The idea that machines will soon replace a vast amount of jobs terrifies most of the population. However, David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues that while the increase in robots/machines will eliminate a few occupations in the future, it will not take away all jobs. In fact, he believes that automation “creates wealth by allowing us to do more work in less time”. Autor supports his argument through use of statistics, facts, and real-life examples. In his speech, David Autor, introduces the audience with an appeal to ethos. The first few seconds of his speech, he begins with a few facts from “a recent book by Boston University economist James Bessen.” By citing his sources, he appears to be more trustful …show more content…
to the audience than a speaker that does not. It shows that he has done his research and got the facts from a plausible resource, which boosts his credibility. He then goes along to say: “And yet, the fraction of US adults employed in the labor market is higher now in 2016 than it was 125 years ago, in 1890, and it's risen in just about every decade in the intervening 125 years.” Autor supports this statement, while showing the audience a chart depicting the U.S. labor force participation rate. However, he does not mention that when it started to dramatically increase, the increase was most likely due to women joining the workforce in the 1960s. Adding to his ethos appeal, Autor uses compelling appeals to logos, with many cogent facts and statistics.
He presents the two principles: O-ring and never-get-enough, and gives a “stark” example of the space shuttle, Challenger. By describing how the space shuttle catastrophically failed, he uses it as an analogy. The Space Transportation System represents the advanced technology that has taken over a vast amount of jobs; but regardless of how advanced it is, it still needs improvement and that is where humans come in. The reason for the shuttle’s failure was an “inexpensive rubber O-ring in the booster rocket”. Autor claims that “the reliability of the O-ring wouldn’t have mattered because the machine would have crashed.” He is implying that humans are still needed to come up with innovative ideas and machines can never replace that. This rationally supports Autor’s argument on why automation will not take away all the jobs. He uses a real-life problem and presents it in a way that is logical to the …show more content…
audience. In September 2016, the U.S.
labor participation rate decreased to 62.7%, the lowest since the U.S. economic depression in the late 1970s. With jobs declining and technology booming, Autor’s speech delivered its message right at the moment of vulnerability, making it highly kairotic. Autor makes effectively strong appeals to kairos throughout his whole speech. Because these fears of jobs being replaced by automation is a hot and sensational topic, presenting his argument now would be the most potent. This is a time of transition to newer, more better technology. If he was saying this 50 years earlier, no one would have believed him; if he said this 100 years in the future, people would most likely laugh at
him. Although Autor’s speech was reasonable in the most part, there were some informal fallacies. For example, he declares, “ So if you accept these two principles, the O-ring principle and the never-get-enough principle, then you agree with me.” This is considered, fallacy as assumption, due to the fact that he surmises that the audience agrees with him because they accept the two principles. Not everyone will be convinced by his argument, and even if they were, there are other factors that have to be considered in addition, like the economic outlook. Another informal fallacy in his speech was faulty reasoning. He talks about the rankings of national happiness of Saudi Arabia and Norway. It is not accurate to measure a country’s happiness by its government and the amount of wealth a country has. The chart that he bases his information off of can be subjective as there really is not a standardized way of measuring happiness for everyone has a different opinion about what happiness is. Though David Autor’s Speech, Will automation take away all our jobs?, was overall persuasive, he weakens his argument in the end. By denigrating himself, he makes the audience question his whole speech. His predictions did indeed “strike” him “as arrogant”, because he basically said that if he could not think of what the future may hold, no one would be able to think of it either. Autor could have mentioned a solution to his argument to make it even more effective and stronger in the end.
In her introduction, Barbara Garson gives the reader an idea of her personal work experience as a clerk with automation. One can see that Garson is a strong critique of automation. In order to convey how automation is affecting our society the author begins by analyzing and studying various jobs from the bottom on up (i.e. starting with the most unskilled labor).
Many would argue that President Obama is one of the most effective speakers in the decade. With his amazing speeches, he captivates his audience with his emotion and official tone.
Kelly starts off his argument by relating back to the industrial revolution. “Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm. Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with machines. But the displaced workers did not sit idle. Instead, automation created hundreds of millions of jobs in entirely new fields” (299). One thing that Kelly did that was effective was relate back to
Today’s world is full of robots that vacuum the floor and cars that talk to their drivers. People can ask their phones to send a text or play a song and a cheerful voice will oblige. Machines are taking over more and more tasks that are traditionally left to people, such as cleaning, navigating, and even scheduling meetings. In a world where technology is becoming increasingly human, questions arise about whether machines will eventually replace humankind altogether. In Ray Bradbury’s short stories, “The Veldt” and “August 2026,” he presents themes that technology will not only further replace the jobs of humans, but it will also outlast humankind as a whole. Although this is a plausible future, computers just cannot do certain human jobs.
...fe group. His involvement with a Baptist church and association with the Republican Party demonstrates his political and social inclination. The author has a vested interest in the results of the budget debate and is putting in much effort to convince his audiences. By employing Aristotle's three most powerful tools of persuasion i.e. Argument by character (Ethos), Argument by logic (Logos) and Argument by emotion (Pathos) the author makes a strong argument to convince and persuade his audiences.
