Forum Post: Why Automation needs to be central the the conversion being created by OWS.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 7, 2011, 1:11 a.m. EST by Dan2483
(7)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Firstly, when talking about automation, we are no longer only referring to the replacement of unskilled workers (although the automation of this type of labor is reaching a tipping point). We now are talking about the eventual redundancy of most forms of human Labor.
Excerpts and links to recent articles on the subject:
http://www.aihub.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=368
"A computer program developed by Cornell University scientists in the US has deduced Newton’s laws of motion and laws of energy conservation by observing swinging pendulums without prior knowledge of physics."
“The unique feature of Adam is its ability to generate new scientific ideas, think of experiments to test these ideas, actually do the experiments in the lab, and analyse the results,” Ross King, a computational biologist at Aberystwyth, told The Telegraph. “This is the first time a system has been combined with laboratory automation to discover knowledge new to science.”
http://gizmodo.com/5826346/foxconn-employees-are-being-replaced-by-robot-workers
“Foxconn, prominent manufacturer for such companies as Apple and Sony and home to many an exhausted employee, has committed itself to replacing its workforce with 1 million robots.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/11/artificial-intelligence
"This is unlike the job destruction and creation that has taken place continuously since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as machines gradually replaced the muscle-power of human labourers and horses. Today, automation is having an impact not just on routine work, but on cognitive and even creative tasks as well. A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees."
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html?on.cnn=1
“And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs -- as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there's something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned.”
The economies of developed countries, for the most part, are based on the purchasing power of consumers. This requires a strong middle class that historically have generated the bulk of their incomes through wages.
With this in mind, the following questions are worth considering with regards to the potential effects of increasing automation...
As more options become available that make employing humans more expensive than deploying technological solutions for any given task/role; can we expect companies to do anything other than what is in the best interest of shareholders (keeping in mind how they have been in the past to move jobs the the cheapest locations)?
From the economist: “America's current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much. The evidence is irrefutable that computerised automation, networks and artificial intelligence (AI)—including machine-learning, language-translation, and speech- and pattern-recognition software—are beginning to render many jobs simply obsolete.” http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/11/artificial-intelligence
If, as more and more experts are beginning to predict, we really are at a tipping point of A.I. and automation finally taking off - how do we deal with this as a society?
Can we enjoy the benefits brought about by the need for less human labor?
Or will the fact that unless there is a fundamental change in how resources are allocated, we are stuck with the problem that those owning the means of production will be the only ones that benefit?
Is it even possible for those owning the means of production (the 1%) to benefit, while the rest of society suffers? How can the 1% thrive if there are fewer and fewer consumers to buy their products?
Looking forward to hearing people's thoughts on this...
I agree 100%. The decrease in demand for human labor due to automation should be the main focal point. I wish more people would realize this. Here's some links as well:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201109/are-jobs-we-know-them-becoming-obsolete
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Z8TR4ToNs
This is the invisible elephant in the room.
WE CAN AUTOMATE 55% OF THE JOBS WE CURRENTLY DO WITH EXISTING TECHNOLOGY.
We could essentially cut the work week in half without decreasing production if we made a concerted effort to fully deploy our automation.
There are about 135 million people who work. Here is a list of jobs that can be automated with existing technology and the number of people who are employed in them:
Office and Admin support (19.2 million) These are low level employees who do routine tasks. Most can be automated today. But the process will be much easier in a system where companies share an integrated infrastructure. If we had standards for sharing all data and documents as well as easy access to all business data in a central location you would not need armies of employees to shuffle paper.
Sales (16.2 million) Most sales can be done over the internet. And automated checkout can replace all cashiers in physical stores.
Management (15.8 million) Most of these management jobs are actually sales managers which are no longer necessary since we no longer need sales people.
Transportation (8.8 million) We already have the tech for driverless cars and trucks. All that is needed is a government effort to create the infrastructure that makes driverless cars work on our roads.
Food prep and related (7.8 million) These are mostly people who work in restaurants. Industrial robots can automate any chef. There are already companies that developed robots that can cook hundreds of chinese dishes for an automatd chinese food restaurant. And moving a plate of food from the kitchen to a table does not require a human being.
Business and Financial Operations (6.2 million) These are accountants (a fully digital monetary system will enable you to categorize sales and expenses digitally as they happen), loan officers (extending credit in a completely digital environment can be fully automated), and retail purchasers (retail is largely obsolete with the internet).
Buildings and Ground Maintenance (5.4 million) We already have automated mowers, blowers, rakers, window cleaners, vacuum cleaners, etc. so most of these jobs can be automated.
