Factory Jobs Aren’t Coming

No Humans Need Apply

So I saw in an article in Fortune that “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick says factory gigs are the ‘great jobs of the future.’” This is part of the Right’s drive to return manufacturing to America.

That’s fine. It’s even laudable. We need more manufacturing to be done here in the United States. We need to claw back the factories that our business elites happily offshored so that they could get “low-cost labor” … and to crush unions in the process. 

But the idea that Americans are going to get jobs in those new factories is another matter entirely. Let’s face it, in the future factories are going to be automated. It’s going to be mostly robots that are going to be working in them. Even the “robot technicians” working to fix broken robots are going to be robots.

I find it fascinating because the Right seems to be obsessed with the idea that Americans need to get back to “real work” and that “real work” means factory work. Not namby-pamby white-collar office jobs. We need tough guys. Doing tough jobs. You betcha.

And, maybe that’s right. I don’t know. But I do know that huge numbers of humans working in gangs on assembly lines are not in the cards. And not all the Executive Orders from the White House are going to change that.

Which means…perhaps…that the country the Right is building has no real place for people in it.

Kind of disturbing, don’t you think?

Santorum's Rise

As I watch the unexpected success of Santorum in the primaries, I'm struck by how many of his supporters are the working poor (or below), the dispossessed, the needy…the people, in short, who have been left-behind, alienated, or terrified by our postindustrial age. To them, it offers little but poverty, indignity, and a loss of self-worth as wounding as annihilation. They are looking for someone to blame, and pretty much anyone will do.

It is the great fault of Liberalism that it did not recognize those individuals nor seek them out as allies. (Let us face it, the Conservatives had a point. The Left of the last few decades has sympathized far more with spotted owls than unemployed men.) It is the great power, and shame, of the Right that it recognized those people before anyone else, and was eager and willing to exploit them.

Yet, in this the Right invited its own enslavement if not destruction…as I think, now, it begins to realize. With Santorum's rise, the Right of the Elite finds itself confronting another, very different Right, one that has very little sympathy with its libertarianism and secularism.

Already, the Elite has reason regret the forces it has unleashed. In time, I suspect, it will learn to fear them.

The American Elite

My problem is that the American elite has proved itself stunningly inept. What has it managed in the last few decades? Well, let's see, it de-industrialized the country, shipped tons of jobs overseas, shifted trillions of dollars from the middle class to the one percent, plunged us into a Recession, and generally put the nation on the verge of collapse.

The thing is, on some level I'm a conservative. I know that societies will always have the leaders and the led and (alas) I'm never going to be in the White House or the Board Room.

But, come, let us face facts. If any corporation was run as badly as America has been, the stockholders would run the CEO out of town and sue the socks off the Board of directors.

On the postindustrial aged…

I've written that there is a growing disconnect between the needs of the Powers That Be of the postindustrial age and the rest of us. If you'd like to test that, perform the following little experiment. Gather together fifty or so people over sixty five (preferably older) and ask them about their medical care.

You won't have to wait long before you get stories about how they have been denied important medical treatments…because of their age. And I'm not talking heroic measures here—not say, face transplants or radical new therapies that come with zillion dollar price tags. I mean fairly normal, fairly inexpensive things…like some forms of chemotherapy or even physical therapy. Yet, you will hear that these people were denied because, after all, "you're old" and don't have that much time left anyway, even if you're only in your sixties and have at least a good twenty years of productive life to come.

If one were paranoid, one would suggest that such behaviors were part of a deliberate policy of, shall we shall? Thinning out the herd a little. I'm not (I think) quite on that level of suspicion, but, really, it doesn't matter. You don't need to propose a sinister plot to observe the effect. Simple economics—postindustrial economics, which do not love people—are quite enough to explain the seeming inhumanity of our era.

The deuxième economy

The thing to remember about the so-called "postindustrial" economy is that it isn't just post-industry, it is actually post-human—and I don't mean that in the positive sense that the "Transhuamanists" use the term, i.e., for super-intelligence and 2001-style Star Children. Rather, I mean that the new economy is actually post-people. It doesn’t like people, or, really, need them.

Increasingly, it doesn't want them as workers. Labor is ever more performed by machines, or by contractors in China. And, increasingly, it doesn't want them as customers. More and more, large businesses do business with other businesses—B2B, as it's called.

In a very real sense, then, the traditional drivers of the economy, the great corporations, have ascended into a higher order of existence, leaving us behind. The most pressing issue for the nation -- and, indeed, for the whole of the West -- is what to do about that.

My suspicion is that we shall create a second level of economic activity, one that is "below" that of the big corporations. This other, second level — I call it "la deuxième" in an attempt to remove the nuance of lesser importance—will be what provides employment, services, health care, education, products, and just about everything else to those of us who are not in the favored 1% of the population that controls so much of the world's wealth.

