The robots are coming...

[TragicMonkey]

I thought from the thread title this was about a new achievement in the field of pleasure bots.

The robots may indeed be on their way, but the only people who need worry about their jobs are prostitutes.

 

[Hungry81]

Once robots hit every industry humans can go back to a slave driven style economy. Government welfare can include payment in different robots or robot parts where necessary, and all humans can sit on the porch sipping their lemonade wearing white suits and watching their slavebots pick the cotton.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Once robots hit every industry humans can go back to a slave driven style economy. Government welfare can include payment in different robots or robot parts where necessary, and all humans can sit on the porch sipping their lemonade wearing white suits and watching their slavebots pick the cotton.

That's wonderful for the humans that own "cotton plantations", but what about the billions that don't?

 

[PhantomWolf]

50,000 years of human invention and we have still managed to grow the absolute number of jobs that exist. No other previous technology has reversed that trend. Advocates that a technology will do that have a serious uphill battle.

The thing is that in the 50,000 years of human invention, we've never had the threat of all blue and white collar jobs being taken over by automation all at roughly the same time, and that is what we would face with an A.I. It's very much an unprecedented situation, but we can get a "feel" for it by looking at the past where things such as the loom, the shipping container, the combine harvester, Factory robots, and the PC have eliminated, or dramatically reduced certain jobs to the point of 90% or more redundancy for those that were engaged in that type of work, and then spread it across the board.

How well is our society going to work if 90+% of the workforce is made redundant over a decade or so? How do we absorb, create new jobs and retain that amount of people in such a short time?

Take a look at the old coal mining towns in the UK and US, the car and steel factory towns in the US, that is the likes of what we would be seeing, but rather than in just a single town, right the way across the world.

 

[BobTheCoward]

The thing is that in the 50,000 years of human invention, we've never had the threat of all blue and white collar jobs being taken over by automation all at roughly the same time, and that is what we would face with an A.I. It's very much an unprecedented situation, but we can get a "feel" for it by looking at the past where things such as the loom, the shipping container, the combine harvester, Factory robots, and the PC have eliminated, or dramatically reduced certain jobs to the point of 90% or more redundancy for those that were engaged in that type of work, and then spread it across the board.

How well is our society going to work if 90+% of the workforce is made redundant over a decade or so? How do we absorb, create new jobs and retain that amount of people in such a short time?

Take a look at the old coal mining towns in the UK and US, the car and steel factory towns in the US, that is the likes of what we would be seeing, but rather than in just a single town, right the way across the world.

You are putting your speculation of what will happen against the relationship of number of jobs and invention since the time those two things first existed.

As I said, that should be a huge, uphill battle.

 

[Bob001]

You are putting your speculation of what will happen against the relationship of number of jobs and invention since the time those two things first existed.

As I said, that should be a huge, uphill battle.

The author's argument is that "jobs," however you define the word, involves activity by humans to accomplish goals that someone is willing to pay for. When that activity -- whether it's unskilled labor, driving trucks or complex computation -- can be accomplished by robots, what will a "job" be?

 

[TragicMonkey]

The solution is simple: build a Luddite virus that will make robots hate technology. They'll fight it out while we slave away at work. Hooray for us?

 

[BobTheCoward]

The author's argument is that "jobs," however you define the word, involves activity by humans to accomplish goals that someone is willing to pay for. When that activity -- whether it's unskilled labor, driving trucks or complex computation -- can be accomplished by robots, what will a "job" be?

Don't know and I don't have to. We just know that every variation of innovation before has failed to cause a permanent dissapearance of total jobs. That is a really high bar.

 

[Brainster]

Which would lead to a society with those that have robots working for them, and those that are worthless because they have nothing. This would then lead to the collapse of the economy because if no one other than robot owners have any income, then no one can actually afford to buy what the Robots produce and so even the people that own the robots go broke and end up with nothing. Government's shut down and collapse because they have no Tax income to pay for their militaries, their police forces and justice systems, and all of the other departments they need to run a country.

So basically, you're for the totally collapse of human civilization. Cool.

The part that you and everybody else is missing is that robots can only replace humans at a given human cost (wages, benefits, etc.). Reduce those costs even a bit, and suddenly it becomes uneconomical to replace the person with a robot. This is why robots currently are only replacing people who work at very robotic tasks (driving is certainly robotic), or people who have a very high cost (surgeons).

What amuses me is that everybody on the Left feels the answer is to throw money at people who don't work anymore (sort of their default solution). I was never a big fan of the argument that welfare is theft, but when people start to talk about redistributing the fruits of robot labor it's not hard to see that's exactly what they are talking about.

 

[Bob001]

.....
What amuses me is that everybody on the Left feels the answer is to throw money at people who don't work anymore (sort of their default solution). I was never a big fan of the argument that welfare is theft, but when people start to talk about redistributing the fruits of robot labor it's not hard to see that's exactly what they are talking about.

If all production and wealth are held by a tiny number of corporations or even individual people, what happens to everyone else who is pushed out of work? Historically, the question of how to distribute the society's wealth has been answered with continuing tension among management, labor unions, tax policy, welfare policy, market forces and more. There's plenty of room for vigorous debate, but most parties seek what they believe is best overall for the society. But when you can't tell a poor person to "go find a job," and when you can't tell a young person that educational credentials are the ticket to a satisfying career, what's left? Either everybody who doesn't own a robot dies off -- incidentally leaving no market for whatever the robots produce -- or the society's total wealth has to be distributed by new means.

 

[Bob001]

Don't know and I don't have to. We just know that every variation of innovation before has failed to cause a permanent dissapearance of total jobs. That is a really high bar.

