If jobs are “lost” because robots are doing more work, why is it a problem that the population is aging and there are fewer in “working age”? Shouldn’t the two effects sort of cancel each other out?
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Because this is concentrating wealth in a very few. Instead of all people benefiting from society’s productivity, a tiny fraction of people hoard all the wealth without actually earning it, and refuse to pay anyone else.
If the world’s governments would step up and make sure prosperity were distributed evenly instead of stolen by a few, this would not be a problem.
All these top answers are terrible. Jobs are not lost due to robots on net. Your premise is flawed. Yes, obviously, some jobs get automized, but other jobs get created by them. On net, automation likely increases employment along with productivity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355539508_Will_Workers_be_Unemployed_Because_of_Robots_A_Meta-Analysis_on_Technology_and_Employment
https://mobile.twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1197215908176916480
Nations that have a declining population may well be able to maintain total levels of wealth and maintain, or even increase, per-capita wealth (the increase in productivity from robots offsetting the loss in population). HOWEVER, they will not be as wealthy as they would have been if they had kept their population steady or increasing. And not just in total levels, but likely in per-capita levels as well. Generally, a declining population is bad for per-capita wealth for a variety of reasons (largely – much more of output goes to taking care of old folks rather than being reinvested in innovation)
Contrary to popular belief, automation has created at least as many jobs as it has eliminated, if not more. The World Economic Foeum [projects](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/robots-help-humans-future-jobs/) automation to result in 97 million new jobs worldwide by the year 2025.
Marx wrote a really good book on this topic called Das Kaptial. I highly recommend it.
In the book, he notes that the purpose of automation from the perspective of the business owners is to increase profitability, not to lighten the load of the worker. In fact, the machinery increases the value you can get out of workers, and the business owner is thus motivated to work them even harder, to make that much more money!
In theory, automation should lower the cost of goods. In addition, it should free up workers for other jobs that can’t be automated. I mean look at our economy… there’s a ton of automation, yet we’re near full employment.
I think the utopian idea is that eventually there is such surplus and efficiency that you don’t need to be a worker. You just get a basic income free education and medical. Allowing you to do whatever you want. People who do work will be able to buy luxury items.
When the population of working age people decreases, demand for the stuff that robots make goes down. Robots are not going to consume their own economic output. On the other side, the kind of stuff that retired people may need is not provided by robots. Robots are not doing surgeries; nor are they washing butts or pushing wheelchairs.
Even without considering the retirees, robots represent a problem because we haven’t figured out how to distribute the benefits of the automation among all workers. As it is now, the benefits of automation are going to only a few well connected entities. This despite the fact that taxpayers have subsidized most tech innovations via investments in military, NASA, etc.
To the extent that robots increase profits only for the people who control them, the robots make the inequality problem worse and the issue needs to be addressed.
Robots are only able to do simple jobs on their own like assembly line jobs but we’re decades out from having a replacement for skilled workers. What most people are referring to is the massive shortage of skilled trades workers in field like brick laying & masonry that’s going to come in the next few years as half the workforce ages into retirement without enough replacements.
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