And what will the deuxième be like? I'm guessing it will be a welter of smaller economic entities, limited in scope, local in effect, and coming in a thousand different flavors of ownership—partnerships, family businesses, sole proprietorships, co-operatives, non-profits, communes, corporations of the sort that the British call "Community Service Corporations" and Americans call "Low-profit Limited Liability Corporations," and many others as well.

And, yes, as you've already guessed, there is nothing radical in this proposal. It is precisely what people have done whenever large businesses found them to be unprofitable. It was to Co-ops that farmers turned in the Middle West during the Gilded Age. It was to Credit Unions and Savings and Loans (before S&Ls were demolished during the Reagan Years) that ordinary men and women went for mortgages and home loans.

Indeed, in a strange way, it may be that the deuxième economy will be the most conservative of all economic developments. It is a return to the small-scale enterprise of a hundred years ago.

Watson 2: More on Machines That Think

Okay, you’ll recall that I’m in the middle of one of my infamous series—this one on the impact of our increasingly sophisticated machines on the white-collar professions. Last time I talked about Watson, the IBM computer that competed on Jeopardy a while back…competed, and won.

And, also last time, I argued that Watson and Watson-like devices will never threaten the human race. They are impressive, but they don’t genuinely think. They can and do sort a lot of data in a hurry, but, at least as yet, they can’t do what comes easily to any child, like being creative or innovative. They are not self-aware nor are they sentient, and so remain simply tools.

But, tools are mighty things in their own right. Last time I also argued that Watson-class systems and software will remake our economy and society. That’s because a single executive with access to such machines will be able to do the work of a hundred people. Which means that corporations, law firms, government agencies, universities, and even hospitals will employ far, far fewer MBAs, lawyers, administrators, specialists and other highly-trained white collar professionals.

Or, to put it all another way, we’re in for a cultural revolution. For the last century we have assumed that the way to wealth, well being, self-respect, status, and all the other aspects of a full life would come from being a “professional”—a doctor, a lawyer, a manager, and preferably a manager who did not soil his/her hands with anything vulgar like actually going into the field and touching things.

But, now…that’s not so true anymore. And our society is going to change to reflect with that.

How much will it change? Well, let me tell you a couple of stories. The first: there’s a man in my town who was a vice president at a large corporation. He had a seven figure salary, at least. He owns a huge house in an elite neighborhood, and sent his kids to private school and an Ivy League college. He was respected and admired, not to say envied by many of us in the area.

The kicker? Last year, his company was purchased by another. The new corporation then rationalized and downsized. It already had a marketing department. It didn’t need another one.

So, he was laid-off.

He got a very generous severance package. But, let’s face it, he’s probably never going to find a similar position. He’s middle aged. The corporate culture, like the corporation, into which he fit, is gone. The very industry in which he participated is changing beyond recognition. There is no room for him anymore.

Okay, now let me tell you my second story. It, too, is about a man in my town. But this is very different man. He will not in his entire life earn what the vice president was paid in a single year. He works down at the grocery store. He is a bagger. He suffers from a variety of physical problems, including violent and debilitating epileptic seizures. He has to wear a helmet at all times, so that if he falls his head will be protected.

His life is probably Spartan. Yet, he is intelligent. In fact, he is a talented potter. I see him and his wares at craft fairs around the area. I suspect he gets health insurance through the store, and then makes money on the side through his ceramics. His income may be low, but his wants are few.

Now, consider these two…

The second man is never out of work. If the store that employs him now should vanish, he could find another spot in an hour. Indeed, if he wished, he could go anywhere in the country and get a job.

The first man, though, the VP…he confronts the reality that he may never work again. He is too expensive, too specialized, and (though he is only in his 50s) too old for the corporations to hire again.

I submit that of these two men it is the second, the bagger, who is economically viable. The first man, the vice president, is not.

That is a fascinating and a terrifying thing.





We need to prepare for what is coming. We are going to have to come up with new ways for people to make their livings. And we’re going to have to learn to value different skills than we did before. We’ll have to figure out what we, as human beings, can offer the world that Watson and his children cannot.

And what’s that? What can we do that machines will never be able to do?

We can be inventive, empathetic and creative. We can have vision and purpose. We can understand the needs, wants, and motivations of our cohorts and customers. We can produce things which have never existed before.

We can be the anti-Watsons of the world.



But more on that, and how we’ll train our children for it, next time.

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2011
Michael Jay Tucker

Watson 1: Thinking About Machines That Think

Okay, a while back I posted a link to a story on the New York Times webpage, “Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software,” by John Markoff. I said that it was very important.

