I have a ethical question to throw 2

[rphips]

I have a ethical question to throw out.

Is it right to built programs and systems that lead to removal of hard working peoples jobs?

Such as the new technology known as Provisioning.
There are programs being developed and sold that connect to any system and does the following:
Creates users/Computers
Assign rights and access to folders
orders needed equipment
installs Apps needed
ect...

in otherwords all the work a system administrator does.
So is it right to build this program knowing the effect is going to be lay-offs and unemployed people?

Just thought I would ask.


bob

Jones' Law
The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

 

[benlinkknilneb]

I don't see any problem with it.

There's still the "human factor"... a computer can help me do my job, but all it can really accomplish is to follow a set of rules. This is good for repetitive tasks, such as initializing a new user's profile on a network... but what happens when a piece of cable somewhere fails? I will still have to get off my duff and walk out there to change it out. What if there is a software compatibility issue between company X's software and company Y's? It will be difficult for the computer to automatically locate all the possible system patches to find the correct set of drivers or whatever... but I could do it fairly quickly. What happens if a program is installed that requires access to a certain folder on the file server, but the user doesn't currently have permission? How would the computer program determine whether this was what they really needed to do their job? The way I see it, computers will make our jobs less complicated... but they won't replace us. At least, not for a very long time.


Ben

There's no place like 127.0.0.1.

 

[michaylukr]

I would agree with benlinkknilneb, I don't see the problem with it.

Part of progress is developing systems/machines/software that aides people in their jobs, and this means replacement at times. As we progress, we evolve, leaving those things to automation that fit well with automation (think Henry Ford) and freeing us for other things. The problem comes in identifying and actually pursuing those other things.

 

[Dimandja]

I really don't see any problem in this. Unless you want to argue that inventing the automobile was bad for horse breeders.

For some reason there is a floating belief out there that these current jobs and professions are meant to remain permanent.

The world and its technology are advancing and changing constantly. I suggest we review our plans and expectations while keeping that simple fact in mind. Otherwise we're setting ourselves up for major disappointments.

Dimandja

 

[rphips]

I hope man will never be replaced by machines - but I've seen programs that do go and check all users permisions and based on levels will change permissions to add a new program to thier profile.

But with these programs full time employment will not be needed. Why have someone sitting around waiting for something to happen. Since the programs does the work companies can just bring a person in when needed - which means unemployment - no benefits, ect... we will all be contractors bidding on a lousy 1 maybe more days a week contract - or just sitting by the phone waiting for the company to call with a problem.

either way I believe some of these programs are just assisting in making the IT field obsolete.

just my opion.


bob

Jones' Law
The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

 

[wbg34]

Such as the new technology known as Provisioning.
There are programs being developed and sold that connect to any system and does the following:
Creates users/Computers
Assign rights and access to folders
orders needed equipment
installs Apps needed
ect...

But they don't decide what users/computers need to be added.
They don't decide which rights and accesses need to be assigned.
They don't install the equipment.
They don't decide which apps are needed.
etc...

Until these systems come with an AI system supported by robots, they will have minimal effect on Tech employment levels. Engineers and System admins will still be needed for deisign and planning purposes, but they have a new tool to make them more efficient at their jobs. Helpdesk staff and maintenance staff will still be needed to handle the things that the system can't. Companies may be able to shave some of their payroll here and there. But they do that anyways. Instead of heaping the extra work on current employees, they will at least give them tools to be more efficient.

 

[lionelhill]

(1) The more devices we invent to save us work, the more work we seem to have on our hands to invent devices, make them, and keep them working...
(2) IT was originally invented to save work. The Lyons corner cafe empire introduced commercial computing to the outrage of their manual office staff. Maybe we shouldn't have invented IT in the first place?
(3) I suspect most institutions employ just as many people now to do the paperwork as they did before we had IT to help. It's just the job's been grown (unnecessarily?) to match what could be done with all the new fangled machinery to help.

I'm a Luddite, me.

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Don't blame technology. If technology makes your job redundant complaining about it does no good. Reskill and make your self valueable to the employer.

Do you complain about ATMs? Bet you use them all the time. Think about it ATMs have caused a change in the bank teller community. No longer does everyone have to goto the bank to get their money. I bet if all ATMs in your town where taken out so that there would be more jobs for bank tellers you'd be up in arms.

