Benefits & More below. "A new study estimates that self-driving cars will save the United States more than $300 billion per year. The study adds up the costs of traffic accidents and assumes that self-driving cars will reduce accidents by 90 percent. That’s optimistic, but the study doesn’t even count the savings due to congestion relief, increased productivity while traveling, and the reduced cost of delivering goods and services.
On the other hand, one analyst estimates that self-driving cars will “wipe out 4 million jobs.” A taxi- and limo-driver lobby group has already begun to lobby the New York legislature to protect jobs by banning self-driving cars." Cue the fear, loathing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in 3 . . . 2. . . 1. . . "This is where it is important to understand the difference between benefits and costs. Jobs are not a benefit; income is the benefit. Jobs are costs: if more income can be produced with fewer jobs, everybody gains. That includes the people whose jobs are lost because–at least if the society is reasonably mobile–they can find better jobs instead, paid for out of the money people saved by reducing costs. The process of job automation has been going on for hundreds of years, yet there are plenty of jobs. For example, four hundred years ago the vast majority of people were farmers because one farmer could barely produce enough food to feed their family with only a small surplus to sell. Today, one American farmer grows enough food for 155 people. This means millions of farm jobs have been “lost,” yet the people who would have once worked on farms now make and do things that were inconceivable a hundred, or even fifty, years ago, and they sell some of those things to the remaining farmers. Despite this historic trend, and the clear economic principles behind it, people still fear that each new wave of automation will lead to huge unemployment. Some of this is due to ignorance, while some is due to fear mongering by people who have some axe to grind. We can create more work by reversing or banning automation, and then we can go back to working six days a week, 12 hours a day, earning less money in those 72 hours than people earn in 40 hours today. No one wants that, yet that’s the ultimate implication of a proposal to “save” jobs by banning self-driving cars." Yes, we need to ensure that no laborer is ever given anything more advanced than a spoon with which to dig, and then destroy all digging machinery. This would ensure myriad jobs for our over credentialed, under educated college grads. "Our friend the late Milton Friedman once told us a story of being in India in the 1960s and watching thousands of workers build a canal with shovels. Milton asked the lead engineer, Why don’t you have tractors to help build this canal? The engineer replied: “You don’t understand, Mr. Friedman, this canal is a jobs program to provide work for as many men as possible.” Milton responded with his classic wit, “Oh, I see. I thought you were trying to build a canal. If you really want to create jobs, then by all means give these men spoons, not shovels.” In May 2009 the Wall Street Journal published an article by Stephen Moore in which he described hearing the anecdote directly from Milton Friedman while dining with him. The details were given previously in this article. 11" If You Want Jobs Then Give These Workers Spoons Instead of Shovels | Quote Investigator Then again we are at less than 5% unemployment which is considered full employment, so why all the worry. After centuries of Industrial Revolution, we still haven't been able to get rid of jobs, the jobs today are infinitely better, easier, and more lucrative, but there are still plenty of jobs. Also, when you hear that the jobs of the future will be too advanced for the average person to engage, remember that the average job of today requires far more advanced skills than nearly any person had at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We underestimate the peoples ability to respond to these changes, and adapt.
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