” (Hayek) – it is very hard to put into words. So rather hard to explain to a machine.