[HN Gopher] The rise of robots increases job insecurity and mala... ___________________________________________________________________ The rise of robots increases job insecurity and maladaptive workplace behaviors [pdf] Author : giuliomagnifico Score : 65 points Date : 2022-10-12 18:18 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.apa.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.apa.org) | howmayiannoyyou wrote: | The rise of robots in the US will, sincerely and with no irony: | | - Allow politicians to continue to limit legal immigration to | pander to parties who think this is good policy. | | - Help businesses remain productive despite the ravages of | opioids & meth in many regions of the country, that is starving | employers of reliable low and moderately skilled labor. | | - Offset declining US birth rates and increasing mortality rates. | | - Makeup for shortfalls in "tooth to tail" and infantry | shortfalls experienced by the US military, but likely at greatly | increased expense due to unique defense spending economics. | | - Revolutionize health and elder care in ways good and bad, but | nonetheless necessary, providing great savings to providers - but | probably no savings to consumers. | | - Seriously reduce workplace injuries in some of the most | dangerous jobs (eg. recycling), but wipe out smaller businesses | who can't afford the CAPEX. | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: | Have some links to peer-reviewed research to back up those | claims? | kwhitefoot wrote: | > Six studies--including two pilot studies, an archival study | across 185 U.S. metropolitan areas (Study 1), a preregistered | experiment conducted in Singapore (Study 2), an experience- | sampling study among engineers conducted in India (Study 3), and | an online experiment (Study 4) | | I suspect that the society in which the studies occurred might | have more to do with the conclusion than the robots themselves. | Had there been contributions from northern Europe where | automation is often the only way to make an activity profitable | the conclusion might have been a little more nuanced. | mc32 wrote: | Or Japan or Korea --two countries that have embraced robotics. | psychomugs wrote: | You could say the same ("but what about $GROUP") for quite | literally any such study. Sampling broadly is an oft- | insurmountable part of such research; this demographic spread - | along with the relatively large collaboration across six | universities - is actually much larger than typical study | samples that involve only WEIRD [1] populations. | | [1] "White, Educated, Independent, Rich, Democratic" | andrenth wrote: | _Among the most viable of all economic delusions is the belief | that machines on net balance create unemployment. | | Let us turn to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The first chapter | [...] is called "Of the division of labor," and on the second | page of this first chapter the author tells us that a workman | unacquainted with the use of machinery employed in pin-making | "could scarce make one pin a day, and certainly not twenty," but | with the use of this machinery he can make 4,800 pins a day. In | the pin-making industry there was already, if machines merely | throw men out of jobs, 99.98 percent unemployment. | | Arkwright invented his cotton-spinning machinery in 1760. At the | time it was estimated that there were in England 5,200 spinners | using spinning wheels, and 2,700 weavers - in all 7,900 persons | engaged in the production of cotton textiles. The introduction of | Arkwright's invention was opposed on the ground that it | threatened the livelihood of the workers, and the opposition had | to be put down by force. Yet in 1787 [...] the number of persons | actually involved in the spinning and weaving of cotton had risen | from 7,900 to 320,000, an increase of 4,400 percent._ | pydry wrote: | https://qz.com/962427/what-its-like-to-be-a-modern-engraver-... | | Not much has changed. | | It's generally regarded as preferable to try and gently guide | the pitchforks away from squishy human elites, though. | | Robots and the inevitable march of technological progress are | both good scapegoats for policymaking that very deliberately | expands the precariat. | LegitShady wrote: | 1123581321 wrote: | A PDF research paper on APA.org is pretty trustworthy. | shadowgovt wrote: | Is _that_ why people care? I 'm also old, and had completely | forgotten how exploitable the Adobe viewers were for several | decades. | | Now that those links get opened in browser sandboxes, I assume | the concern has diminished. | giuliomagnifico wrote: | https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2022/10/robots-workp... | legulere wrote: | Nowadays pdf get opened in the browser in a javascript viewer | that is sandboxed. | LegitShady wrote: | you say that like chrome hasn't had pdf vulnerabilities | patched in their javascript viewer, but of course they have. | This idea of just linking to PDFs and having people click on | them seems like a bad idea. | shadowgovt wrote: | Why is it a worse idea than providing links to HTML? | | https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2021-21106/ | dec0dedab0de wrote: | Your original comment is flagged, but I am generally wary | of clicking on pdf links. Especially on mobile where I have | to download and open in a different app. That's just a huge | pain. | ectopod wrote: | Many people will be reading the pdf in their browser using the | browser's js pdf renderer. | | This is safer than running arbitrary js from the web, which | most people also do. | | So I guess most people won't worry about pdfs especially. | Animats wrote: | The solution they prescribe, "An Intervention to Reduce Job | Insecurity: Self-Affirmation", is rather scary. It's blaming the | workers. Or getting them to delude themselves. This is a | political position. | | This has been a huge problem in the Rust Belt for years. People | whose identity came from what they could do had it stripped from | them. No solution seems in sight. | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: | > It's blaming the workers. Or getting them to delude | themselves. This is a politica position | | Quite the opposite. It is about enabling workers. | | From the research article: | | "The cognitive appraisal theory of stress argues that events | are stressful when people appraise that they lack the capacity | to cope with them. Self-affirmation therefore emphases that | employees can cope by affirming one's self-worth and their | ability to confront change at work (Dunning, 2005; Schmeichel & | Vohs, 2009; Sherman & Cohen, 2006)" | pj_mukh wrote: | tl;dr: Robots make people _perceive_ that their jobs are more | insecure. Self-affirmation might fix it. | throwawayoc22 wrote: | So here's a data point: I work for a company | https://6river.com/ that makes warehouse robots - or co-bots as | our founders call them - and the feedback we've gotten is the | total opposite. Warehouse workers love our robots, we've had | reports of workers leaving for higher paying jobs at other | warehouse and