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Robots Threaten up to Two Thirds of Developing Country Jobs, but Could be an Opportunity Too

posted by janrinok on Monday November 21 2016, @02:53AM   
from the so-long,-farewell! dept.

mrpg writes:

UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) released a policy brief [PDF] about the impact of automation in developed and developing countries.

"The share of occupations that could experience significant automation is actually higher in developing countries than in more advanced ones, where many of these jobs have already disappeared, and this concerns about two thirds of all jobs"

[...] Much of the debate on the economic impacts of robots remains speculative, it says.

"Disruptive technologies always bring a mix of benefits and risks," the paper says, noting that by embracing the digital revolution, developing countries could use robots to open up new opportunities.

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Original Submission

• Re:Developing "country" example (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 21 2016, @05:58PM

  by khallow (3766) on Monday November 21 2016, @05:58PM (#430705) Journal

  fuck these latest discussions on this topic are below par even for the internet.
  
  The level of thought that goes into this is VERY superficial.

  I have a suggestion here. If you don't like the problem, then don't contribute to it.

  For the first time in HISTORY we are looking at tech destroying more jobs than it creates. Period.
  
  For the FIRST TIME.

  Evidence? As I've noted before, there's plenty of people employed in the developing world for these sorts of jobs and it's growing rapidly. That indicates to me that the "FIRST TIME" hasn't happened yet. Instead, we should look for institutional obstructions to employment in the developed world where all the belly aching goes on.
  
  And that brings me to what should be an obvious point. You can disincentivize anything and employment is no exception. There's plenty of regulations about minimum wage and benefits, hiring and firing regulations, artificial pumping up of living costs, etc that add huge costs to employing people. The problem here is that the law can force the superficial trappings of a good paying, secure job on employers, but they can't force the economy to support those jobs.
  
  Here's an analogy. Did people suddenly want to stay in East Germany after 1962? Or did the discouragement of having to run through a several hundred meter kill zone do that?
  
  Just because would-be employers are very disinterested in employing high cost, high risk developed world people doesn't mean that they're doing it because of some sea change in automation. They're doing it because hiring is now high cost, high risk.

  You can wax lyrical with all the stupid metaphors your want and bury your head in the sand and say "its always been good so it will always be good" but that wont change the numbers.

  Where are these numbers again?

  Parent