Do you complain about bar code scanners at the check out line? That has speed up how fast customers go through the check out line allowing more customers to be served by 1 checkout person. If they where not there you'd be complaining about either the long lines in the store because check out goes slower and more relivant about the price of food in the store because prices would have to be higher to cover the extra time it takes to get you throu the check out line.

Do you complain about when file your taxes and get your return back quicker because the automated system allow the processing of your return quicker, you might if you cheat on your taxes.

Think how much it would cost for a phone call if we didn't get in automated switches and still had to have a bunch of human operators plug in switches so you could make a call to your aunt Beth in LA from NYC.

There is the whole manufacturing point of view that stream lining a process means that things are cheeper for you to buy this include farming.

All areas of business should be targeted for improvement. This means partly it should become easier to do a job that will of course flow onto not as many people needed to do said job and of course lowering the cost of said job.

When you see this is happening to your job you have to make the decision to either make yourself more appealing as the one to keep in that job and utilies the new tools or you need to go into a different job where people are needed.

Sorry if you are being made redundant but such is life and being bitter about it serves no purpose. Rethink your position and where you want to go then do what you need to adapt to the new situation.



Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[kippy13]

This matter can be assigned to all types of R&D
Any time a new way of doing things is introduced it will lead eventually to job loses-since the bottom line is money,companies are always trying to keep costs down. If a piece of software can do the same job as 3 men or save three men numerous hours work the compnay will go for it.
To echo other comments above-where would we be without email-this has led to numerous postal job loses. Where would we be without computers.....they have changed the way office work is done-no matter what people say about slow/insecure/unreliable software-can you imagine doing normal office chores without one....they have no doubt lead to loses. However the poeple that succeed when new technology may force them out of a job are the people who are costantly learning new technology and making their value to the company increase.


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[jsteph]

But there is the notion of the "Productivity Paradox". This says that the productivity gains we expeced from a certain technological advancment (ie, computers) is never fully reached in the net result.

What really happens is more of a 'division of labor'. Say it took 10 file clerks to maintain a small business's customer's, billing, etc. Now you have maybe 2 computers and 2 people in that business doing that work. But who built the computer? And sold it, and configured it, and wrote the programs...etc. And those 2 users now spend half their day playing solitaire, surfing the web, and doing email, so now it takes them 4 man-days instead of 2 to do a day's work. So the 10 people which should have gone down to 2 with the computers, actually only went down to 8 or so.
--jsteph

 

[kippy13]

I dont agree with you on that one jsteph- there are far more jobs lost as a result of computers than are gained.
Its a very hard thing to measure.

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[lionelhill]

jsteph, I agree, but it's worse than that, because the tax people (as a single example of many) also have nice whizzy computers, so they can process even more forms more quickly, so they can happily make more, and bigger forms. So the chap running the small business still needs the same number of clerks, because now they are processing ten times as much paperwork, ten times more quickly.
I'm sure it helps someone. I'm just not sure who.

 

[kippy13]

Guys, this is getting out of control.
We are all better of because of technological advancements.
Jobs are a lot easier now theres less manualy work-its almost all thinking and very little physical-some people dont realise how lucky they are.

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[CajunCenturion]

I would disagree kippy13. Computer technology has put many people out of work. Manufacturing jobs now done by robots, the bank/teller ATM example from above, reducing the admin staff, among others. Whereas ten years ago, a company may have a one person each for A/R, A/P, and P/R, this task can now be done entirely by one person. The travel agency is an entire industry that has been decimated by the advances in technology and of course the interest.

rphips's question is a very good one, and I agree entirely with SemperFiDownUnda sentiments, but don't think for a minute, all this technology advance has not come at a price to many people.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[kippy13]

CajunCenturion
Jobs have been lost, things change-I do agree(see my earlier posts about people retraining keeping uptodate etc.)However You cannot say that the world is a worse place because of technological advancements. Granted some technology advancements have not been the best-nucleur bombs,WMD etc And over spending on space/weapons programs is stupid while people on our own planet die every day because of poverty and stavation.
Some programs will eventually force many IT people out of Jobs, some programs will eventually force programmers out of jobs. The reason being that most advancements in programming nowadays makes imputting data more user friendly and concise. What if a new programming language was developed which didnt use programming language but instead normal english statements-would all those c++, etc programmers be useless then?
Just my thoughts and I hope not to offend anyone.

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[dilettante]

Well...

