President Obama realizes the real danger of robots
It is rather a “lever of influence” rather than job cuts .
During another attempt to figure out the future fate of the recently signed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, Obama talked about what, in fact, gnaws at American workers. According to Marketplace magazine, he said that despite the transfer of many jobs abroad, robots are a real stumbling block now.
“Honestly, if you look at the problem of job cuts , the main reasons will be more automation and technology development than trade,” Obama said .
The role of technology in creating and reducing jobs for years has been discussed up and down, but the fact that the US Supreme Commander-in-Chief recognized this as a serious problem speaks for itself.
Interestingly, it is statements of this kind that the adherents of robotization are trying to refute. Recently, for example, a publicity attracted the attention of a pamphlet stating that modern technology would only benefit ordinary American workers, and not vice versa.
“We’ve been discussing this issue for several years, albeit without due attention, since the lion’s part is devoted to research that claims robots are destroying jobs,” said Jeff Bernstein, president of the Automation Improvement Association.
In fact, there are many works whose creators support or refute both existing points of view. It is difficult to come to any specific conclusion - partly due to the lack of the ability to accurately measure such an unstable indicator as productivity. Bernstein, however, argues that conclusions can be drawn by looking at just two indicators - an increase in the number of jobs and the pace of robotization.
“It goes without saying that the widespread introduction of robots does not entail a reduction in jobs, especially since the level of sales of robots is constantly growing, while the unemployment rate is falling,” Bernstein said.
Nevertheless, everyone knows that the presence of any laws does not mean that they are in a causal relationship. Why is Bernstein so sure that the two trends are interconnected?
In some cases, this is true. Of course, many companies that would be forced to move production abroad remained in the United States only because the introduction of robots allowed them to reduce the necessary amount of human labor and, therefore, to revise their budget.
If you take a closer look at Bernstein’s research, you can see that robot sales are growing faster than the overall employment rate. At the same time, the percentage of the economically active population, in particular employed people or those who are looking for work, continues to fall. Taking all this into account, it’s hard to say which of the indicators will grow faster.
However, the impact of new technologies on the working population is not limited to the number of jobs available. We are also talking about a “lever of influence,” in other words, about the possibility of obtaining higher profits, as Obama mentioned. This is exactly the indicator that has not yet recovered due to the effects of the economic recession.
“Therefore, when a certain number of vacancies appears, employers do not feel the obligation to raise the level of wages for their employees, even if the demand for their products increases,” Obama said. “They think so:“ We invest better in automation, and we will not hire new employees. We can tell the candidates that the amount of payment offered to them is all we have, so if they want more, we will find many other people who agree to our terms. ”
Obama further emphasized that one should not try to stop the pace of globalization or advanced technologies. Instead, a working-age population should help adapt to new conditions. In addition, adherents of robotics are confident that this process will offer at least as many jobs as it will destroy, as has always happened in the past.
“The percentage of people working on farms was previously very high. Now this is not so. There used to be a lot of lifters, but now they are disappearing too, ”Bernstein noted. - People always managed to create new jobs. Was there such a profession as an application developer twenty years ago? Or an SEO specialist, or an administrator of social networks? Tell me, where is the difference? ”
So, it cannot be argued that the next stage in the development of automation will go against the usual course of history. But the mere assumption that there is a relationship between the emergence of new jobs and an increase in the production of robots does not guarantee that this will not happen.