Automation
Photograph: KUKA Industrial Robots, 1983. Photo credit: Mixabest | CC3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Introduction
This page tracks trends and statistics about automation, primarily in manufacturing but in other sectors as well. The concern is how this will impact workers.
Other Resources on Automation
Top Articles: Michael J. Hicks, Donald, Hillary and Bernie Are Lying to Us About Those Lost Manufacturing Jobs. MarketWatch, May 14, 2016. Automation preceded NAFTA by 20 years. Michael J. Coren, Cheap Robots Are Coming for Our Farm Jobs By Taking the Most Brutal Tasks First. Quartz, Jul 10, 2016. . Daniel Griswold, Globalization Isn't Killing Factory Jobs. Trade is Actually Why Manufacturing is Up 40%. Los Angeles Times, Aug 1, 2016. Argues technology, not trade, is responsible for job loss, although Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball, Warren Versus Yang: Who’s Right? Rising | The Hill, Oct 17, 2019. Argue that since 2000, trade policy has contributed to job loss more than automation, but in the future, automation is still a major concern.
James Sherk, Technology Explains Drop in Manufacturing Jobs. Heritage Foundation, Oct 12, 2010.
Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? Oxford University Press, Sep 17, 2013.
Tom Chatfield, The Truth About Technology's Greatest Myth. BBC News, Jan 10, 2014.
Miya Tokumitsu, In the Name of Love: Elites Embrace the “Do What You Love” Mantra But It Devalues Work and Hurts Workers. Slate, Jan 16, 2014.
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. W.W. Norton & Company | Amazon page, Jan 2014.
Derek Thompson, What Work Will the Robots Take? The Atlantic, Jan 23, 2014.
Fabius Maximus, Journalists Warn Us About the Coming Revolution, But We Won't Listen. Fabius Maximus, Jul 7, 2014.
Claire Cain Miller, As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up. New York Times, Dec 15, 2014.
Daniel Drezner, The Political Economy of a World Without Work. Washington Post, Jun 24, 2015.
Derek Thompson, A World Without Work. The Atlantic, Jul/Aug 2015.
Keith Naughton, Humans Are Bumping into Driverless Cars and Exposing a Key Flaw. Automotive News, Dec 18, 2015.
Evan Fraser and Sylvain Charlebois, Automated Farming: Good News for Food Security, Bad News for Job Security? The Guardian, Feb 18, 2016.
Ben Schiller, Welcome to the Post-Work Economy. Co.Exist Mar 15, 2016.
Michael J. Hicks, Donald, Hillary and Bernie Are Lying to Us About Those Lost Manufacturing Jobs. MarketWatch, May 14, 2016. Automation preceded NAFTA by 20 years
Michael J. Coren, Cheap Robots Are Coming for Our Farm Jobs By Taking the Most Brutal Tasks First. Quartz, Jul 10, 2016.
Daniel Griswold, Globalization Isn't Killing Factory Jobs. Trade is Actually Why Manufacturing is Up 40%. Los Angeles Times, Aug 1, 2016. Argues technology, not trade, is responsible for job loss
Derek Thompson, The Next Industrial Revolution. The Atlantic, Sep 6, 2016.
Harriet Taylor, AI Will Eliminate 6% of Jobs in 5 Years. CNBC, Sep 12, 2016.
Natalie Kitroff, Robots Could Replace 1.7 Million American Truckers in the Next Decade. Los Angeles Times, Sep 25, 2016.
Eshe Nelson, A Big Dutch Bank Is Replacing 5,800 People With Machines, at a Cost of $2 Billion. Quartz, Oct 4, 2016.
Thomas L. Friedman, Donald Trump Voters, Just Hear Me Out. New York Times, Nov 2, 2016. Good soundbites on automation cutting jobs; anger at immigrants and trade is not fairly placed
Steven Greenhouse, Autonomous Vehicles Could Cost America 5 Million Jobs. What Should We Do About It? Los Angeles Times, Nov 14, 2016.
Om Malik, Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum. The New Yorker, Nov 28, 2016.
Ana Swanson, A Single Chart Everybody Needs to Look At Before Trump's Big Fight Over Bringing Back American Jobs. Washington Post, Nov 28, 2016. U.S. manufacturing companies produce twice as much as they did in 1984, with one-third fewer workers.
Timothy B. Lee, What Donald Trump Got Right - and Many Economists Got Wrong - About the Costs of Trade. Vox, Nov 30, 2016. proximity to factory shutdowns, but also stats on automation
Rob Price, Stephen Hawking: Automation and AI is Going to Decimate Middle Class Jobs. Business Insider, Dec 1, 2016.
Matt Turner, The CEO of United Technologies Just Let Slip an Unintended Consequence of the Trump-Carrier Jobs Deal. Business Insider, Dec 5, 2016.
Betsey Stevenson, Manly Men Need to Do More Girly Jobs. Bloomberg, Dec 7, 2016.
Eshe Nelson, Brace Yourself: The Most Disruptive Phase of Globalization is Just Beginning. Quartz, Dec 7, 2016.
David Gershgorn, Japanese White Collar Workers Are Already Being Replaced by Artificial Intelligence. Quartz, Jan 2, 2017.
Lauren Weber, The End of Employees. Wall Street Journal, Feb 2, 2017.
Mihai Andrei, Chinese Factory Replaces 90% of Human Workers With Robots. Production Rises by 250%, Defects Drop by 80%. ZME Science, Feb 3, 2017.
Rick Merritt, Startup Schools Machine Learning: Software Explores Faster, Cheaper Route. Electrical Engineering Times, Feb 14, 2017.
Martin Ford, Driverless Trucks: Economic Tsunami May Swallow One of the Most Common US Jobs. Guardian, Feb 16, 2017.
