Ep. 92: The Responsibility-Erasing Catch-all of ‘Automation’
Added 2019-10-30 15:02:25 +0000 UTC"As technology shifts more layoffs loom at tech companies," Reuters tells us. "PepsiCo is laying off corporate employees as the company commits to millions of dollars in severance pay, restructuring, and 'relentlessly automating'," notes Business Insider. "Apple’s dismissal of 200 self-driving car employees points to a shift in its AI strategy," CNBC declares.
For decades, mass layoffs, factory closures, and industry shifts––from the auto industry to journalism to banking––have often been presented by American media, not as the moral choices of greedy CEOs private equity and hedge fund managers looking to extract wealth for them and their shareholders, but instead the unavoidable result of nebulous, ill-defined––but entirely inevitable–– “automation.”
After all: C-level decision makers, billionaire media owners, hedge funds, and private equity firms had no choice. No one is to blame, it’s simply the way it is. The logical, albeit cruel, end result of specific policy choices, all decided by powerful moral agents over the past 30 years, is presented as a force of nature, something outside our control, unstoppable and immutable.
On this episode, we examine how capital has, for centuries, blamed layoffs and cost cutting on inscrutable developments in technology and efficiency models out of their control, what this pat excuse hides, why it's sometimes true and sometimes not, and and why the media shouldn’t take claims of CEOs’ hands being forced by “market changes” at face value.
We are joined by Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and writer and researcher Peter Frase.
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Guests
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and president of Just Foreign Policy. His latest book is Failed: What the Experts Got Wrong About the Global Economy.
Peter Frase is a writer, researcher and member of the Jacobin magazine’s editorial board and author of the book, Four Futures: Life After Capitalism.
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Show Notes
Ramesh Srinivasan | October 29, 2019 | Los Angeles Times
Fast Food Automation, an Old Idea, Gets New Life to Bash Fight for 15
Adam Johnson | December 7, 2016 | FAIR
Peter Frase | March 18, 2015 | Jacobin
Egyptian Lingerie and the Robot Future
Peter Frase | March 7, 2015 | Jacobin
E.J. Hobsbawm | February 1952 | Past and Present [PDF]
The robots are coming for your job, too
Zachary B. Wolf | September 3, 2019 | CNN
Will Your Job Still Exist In 2030?
Alina Selyukh | July 11, 2019 | NPR
Automation could replace 1.5 million jobs, says ONS
March 25, 2019 | BBC
Apple’s dismissal of 200 self-driving car employees points to a shift in its AI strategy
Steve Kovach | January 26, 2019 | CNBC
Annie Nova and John W. Schoen | January 25, 2019 | CNBC
Over 30 million U.S. workers will lose their jobs because of AI
January 24, 2019 | Associated Press
A.I. Expert Says Automation Could Replace 40% of Jobs in 15 Years
Don Reisinger | January 10, 2019 | Fortune
Was The Media’s Big “Pivot To Video” All Based On A Lie?
Maya Kosoff | October 17, 2018 | Vanity Fair
A study finds nearly half of jobs are vulnerable to automation
The Data Team | April 24, 2018 | The Economist
The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine
Peter S. Goodman | December 17, 2017 | The New York Times
Automation Could Kill 73 Million U.S. Jobs By 2030
Paul Davidson | November 28, 2017 | USA Today
The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China. It’s Automation.
Claire Cain Miller | December 21, 2016 | The New York Times
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Transcript
For a full transcript of this episode, go here.
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Comments
Hello, at 33:40 your guest mentions: productivity growth has decreased and automation not replaced job at a rate that it used to in the last 3 decades compare to the 60s or 70s. Could it be because the "technology change" in the last 3 decades is not the same with the kind of breakthrough like Einstein that set off more discovery and research. Could it be that our next Einstein is stacking box somewhere in a Amazon warehouse and we are waisting so much human potential. People like Bill Gates and Bezos are actually destroying humanity and potential. The last person who has both the brain and the heart was Aaron Swartz, of course they hounded him to death in 2013.
2020-12-17 22:50:42 +0000 UTCGreat episode. Especially great to hear Marc Weisbrot, whose output on economics and South American politics has always been excellent.
Ciaran Colley
2019-11-01 15:58:34 +0000 UTCThanks so much for this ep. It's weird that automation is used to scare the crap out of working class people, when the biggest profits can be made automating white collar jobs like radiology, accounting, etc.
Cardboard
2019-10-31 21:32:36 +0000 UTC
