Comment by unabst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unabst | Hacker News Reader

The robot economy is not a jobs issue. It is a wealth issue.

An entrepreneur's primary function is to create jobs. Every job ever created that wasn't made by the government was a direct or indirect consequence of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is thriving.

A business's primary function is to hire people. Any large business that isn't firing is hiring. And public businesses need to grow to stay in business. 75% of Google's income is from ads. There couldn't be an easier service to automate and robotize than an ad system. Yet, not only are they hiring, but they're looking to spend this money in completely unrelated areas. They're literally starting from "A" and going down the alphabet.

Entrepreneurs and businesses will always look to automate. But they will also always look to hire. Elon Musk is partially responsible for this AI job paranoia, but not only is Tesla not fully robotized they have a shortage of workers and they're hiring like mad [1].

Jobs are about skills, and yes, if you're doing a job that is a candidate for new methods of automation - like driving - your job is in danger. But unless you're only capable of doing one job, all you'll do is find another. You're not a "robot".

And even if humanoids begin to take over more human work, entrepreneurs and businesses will simply hire more and hire them all. We will work alongside our robotic co-workers, and the economy (should) just expand to meet our collective output.

But herein lies the real issue.

Robots will not be owned by robots. They will be owned by people. And if robots are productive, they'll become the new real estate. A robot with a job will be like a house that pays rent.

Bill Gates recently came out with a robot tax video [2]. But taxes are not enough to equalize the wealth gap. It hasn't worked for humans, and it won't work for bots.

Not only money, but ownership needs to be redistributed. Unfortunately, we have yet to find a solution for this old problem either.

So what if you lost your job if you own two apartments that bring in a middle class wage? Replace apartments with robots.

The Robot Economy is not about jobs. It's about wealth.

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[1] https://www.tesla.com/careers/search#/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg

> An entrepreneur's primary function is to create jobs. [...] A business's primary function is to hire people.

Where does that weird idea come from?

Out of all the definitions and all of the activities the word entails, there is one thing all entrepreneurs have in common. They create jobs, starting with themselves.

That's one job made from none. They can decide not to hire or be happy alone, but eventually, you'd be hard pressed not to hire if your business is thriving and you're generating more work than you can handle yourself. Business have always grown with people. People consuming work = a job.

The job market is not zero sum.

> Out of all the definitions and all of the activities the word entails, there is one thing all entrepreneurs have in common. They create jobs, starting with themselves.

When I clean my house, I sweep the floor. That doesn't mean the purpose of cleaning my house is to sweep the floor.

No. But sweeping the floor exists as a function of cleaning the house, and if sweeping was the one thing done without exception, it would be a primary function.

The purpose would be for your house to get cleaned, but we can clean the house without ending in a clean house. We wouldn't however, not have swept the floor, for that would mean we didn't even attempt to clean the house.

Either way, this is semantics. My main point has nothing to do with "primary function" is debatable or not. Entrepreneurs create jobs. This is a fact that doesn't change however you word it.

I apologize if my word choice was poor, but feel free to substitute with your own wording.

All entrepreneurs create value for humanity, that's their common denominator. If an entrepreneur could create value without needing any human input after the process is started he would do so. It has of course never been possible before since humans have always been needed in some part of the process but that will change once we create fully automated end to end processes.

What is the objective measure of "value for humanity"? If you're thinking in dollars, then absolutely not. Most startups are in debt. Their company is worth nothing. They lose the investor's money.

The common denominator is that they create jobs, starting with the entrepreneur. And jobs are an objective measure of economic value.

The first job they create is for themselves. And that is one less job the government and everyone else has to worry about.

And you are assuming there will be no entrepreneurs who create work for themselves, or that there wouldn't be people who would rather do the work than let robots do it, or that people wouldn't hire people just to work with people. You're ignoring the fact that many genuinely enjoy working, and that businesses grow with headcount because they can totally afford it.

And lets say your final assertion is true. Robots will replace all workers.

But the business is still owned by a person. This person will be incredibly wealthy if all these robots are working for the price of electricity and parts.

So this is a wealth problem, more so if you truly believe your own assertions. It may be a jobs problem for certain people sooner, but no one is talking about the wealth problem. Neither are you.

History remembers what happens when things get /bad enough/.

The questions are:

* Will they get bad enough?

* Will robots gun down the poor, or will the revolution achieve success?

>Not only money, but ownership needs to be redistributed. Unfortunately, we have yet to find a solution for this old problem either.

Ever heard of public companies and the stock market?

It's a perfect way of turning what could be a socially-beneficial company into something that will never be, forever doomed to maximize short-term gains.

We need a better solution - one that aligns incentives of all involved parties (society at large being one of them), not separates them further.

"An entrepreneur's primary function is to create jobs"

No, it's to create wealth. That jobs can also be created is a happy side effect.

I would consider that a purpose more than a function.

Entrepreneurs often fail at creating wealth, but they never fail to create jobs, even if they are temporary.

Case in point, most entrepreneurs have little to no wealth until a successful valuation or exit, but are still paying payroll. And they provide no wealth until ownership of that company becomes valuable.

Sorry, why was this downvoted exactly?

Purpose can exist without function, but function exists even without purpose. That is why I specifically chose the word, though I wouldn't use it again considering all these comments being hung up on the second sentence, and not the first.

(adding: The purpose of entrepreneurship might be to get rich or gain independence or change the world. But whether you succeed or not, you're going to create jobs. That is why, especially in light of the context which is "jobs", the primary function of entrepreneurship is job creation.)

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