Kevin J. Delaney, The Robot That Takes Your Job Should Pay Taxes, Says Bill Gates. Quartz, Feb 17, 2017.
Ben Tarnoff, Robots Won't Just Take Our Jobs - They'll Make the Rich Even Richer. The Guardian, Mar 2, 2017.
Terrence McCoy, Disabled, or Just Desperate: Rural Americans Turn to Disability as Jobs Dry Up. Washington Post, Mar 30, 2017.
Yuval Noah Harari, The Meaning of Life in a World Without Work. The Guardian, May 8, 2017.
Richard Gray, How Automation Will Affect You - The Experts' View. BBC, May 23, 2017.
Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens, The Zombie Robot Argument Lurches On. Economic Policy Institute, May 24, 2017. argues automation does not lead to joblessness or inequality
Langdon Winner, The Cult of Innovation: Its Colorful Myths and Rituals. Langdon Winner blog, Jun 12, 2017.
Tracy Chou, A Leading Silicon Valley Engineer Explains Why Every Tech Worker Needs a Humanities Education. Quartz, Jun 28, 2017.
Laurie Bedford, How Automation Will Transform Farming. Agriculture.com, Nov 29, 2017.
Peter S. Goodman, The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine. New York Times, Dec 27, 2017.
Lisa Elaine Held, Robotics and Automation Are Transforming Food System Labor. Foodtank, Jan 2018.
Salvador Rizzo, President Trump’s Claim that China Caused 60,000 U.S. Factories to Close. Washington Post, Mar 26, 2018. a fact check
Yuval Noah Harari, Why The Online Gig Economy's Race to the Bottom. The Atlantic, Aug 31, 2018.
Gene Marks, Are Robots Coming for Your Lawyer? The Guardian, Sep 13, 2018. about San Francisco-based Atrium
Steve Goldstein, U.S. Enjoys Best Manufacturing Jobs Growth of the Last 30 Years. MarketWatch, Jan 4, 2019.
Kevin Roose, The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite. New York Times, Jan 25, 2019.
John Oliver, Automation. Last Week Tonight, Mar 3, 2019.
Andrew Yang, Speech at the Democratic National Convention 2019 Summer Meeting. Alacritythief, Aug 23, 2019.
Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball, Warren Versus Yang: Who’s Right? Rising | The Hill, Oct 17, 2019. Since 2000, trade policy has contributed to job loss more than automation, but in the future, automation is still a major concern.
Monica Torres, We Would Rather Lose Our Jobs To Robots Than Humans, A Study Shows. Huffington Post, Nov 27, 2019. “The question has a surprising psychological factor for workers now and in the future.”
Lauren Kwan, Plus.ai Completes First Cross-Country Commercial Freight Run by a Self-Driving Truck in Record Three Days. Business Wire, Dec 10, 2019. “The Industry’s First Commercial Autonomous Coast-to-Coast Haul Brings Over 40,000 Pounds of Land O Lakes® Butter to Families in Time for Year-End Holidays”
Rebecca Heilweil, Networks of Self-Driving Trucks Are Becoming a Reality in the U.S. Vox, Jul 1, 2020.
Noah Smith, Nobody Knows How Many Jobs Will “Be Automated”. Noahpinion | Substack, Apr 10, 2023.
Spencer Buell, An MIT Student Asked AI to Make Her Headshot More ‘Professional.’ It Gave Her Lighter Skin and Blue Eyes. Boston Globe, Jul 19, 2023. A Chinese-American student used Playground AI and it made her look White.
How Money Works, If AI Takes All Our Jobs… Who’s Going to Buy Everything? How Money Works, Jul 29, 2024. How wages have stayed stagnant, and the prices of income-generating assets have skyrocketed. An illustration from the electronic gaming industry: catering to rich people pays off. The future is AI-driven where we might be able to collect a basic income. Rich investors will continue to invest in automation and reap the benefits.
Christian Restorative Justice, Business, and Economics: Topics:
This section on Economics includes the following pages: Economics Metrics identifies and critique the metrics we use. Public-Private Partnerships defends government involvement as a permanent fixture of economic growth, historically and philosophically. Environment examines many aspects of conservation, climate change, sustainability, and human health. Taxes examines models of taxation, claims by adherents, and effects. Housing Policy highlights how housing should be considered a human right, with better planning, zoning, and accountability. Corporate Law examines monopoly, limited liability, regulation, and other features of business law. Labor highlights the importance of labor over capital investment. Automation examines the impact on people and communities. Wealth Inequality and Power Inequality track the historical ups and downs, along with the ideologies used to justify them. Media examines media companies as economic and political agents, especially rightward media.
Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Right: Domestic Policy Topics:
This page is part of our section Critique of the Right, which engages the following topics: Banking and Finance examines the economic and political power of financial institutions; Bioethics discusses abortion policy; Business and Economics examines economic theories, taxes, housing, environment, corporate law, labor law, automation, and inequalities of wealth and power; Civil Unions makes the Christian case for civil unions for all and removing marriage from the culture wars; Criminal Justice examines crime statistics and definition, policing, prosecution, sentencing, prisons, and reintegration; Education examines public education and conservative resistance to it; Environment and Health highlights the many challenges we face related to animals, climate change, food, and health systems; Government Corruption spotlights political compromises and dealings contrary to the public good; Gun Rights examines gun policies and rhetoric; Media spotlights failures of, and possible fixes to, left-wing or left-leaning media; Power and Politics highlights the impact of racial considerations and racism on political campaigns, voting rights, public investments, and other political procedures; Race examines the impact of white supremacy on virtually every aspect of American life.
Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Right: Philosophical Influence:
