Andrew Yang Expresses Concern Over Walmart's Plans to Increase Robot Labor

[redqueen]

Small error below - Yang does not think it's a mistake to automate jobs. He doesn't place any judgment on it positive or negative. All he does is state the facts.

1. It's inevitable
2. We have to plan for how to deal with the repercussions

(snip)

Walmart customers may have already seen the machines cleaning floors or stocking shelves, as the company has been testing automated machines in stores since 2017. The retail giant hopes to add thousands more of the robots to stores by February.

Democratic presidential candidate Yang thinks that this is a mistake, and part of an overall trend that could end up causing serious damage to the U.S. labor force.

(snip)

And it seems the damage will not be felt equally across society. A January 2019 analysis from the Brookings Institute suggests that the lost jobs could disproportionately hit minorities, and a 2018 study claims that smaller cities are likely to bear a greater burden.

Aside from any detrimental impact to workers, companies and corporations probably won't be concerned about their bottom line, as available evidence suggests increased automation cuts costs and increases profit margins significantly.

https://www.newsweek.com/andrew-yang-expresses-concern-over-walmarts-plans-increase-robot-labor-1467885

Many agree with Yang that we should not wait to address this issue. That's one of the reasons Yang, who started out as an unknown, has been able to out-poll and out-raise representatives and senators.

A lot of people point to the past and say that since things haven't gone too badly in other industrial revolutions, it should work out ok this time around too - so why worry? Given that in previous ones we weren't facing the kinds of changes proposed by the increasingly sophisticated developments in automation and AI - that seems like wishful thinking to me. IMO that's a chance we would be foolish to take.

Most experts agree we will eventually need some form of UBI. We don't need to wait until we start seeing the negative effects to start addressing the problem.

[Nitram]

1. Has Yang expressed concern about any other company's use of robot labor?

Like Amazon?

[redqueen]

4. Of course. He doesn't call it "robot labor" - that's Newsweek's term. He discusses automation.

At Amazon, Walmart, everywhere.

[oldsoftie]

2. We all should let it be known that we will not "work" with robots at stores.

I will demand to deal with a human & let management know it, whatever the store, or take my business elsewhere

[redqueen]

5. Some people refuse to use automated checkouts. It hasn't changed much.

You still see 1-3 cashiers in a store with 8-10 lanes.

[Newest Reality]

3. There are waves of automation coming...

The capacities and sophistication of automation is on a roll. We are just at the begging of a huge wave that is going to change employment significantly. It has the potential to even grow faster the more it is implemented.

I am glad that Yang gets it. Deal with it now before the pain and suffering for people starts to follow in its wake. It is not laughing matter.

[redqueen]

6. Exactly right.

When people say things like 'well in the past other jobs have appeared' it strikes me as whistling past the graveyard.

We're really going to pin the well-being of the country on a hope and a prayer?

[Blue_true]

15. Past industrial revolutions didn't have machines that could do human physical

labor and outthink many humans in the process. This machine revolution is totally unlike any that we have seen.

[redqueen]

19. And far too many don't seem to get that.

I keep thinking of Zuckerberg testifying in DC last year.

It really showed how badly we need to reopen the office of technology assessment.

[Blue_true]

21. Even if we didn't currently have an idiot in the White House,

the task of aligning future machine capabilities with the over-arcing needs of society would be a monumental undertaking. It will border on redefining individual rights, along with many other sticky issues.

[YOHABLO]

7. So I guess the only jobs we'll have are fixing and building the automation.

Because you know they'll break down, as does everything tech these days.

[redqueen]

8. Ah no, there's lots of jobs that can't easily be automated

but that doesn't change the fact that automation is accelerating and will affect the number of available jobs significantly.

Actually that's one of the reasons Yang champions putting more focus on vocational schools. Harder to automate the work electricians or plumbers do. We have a lot of young people who aren't cut out for college, and may even drop out. More focus on vocational schools could improve a lot of lives as well as the economy.

[YOHABLO]

9. Well of course your right, they can't exactly automate lawyers. At least not yet.

[redqueen]

10. Well, now that you mention it... :)

Yang is a lawyer with a degree in Economics.

He has said that a lot of the lower-level boilerplate stuff lawyers do can absolutely be automated.

[oldsoftie]

14. Yes!! MORE FOCUS ON TECHNICAL & LESS ON OVERPRICED COLLEGES!!

Sorry to yell, but so many of these degrees these days are a joke.
And you can get a good trade job, that cant be outsourced or automated, without accumulating a bunch of debt

[redqueen]

16. This is yet another reason I switched from Bernie to Yang

Free college seems like a great idea. Our grandparents got it, so why shouldn't kids today?

But then I considered the skyrocketing cost of college education. And the fact that so many who start college don't finish.

This idea just seems more practical to me - more likely to help more people.

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/promoting-vocational-education/

[irisblue]

11. On Point Radio/WBUR/Boston did a show last spring about robots in grocery stores

Source-https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/04/11/grocery-store-robots-walmart-automation-workers


It is available on line for listening & transcript.

[redqueen]

17. Thanks!

It's wild.

The job I do now is in the process of being automated. I'm now doing the work that 4-5 people would have been doing just 5 years ago.

[irisblue]

20. That program has covered that topic at least once more.

I retired from direct patient care, during my career, we went from hand developing x ray films to functional MRI & PET scans; the radiology group I worked for read images in Guam & Idaho b/c computers and teleradiology.

Luddites are coming back.

[CrispyQ]

12. Just like climate change, we aren't going to face what's coming, & that will make it worse.

We have too much of this kind of thinking:



It may technically be true, but as a collective we can decide to work together to provide for everyone, instead of everyone being on their own.

[redqueen]

18. Exactly - it's coming at us faster than most realize.

Hopefully lots of other kinds of jobs will become available to replace all the ones taken over by automation and AI.

But can we just hope it happens fast enough to prevent millions of people from suffering?

No, we can't and we shouldn't.

[Skidmore]

13. This guy is all over the place. nt