Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Are you running a business, or a charity?
My perspective is that your "career development" is mostly illusory. If automating part of your process results in a better product or cheaper manufacturing, perhaps you will get a bonus? Certainly you will get a resume point. Perhaps it will get you a promotion? A raise? You don't seem to think it will result in you, too, being replaced by a machine, at least not immediately, so in terms of self interest it seems like an obvious choice.
As for the moral implications of making low-skilled people unemployed, like... if you don't do it, eventually someone else will, except you will get none of the benefits while still suffering all the possible downsides. There may be public policy arguments about this that matter from a moral or legal perspective, but unless it is your job to make or enforce public policy, then you don't really have a seat at that table.
In the medium-term future (two or three centuries at most), I think that we either get widespread universal basic income, or we get rampant Luddism. Authoritarian governments and relatively culturally homogeneous nations seem likely to weather that transition better than pluralistic democracies, as identitarian competition for resources and handouts ramps up toward infinity. You will contribute to this process no matter what you choose to do in your current role; the best you can do is what is best for yourself, as that is what you have the most control over and the greatest understanding of.
This is the argument people have used to rationalize all manner of immoral things since time immemorial. It doesn't really hold water, though. If something is immoral, then it doesn't matter that someone else will do the same thing. Morality is about your conduct, not what others do.
As it happens, I don't think that automating jobs is immoral. But I think that if one does, the "someone else will do it" argument doesn't fly.
That's not the work I intended that phrase to do. It was more of a factual observation about the extent to which outcomes are actually (not) within OP's control, which was the overall point of my post.
Specifically, "ought" implies "can." Ensuring that some people are employed might be the right thing to do; say for the purposes of argument that it is in this case. If in such a case it's not really up to you that those people will stay employed, it can't really be a moral requirement that you keep them employed. The claim "if you don't do it, eventually someone else will" is not a justification for any particular course of action, but an empirical claim about the extent to which a certain outcome is likely (not) within OP's control.
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I have high-ish (75%) confidence I would get a nice raise and promotion and low-ish confidence (20%) potential opportunity to lead this initiative across the company if it went well, so not entirely illusory, but I see your point—I’m a firm believer that large companies rarely proportionally reward their workers.
I agree that someone else will do it, but it just sits slightly at odds with me. “Git gud” is a motto I live by and expect others too (to a certain extent), but it’s a bit more difficult when said others are standing right in front of me chatting about their families they support on the salary that could (will eventually?) be taken away by these robots.
My asking here was more of a “please explain why and tell me what I’m wanting to do is good” along with a catch-all option for extra thoughts.
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My conviction is that in the future, much shorter term than your medium, countries that embrace automation to a fuller extent will utterly dominate and destroy those that don't. Will it be authoritarian or democratic ones? I can see it go either way. Democratic unions blocking even automatic parking gates at the docks, versus an autocrat saying that a robot-staffed megafactory for making drones is being built, and those who protest will be the first to experience its products. Or a democratically-minded government allowing unlimited productivity explosion if the owners are forced to dole out a pittance of the gains as universal basic income, versus a paternalistic dictator protecting his people from unemployment.
In the medium term, I think that the concept of a government will lose its meaning. The division will be between those individuals who control a force capable of credibly threatening other individuals controlling a trillion drones, and those who don't.
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