I find this article to be a case of flawed reasoning:
https://www.designnews.com/automati...K=InformaMarkets&elq_mid=9334&elq_cid=1082446

The article implies that the availability and cost of labor is the motivating force behind automation. However, if we look back through history, automation and mechanization is really the result of trying to do things better than humans and increasing productivity.

I used to work in the elevator business and automatic elevators came about some time in the 1950s. It didn't matter how many elevator operators were available in the work force or how much they were paid. It was simply the idea that automatimg elevators could be done, and at the time it was considered a technological breakthrough..

 

There's no one right answer that satisfies every case, but I suspect that the availability and cost are major motivators in a huge fraction (plurality/majority) of cases.

Using your elevator scenario, if every place that had an elevator also had an inexhaustible supply of elevator operators that would do the job for free, how much motivation would there have been for the elevator manufacturers to spend the time, effort, and money to design and build an elevator that was automated? More to the point, how would they have marketed them to customers? Use our automated elevator that is considerably more expensive and will break down more often simply because it is more complex; it also requires your customers know how to use it and it eliminates a key point of assistance, and personal-touch to your interactions with your customers. But look at the bright side, you don't have to have any of your unpaid and available-in-abundance operators any more.

It wouldn't matter how much the engineers might have wanted to prove it could be done, the management would have said, "Not on our dime or time."

Productivity gains also lose a large portion of their value in the face of sufficiently abundant and low-cost labor.

There are still reasons for automation, of course, including quality, speed, and safety improvements among other things.

 

The elevator example, like many examples is not so simple as the cost or availability of operators. It is said that the reason railroads went into decline is that railroad companies thought their business was running trains, not transportation.

Elevator operators do operate elevators, but that is not their entire duty. My first real job was at a company that had automated elevators. Cost was not an issue. It still had elevator operators in 1974 and for several years later.

The operator is a greeter, a helper, a friendly face, and so forth. They can extend a face of friendliness and good will to strangers. That is why we had operators. Also, it was an entry level job to evaluate new hires. Eventually, the head of the local international airport began at such a position.

 

The elimination of secretaries had little to do with automation since some of their tasks (typing) are performed in the same way, but at a much lower speed on average.

 

To me, Automation relieves and frees up the mind numbing work of a human having to stand in front of a machine and feeding it for 8 hours each day.
Max.

 

To me, Automation relieves and frees up the mind numbing work of a human having to stand in front of a machine and feeding it for 8 hours each day.
Max.

Absolutely. That is why smart phones were invented -- those people now spend most of their waking hours doing mind-numbing things on their smart phones.

Need is the mother of invention.

 

In the 1950's people worried about the corruption of youth holding transistor radios to their ears. They could not have foreseen the cellphone era where pedestrians walk into walls and each other because their faces are buried in their phones.

 

My entire career was spent automating process control. It produces more product at a lower cost. A better quality product due to more precision in process control than humanly possible. And allows better optimization of raw material resources, tailoring product output to meet sales demand and scheduling of manpower to meet production quotas. On the labor side, it requires better-educated operators and support personnel. We had to phase out illiteracy and require at least a high school diploma of new hire personnel. Literacy tutoring was provided. New hire preference was given to ex=military w/ technical MOSs. We went from a labor force of 1400 to around 900 doing it. Union labor abandoned their unions due to better conditions and pay than they received through collective bargaining. Flexible work hours were available within a plant operating 24 hours a day 365 days a year. 4/10s, 3/12s, instead of the usual 5/8s which were still an option. The older, less educated employees were not fired but instead offered early retirement incentives that ultimately made them more money by retiring early than continuing to work.

 

There really (as in "in reality") is no debate. Increasing productivity is required for "society [to] achieve the MAXIMUM SATISFACTION from their available resources".

One can believe in economics or he can believe in unicorns. I choose economics.

 

Those in Finland are the "happiest" people in the world according to some (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/03/26/why-is-finland-so-happy ). The reason is that their expectations are so low:

The secret to Finland’s happiness might just be how boring it is. A Finnish saying sums it up well: “Happiness is having your own red summer cottage and a potato field.”

So, there are not unlimited wants in some societies. One might add China and some other countries to that list.