They amount to about 75 million jobs that people currently do that can be automated today. It makes up about 55% of the total work we do.
What areas to you think are going to take the longest to automate?
I would have thought trades such as plumbers and electricians would be difficult to automate, although augmented reality and DIY could go a long way...
Yep.
And AI is fast replacing attorneysand paralegals and traders and doctors.
For some reason the movie Idiocracy came to mind half way through reading the post...
Well, a lot can be said about what types of people tend to have the most children in developed countries... But I think that has more to do with who has kids and education than automation and job displacement... ? Has been a while since I saw it admittedly...
I don't really agree with that stance, not in this context. I think the majority of people at least intend on providing a better life for themselves and their children than their parents were able. There are people living in rural areas you may call primitive, backwoods, redneck, etc, but they survive by skill and experience. My primary thought in this context is the loss of skills and survivability. One could say knowledge would live on, but experience and what we call common sense would likely vanish. Can you imagine how much more tragic a natural disaster would become if everything has seemingly always been automated?
Have you seen Zeitgeist: Moving Forward? discusses technological unemployment and, well, everything else relevant . It's long but... no i won't spoil the ending on ya : ) enjoy http://www.youtube.com/user/TZMOfficialChannel
Not sure if I've seen the most recent Zeitgeist film, but have seen previous ones. I think for this issue to become a part of people's awareness, it has to because people think through the ramifications of automation themselves.
With all due respect to the Zeitgeist movement, I don't think it can resonate with that many people, unless they are already aware of the issues in play...
That is why I am somewhat optimistic about the increasing coverage of AI, Automation and the implications in the main stream media. I am sure OWS is partly responsible for these ideas getting more airplay...
Technological advancements are seen still between people little like "demonic thing" because people don't know yet how to work without babysitting, so it will take some time to educate people about "automation and a.i" itself, what with i will be working very closely later in future if everything goes toward more greater future.
All depending on what we will do, do we educate people about these matters personally, or do we talk internet and hope someone will read them seriously and thinking mind, or what we will do.
Technological advancement is only self-destructive those who do not understand what "technology has brought" to our lives. We would still write letters and send them around the world and be paranoid toward each other because of not knowing how people look other side of earth.
Right now we can look what kind earth looks like, thanks to satellites.
I don't think anyone is arguing against the many benefits of technology. OWS the the arab spring wouldn't have happened (at least not as quickly and as coherently as they did) if it wasn't for smart-phones and ubiquitous mobile internet.
There is a difference, in terms of how it related to this debate and the OWS movement, between technology in general and the specific issue of A.I, robotics and automation making more and more jobs obsolete.
My point is, what of the elephant in the room? How do we make sure everybody benefits from increasing automation, when at the moment, only those who own the technology and means of production are able to enjoy a net benefit from not having to pay workers?
And therein lies the problem. With unemployment what it is, what would happen around the world if we suddenly had millions, maybe tens of millions, more out of work? Luckily we don't have to worry about it for years to come. We're still a far way off from having machines do things like construction or brain surgery, although some day we will. What needs to be done is a fundamental shift in things like economics in tandem with advancements in AI and robotics. A shift in society on many levels.
Construction and surgery.
Have you heard reprap yet? Construction side is mostly automated right now with this technology, we can create things only using 3D-models. Size of reprap depending on how big things we want print with reprap.
Surgery is moved today more to robotics because of human hand is not good in surgery, because human hands are too big to lots of concentrated surgery. I can say automated process even if it needs only 1 person operating behind these robotic hands. (Its not automated but automated, because robot will move there where surgery doctor want it to move)
You get more better surgery with robot hands, so this is why many hospitals moving toward robotics today. Not every hospital can afford these cool toys but as they can, they will kick out people from jobs and replace 9 with 1 robot and place 1 person driving this thing.
Some hospital bosses still thinking or not knowing at all about these things but after they get their minds decided how advanced this technology is, people will going to get kicked out from their "jobs".
Even better, the internet lets us learn how to avoid the need for robotic surgery: http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx "Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. ... The sad thing is surgical interventions and medications are the foundation of modern cardiology and both are relatively ineffective compared to nutritional excellence. My patients routinely reverse their heart disease, and no longer have vulnerable plaque or high blood pressure, so they do not need medical care, hospitals or cardiologists anymore. The problem is that in the real world cardiac patients are not even informed that heart disease is predictably reversed with nutritional excellence. They are not given the opportunity to choose and just corralled into these surgical interventions. Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart disease to begin with, and if they get it, aggressive nutrition is the most life-saving intervention. And it is free."
I haven't heard of reprap, I'm going to look that up. And I must agree, operator-controlled robotics in surgery is definitely an advancement, especially microsurgery. Like you say, the human hand is just too big.
