The machines are taking our jobs

[mertle]

Thought deserved new thread concidering the talks on unemployment, job prospects then thought this would be very relevant thread to chew.

Two researchers from MIT bring out book on monday sadly only place saw the book was amazon ebook for kindle its on the com site not uk's.

The Book called RACE AGAINST MACHINE. To excercise there credentials

http://www.zeitnews.org/social-and-b...ot-people.html

Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, and Andrew P. McAfee, associate director and principal research scientist at the center, are two of the nation’s leading experts on technology and productivity

They dont print pretty picture bring warnings. what devestation happened to blue collar workers is now happening to white collar workforce it will be just as devestating.

http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-M.../dp/B005WTR4ZI

here some who already read it customer reviews

http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-M...owViewpoints=1

If we cant get balance we doomed in my opinion what we was told in 70s 80's we would all work less hours have more freetime. The boom in leisure market like home PC's came to service this extra freetime. Reality what happened was jobs got slashed unemployment grew. Education programme to restructure workforce to other jobs offset so much but many got left on scrapheap as machines moved in humans got dumped. instead working in harmony with many firms went from examples of 200 workforce to less than 60.

It had to have effect how much did it have hand in recession as many found themselves jobless and no income. Less money to churn the economy.

Now it seems we could be facing bigger battle too sound of it. review dont paint good picture at all.

Some will not agree indeed some experts in the article

The M.I.T. authors’ claim that automation is accelerating is not shared by some economists. Prominent among them are Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern and Tyler Cowen of George Mason University, who contend that productivity improvement owing to technological innovation rose from 1995 to 2004, but has trailed off since. Mr. Cowen emphasized that point in an e-book, “The Great Stagnation,� published this year.

They do counter very well said we ignored signs in the 30's and was denial technological progress would lose jobs as econamy could not keep up to create job markets.

Are we in similar hole today is the market struggling to keep pace with technological progress which sheds jobs. The market struggling to bring inovation new job markets to fill the hole. At what point do we hit the buffers or are we already close to doing so.

Can we slow the pace of change to get a balance afterall it takes time and money to train. Will the economical climate devestate it even more as firms scrambles to safeguard profits or become greedy.

You can't 'slow the pace of change'.

[chris9991]

Now in amazon.co.uk Kindle store (£2.94)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Race-Against...9714131&sr=8-1

[gazzae]

Is it not kind of ironic that it's seems to be only published as an e-book?

Originally Posted by gazzae

Is it not kind of ironic that it's seems to be only published as an e-book?

They didn't mean people who have jobs operating printing presses....

[mertle]

Originally Posted by gazzae

Is it not kind of ironic that it's seems to be only published as an e-book?

Thought that myself excuse of little time is rubish unless they rushed it due to tight publishing deadline then that then the publishers fault.

For book this importance and the fact nature beast with research you cant give it regular timeframe it will finish when its finished.

Thanks chris9991 when I checked it was not there shame its kindle not got kindle.

Damien & heero_yuy yes times change agree we cant stop it whe should not either however it has to be slowed. Can the worlds economy support the masses unemployment if new jobs cant be created quick enough as they are lost to automatation. Net result impacting research and development too as the worlds economy crashes due to high world unemployment.

Thats my fear if the companies done what we was told in first place dont think we would been in half the state today likely realistically not in this mess at all. Capitilist greed for maximising profits has happened during this change. Especially when they saw these new machines was capable work 24 hours 365 days but faster precision acuracy companies saw ££££.

I think governements need to get grip before its too late nobody talking about middle age period. We talking about moving forward in harmony at pace the world can accept the change. Companies being fair not using it tool to create capitalist greed.

Originally Posted by mertle

Damien & heero_yuy yes times change agree we cant stop it whe should not either however it has to be slowed. Can the worlds economy support the masses unemployment if new jobs cant be created quick enough as they are lost to automatation. Net result impacting research and development too as the worlds economy crashes due to high world unemployment.

How do you propose we 'slow it down'? Ban scientific research? Impose limits on software companies from producing certain types of software? That's the antithesis of what those industries are about and would also lose a shed load of high paying jobs.

Automation does not always mean job losses as a whole .It may mean a job or number of jobs have been lost doing one particular task ,but quite a lot of new tech means new jobs .For example someone has to build and design the robots that replace humans for menial jobs (that may sound cliched but it is true)and how many jobs have been created by the everyday use of computers in industry ? which were i seem to remember being told would lead to a life of luxury where mankind did not need to work .Our biggest problem is our own reluctance to embrace change and progress in the work place we still seem stuck in the past where a job was for life and retraining is a dirty word

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[mertle]

Originally Posted by Hugh

New Cameron was not human

The one on the right is Cherie Blair....

[dilli-theclaw]

The giant space amoeba will destroy them all!!!!

[mertle]

I thought we was head for FUTURAMA

Where politicians all in glass jars

Hang on better not give them idea's of imortality bad enough them all being around political term.

[Chrysalis]

Its more replacing manual workers with skilled workers to operate the machines and to design/build them. So the bottom end of the workforce is affected.

When I started at walkers crisps in the late 1990s each machine on my production line was manned by 5-9 manual workers about 40-60 per shift usually.

By the time I left about 5 years later the average per machine was down to 3 and about 15 per production line per shift. As there was 4 shifts thats a loss of 180 workers for one production line. the last year of my time there, they were well on the way to automating another production line as well which would have had a higher % drop.

However during this same time period they increased employment of machine technicians. Although it was more like an extra 5 techs for about 40 workers lost. Not 1 for 1.