A beginner’s guide to avoiding the war against automation

The war against the machines is coming, but maybe not in an artificial intelligence-Matrix-Arnold-Schwarzenegger kind of way. Technology automation will lead to a social jobs crisis that can result in rote socialism or massive unemployment.

Innovation is to be praised and has driven us forward as a people and country for decades. However, without forward thinking, America is doomed to echo the failures of other countries but on a much larger scale.

{mosads}There are two great examples of automation promoting cheaper, even better products at the expense of low-wage earners. In Japan, automation has made dramatic leaps. Experts estimate that in a warehouse, currently staffed by humans in America, automated technology could move an estimated 10,000 times more efficiently than humans. This is on the factory floor.

Fast food chains across Japan have replaced wait staff with automated machines taking orders. Customers place orders on a vending machine style touch screen, and an employee brings the meal out.  NPR and other historical investigations have uncovered that this style of dining gained somewhat significant popularity for a brief period in the United States in the early 1900s, but fell out of style.

Last week, Über executed a successful test run of automated vehicles in Pittsburg accompanied by members of the press. While it tested only four cars, Uber has made every indication that this is only the beginning of a wider goal of putting driverless cars in cities across America.

We’ve already seen the effects of companies like Uber in cities such as New York or Los Angeles where local taxicab companies have clashed with the transit giant and its unregulated, sleeker business model. But when profitability and efficiency reign supreme, employees often suffer the consequences.

Navigating a world economy, but retaining domestic employment has been the battle for decades. Entire towns across the Midwest have endured the cycle of globalization, revitalization, and repeat as companies attempt to build, find success, and then compete for better profit margins. There are simply too many people and too little money in the middle class and certainly in lower classes to sustain this type of aggressive price model.

The bottom line is that if state legislatures do not act preemptively, they will be forced to act responsively. Being reactive in this scenario may set a precedent in American capitalism and governing that mortally wounds future innovation.

Uber and fast food are easy examples. During the presidential debate cycle, Democratic candidates championed a federal $15 minimum wage as a constitutional right. Merits aside, at this higher rate, fast food giants like McDonalds and others have cautioned that this raise would come at the expense of the lowest of wage earners. Fast food chains in America have already begun experimenting with automated machines internationally and some domestically, recognizing cheaper long term costs after initial capital expenditures for the machines.

While some IT academics nationwide predict that the tipping point toward larger automation in the U.S. will be in the year 2020, in this debate, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If state legislatures delay, the cost will be hefty business regulation and an unprecedented intervention in the boardroom of businesses.

However, if state legislatures act proactively, they can avoid this intervention by creating incentives for hiring and establishing an incremental minimum wage increase over a ten-year period versus a drastic, immediate one.

An incremental approach to increasing the minimum wage would give large fast food chains as well as low-wage positions affected by automation time to adjust slowly and find ways of adapting their business to incorporate employees. Companies could even want to make these adjustments if state legislatures have adopted measures to incentivize businesses to hire more people, which may require some creative thinking on the part of state legislators.

Balancing progress and innovation with protecting American workers will be an eternal struggle in the life of our country. But being forward thinking about technology is the only way to protect America’s greatest investment: its people.