 

Another useless statistic about Finland.
https://www.gislounge.com/map-of-heavy-metal-bands-by-country-per-capita/

The nordic areas seem to rule in terms of the highest proportion of heavy metal bands to residents. Finland leads the list of countries by far with 53.2 heavy metal bands per 100,000 residents. Sweden is the second most dense country with 37.14 metal bands per 100,000 residents. Interestingly, the Encyclopaedia Metallum lists Svalbard, an archipelago that makes up the northern part of Norway as its own country. With only one band but also only 1,970 residents, it ranks as the second densest listing.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...-in-the-world-and-finns-arent-happy-about-it/

When the World Happiness Reportannounced recently that Finland is the happiest country in the world, we Finns reacted the same way as we have reacted to other top rankings in various international comparisons: we criticized the methodology of the study, questioned its conclusions and pointed to the shortcomings of Finnish society.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened. When the World Economic Forum ranked Finland as the most competitive economy in Europe in 2014, the chief executive of the Finnish Chamber of Commerce, Risto Penttilä, felt obliged to write an opinion piece for the Financial Times where he tried to prove that the results couldn’t be right.

This time it is my duty, as a Finnish expert on well-being research, to explain why the happiness of the Finns has been greatly exaggerated.

If happiness is the prevalence of positive emotions (let alone the displaying of them), Finland is not the happiest country. If happiness is the absence of depression, Finland is not the happiest country. But if happiness is about a quiet satisfaction with one’s life conditions, then Finland, along with other Nordic countries, might very well be the best place to live.

 

Those in Finland are the "happiest" people in the world according to some (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/03/26/why-is-finland-so-happy ). The reason is that their expectations are so low:



So, there are not unlimited wants in some societies. One might add China and some other countries to that list.

Imagine how happy you'd be living where the average population is only 16 persons per km^2, all your neighbors look and think exactly alike -- assuming they're not related to you -- and you all attend the same church.

 

I am somewhere between "unlimited" wants and the Finns -- if by wants, one means material goods.

 

There are many examples where mechanization was actually developed by the employees themselves in order to eliminate the undesirable aspects of their job.

The vacuum cleaner was actually invented by a janitor who hated sweeping floors and breathing dust. So he connected a pillow case with a hose to the intake of a squirrel cage blower and the vacuum cleaner was born. However a guy by the name "Hoover" actually supplied the venture capital to market the invention and the company bears his name.

 

However a guy by the name "Hoover" actually supplied the venture capital to market the invention and the company bears his name.

And in places such as UK, you do not use the Vacuum, but get the 'Hoover' out!
Max.

 

There are many examples where mechanization was actually developed by the employees themselves in order to eliminate the undesirable aspects of their job.

The vacuum cleaner was actually invented by a janitor who hated sweeping floors and breathing dust. So he connected a pillow case with a hose to the intake of a squirrel cage blower and the vacuum cleaner was born. However a guy by the name "Hoover" actually supplied the venture capital to market the invention and the company bears his name.

So? Sure there are many examples of that and other motivations. That's only relevant if their claim was that labor cost and availability was the ONLY motivation for automation.

 

And in places such as UK, you do not use the Vacuum, but get the 'Hoover' out!
Max.

For a little more trivia, Bob Prince (longtime announcer, Pittsburgh Pirates) called a double play, getting out the Hoover. Meaning: clean the bases of runners.

http://www.mindspring.com/~gearhard/pigunner.html

 

For a little more trivia, Bob Prince (longtime announcer, Pittsburgh Pirates) called a double play, getting out the Hoover. Meaning: clean the bases of runners.

http://www.mindspring.com/~gearhard/pigunner.html

I'm not a baseball follower, but I didn't think that a double play necessarily cleared the bases of runners. For instance, if you had runners on 1st and 2nd, couldn't you have a double play and still have a runner on base?

 

And in places such as UK, you do not use the Vacuum, but get the 'Hoover' out!
Max.

For a while after my dad retired he sold Hoover vacuum cleaners at some place like Home Depot or Walmart (he worked for the vacuum cleaner company and just had a stand in the store). There was another guy that sold Kirby vacuum cleaners (similar deal) nearby and they became friends. The Kirby salesman's last name was Hoover. Needless to say, the had a lot of fun with that.

 

To present another viewpoint, the purpose of automation is so that humans don't have to do drudge work.
The ultimate goal would be for all humans to have to do no work at all.