When i read up more deeper about reprap some years ago, i found at "when it doing 3d-model" it learning those paths and using that learning to make more complex 3d-models possible. Its very interesting.
Right now reprap learnings are just with some people hands and all is not shared to one file. If they was shared to one file, we could have greatest reprap technology in our hands.
I just looked that up on wikipedia. I had heard of rapid prototyping years ago when I took CADD when RPT was just beginning. This looks like advanced improved RPT. Interesting. Thanks for the information.
Some good insights. I would argue that construction, for example, is closer than most realise to reaching a point where automation and prefabrication is cheaper than onsite, labor intensive methods currently used. China are investing heavily in prefabricated buildings.
I agree that medicine is an example of an industry that is possibly the furthest from complete automation, although could benefit enormously from automation right now in many areas such as administration and diagnostics...
Agreed. New construction will definitely become automated in the near future. Renovation may be a little more difficult but not impossible (I used to be in construction). Prefab has been nothing but a positive step from what I've seen. And like 'itsbeenhappened' says right above you, operator-controlled robotics are making great strides in medicine, so that won't put everybody out of work, yet. Hopefully, society will be able to advance right alongside the technology, but as fast as technology is advancing, it's probably going to be a rough ride. I try to be optimistic, though.
We need to start working together using technology to achieve future, where there is no money, no bartering, where there is no hierachy, where there is no fight who get the job and who will lose and die because people together create more jobs as focusing new projects.
So we must now stop dreaming elephant is in the room because there is no elephants in the room, elephants is in wilderness running with their children hoping humans do not destroy everything.
So what kind future i talking about is where "we are equal to each other", where we take care of each other and also close ones and about those who we do not know and we are also taking care of earth and later on world "together", because we after all can't ignore the fact: We can decide future choosing decicions before future.
We work together as people, no names, no ranks, no anything, we just work together. What we get? We get greater future making future great for all using technology and science and our own brains to make that all possible.
Something to think about: http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm "Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."
The issue is not so much social hierarchy as "rankism": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankism
You'd might still like this book which I find inspiring: http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary "The fun begins when a generation ship housing a population of thousands arrives to "reclaim" the colony on behalf of the repressive, authoritarian regime that emerged following the crisis period. The Mayflower II brings with it all the tried and tested apparatus for bringing a recalcitrant population to heel: authority, with its power structure and symbolism, to impress; commercial institutions with the promise of wealth and possessions, to tempt and ensnare; a religious presence, to awe and instill duty and obedience; and if all else fails, armed military force to compel. But what happens when these methods encounter a population that has never been conditioned to respond?"
More general ideas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY "This video presents a simplified education model about socioeconomics and technological change. It discusses five interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and how the balance will shift with cultural changes and technological changes. It suggests that things like a basic income, better planning, improved subsistence, and an expanded gift economy can compensate in part for an exchange economy that is having problems."
Demanding everyone agree with your utopian vision doesn't do much to move the conversation forward now.
The first challenge is to get people talking about the implications of automation.
Take these words as "project" what giving you job to do.
To understanding this project, you want gather people around this idea, not just think about it but "to work on it" in real world.
People will agree and disagree so that is why focus is "educate people" sametime as working on this job. People will not be talking how automation will give ourselves better future if they don't know how to use that technology to do that.
So, now first job before culture job most likely is: To teach people to use automation technology. (Starting from hydroponics and moving there to build shelters)
Then later on we will focus automatically to educate people about culture what i talked in text, what we will take as "life job".
Dan2483 wrote: I don't think anyone is arguing against the many benefits of technology. OWS the the arab spring wouldn't have happened (at least not as quickly and as coherently as they did) if it wasn't for smart-phones and ubiquitous mobile internet.END------
Here is something to consider. That technology did not work in America. Perhaps there were those in the middle east that did want the revolutions there to succeed and those people did control the technology. There are good indications that the multinationals that are protested here were the ones that desired the revoltutions there.
From RBE supporters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQDArhWznjU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqv0Y1t1bNw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOO_AVwfZ9Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2xVey00nMI (zeitgeist moving forward excerpt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhSgCsD_x8 (RBE explained)
Good videos!
Honda shows smarter robot, helps in nuclear crisis
http://news.yahoo.com/honda-shows-smarter-robot-helps-nuclear-crisis-025750611.html
To support your point, see: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
And: http://econfuture.wordpress.com/
And: http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
And from 1964: http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
A "basic income" is probably part of the solution: http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
Keep up the explorations. There are possible solutions (improved local subsistence, a basic income, a gift economy, participatory democratic resource-based planning, and maybe more).
