The Labor Robot Tidal Wave just arrived

[PsychoBabble]

So, Wendy’s just decided they were going to replace order-takers with automated systems. McDonalds is looking at the same thing. No doubt you have experienced versions of this in your area; many of us now check ourselves out in our local market self-serve line.

Here is what it looks like technologically:

Wendy's is not alone in the fast food world in deciding to cut the costs and difficulties of human beings out of its ordering process. McDonald's has been testing similar kiosks on a smaller scale. And the technology is far from new — anyone who's lived in New Jersey or eastern Pennsylvania in the last decade-plus will remember ordering hoagies from touchscreens at Wawa.

The change will come first to company restaurants, about 10% of the total number of Wendy's in the country. Franchise operators, people who own their own Wendy's locations, will have the option of following suit. Wendy's reports that it employed 34,500 hourly employees as of December 2013. No word yet on how many of them will be affected.

Here's the bigger picture: The more repetitive and script-driven your job is, the more it's threatened by the rise of the machines.

You can read more here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/wendys-workers-will-lose-jobs-to-robots-2016-5

Of course, it doesn't stop here. Even highly-paid traders are seeing their lucrative jobs threatened by trading advice algorithms that many people seem to like better than they do a live person.

Increasingly the question is, “How do we all survive … and thrive … in a future where technology eliminates many of the jobs necessary for a consumer economy?”

We may not want to look at this, but the inevitable acceleration of this tech curve means it will be staring over our shoulders in the morning mirror, like some bad horror movie, sooner than we think.

This has brought me to investigate the idea of Universal Basic Income. Nobody really knows how well the theory would work when put into nationwide practice; various smaller versions have been put into place. For example, the State of AK has a very small version of this in the Alaska Permanent Fund, a payout to AK citizens from the oil money. In 2016 it was supposed to be about $2000, but was reduced by the Governor. There are ideological arguments for and against a UBI. This article below speaks to some of the intrigue, and challenges:

Basic income, Standing says, is more than good policy. He calls it “essential,” given that more and more people in developed economies are living “a life of chronic economic insecurity.” He sees this insecurity fueling populist politicians, boosting far-right parties across Europe and the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S. Economic stagnation increases the appeal of extreme politicians, and unless those insecurities are addressed, Standing said, that appeal is only going to get stronger.

The economic uncertainty surrounding basic income is huge, and the politics of bringing such a program about on a large scale are daunting. But something makes this radical proposal so exciting that people and governments are increasingly willing to try it. Basic income challenges our notions of the social safety net, the relationship between work and income, and how to adapt to technological change. That makes it one of the most audacious social policy experiments in modern history. It could fail disastrously, or it could change everything for the better.

Basic income has attracted a motley crew of supporters, spanning the ideological spectrum. Efficiency-minded libertarians like the idea of streamlining the bureaucracy of the welfare state. Silicon Valley techies hope a guaranteed income would cushion the blow as automation replaces human jobs. Those with a more utopian bent, such as the organizers of the Swiss referendum, want to open up more options, to let people create art and free the world of what Straub calls “bullshit jobs.”

Critics of the idea say it’s too expensive, would encourage people to stop working and possibly tank a country’s economy. It’s thought to be a political non-starter, too, especially in countries less wealthy and with less generous welfare states than Switzerland. And because basic income proposes a radical reform to the existing welfare system — one that many progressives, at least in the United States, have been defending tooth and nail over the last 30 years — it makes anti-poverty advocates nervous. Max Sawicky, a former economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in the U.S., outlined a progressive case against basic income in 2013, calling it a “distraction” from raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing full employment, rolling back Clinton-era welfare reforms and supporting unions — all policies, he argues, “more in keeping with our current system and our political culture.”

Both lovers and haters of basic income often miss an important point: We don’t have great data on how it would work or what would happen if it did …”

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/

So I return to my central question:

“How do we all survive … and thrive … in a future where technology eliminates many of the jobs necessary for a consumer economy?”

We can't act like this question won't force us to answer it, sooner or later. Probably sooner.

If you take the Wendy’s robot employee shift, and multiply that across thousands of companies as the technology rapidly takes hold over the next decade … assuming a relatively stable population … there are a BUNCH of us that are NOT going to have a practical way to make a living in the not too distant future. I don’t see how our consumer economy survives this particular technological earthquake unless we make some radical shift in thinking.

Anyone here want to actually LIVE in one of those post-apocalyptic sci-fi worlds we keep seeing in movies, where the average person is left to scavenge on the bones of a dying culture?

“Status Quo” thinking ain’t gonna get ‘er done once this technology takes hold. I'm not sure what the actual solution is -- but I would like to hear some thoughtful discussion on it in public. This isn't crackpot stuff. We either plan the transition, or we will WISH we HAD ....

[LisaM]

1. The obvious thing is to boycott places that do this (if there's a choice).

Sounds simple enough, but I can't get many people I know to boycott Amazon, Uber, or a lot of other places (and those two specifically want to get rid of workers), so I don't know how we fight this.

[angstlessk]

2. No, No, No...the obvious thing is to let the poor DIE

No health care, No food assistance, No social security...Nothing for the poor...except an early grave!

[world wide wally]

3. Brace yourselves for a jobless economy

Which leads to a jobless society.

[fleabiscuit]

4. I'm about to take off for a few hours but wanted to get this like up before I go.

A World Without Work
For centuries, experts have predicted that machines would make workers obsolete. That moment may finally be arriving. Could that be a good thing?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/