Assuming an already expensive automation makes any kind of economic sense, it could. But right now for a vast majority of basic labors, automation remains out of reach being impractical economically, if not technically.
And robots don't need a good movie, a night out, a good meal, or any of those things, so whatever taxes has to find their way to the people who do present real demand for those things.
And those people do have costs, unless we simply allow them to cease to exist and not show up for work anymore.
We might need some qualifiers to understand exactly what you mean. Most automation is readily within reach if the job is rote and the economic differential is there. (FWIW, I used to build and program assembly line robuts).
>whatever taxes has to find their way to the people who do present real demand for those things.
I think this is the intent. Call it UBI, Freedom Dividend, or whatever, but the goal is to fund the societal base that has the actual need for whatever automation (or humans) will produce.
Those are not real answers in my view. How we value human labor is a real answer, and the fact is we need to start with the cost of existing and or showing up for work.
As for rote... look, automation is expensive to establish, adapt transport and maintain, and need infrastructure to support it all.
People, at their real cost, are a GREAT deal and that will be true for a very long time yet.
Go work through a few cases. I have experience in automation. It is the little things that cost a lot.
We are more likely to succeed with augmented labor, and already do. Better tools = labor multipliers.
Automation is expensive, but so is human labor. Once you cost in all the human costs, like paid time off, the variability in performance, administrative overhead, etc. it can be a lot cheaper to automate. Which is exactly why it's done. As for cases, I worked in automotive assembly line robots. Upfront costs are high, sure, but nothing compared to the legacy costs of the dozens of the unionized human labor they supplant. (I'm not against unionization btw, only bringing it up because it tends to - fairly IMO - sway the power to the worker in terms of higher wages). An automation tax would at least make up for some of the lost revenue that supports societal infrastructure. It would also sway the economics to extend the time horizon of when it usurps specific segments of the labor economy. Automation is never fully automated, so I would consider it all augmented. It just tends to shift the labor towards fewer and more skilled workers.
Yep. I am not anti automation. Cars, for example. Great use case, as you say.
Scale there, appetite for capital investment there, ability to weather high maintenance, change costs all there.
There is an opposite end of the scale, and it is that end we are a very long away from.
Also, the likes of FANUC do have dark running facilities that use robots to build robots.
I do have experience too. That stuff is expensive, complex, and very rigid. Not applicable, at this time, to the vast majority of basic labors we depend on every day.
Finally, one can automate workers away, or automation can free them to do more things.
The latter is a lot more sustainable, but a lot less sexy, and not so well aligned with the dominant business justifications used to sell initial automation.
This was my latter point. Automation is often augmented, to use your words. This is more true the higher you get in skills. A Da Vinci robot does not replace a surgeon. But lower level skills are where the difficulty is at. A fork-lift driver may be automated away completely by a parts-picking robot. This is where unions are beneficial in my view. They can ensure at least a relatively soft landing with retraining, replacement, etc.
Yeah, had to respond on this one. I think we largely see it the same way, and did a little feeling around to center on the core concept.
Amazon did find a niche, the package movement, where everything aligns nicely in a fashion not too unlike the cars. IMHO, the big difference is more dynamic decisions are needed for the packages, where the cars require more complexity, but are very consistent otherwise. Software innovation got Amazon where they wanted to be, and it's a good, genuine innovation that did expand the automation space.
Similar levels of effort are necessary for all those basic labors. This is why I maintain we just won't be there for a considerable time, despite successes like Amazon out there. Scale, and dynamic locations, terrain and decisions are huge barriers to entry. So many cases... and mechanisms / processes that can address them, and or minimize them.
Costs on all that are off the charts, as is maintenance, simple acquisition of the machinery.
More people centric augmentation will happen sooner. Mostly, this will preserve people from wearing out and or increase their throughput more than anything else. It may be we extend capabilities in a more transparent way too. That's going on now, of course, but maybe some of that will scale, get cheap, someone finds another niche...
All good stuff really.
But, "the robots are coming" really does not apply for a solid majority of the basic labors out there we depend on. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't be automating. We will, and it's a good thing regardless of how we sort out the humans economically, which was your point, and one I agree with.
And robots don't need a good movie, a night out, a good meal, or any of those things, so whatever taxes has to find their way to the people who do present real demand for those things.
And those people do have costs, unless we simply allow them to cease to exist and not show up for work anymore.