On turning work into play: http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51
And on rethinking work to be more fulfilling and liberating: http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
Interestingly, the less items that are handmade, the more valuable the handmade objects become... "Storebought" was considered better than homemade at the start of the industrial revolution, but now a handmade item is cherished and passed on to family.... Likewise with organic food having higher value.
Up.
Hal! Hal!
Yes it is possible for humanity to enjoy more leisure, participate in sports and culture. AI is just taking off as is widespread education. The possibilities for good are beyond our present imaginations.Or a tiny group of people can have everything to themselves and literally eliminate billions of human beings.
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth
Saying everyone can fit in Texas is terribly misleading. It leaves out farms which takes up most of the space we use.
3.5% of the entire US land space was used for development (homes, roads, businesses). But 40% of the entire US land space is used for farming:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/us.htm
Plus, half our land area is unsuitable for habitation because it is either desert or high mountains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth#Human_geography
We are approaching the limits of population.
We're talking about the equivalent of a megateropolis the size of Texas with the population density of The Bronx in which the entire population of earth could fit. No one is suggesting that the entire world population and economy should be fit into the state of Texas.
Most farming in this world uses the most primitive technology. Many times the present population could be fed.
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/food-theres-lots-it
The US uses the most advanced farming technology available. We get the best yields.
Using the best farm tech, each human needs 3 acres of farming to eat as well as the people in the US eat.
Saying everyone can fit in Texas is meaningless. It doesn't say anything about how much room we have. When you include the land needed to eat like an American in addition to the land needed to live, we take up the entire world land mass.
http://www.africagoodnews.com/development/agriculture/2459-kofi-annan-africa-can-feed-the-world.html
Malthus was wrong, very wrong and you are also, though I know your intentions are good.
I agree that Malthus was wrong. And I agree with that article that we can feed the world.
But if population grows significantly beyond our current level, we will run out of farm land.
I disagree with that website which shows how the entire world population can fit in Texas. That insinuates that the population has room to grow hundreds of times our current level. And that is not possible.
Unless we figure out a way to produce food without farming (and that is not happening), our population will not be able to double.
Okay, for one thing there already is the beginning of vertical farming.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms
Farming is ruining the environment, and not enough arable land remains to feed a projected 9.5 billion people by 2050. Growing food in glass high-rises could drastically reduce fossil-fuel emissions and recycle city wastewater that now pollutes waterways. A one-square-block farm 30 stories high could yield as much food as 2,400 outdoor acres, with less subsequent spoilage. Existing hydroponic greenhouses provide a basis for prototype vertical farms now being considered by urban planners in cities worldwide.'
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms
"We all agree that, ultimately, the world would be a much better place if everyone were well-fed and enjoyed a safe and abundant drinking water supply. Vertical farming has the potential to bring that about, but it will need a lot of help from the enabling countries (G12). The rewards for doing so will be felt almost immediately. As the nutritional status of everyone rises above the poverty level, time spent in school will double, eliminating the single most important cause of poverty: illiteracy. So, who needs vertical farms? We all do."
I couldn't read the entire article since I'm not a subscriber.
But vertical indoor farming is a fantasy. Farms require sunlight. Duplicating the amount of sunlight that hits farms requires thousands of times the amount of energy we produce.
Did they address that in the article? Even the Columbia professor who first came up with the idea recognizes the engineering hurdle.
No engineer has come up with a way to make it work.
I dunno... We're talking about Prof. Despommier of Columbia University, right?
http://www.maximumyield.com/article_sh_db.php?articleID=753&yearVar=2011&issueVar=October
When The Vertical Farm appeared in late 2010, Dr. Despommier knew of no large-scale vertical farms in existence anywhere in the world, but some people had clearly already started down that path. Since then, Dr. Despommier's book and the ideas it contains have apparently struck a chord in many places around the world. "You can see that some countries get it," says Dr. Despommier, adding "the architects of the world are on board, believe me." Things are changing rapidly and as of mid-2011 a number of impressive projects have already been constructed or are in the planning stages. Let's take a look at some of them:
Nuvege, Inc. Nuvege (www.nuvege.com) is a company dedicated to advanced methods of food production. Their proprietary growing systems feature hydroponics, special lighting and carbon dioxide enrichment and they produce high-quality lettuce in commercial volumes. A major focus of the company is to produce food that has a very low bacterial load in order to reduce or eliminate altogether the incidence of food-borne illness. Although Nuvege is not in the vertical farm construction business, their systems are specially designed to be integrated into vertical farms. The company operates a facility in Kyoto, Japan to test and demonstrate their technologies that Dr. Despommier describes as being "747 hangar-sized." "You are going to see a lot more development in Japan because of the Fukushima incident and the desire to protect agriculture from radiation," predicts Dr. Despommier.
