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What should be done with the unemployable people?

I started to notice a intense automation and Artificial Intelligence Investments from companies and that made me wonder, what would happen or what should be done with the people who can't be trained for a new job and can't use his current skills to to get a job.

How would he live or what would he do in life? More importantly, what should be done with him to make him useful or at least neutral rather than being a negative on the society?

45 comments
  • Since this question is asking "should", I think it's fine to answer with a rational but radical answer:

    • People can be useful to society even if they aren't employed in our current economies. Retired people may not have jobs, but often still perform productive or necessary labor, like maintenance, artistic contributions, child care, historical preservation. When someone isn't working for money, they still often voluntarily work for society!
    • I believe that, generally speaking, it's within society's best interest, even just from an economic standpoint, to support these people even if they aren't formally employable.
    • Looking at most capitalist countries, overproduction is normal. Usable property remains empty just because an owner wants more money for their investment. Perfectly edible food is systematically thrown in bins rather than given to hungry people for free, or rejected by stores because it doesn't look perfect (like an oddly shaped carrot). Clothes are thrown out once they're "unfashionable".

    We have all the resources needed to support everyone, and it wouldn't take much extra effort from a determined government to get those resources where they need to go. There's no reason why unemployed people should be left to starve and freeze simply because they don't have enough income. In our society, the scarcity of basic needs is artificial ('artificial scarcity').

    Automation is seen as a bad thing, a threat, because workers in society are threatened with starvation if they don't have the income needed for food, shelter, medicine and perhaps basic luxuries. But if our political economy were first-and-foremost based around society's needs instead of profiting, and therefore we used our modern technology to automate the production of these basic needs and distribute them, then suddenly automation would mean free time and easier labor!

  • Those who can work, should. Those who cannot should be taken care of by those who can. Comprehensive training programs and free education helps both, as well as subsized or free necessities.

  • You are making it seem like this is a new problem. And it isn't.

    Centuries back it was weavers who were displaced by the industrial revolution and automated spinning machines. Coal mining went unfashionable from the late 1970s onwards and miners had to find new work. Industry in the US closed up shop and moved to China. These are just three examples of workers being made redundant in their then capacity. Two out of these three went by without much loss of life, the majority of the workforce found new jobs over time, and only some of them were screwed on a more permanent basis. Unfortunately, that's the shitty bell curve of these changes. But another thing that's been proven again over time is that we always think these miners or these factory workers are completely unhireable and it turns out the majority isn't. People thought MS Excel would eradicate the entire bookkeeping profession. And they are still around and I think actually grew in numbers because they are free from pencils and calculators and could do more interesting stuff instead. Don't fall for the so-called AI will replace everything talking point. The people who say this are either invested in so-called AI companies or drank the koolaid. All we hear for the moment is how theses models do a good a lot of the time and then break catastrophically bad somewhere. Humans still need to have a look for the time being. And thus a new job is born: chAIperone.

    The problem these days is how the state responds to massive shifts like that. Social security nets have a finer mesh in the developed world outside the US. It's much easier to go from no job to living in a car to living under a bridge in the US. A lot of people in this thread call for UBI, which is sensible but isn't even likely in the more socialist Europe. UBI is a good answer though. Education is another one, e.g. free training programs or college classes for long term unemployed. None of that seems likely under 47.

  • Done by who? Done how? Tf does this mean

    There are plenty of societies that have strong state-backed training and education programs. The AI narrative is majority a smokescreen for financialization and downsizing of firms and privatizarion of the state

    Just like with the blockchain, China's been the first to implement a version with an actual use - not financial speculation and buying drugs, and a more power and resource efficient version - of overhyped tech financial bubble buzzword technologies, because they don't judge its utility differently than any other technology. They don't have these religious financial cults around AI

    They will likely be the only nation other than close regional SEA allies to implement AI in governance effectively instead of using it to somehow make servers using UI from 2014 worse + more insecure & strengthening the Tesla/Palantir/Anduril investor pitch " The Evil Privatized Government Has Anointed Us Chief Devourer of the State Social Services/Tech/Green Energy Budget" where everyone can stuff the 1 trillion dollars the fed prints daily for banks

    First worlders who want to pull themselves back out of the hole somehow should stop focusing singlemindedly on minimum wage struggle and public debt, and start worrying about land reform, access to hours + employment, and public housing.

  • What does "can't be trained for a new job" mean? Why? What's keeping them from learning a new thing?

    • Age and cognitive ability naturally.

      • That doesn't mean much. If a person is too old to learn a new job, they should be able to retire. If a person's cognitive ability is THAT low, so low they can't learn the simplest of jobs, they should probably be in some care facility or (better) be cared for at home with their caretakers (who've had proper training) receiving adequate compensation. Why are we talking, in this context, about people who are unable to work anyway?

        Don't get me wrong, I'm very much against what we've come to call "AI" and how it's taking over everything.

  • You could do what I plan on doing which is getting married to a rich guy and becoming a house wife.

45 comments