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path: "/when-automation-Is-moral-my-opinion" title: "When Automation Is Moral My Opinion" published: true date: "29-10-2017"
I watched an excellent programme on television called “The Art of Gothic: Britain’s Midnight Hour”. It discussed several interesting things such as Karl Marx;s opinion on capitalism - and suggested Capitalism is much like a vampire. It also mentioned technology such as industrial robots are in a way: vampiric.
And with machine learning being such a popular trend these days, and large corporations attempting to automate many tasks - it makes sense that people are worried about their jobs being “stolen” by robots. So, even though in the future I might revise my opinion on this subject - this blog post is about my opinion on when we should and shouldn’t try to automate processes.
Let us first know the advantages of automation. As there is less time to spend on labour, and there are less labourers to pay - I think we can agree it is cheaper in the long run. It means that less living organisms have to encounter dangerous situations - thus making it safer, and it also means there is little to no room for human error - thus making things much more predictable and therefore less riskier.
Now, the disadvantages - right now I can only think of one: “people losing their jobs”. Personally, my younger self would be quite surprised by the main disadvantage of automation - less people needing to work. Many people complain about having to go to work, so why are people so fussed about robots taking the jobs thus meaning we don’t have to work? Sadly, the answer isn’t so simple. My first point would be that people are uncertain as to how their future without work will be - there are many breakthroughs which imply the robots will aoon successfully “steal” worker’s jobs, yet little to no evidence that those people who got their jobs “stolen” will be compensated. Perhaps, some people secretly love their work regardless of how terrible it is - maybe they like the routine and the responsibility, and knowing their place in the world.
One thing I will say is, automation doesn’t seem to fit in a capitalistic system (which has existed long before electricity). If there is no work to do, there are no people to exchange their time (labor) for reward (income) by doing the work. The system will have to change for automation to feel right.
I think we should find somewhat of a compromise when it comes to automation. Firstly, I think those whose jobs are at risk due to automation should either be re-trained and thus re-employed elsewhere (whether it be elsewhere in the company or not), or financially compensated. Some people might think it is unfair that people who are forced to lose their job get compensated, but from my perspective it is fair - and unfairness has existed in this world for as long (perhaps longer) than capitalism.
And while there are tremendous advantages to business owners regarding automation, I think many areas should simply not be automated unless they “qualify” for automation. Something should only qualify when it suffers from one or more of the following circumstances: a lack of people entering the job market in this particular area - such as people simply not wanting to do the job (this can fluctuate meaning the automation should only be temporary), and when the work that needs doing is too dangerous/hazardous to be done by a living organism.
The automation will be immoral when: there are plenty of people aspiring to do the particular job and/or there are already plenty doing the particular job, the work is not dangerous enough and the workers are unable to be compensated or trained and employed elsewhere (such as a different sector of the same company), the automation is only aspired to reduce costs yet offers little to no benefit elsewhere, and when the process which is to be automated can be performed better by a living organism than a non-biological being.
Automation should be a tool to sustain the economy, not boost it rapidly.
Although having said all this, personally I feel we are a long way away from having to worry about the tradeoff/s of automation since the automation itself is a source of jobs (unless the robots and code is being written by non biological technology). Plus we will likely still need people to monitor the automated processes to ensure they are going as expected. But, I suppose it isn’t too early to start preparing for what could possibly be the inevitable.