PlantLab This Dutch operation (www.plantlab.nl) located in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, has been testing a prototype vertical farm for several years now and they are presently building a larger, completely enclosed (which means no natural light in the growing area) facility. Their approach is decidedly high- tech, incorporating custom-built growing environments, advanced automation and control and mathematical modeling of plant growth. The company claims that their use of specific wavelengths of red and blue LED lighting results in better plant growth than can be achieved using natural light—according to Despommier, PlantLab believes that certain frequencies of natural light are actually inhibitory to plant growth. And vertical farms don't necessarily have to go up; vertical implies down as well, and Plantlab is extending their newest facility several stories underground.
Suwan, South Korea This facility, funded and operated by the government of South Korea, has been in full-blown lettuce production since March of 2011 and implements many of the ideas that Dr. Despommier describes in The Vertical Farm. Such ideas include recycling of water, strict attention to cleanliness and anti- contamination procedures, organic growing methods and innovative lighting techniques.
Alpha Farm This Manchester, UK project is planned for an unused pre-existing five story building and their projected crops include broccoli, tomatoes, onions, carrots, strawberries and mushrooms, all produced in time for the Manchester International Festival in 2013.
Other projects to keep an eye on include the EDITT Tower in Singapore, a three story building project in Jackson, Wyoming and a proposed aeroponic project in Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates. Although no tangible results have been achieved in Canada yet, the governments of Surrey, Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia have all released official statements in support of vertical farming.
What about research and development? Certainly more needs to be done to improve existing designs, generate new design concepts and test and improve actual VF systems. Enter the University of Nottingham, UK. According to Dr. Despommier, a cadre of about 20 researchers, including professors and graduate students in the departments of biology and agriculture, have organized themselves into what might be called a 'VF working group'. Their goal is to build a prototype VF and they are currently soliciting government funding for their proposed research.
The vertical farm has a lot to offer and the concept has gained impressive traction since the appearance of The Vertical Farm, the posting of VF videos on YouTube and presentations by Dr. Despommier at prestigious venues around the world. Based on the rapid growth we are seeing today in the planning and construction of vertical farms, it probably won't be long before tall buildings featuring futuristic designs—lush with greenery and bustling with activity—begin climbing into the world's skies.
The companies listed were growing vegetables which make up a tiny fraction of the farm land (I think it is less than 5%). Maize, cereals, grains, that's what uses up all the farm land.
So it may be feasible for a limited amount of vegetables. I don't know. I couldn't find any data on their websites about the energy consumed in lighting.
I don't think what they are doing can be scaled up to what would be required for crops outside of a niche of specialty vegetables.
To become a serious part of the solution of the food problem (and the 9 billion are coming soon, like it or not) vertical farming requires the support and assistance of the leading governments of the world (G 12 for example). And as I posted above, it is believed that Africa could potentially feed the entire world on its own given the right conditions. the problem then is not one of ability to do it, It's political, it's about priorities: Let the one percent hog everything and put billions of lives in danger, or reorganize the way the human race lives and thinks.
One percenters make one point, and that is that many of them are indeed very clever. That so much of the world's human potential is used in the pursuit of casino winnings instead of in solving the problems of the seven billion and counting is a disaster. I have hope the OW is a step towards addressing this. The alternative is very frightening to consider.
We have the ability to feed our current population. We don't need vertical farms. And when the developing countries become wealthier, their population will stabilize. So I don't think food will be an issue. It just puts a limit on our population size.
Unfortunately, what is being promoted by OWS is to change campaign finance. That will accomplish nothing. The real problem in this country and the world is income inequality. We need to advocate a plan to reallocate income in a way that is fair:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/dont-overlook-automation/#comment-315683
Thanks for the link to: http://overpopulationisamyth.com
While Julian Simon ignores externalities and wealth concentration, his book "The Ultimate Resource" relates to how overpopulation is a myth: http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
Alway remember, while problems can grow exponentially, so can solutions (and even faster sometimes, like with solar energy). http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
There is room for quadrillions of people living in cities in space too (O'Neill space habitats, etc.)
yep!
Technology when it becomes advanced, more less people is needed to work on one thing.
Yesterday we used horses to move big things place to place. Now we have trucks and planes to move more bigger things place to place more faster.
No need to modify the system for this, it's already happening. Companies are enchanted when they can replace human labor by automation. It increases their profits. The problem is robots are still too primitive to replace all forms of labor.