Over time, the work that society needed to be done by people has changed. There are fewer unskilled laborers and more health-care providers than there were 50 years ago, fewer farmers and more retail workers. The labor market has changed. The question is what happens when the labor market shrinks dramatically, or is even eliminated entirely?

 

[Distracted1]

If all production and wealth are held by a tiny number of corporations or even individual people, what happens to everyone else who is pushed out of work? Historically, the question of how to distribute the society's wealth has been answered with continuing tension among management, labor unions, tax policy, welfare policy, market forces and more. There's plenty of room for vigorous debate, but most parties seek what they believe is best overall for the society. But when you can't tell a poor person to "go find a job," and when you can't tell a young person that educational credentials are the ticket to a satisfying career, what's left? Either everybody who doesn't own a robot dies off -- incidentally leaving no market for whatever the robots produce -- or the society's total wealth has to be distributed by new means.

Some variety of Feudalism has been the norm, not the exception, throughout history.

 

[Bob001]

Some variety of Feudalism has been the norm, not the exception, throughout history.

Maybe, but not recently. More important, even feudalism was a method of distributing the fruits of human labor, mainly by stealing it from the humans who were producing it. Even feudal landowners, even slaveholders, at least had to keep their humans alive and subservient. What happens when there is no labor for humans to perform?

 

[Brainster]

If all production and wealth are held by a tiny number of corporations or even individual people, what happens to everyone else who is pushed out of work? Historically, the question of how to distribute the society's wealth has been answered with continuing tension among management, labor unions, tax policy, welfare policy, market forces and more. There's plenty of room for vigorous debate, but most parties seek what they believe is best overall for the society. But when you can't tell a poor person to "go find a job," and when you can't tell a young person that educational credentials are the ticket to a satisfying career, what's left? Either everybody who doesn't own a robot dies off -- incidentally leaving no market for whatever the robots produce -- or the society's total wealth has to be distributed by new means.

You ignored my first paragraph:

The part that you and everybody else is missing is that robots can only replace humans at a given human cost (wages, benefits, etc.). Reduce those costs even a bit, and suddenly it becomes uneconomical to replace the person with a robot. This is why robots currently are only replacing people who work at very robotic tasks (driving is certainly robotic), or people who have a very high cost (surgeons).

The solution to robots replacing humans is very simple--increase the costs of using robots or decrease the cost of using humans (or a little bit of both). How? Well you probably won't like the latter: cut wages and/or benefits. As for the former, you can make robots effectively more expensive by changing the depreciation allowed. Maybe you make companies depreciate their robots over twice their useful life.

In short, using robots is a finance decision--and if it doesn't make financial sense (which it won't for a large number of jobs) then they won't be used.

 

[Brainster]

Maybe, but not recently. More important, even feudalism was a method of distributing the fruits of human labor, mainly by stealing it from the humans who were producing it. Even feudal landowners, even slaveholders, at least had to keep their humans alive and subservient. What happens when there is no labor for humans to perform?

You kill off 80% of the people with chemtrails in the air and fluoride in the drinking water.[/alexjones]

 

[Elagabalus]

I call BS.

Me too. Those Driverless cars are totally killin' it!

 

[Bob001]

You ignored my first paragraph:

The part that you and everybody else is missing is that robots can only replace humans at a given human cost (wages, benefits, etc.). Reduce those costs even a bit, and suddenly it becomes uneconomical to replace the person with a robot. This is why robots currently are only replacing people who work at very robotic tasks (driving is certainly robotic), or people who have a very high cost (surgeons).

The solution to robots replacing humans is very simple--increase the costs of using robots or decrease the cost of using humans (or a little bit of both). How? Well you probably won't like the latter: cut wages and/or benefits. As for the former, you can make robots effectively more expensive by changing the depreciation allowed. Maybe you make companies depreciate their robots over twice their useful life.

In short, using robots is a finance decision--and if it doesn't make financial sense (which it won't for a large number of jobs) then they won't be used.

The financial sense is a given. That's why every industry continues to automate pretty much everything it can as fast as it can. Clerks making minimum wage at fast-foot counters are being replaced by touch screens. Do you propose taxing robots, broadly speaking, to make them more expensive than human labor? Or do you propose reducing wages and benefits to starvation levels, which still might not undercut robots? Those seem to be the only choices you see.

Another would be a kind of corporate ownership, where all humans share in the profits generated by robot labor. Another would be to tax robot profits heavily and pay minimum incomes to displaced humans. The point is that the existing models don't apply to circumstances that have never existed before.

And a guaranteed income is not a revolutionary concept. Even Nixon explored the idea.
https://www.alternet.org/economy/ho...rica-basic-income-and-why-we-should-do-it-now

 

[BobTheCoward]

Over time, the work that society needed to be done by people has changed. There are fewer unskilled laborers and more health-care providers than there were 50 years ago, fewer farmers and more retail workers. The labor market has changed. The question is what happens when the labor market shrinks dramatically, or is even eliminated entirely?

I'm saying it isn't going to shrink dramatically.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I'm saying it isn't going to shrink dramatically.

The robots will be programmed to correct that.

 

[mgidm86]

Sounds like robotics is the industry to be in then.

The thread title reminds me of Drudge Report. Robot Apocalypse, Exorcisms, and all that fun

How do we differentiate a robot from a machine? My parents bought machines for their cabinet shop that have replaced people. If I call it a machine can I avoid the robot taxes?

One day we will probably digitize our brains and be the robots. We already have bionic limbs, artificial hearts...