Robots are important to humans in the workforce, even though, it may not appear so. In Better than Humans: Why Robots Will- and Must- Take Our Jobs, Kelly initially unsettles the reader by noting that our, “job [will be] taken by machines”- if not already taken (Kelly 300). The reason why
Heumer starts his article about drugs and the harm to the user, and he states that the government shouldn’t be allowed to make laws based off of if the action is harmful to the user, but that is what ever law is based off of. Murder, speed limits, every law is established on public safety in mind. He states that this would become an issue, because too many laws would be made. Laws are constantly being passed to keep up with the demands of society. Smoking is very dangerous, this is why there is a law made that you must be at least 18 to use. The laws that are passed are there to protect the people, even if laws were made only for a specific degree of harm, you would still need someone to define what is too harmful for the citizens of the United
...John Hoerr and Michael Pollock. “Management Discovers the Human Side of Automation.” Taken from Business Week. (1986), p. 1
President Obama’s Address to the nation was presented on January 5, 2016. His speech was shown on all of the major network stations. The main goal of his speech was to get the point across to the nation about the increasing problem of gun use. His speech really focused on the issue of gun control and if it would benefit the country. Overall, the biggest idea of his Address was that gun control is a large issue in the United States. The way to prevent deaths caused by firearms can be prevented in other ways than taking peoples guns away. The examples brought up in this Address really stood out to me. The use of personal, national, and global examples really made his speech stronger on the topic of effectiveness.
At times Gillis seems to be against the idea of robots taking over jobs when he states that billions of people will be out of a job because they have all been replaced by robots. Whereas at other points in the article he seems to like the idea, for example when he talks about how there is time for the adjustment to be made between replacing humans with robots, and how as long as people stay up to date with the advancements none of this will come as a surprise leaving as many humans as possible NOT out of a job. Since the article was written to inform it was not a bias written article. The author chose to show both good and bad sides of robots advancing into a more complex and sophisticated concept. When the author states something good he would often times follow with a downside to the issue, for example robots will do the jobs that humans don’t want to do, the dangerous, dirty, or difficult jobs, but that means that more people around the world be jobless because robots are doing the same job but better. Towards the end of the article Gillis focuses more on the concern of two billion people being out of a job, because robots can complete the same task without needing pay, breaks, health care, or any attention from employers. Gillis Talks to Futurist Frey who states, “It is more like a wakeup call, we are going to be transitioning the jobs we have so
Let’s take a step back to 2008 in Philadelphia. Neither the city nor year suggests that history is going to be made. On March 18, 2008, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Barack Obama took the stage and delivered a speech that would portray the racial landscape of his presidency. In his speech, Obama points out rhetorical tactics to support his argument that we as Americans in this country need to be united for racial equality to exist. He begins his speech with a back story to highlight the kairotic moment present, then appeals to pathos through lots of examples of racial injustice to signify the need for such change, and then uses his appeals to ethos to suggest ways of change for Americans, both black and white. The speech was very successful: people from both sides praised his bravery, and later the same year, Obama demolished McCain in a close victory to secure his presidency.
It cites the “off-the-shelf” code available and the explosion of digital startups. It extends the argument further by saying these firms firms will in the future employ millions of employees, replacing the ones displaced by automation. Throughout the article The Economist argues that innovation replaces the jobs it destroys, and this is one of the only lines of logic that shows how this could hold true for the automation revolution. It notes that the industry for tech companies as a whole is fairly immature and that as it grows it should employ more people, similar to how Google, a relatively mature company, employs 43,000 employs. This point is key because it counters the argument that tech startups will only result a a handful of billionaires reaping all the
In the Terminator film series, the Terminator is from a world controlled by robots. Technology got so advanced that Cyber Dyne Systems Skynet took over human controlled robots and nuked the world. This story is impossible in reality, but robots should not be taken lightly in today’s world. Technology in the 21st century is getting more advanced every day. Robots are used in factories and even in people’s homes. So what if the Terminator film series got it right? Human workers, that work in factories, machineries, mills, everyday human controlled jobs like cash registers operators, are being replaced by robotic automation. This is a major problem for the everyday employees. Jobs that were once held by human workers, are now being replaced every day by robot “workers”. It is not ethical to replace human employees with robotic automation and computer controlled systems. It is important to be mindful, how and when to use robotic automation as robotic automation is useful, when used sparsely. Robots are a problem for humans because, technology of robots are becoming smarter, more reliable industrial robots and drones that lead to better factory production. It is often cheaper to buy an Industrial robot or program then to train a human worker and pay them for their job. The major
Machine learning and automation has played a large role in the ever changing labor market with new industries gaining momentum and old industries becoming obsolete. With the increasing amount of research and improvements in automation, feelings of anxiety and disdain towards automation have become normal for workers. Jobs are lost to machines due to the convenience and efficiency that machines offer, however, not all types of jobs are replaced. In a study done by a professor of economics at MIT, David Autor, the impact of automation has actually shown to complement labor by increasing the demand for other jobs that require the use of a computer (Autor). The common anxiety and fear of total job loss is a clear misconception;
To conclude, robots could be the backbone of the society that will result in a technological revolution. Because of robots various characteristics that do not experience fear, nor exhaustion and they are precisely programmed, which make them able to help in case of need, housework, and factories production. Society needs to put the issue of robots into consideration to satisfy any shortage exists in the world.