[pedrocx486]

I worked at a company last year (specifically their RPA sector) that one of the projects we got was create a "robot" to automate certain tasks within a client.

Later after we delivered it, we learned that project alone was the reason the client cut 700 low level positions. A single "robot" could do in an afternoon what 700 people did in a week. (Was/is a pretty large company.)

The words from my manager still echo in my mind: "If we think of the "ethical" aspect of it, we wouldn't have our own jobs."

[dgb23]

The problem is not that jobs get automated away. Efficiency in of itself is a good thing.

The problem is that the gained efficiency is often not used to improve the lives of all (former) participants: There is little responsibility towards employees and customers. Businesses are not seen as communities, neither by employers nor by employees.

Leaders, owners, investors, employers and other powerful actors profit disproportionally, because their decisions are not tied to a holistic responsibility but only to financial metrics (which are also directed by them; a whole other problem).

There are also actors with higher (or sufficient?) ethical standards that will invest efficiency gains like you describe to educate and train their employees or at least give them the financial means. This inspires loyalty and trust.

I'm longing to hear more about such cases.

[virgilp]

I don't have a moral dilemma about my work cutting those kinds of jobs; it's busywork, their existence doesn't improve humanity. We're better off with something like UBI than paying people to do boring stuff that they don't really need to do.

[SketchySeaBeast]

I'm not saying it won't be the right move eventually, but that was 700 people who were getting paid for busywork who now aren't. Today I'd say there's still a dilemma.

[untog]

> We're better off with something like UBI

I strongly agree... but we don’t have UBI. So for me it’s still a moral dilemma. That person is still out of a job and might be out of a job for a very long time if the economy is weak. Yes, there are answers to this problem like UBI, but as someone living in the US I can’t honestly say I can see it being implemented here any time soon. So my work has the potential to devastate someone else’s life.

(and yes, I know, I know, if I quit someone else will take my job and it’ll all happen anyway. Doesn’t mean it isn’t still a moral dilemma)

[knodi123]

> We're better off with something like UBI

Okay - but are we replacing them with UBI?

It feels analogous to ripping a person off of life support while saying "some day, you'll get an organ transplant. I prefer that to keeping you alive mechanically, strapped to a bed."

[ip26]

I wonder sometimes, in particular with smaller construction jobs. Work that can be done either by an overweight guy in a Bobcat, or a shovel crew of five to ten, in about the same time.

I wonder if the Bobcat is really that much cheaper. And the construction workers in photos from a hundred years ago always look much healthier & happier than the guy in the Bobcat.

[pydry]

If the client could cut 700 low level positions with automation then they were probably treating human beings like robots.

[meritt]

Yeah, imagine a world where each employee had a team of highly trained specialists ensuring they had absolutely everything they need to do their job, and if they became sick at 2am on a Saturday, multiple people get woken up to take care of them. When the CEO parades investors around on the assembly floor, those employees are shined up, their capabilities are demonstrated, and they are showcased as the pinnacle of why their company is the best.

Low level employees would be lucky to be treated like robots.

[dkarl]

Society was rich enough to support those 700 people, and now it's richer. Should be good news for them. It's a huge challenge getting to that point as a society, but there are also very rapidly evolving attitudes towards the problem (much more readiness to acknowledge that it is a problem, to start with.) I feel optimistic that this could be solved in the next hundred years.

[rwbhn]

Curious about how you feel about the number of people needed to farm 100 acres of, say corn, today vs 200 years ago. Was all the automation applied to that problem unethical?

[jfk13]

When you consider what it's doing to the land and environment, maybe so.