Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Oh, and I also wanted to add that if your job can be done by a robot, there should be no reasonable expectation for high wages or job security.
The problem is that most modern service jobs will be automated, which causes problems with your earlier assumption that everything will right itself if we do nothing. Here's an excerpt from chapters 1 and 2 of Marshall Brain's Manna:
Depending on how you want to think about it, it was funny or inevitable or symbolic that the robotic takeover did not start at MIT, NASA, Microsoft or Ford. It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17, 2010. It seemed like such a simple thing at the time, but May 17 marked a pivotal moment in human history.
...
The "robot" installed at this first Burger-G restaurant looked nothing like the robots of popular culture. It was not hominid like C-3PO or futuristic like R2-D2 or industrial like an assembly line robot. Instead it was simply a PC sitting in the back corner of the restaurant running a piece of software. The software was called "Manna", version 1.0.
Manna's job was to manage the store, and it did this in a most interesting way. Think about a normal fast food restaurant circa 2000. There was a group of employees who worked at the store, typically 50 people in a normal restaurant who rotated in and out on a weekly schedule. The people did everything from making the burgers to taking the orders to cleaning the tables and taking out the trash. All of these employees reported to the store manager and a couple of assistant managers. The managers hired the employees, scheduled them and told them what to do each day. This was a completely normal arrangement. In 2000, there were millions of businesses that operated in this way.
...
Burger-G contracted with a software consultant and commissioned a piece of software. The goal of the software was to replace the managers and tell the employees what to do in a more controllable way. Manna version 1.0 was born.
Manna was connected to the cash registers, so it knew how many people were flowing through the restaurant. The software could therefore predict with uncanny accuracy when the trash cans would fill up, the toilets would get dirty and the tables needed wiping down. The software was also attached to the time clock, so it knew who was working in the restaurant. Manna also had "help buttons" throughout the restaurant. Small signs on the buttons told customers to push them if they needed help or saw a problem. There was a button in the restroom that a customer could press if the restroom had a problem. There was a button on each trashcan. There was a button near each cash register, one in the kiddie area and so on. These buttons let customers give Manna a heads up when something went wrong.
At any given moment Manna had a list of things that it needed to do. There were orders coming in from the cash registers, so Manna directed employees to prepare those meals. There were also toilets to be scrubbed on a regular basis, floors to mop, tables to wipe, sidewalks to sweep, buns to defrost, inventory to rotate, windows to wash and so on. Manna kept track of the hundreds of tasks that needed to get done, and assigned each task to an employee one at a time.
Manna told employees what to do simply by talking to them. Employees each put on a headset when they punched in. Manna had a voice synthesizer, and with its synthesized voice Manna told everyone exactly what to do through their headsets. Constantly. Manna micro-managed minimum wage employees to create perfect performance.
The software would speak to the employees individually and tell each one exactly what to do. For example, "Bob, we need to load more patties. Please walk toward the freezer."
Or, "Jane, when you are through with this customer, please close your register. Then we will clean the women's restroom."
And so on. The employees were told exactly what to do, and they did it quite happily. It was a major relief actually, because the software told them precisely what to do step by step.
For example, when Jane entered the restroom, Manna used a simple position tracking system built into her headset to know that she had arrived. Manna then told her the first step.
Manna: "Place the 'wet floor' warning cone outside the door please."
When Jane completed the task, she would speak the word "OK" into her headset and Manna moved to the next step in the restroom cleaning procedure.
Manna: "Please block the door open with the door stop."
Jane: "OK."
Manna: "Please retrieve the bucket and mop from the supply closet."
Jane: "OK."
And so on.
Once the restroom was clean, Manna would direct Jane to put everything away. Manna would make sure that she carefully washed her hands. Then Manna would immediately start Jane working on a new task. Meanwhile, Manna might send Lisa to the restroom to inspect it and make sure that Jane had done a thorough job. Manna would ask Lisa to check the toilets, the floor, the sink and the mirrors. If Jane missed anything, Lisa would report it.
...
Once Burger-G proved that Manna worked, the idea spread like wildfire. Every restaurant chain used Manna. Every retail store, whether it was a discount store, a home improvement store, a toy store, or an office supply store, had Manna systems. You saw people wearing headsets on construction sites, in airports, at amusement parks, in hospitals, in movie theaters, at the grocery store... They were everywhere.
...
As the Manna software evolved, it gained more and more responsibility. From the start Manna was able to schedule employee hours. Manna printed a piece of paper for each employee to put on the refrigerator -- it told you your hours for the week. In version 2.0 they went further. They connected Manna to the telephone network and the public email network. So Manna was able to begin calling and emailing employees and reminding them to show up on time. If an employee didn't show up, Manna could call in a replacement. If the store became unexpectedly crowded, Manna could call in reinforcements.
