Robots will widen international wealth gaps

[funkervogt]

Basically, rich countries will build a lot of robots to do the manual labor work that poor people do in other countries they trade with.

This paper considers the implications for developing countries of a new wave of technological change that substitutes pervasively for labor. It makes simple and plausible assumptions: the AI revolution can be modeled as an increase in productivity of a distinct type of capital that substitutes closely with labor; and the only fundamental difference between the advanced and developing country is the level of TFP. This set-up is minimalist, but the resulting conclusions are powerful: improvements in the productivity of “robots” drive divergence, as advanced countries differentially benefit from their initially higher robot intensity, driven by their endogenously higher wages and stock of complementary traditional capital. In addition, capital—if internationally mobile—is pulled “uphill”, resulting in a transitional GDP decline in the developing country. In an extended model where robots substitute only for unskilled labor, the terms of trade, and hence GDP, may decline permanently for the country relatively well-endowed in unskilled labor.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/ ... ence-49734

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

It should be interesting to see how this will be handled in the USA. I would be shocked if any sort of UBI or whatnot gets introduced because as it stands it sure as hell is not believed in. Inb4 the whole population does a Canadian trucker protest at Washington DC or something like that if this is not handled properly.

[funkervogt]

It's good you brought that up. As an American, I also don't think we're culturally equipped to handle the transition to mass technological unemployment smoothly, so we'll probably have events like the Canadian trucker protest in the future to haltingly bring about government reforms.

[PrometheusUnbound]

I guess automated production with robots is like the O-ring problem: you have to get it completely right, otherwise it's even worse than the old-fashioned way. Even Tesla suffered a protracted production hell before getting it right. Developing countries are bad at O-ring problems, they can make incremental steps forward but struggle with vulnerable processes that need to work like clockwork. That would indeed widen int'l wealth gaps.

Or could robotized production quickly become simple to use, if robots can work autonomously and deal with unexpected circunstances? In that case robots could help developing countries leapfrog, taking away the need to slowly increase the education level of their workforce.

Another aspect: COVID taught us that int'l logistical chains can be a liability. If robots allow production to reshore to high income countries, it takes away an opportunity for developing countries.

[PrometheusUnbound]

It's good you brought that up. As an American, I also don't think we're culturally equipped to handle the transition to mass technological unemployment smoothly, so we'll probably have events like the Canadian trucker protest in the future to haltingly bring about government reforms.

What puzzles me is that this type of protestors seem to have quite rightwing agenda's (Trump&friends). Tech unemployment calls for a progressive agenda of solidarity and more taxation, not what they seem to be clamoring for now. But maybe that would change over time, as tech unemployment spreads?

[Beene1967]

Technology is evolving so fast that not all of us will have time to learn to use it rationally. I read somewhere that 85 million jobs may be displaced by the shift in labor between humans and machines by 2025, but 97 million new roles may emerge. Therefore, I recommend that you choose jobs that will not soon be replaced by robots. I also recommend you read https://graduateway.com/essay-examples/technology/ as it contains a lot of valuable information about technology development and robotics in particular. This site collects many sample essays on a variety of topics, so you can easily expand your worldview with minimal use of time. I do it regularly and recommend you do the same!

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

Technology is evolving so fast that not all of us will have time to learn to use it rationally. I read somewhere that 85 million jobs may be displaced by the shift in labor between humans and machines by 2025, but 97 million new roles may emerge. Therefore, I recommend that you choose jobs that will not soon be replaced by robots

Would there be any sort of possible ideas in regards to jobs that will have longevity as the robotics slowly take over from here to 2040's (or less who knows)? The cool thing about this tech age is that some things can be mixed creatively. I saw there is a thing such as cloud robotics which is cool and caught my attention though I am flexible to making the change to something more durable for long term work if bots and all will disrupt the cloud field much faster than we think.

Not sure of any other fields that may be creatively tied into together in preparation for the future.