returning specifically because our robots make | the work so much easier. So I guess it depends on the work and | the type of automation. | | I used a throwaway because I know my co-workers read HN! | petra wrote: | I'm curious about something: Which warehousing | niches(types/sizes of warehouses/companies) will automation | get into, and which niches it won't ? | | And what will be the future jobs in a modern warehouse in 10 | years ? | SamoyedFurFluff wrote: | If this is true that would give a big opportunity for your | company to release studies directly countering studies like | the one you're responding to. Is your company planning on | doing so? | wing-_-nuts wrote: | >Self-affirmation might fix it. | | ...and by 'fix it' they mean, might make the workers more | complacent until their jobs can be automated out of existence. | | I don't buy the idea that 'robots will take our jobs', but it | will damn sure take _some_ jobs, with that portion being higher | every decade. | dogman144 wrote: | Ya the more this is said out loud, the better we can prep for | whatever this part of the workforce can do next. | | It feels like we're in a dangerous in between of applauding | the technology and aggressively staying blind to the jobs | it's obviously coming for. | | End result is a lot of pissed off truckers and warehouse | workers who were sold for years on robotics improving | productivity (or robot dogs not showing up patrolling | neighborhoods without a real cop), and were stupid enough to | trust tech product leads about it. | | The tech improves productivity and might be intended as a | ride-along in some cases, but the MBA at the user company | will see it differently via labor costs. | deelowe wrote: | Right. The greater good argument isn't particularly | comforting when you're the sacrificial lamb. | JohnJamesRambo wrote: | Like Jack Handey? | | I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, Robots Can't | Replace Me! | dec0dedab0de wrote: | _Like Jack Handey? | | I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, Robots | Can't Replace Me! _ | | You're thinking about Stuart Smalley, a character on SNL | created and played by Al Franken. Jack Handey is an author | who had some of his "deep thoughts" show up on SNL as text | that was read. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Smalley | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey | debacle wrote: | Take anything from the APA with a gigantic grain of salt. | dang wrote: | " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other | people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | debacle wrote: | A cautionary note is not a shallow dismissal. In your action, | ensure you are _improving_ discourse, not eliminating it. | dang wrote: | hwbehrens gave you a nice explanation, but maybe I'll reply | too. | | It was shallow because it was (1) low-information*; (2) a | cliche; and (3) untied to anything specific about the | article. | | Such comments are extremely common on the internet and tend | to evoke more of the same, which leads to | predictable/generic discussions. We're trying to avoid | those. | | * I know that people sometimes have a lot of information in | their heads when they post a comment like that; the problem | is that if you don't include that information explicitly in | your comment, it's not available to the reader. | hwbehrens wrote: | I think what made the parent comment "shallow" was because | you didn't justify your claim with any supporting context. | For example, claiming the APA has a track record of | misleading claims (ideally with supporting evidence) would | have added some depth to your comment. Or perhaps you feel | that all academic communication is biased by misaligned | incentives, who knows? The reader can't extrapolate any | further discussion topics from the initial comment, and as | such it does not effectively promote discussion. | tuatoru wrote: | In reality automation is about individual tasks, not jobs, which | are collections of tasks. The makeup of jobs may change. | | The paper doesn't start off well, with its first concrete example | being bricklaying. Brian Potter, on his "Construction Physics" | blog, has one or more posts discussing the history of attempts to | automate that very task.[1] TL;DR: it's not going well, for a | variety of reasons. | | Most tasks are proving far harder to automate than expected, even | the "easy" ones, for task-specific reasons that are obvious to | anyone who has closely observed the task in the field. These guys | write as though they are desk bound. | | Woo-woo like affirmations? Seriously? | | How about worker ownership and profit sharing, an improved social | safety net, and free retraining? | | 1. "Where Are The Robotic Bricklayers?" | https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/where-are-the-rob... | pestaa wrote: | The number of references is staggering, especially considering | the length of the paper. Is it a sign of deep research, or can it | be a red flag, or it's not unusual? | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: | The APA is a very prolific organization. It is common for | highly researched topics to have a strong breadth and depth to | the citations. | hwbehrens wrote: | I suspect that it will vary by field -- perhaps this is normal | for psychology, but looking at recent accepted papers from the | same journal, they mostly had 60-70 citations. Such a dramatic | deviation from the "norms" of the venue is at least a yellow | flag, but I would hesitate to say that it's necessarily a red | one. | | In CS research, this many references in a peer-reviewed work | would be a red flag for me, however. | | If it were an NSF grant proposal, then it would actually be | fairly few -- for whatever reason grant proposals might have | 300+. So, the context is very important when evaluating | citation prevalence. | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: | From my days as an undergrad in psychology, I do recall there | being a growing trend of citing even the smallest thing, for | the sake of internal consistency within the overall body of | knowledge. | mattkrause wrote: | 224 is a lot, and some of them seem a little gratuitous: | "For example, robots can outperform humans in manual labor | (Frey & Osborne, 2017; Murphy, 2017)" | | However, I wouldn't read a lot into it. In general, I think | we'd be better off if people cited more widely instead of just | choosing the "classic" reference from a famous group (that may | not even be the first/best work on the topic). | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: | It's not really much different than doing something like | citing Stack Overflow or a book in your code comments. | jrumbut wrote: | I would say that, when combined with other signs in the | writing, it points to the authors being quite meticulous and | thorough in their research. | | It also seems like they are combining several studies with | different theories and supplementary data so it's bound to lead | to a long citation list. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-12 23:00 UTC)