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Comment by crazy1van | Hacker News Reader

This strikes me as the same argument that comes up with every new automation technology. Like all of the others, the automation will hurt people in a specific field, but help society as a whole.

ATMs hurt bank-tellers specifically, but all of society has 24/7 access to cash.

Email hurts the postal workers, but everyone can instantly communicate with nearly anyone in the developed world.

Robotic car manufacturing hurt some auto workers, but all of society gets cheaper cars.

Amazon.com hurts the mom & pop book store, but everyone gets cheaper books conveniently delivered.

Netflix crushed video rental stores, but a whole county got cheaper, easier access to video.

The list could go on forever.

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The crux of the arguments presented is that there is some undefined point past which the market will not be able to absorb the displaced labor.

If or when that comes to pass, it's no longer about whether or not automation benefits society - but how to adapt to a changing employment landscape.

> Robotic car manufacturing hurt some auto workers, but all of society gets cheaper cars

This is false. Over the past forty years, the rise in price for the median car sold in the US has far exceeded inflation. The idea that "society gets cheaper cars" is false, cars have gotten more expensive, even taking inflation into account. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps careful track of such things.

Obviously automating something will benefit someone. You have your facts mixed up however, thus your conclusion that it benefits "society as a whole" can be disregarded.

You could argue that we're getting better cars (as in, more safety and convenience features) for more-or-less the same amount of money.

I think if you take a car from today and tried to make it without automation, it would cost much more. If automation wasn't the cheaper manufacturing option, why do it?

> Over the past forty years, the rise in price for the median car sold in the US has far exceeded inflation.

That's just one of many of potential examples. Are you suggesting that automation drives consumer prices up? Why would any industry automate more if they believed that in the long run, it would drive their costs up?

> ...thus your conclusion that it benefits "society as a whole" can be disregarded.

Perhaps "society as a whole" was the wrong phrase. I mean the group of people that encompasses more than just the specific workers in the industry undergoing automation. For example, the Americans who work as bank tellers compared to the Americans who access ATMs.

It would be interesting to try to reduce the cost of the cars down to some sort of per mile driven figure.

(Of course it would be messy because of insurance and driving habits and better technology and such, I just figure it would do a better job of taking any difference in delivered value into account)

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