Folks often assign the output of automated systems to the creator. This seems a fallacy. The output of an engineer creating an automated system is, the automated system. The output of the automated systems is the product of … the automated system. Who owns that? In a capitalist system, whomever paid for it.
This is quickly becoming an issue. As industrial output is rapidly becoming exclusively the product of automated systems, the 'worker' becomes irrelevant. The limit is, none of us do appreciable work for standard goods. And since we're not working, we're not getting paid, and we can't afford the goods.
But isn't the value of the automated system the engineer produced to the business the sum of the value the system will create minus what has to be spent on it (compute power, maintenance).
(Emphasizing to the business to avoid a tired argument about value really being what the market will pay. In technical econ terms by value I mean the private benefit of the consumer of the automation)
That 'tired argument' is how capitalism works. So like it or not, an Engineer is paid the going rate.
The value of the automated system is clear. The value of the engineer is the automated system. Which might be quite expensive, but nothing like the value of its output.
I was trying to talk about the value the engineer produces from the perspective of their employer, which is separate from what that employer is willing to pay the engineer. In economics terms, I'm talking about the consumer surplus (the employer is the consumer of the labor the engineer produces, and has a surplus because they get more value than they are paying).
I called it a tired argument not because it definitely isn't true but because I'm tired of people shutting down unrelated conversations with it to look smart.
A simple scenario that shows these are separate concepts:
Suppose we have an extremely dumb firm that pays the engineer a trillion dollars to create an product that can make whoever owns it a billion dollars.
Suppose we have an extremely dumb engineer that charges a different firm $1 to produce the same product.
Suppose both firms are trying to sell the automation to a third firm. Their expenses are a sunk cost; this firm isn't going to pay the dumb firm that overspent any more. The value of the product is (generally) separate from your cost of making the product.
It's been like that since the Stone age. The reason it's like that is the fundamental forces that drive humans: greed, cruelty, ego and all that. Hard to expect someone in power to not get more power if he's blinded by greed. How many people do you know that voluntarily spend 25% of their income on those who are lower on the social ladder? I don't know anyone, myself included.
This is quickly becoming an issue. As industrial output is rapidly becoming exclusively the product of automated systems, the 'worker' becomes irrelevant. The limit is, none of us do appreciable work for standard goods. And since we're not working, we're not getting paid, and we can't afford the goods.
We're gonna need a new system.