Recent AI discussions makes it almost certain that jobs would be affected. It makes me wonder what happened when suddenly humans were replaced by machines. Assuming a lot of jobs were lost was it that lots of people suddenly found it difficult to afford meals or was it not disastrous at all and was a smoot h transition? Can we compare it to today’s AI revolution in terms of adjustment with jobs?
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A lot of migration and urbanization happened. Lot more manufacturing jobs were created, while lots of agricultural and artisanal jobs became useless. And of course some people were pissed, thats where the Luddite movement came from. But, overall, everyone were better off in the end and it’s going to be the same with whatever advancements AI manages.
the jobs werent “Lost ” per se, they moved towards the cities where the factories were and shifted to meet the requirements of an industriliazing society(agrarian jobs became manfucaturing jobs for instance).
was it a smooth transition? Absolutely not. but it had to happen regardless.
I swear the current AI narrative is mostly about keeping employees fearful for their job security.
Paranoia of tech taking all employment has been around since Luddites and the printing press
The skilled craftsmen who couldn’t compete with factory-made products went to work at the factories. After a couple of generations of everyone being an employee for wage instead of self-employed, we got federal unemployment insurance.
On the large scale, huge amounts of automaton haven’t hugely changed the total employment rate. Bit individual professions might end, or be replaced by jobs working the machines that now do the work itself.
My worry is that if a good-paying job is “replaced by AI,” it’ll really be replaced by jobs that pay minimum wage to enter prompts into an AI that their boss owns exclusively.
edit: actually no they’d be gig worker “contractors” making less than minimum wage
Ultimately the shift away from agricultural and craftsman labor to automated agriculture and factory labor and production freed up human capacity to address other things. It was disruptive, but in the end much of it was beneficial. The amount of human effort it took to produce a ton of wheat for example dropped dramatically. People moved from the farms to the cities and worked in factories producing clothing, household products, machinery, and all kinds of other things. The kinds of things which people were able to own and use increased exponentially and with that a higher quality of life and a standard of living (and of course some problems came with it too). The era also ushered in tons of “labor saving devices” such as washing machines which further freed up human effort to do other things.
You walk into a place like Target and see all kinds of stuff on the shelves to purchase – food items, clothing, furniture, gadgets, etc. This is more stuff, more kinds of stuff, and more useful stuff than likely your great great grandparents ever would have imagined. The average American lives better in those terms than most royalty throughout history.
Developments in technology, electronics, communication, transportation, medicine, sciences, arts, entertainment, recreation, and all sorts of other fields are the result of a large chunk of people no longer having to eke out a living on a farm.
It would be hard to compare since the contexts are so different.
Pre-industrial revolution, the everyday lives (as far as consumption and production of goods) of most people were VERY simple by modern standards. So industrialization of any sort rapidly increased the available supply (at lower costs) and enabled millions to enjoy more consumption (variety, quality and quantity). The nature of employment changed but vastly INCREASED broadly speaking since there was mostly new consumption and less substitution.
Some argue that this era of rapid increases in consumption and production is perhaps reaching some kind of pinnacle. And that advances in automation today would essentially not increase the quality and quantity of goods produced. Rather there is more substitution. In this case, the hypothesis is that automation might reduce the need for human labor since what is produced is already sufficient for everyone.
It should be said that, broadly speaking, this has never happened in human history. Additional capacity to produce has nearly always led to an increased variety of consumption and that, in turn, leads to higher employment (albeit in different forms). This is not meant to be dismissive of the plight of displaced workers who might not find much use for their current skills.
It should also be noted that, while advances in technology plays a role here, trade and the ability to coordinate production, transport product and locate factories in disparate locations have probably made a much larger impact on the nature of local employment over the last 4-5 decades. The rust belt (for example) didn’t become the rust belt primarily because of automation but because the Japanese got better at making cars and US manufacturers reacted by relocating production to Mexico etc etc.
It wasn’t smooth at all, and it could have been a lot worse. (Un)Fortunately, world events helped by “thinning the herd” at opportune moments (pandemics, world wars, famines, etc.).
The AI revolution, which is in its infancy, is unique when compared to the industrial revolution. First, the rate of advancement these days greatly exceeds the rate of advancement during the industrial revolution, thanks in part to the AI itself facilitating the advancement. It’s like the industrial revolution on steroids. What happened over several generations with the industrial revolution will occur within a single generation with AI.
Another aspect is that while the industrial revolution did eliminate jobs, it didn’t make humans obsolete. Sure, with mechanization one person can do the job of several but you still needed humans to work.
AI isn’t just supplementing or augmenting humans. It’s replacing them. Companies like Amazon have been pushing hard on this, with the plan to eliminate most, if not all, of its low-level workforce with AI automatons within a decade. Other companies are following suit, with AI already replacing some jobs. As AI improves, semi-skilled and skilled jobs will be replaced (especially with the advances in robotics and power sources).
AI is a disruptive technology. It will usher in an age of unprecedented human advancement, but it will come at a cost. We really should be doing more to address these costs, but humans don’t have a very good track record when it comes to dealing with future problems.
Jobs weren’t lost. The Industrial Revolution created a ton of new jobs and people were retrained. It moved jobs from distributed small scale manufactories and workshops in mostly rural settings into cities and industrial scale factories. Birth rates didn’t catch up with the increase in labor demand so even children were recruited to supplement the workforce
Vocations were lost, more than jobs.
The popularity of the automobile pretty much wiped out the farrier industry. It still exists, but at much lower numbers.
Those were craftsmen, and craftsmen could easily transfer to another career.
Basically, you adapt. You find a job that the AI can’t do. (and as it’s not omnipotent, there will be jobs it can’t do).
I doubt the job losses were systematically tracked back then.
Economic statistics didn’t fully get going until the 20s and 30s when they were needed for the government to monkey around with the economy.
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