The traditional rosy picture painted for productivity includes some effort to distribute the benefits among all parties. I think that is what has changed in recent times regarding worker productivity.

For example, if you have 10 people doing some function and you bring in automation, maybe it only requires 2 or 3 to create the same product or service as before. Those who are retained at this function and are more productive are clearly worth more now, and should see an enhanced compensation. I'm not saying they get to split 10 peoples' pay but they're worth more, may need to have and maintain higher level skills, and have more responsibility. Maybe their compensation should increase 30%, 50% or by some other non-trivial margin.

The other 7 or 8 displaced workers should now theoretically be freed up to perform some other productive tasks. Maybe not all of them are retained, but many of them could be if not all. These workers' efforts and contribution can be put into additional products and services, quality control, or other "profit enhancing" activities that either create additional cash-flow or reduce expenses. For example having staff to use to analyze how things are done overall or even to examine specific processes and tune them on an ongoing basis can reduce operating costs, thus increasing the resources available for compensation as well as corporate profit.

So I don't think we're talking workers being "given" a thing in exchange for their productivity improvements. Increased productivity can mean doing much more with the worker resources at hand. This "much more" can easily translate into "much more money" after receipts and expenses are reconciled. How can one say these workers haven't earned something more?


But what seems to be happening instead is that productivity gains are being taken almost entirely as profit. In consumer goods industries the profits may not be up because they've entered a "race for the bottom" on pricing their goods. All of the productivity gains are taken to keep profits stable in the face of ever-dropping sales pricing and not a thing is being shared with the labor force, who is asked to take cut after cut.

Worse than that, many forms of productivity enhancement are viewed as "dumbing down" the work and making worker effort less valuable. While this can indeed be true (replace a craftsman with a hand tool by a drone operating a programmed milling machine) I think the problem is that the displaced "craftsman" is not being redeployed effectively to contribute to the organization more positively. That would benefit the company much more than just giving him the option of the "dummy job" and a pay cut - or walking out the door.

I get tired of all of the ignorant grinning from people who think their job is safe where they trot out comments like "well there isn't demand for buggy whips anymore either."

If software development for example is "buggy whip making" well then all the fools running businesses are doing is trying to make buggy whips faster and cheaper. That's where productivity, offshoring, and hiring legal or illegal aliens (or just that hungry guy down the road who will gladly slit your economic throat by taking your job for cheap) for the lowest wage comes in.

So my conclusion is that the people running larger companies seem to have simply broken faith with their domestic workers on the one hand, and are woefully mismanaging their companies on the other. What we really have is a tremendous management failing to contend with.

But regarding the ethics of enhancing worker productivity through software development itself... it is a question of who (what sort of organization culture) you do this for.

Sort of like bookkeeping. How ethical is that sort of thing if you're doing it for slave traders or organized crime or something?

 

[Dimandja]

Actually, I don't see a technological problem here. I don't even see mismanagement at all.

What I see is capitalism on steroids. Workers lives and well being are now secondary to the bottom line: "maximum profit at any cost". Ask any CEO about their job security secret.

As dilettante alluded, you would think that increased productivity means increased employee satisfaction and retention; instead, we get lay-offs. Capitalism run amok, is what we have.

Dimandja

 

[kippy13]

Ah yes,
This topic is far greater than the realms of normal thinking and would be fit for a theologans conference(sorry bout the spelling)

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[GRMorris]

To answer rphip's question with my personal opinion I would have to say "yes".

While machines have perhaps made our lives quicker and easier in many respects, I would not necessarily say they have improved the quality of life that we have.

That said, it would appear to be "natural" progression that drives us towards efficiency and a decrease in actual man-power required to perform tasks.

There will always be other jobs to take for those who were displaced, these may not be jobs that they particularly like but they are jobs none the less.

There is also the likelyhood of management not looking too kindly on yourself for not increasing efficiency. There are many others out there who would be more than happy to take your place and do it for you, not that this was entailed in the original post.

 

[jsteph]

kippy13--
You may have misinterpreted what I was saying. I didn't say more jobs were gained with technology. I said fewer jobs were lost (less productivity gained) as a net result, than was expected.

Yes, adding a computer to a small office where filing, billing, etc was done manually may replace 10 clerks with 2, but somewhere else a computer builder, a programmer, a hardware person, (not necessarily a 1-to-1 tradeoff) etc, etc, was put to work.
--jsteph