In version 3.0, the software gained the ability to fire employees as well. I had a friend who got fired that way. He came into the store late for his shift, and it was his third time being late. He punched in and put on his headset. He walked over to the eye scan station to log in. He said Manna sounded normal, and had him working normally for about half an hour. Then Manna asked him to walk to Zone 7 at the back of the store. A Burger-G security guy was standing there with three sheets of paper. The security guy was wearing the solid black security uniform, the opaque sunglasses and a headset integrated into the helmet. He looked back and there was another security guy standing near the door. Manna said to him, "Steven J. Canis, employee number 4378561, your employment at Burger-G store number 152 is hereby terminated in accordance with employee manual paragraph 12.1, failure to appear at work on time." Manna read him the three pages of termination information paragraph by paragraph and asked him to confirm each paragraph. He could not return to that Burger-G store for a year. He could not reapply to Burger-G for five years. Stuff like that. Manna made him sign the papers and the security guys escorted him out of the store to his car. The security guys never said a word, but Manna was talking to him during the entire walk, telling him to look down, to make no gestures, to speak to no one. The last thing Manna said to him was, "Remove your headset and hand it to the security officer on your left. Goodbye."
It didn't take long for word to get around. Pretty much, if you knew you were going to be late and you had been late before, you called Manna on your cell phone and quit. Manna emailed the forms to you, had you phone in when you got them so it could read them to you, and you signed them. It really cut down on people being late.
By version 4.0, Manna gained the ability to outsource. Let's say that Manna decided it was time to repaint the lines in the parking lot. Manna would make this decision using customer surveys and by periodically asking employees questions about the parking lot, the paint inside the store, the exterior of the store, the roof, etc. An inspector from Burger-G corporate would also come once a month and feed information about the store and grounds into the Manna system.
When Manna made the decision to repaint the stripes in the parking lot, it would call several companies and get bids. Manna did not do this on the phone, obviously. It did it electronically through the Internet. By this time, most companies were hooked into the Manna network, even if the company did not use Manna to manage employees. The two pieces of software -- the Manna software running the Burger-G restaurant and the Manna software running the parking lot maintenance company -- would bid and negotiate through the Internet.
Because everything was done by machine, the restaurant's Manna system could send out a request for bids to all the parking lot maintenance companies in the area. Those companies would send bids back through the network. The restaurant's Manna system would then connect with hundreds of other Manna systems to check references and get feedback on past experiences with each vendor. Based on the bid prices and the feedback, Manna would select a vendor, negotiate terms, make a deposit and schedule the repainting job. The entire process from start to finish took less than 10 seconds.
As these communication networks between all the different Manna systems built up, things started to get uncomfortable for every worker. For example, the Manna software in each store knew about employee performance in microscopic detail -- how often the employee was on time or early, how quickly the employee did tasks, how quickly the employee answered the phone and responded to email, how the customers rated the employee and so on. When an employee left a store and tried to get a new job somewhere else, any other Manna system could request the employee's performance record. If an employee had "issues" -- late, slow, disorganized, unkempt -- it became nearly impossible for that employee to get another job. Nearly every company with minimum wage employees used Manna software or something similar, and performance records on employees were a major commodity freely exchanged between corporations. A marginal employee got blacklisted in the system very quickly.
That ability to blacklist employees is where things got ugly, because it gave Manna far too much power. Manna was everywhere, and it was managing about a half of the workers in the United States through headsets, cell phones and email. Manna moved in and took over a big chunk of the government as well. There came a point where tens of millions of humans did nothing at work unless told to do so by a Manna system.
You can imagine what would happen. Manna fires you because you don't show up for work a couple times. Now you try to go get a job somewhere else. No other Manna system is going to hire you. There had always been an implicit threat in the American economy -- "if you do not have a job, you cannot make any money and you will therefore become homeless." Manna simply took that threat and turned the screws. If you did not do what Manna told you to, it would fire you. Then you would not be able to get a job anywhere else. It gave Manna huge leverage.
For example, Manna could call in reinforcements as it needed them. You would get a call from Manna and it would say, "Your Burger-G restaurant is experiencing unexpected customer volume. Can you help?" The word "help" meant, "Can you be here in less than 10 minutes?" You could say yes or no. The problem was that if you said "no" too many times, you got fired. And when you got fired, it meant you were blacklisted in the system.
Once you figured that out, you were pretty much forced to say "yes". That meant that the printed schedules started to become pretty much irrelevant. Manna would call you when it wanted to call you. Then it started calling you to other restaurants. If things got slow in the restaurant, Manna would send you home, then call you back in later if things got busy again. You really could not say "no" very often, meaning that Manna could interrupt your life at any time.
The most surprising part of the Manna system, however, was the effect it had on wages. As Manna spread to so many businesses, your choice was to work for Manna or to be unemployed. When you started to work for Manna, it paid you minimum wage. There was no reason for it to pay you any more -- your choice was minimum wage or zero. There was no way to ask Manna for a raise. You could quit, but when you quit you would be applying to another business that used Manna. It was going to give you minimum wage too.
Chapter 3 and 4 focus on the effects of actual robots and how higher paying jobs like most white collar jobs and even surgery can be deskilled and automated.
Later chapters discuss a very different alternative society produced by the same technology and automating most jobs away.
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