You may have wondered why. I meant to explain myself quite a while back, but then, Gadhafi and Japan intruded. They were so much more important than any thoughts of mine.

But, now, I’ll get back to my point.

The software that is replacing legions of lawyers is a part of a much, much larger trend—that is, the development and application of technology which can largely automate certain aspects of white-collar work. The products mentioned in the piece allow one lawyer to do the work of many.

And it’s just beginning. Did you watch IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy? That machine’s performance was very much a sign of things to come.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Watson isn’t going to take over the world. He’s harmless.

That’s because Watson isn’t really intelligent in a human sense. Watson’s showing was impressive. His ability to understand human speech was a technical triumph, and his capacity for seeking commonalities in huge collections of data was astonishing. But, I am not at all certain that he really understood his answers.

For instance, in one particularly amazing exercise (later highlighted on PBS’s NOVA), he was able to answer a question about Keanu Reeves and the movie, The Matrix. The way he did it was to identify “Reeves” as a noun and “movies” (or, actually, “flick”) as a category. He was then able to scan the Internet Movie Database in all its vastness for combinations of “Reeves” and some other qualifiers from the question.

As I say, impressive. But, ultimately, his answer wasn’t complete. I’m not sure he knows what a “movie” is. And I’m certain that his conception of a movie, should he have one, is not in any way human. He knows a “movie” is a “flick,” and that The Matrix is both of those…but he has no conception of what it’s like to see a film. He has no image of being in the warmth of a darkened theater, the air redolent with the scent of popcorn and butter, while your young son and his friends are in the row before yours, and you watch them tense and leap and cheer as villains are defeated and heroes triumph.

So that, I think, should be reassuring to anyone who fears that intelligent machines are taking over the world. Watson is amazing, but he cannot genuinely understand the human experience. It will be many long years before machines can do those things, if they ever do. (Sorry, gang, Skynet and Robby the Robot remain as distant as ever).

That’s the good news.

Now, the bad news. Watson and similar technology will engender a revolution in the workplace.

Let’s look at what Watson does really, really well. He—like all computers—excels at performing a number of small, tedious tasks over, and over, and over again. And, he is really good at shifting oceans of data in search of details and connections, no matter how trivial. And, finally, he obeys rules, inflexibly and tirelessly.

That was why he was so good at answering questions. He looked at millions upon millions of records in a thousand different databases, checking each and every one of them for certain qualities, and doing it all in nanoseconds. A human could never dream of doing the same, nor would any of us want to. It would be exhausting, and, bluntly, boring as hell.

But here’s where things get sticky. Consider what most high-powered, high-paying “professional” jobs entail. Sure, there are moments of insight and creation, but, let’s face it, most of what lawyers, business professionals, research-oriented academics, and even doctors do is pretty much what Watson does. They look at a lot of information and seek connections within an ocean of small, possibly relevant details. They do it according to a fairly limited set of rules. They do it as quickly as they can, and, if possible, do it 24/7 because that means they’re being more “productive.”

In other words, most of our white-collar professions, the jobs we value the most, are made up rote tasks.

And there’s the rub. Watson is far better at rote tasks than we can ever dream of being. His software and circuits are tireless. He is never bored or depressed. No operation is too mundane to excite him. No amount of data is overwhelming.

And better still, he is a perfect employee. He is without ego and need. He will happily work around the clock and back again. He is never on vacation. He never requires a sick day. He has no family to distract him from his tasks. He does not ask for a raise or a bonus. When the time comes to retire him, he demands no pension. You simply toss the body into a dumpster.

No, I’m not saying that Watson’s heirs will take over the corporation. Bill Gates and Tina Brown will not be replaced by a Terminator in the corner office. (At least not yet.) But the inescapable fact of the matter is that Mr. Gates and Ms. Brown will need fewer and fewer people to carry out their commands. A single executive, armed with one Watson, can do the work of a hundred MBAs.

And make no mistake, the world’s corporations know that. Watson is unique today, but he’ll be ubiquitous tomorrow. Even if he never sits on your desk like a PC or Mac, he’ll be available by subscription through the ‘Net. (And isn’t that what Google’s search engines are actually evolving toward?)

Which means that the white-collar professions (including the service professions which were supposed to save us in the postindustrial age) are going to employ fewer and fewer people. Just as the tractor removed the need for legions of field hands, and the industrial robot replaced a million men on assembly lines, so too will Watson and his children allow corporations, government agencies, and just about every other sort of organization to shed thousands of all too human professionals.

That, in turn, means that things are going to change. And big time.

But more about that next time.

Onward and upward.

The shape of things to come

This is pretty important. More to come on this subject shortly....


Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software

Karl Marx (oh, hell)