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Comment by indigochill | Hacker News Reader

Although I agree automation necessarily moves wealth from labor to capital sources, I think an underappreciated concept by those concerned about automation is how increased productivity at least historically has benefited the overall economy. The industrial revolution went a long way towards advancing economic inequality, but had it not happened we collectively wouldn't enjoy anywhere near the quality of life we now do (and that goes for pretty much anyone who's worn a t-shirt).

But yes, it would be best if we could find ways to help laborers adapt to new automation and advance technology in a socially responsible way. Not that I have any great ideas for how that would work.

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Problem is: Tell that to the people losing their jobs. "Sorry you have to choose between medication and rent now. But hey, the overall economy is doing great so you should feel happy!" This idea that a rising overall economy benefits everyone is a lie told by the smaller number of people who it actually benefits.

I agree with that so much that I spend all my time working on robots. I am not saying we should stop automating. More the latter, that we should work toward applying the technology in a sustainable way. The advances in labor protections as part of the industrial revolution did not come for free. People fought (and died!) for advances such as the eight hour work day, stopping child labor, and many other things.

At this moment in history, with so much automation happening, and also so much inequality, we should keep fighting for it to happen in a good way.

You have to think about how it benefits the overall economy. Typically this has been by replacing menial, low-paying jobs with more leveraged and better paying ones. But in the industrial age these upgrades were still creating jobs the average person could train for in a few months, and then follow for the rest of their working life.

But there's no guarantee anywhere that this is how it "has" to work out, and as things accelerate there's a lot of evidence to say it's not going to be that way for working class people in highly developed economies. (It seems to be ramping up developing economies much the same as it worked for us.) If you don't have a paycheck, are you really benefitting from the "overall economy"?

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