Ask HN: Is it morally right to automate jobs people want?
3 by siruncledrew | 0 comments on Hacker News.
I understand automation provides a lot of pros and cons. Some 'pros' include: it can reduce repetitive tasks, cut down on workplace injury, and offer greater efficiency a majority of the time. It's no surprise more companies are looking towards automation. However, I believe there is a mismatch in terms of benefit to society and benefit to the corporations. Aside from initial capital and maintenance costs, automation provides businesses a way to profit without having to deal with the costs of paying and managing people. Assuming the role of the business is individualistic, the incentive is to pull in as much profit as possible, and work towards reducing costs. My takeaway from this is that self-interest also creates a lack of employee-interest. For example, with low-skill, low-reward jobs such as cashier, most people may not care if they get automated (as we sort of have today with self-checkout/kiosks) since they were not very desirable jobs to begin with. Yet, what is to stop a business from automating other more "desirable" jobs that employees may actually want and enjoy doing, such as software developer, strategist, manager, etc. - the higher paying jobs that people train for and aspire for to put their productivity to good use. If it saves the business (or executives at the top) money by axing those jobs, my guess is that they will do it, regardless if it hurts their employees (or impacts greater society). So with this in mind, where is the moral limit for automation? Should we protect employees from having their jobs taken away for a more profitable alternative? (I'm not counting on things like UBI in this instance because, sticking with the presumption of corporate self-interest, I'm not assuming that more profit = more paid in taxes for society, if taxes are another undesirable "cost" that businesses would want to reduce).
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