The robots are coming...

[Brainster]

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.

And all this automation has resulted in a US unemployment rate of 4.1%, the lowest in over 17 years.

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.

Yeah, I have to admit, I have never heard concerns about massive numbers of displaced humans during an era of near-record low unemployment.

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

Hmmm, looks like that article should have been written by a robot:

And thus, in August 1968, President Nixon presented a bill providing for a modest basic income, calling it “the most significant piece of social legislation in our nation’s history.”

Nixon was not the president in August 1968; he wasn't even the President-Elect yet.

I do love this bit:

Not until 1978 was the plan for a basic income shelved once and for all, however, following a fatal discovery upon publication of the final results of the Seattle experiment. One finding in particular grabbed everybody’s attention: The number of divorces had jumped more than 50 percent. Interest in this statistic quickly overshadowed all the other outcomes, such as better school performance and improvements in health. A basic income, evidently, gave women too much independence.

Ten years later, a reanalysis of the data revealed that a statistical error had been made; in reality, there had been no change in the divorce rate at all.

So the basic income did not give women too much independence? Yay--err. boo?

 

[Bob001]

....
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?
....

As used here, "robot" means pretty much any machine that does work independently that used to be done by a thinking human being. A power saw is a tool, not a robot; a power saw that cuts complex shapes without operator intervention is a robot.

 

[Bob001]

And all this automation has resulted in a US unemployment rate of 4.1%, the lowest in over 17 years.

Yeah, I have to admit, I have never heard concerns about massive numbers of displaced humans during an era of near-record low unemployment.

And the labor market has changed dramatically. Factory labor is way down, and health care is way up. Average wages have been stagnant, even declining, for a long time. Some kinds of work will never be done by machines. Child care and patient care probably are among them. But as machines take over more and more work that used to require humans, unemployment and underemployment will get worse.

Hmmm, looks like that article should have been written by a robot:

Nixon was not the president in August 1968; he wasn't even the President-Elect yet.

Nixon supported the idea in a speech he made in August, 1969. A typo hardly invalidates the rest.
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/nixon_speech_guaranteed_income_citizens_wage.php

The point is that a guaranteed income as a method to share the society's bounty is an idea that's been around a long, long time.

 

[rjh01]

Over time, we have improved our living standards so we needed to produce more for the same labour. Hence no mass unemployment. However there is a limit. Raw materials. If we can work out a method of having very high living standards with low use of raw materials then we can have high living standards. Otherwise see the 1930s for what the future will look like.

 

[xjx388]

Sounds like someone's been listening to too much Flight of the Concords . . .

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

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).

You're advocating for reducing human wages in order to keep them competitive. Is there any lower limit in your mind? Or is it a point of pride to you that a person can claim they have a job as they're starving to death?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Sounds like someone's been listening to too much Flight of the Concords . . .

It had to be done. So we could have fun.

 

[Brainster]

You're advocating for reducing human wages in order to keep them competitive. Is there any lower limit in your mind? Or is it a point of pride to you that a person can claim they have a job as they're starving to death?

I'm not advocating it. I am saying it will happen. Look, if all this comes to pass--that robots start taking all the jobs away, you don't think quite a few people will decide that maybe they can take a little less?

Or maybe you believe this fairyland nonsense about how the government is going to be able to tax the owners of the robots enough to keep us all in middle-class heaven?

 

[Distracted1]

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?

Serfs were often considered "of the land" and as such they were as much the property of the the Manor as was the game, the water, and the trees. Excess could be sent off to fight neighboring territories in order to increase the holdings of the Manor.

 

[Distracted1]

I'm not advocating it. I am saying it will happen. Look, if all this comes to pass--that robots start taking all the jobs away, you don't think quite a few people will decide that maybe they can take a little less?

Or maybe you believe this fairyland nonsense about how the government is going to be able to tax the owners of the robots enough to keep us all in middle-class heaven?

Governments have been known to go further than that, even so far as to seize the means of production in the name of the people.
If I recall, one of the big flaws with that idea was getting the workers to produce with those "means of production" when they were guaranteed a share of the output whether they worked diligently or slacked off. Do you think the same would be true of robots ?

 

[Meadmaker]

And the labor market has changed dramatically. Factory labor is way down, and health care is way up. Average wages have been stagnant, even declining, for a long time. Some kinds of work will never be done by machines. Child care and patient care probably are among them. But as machines take over more and more work that used to require humans, unemployment and underemployment will get worse.

It makes sense, but I have to wonder.

Today, we have very nearly full employment. In 1982, we did not (There was a recession going on at the time.) During that period of time, a really large number of robots have been introduced, and yet, we have full employment. I used to walk through the body shop at car factories and see lots of workers. Now, I see a handful. The parking lots surrounding high capacity factories are a lot smaller than they used to be. If the plant is in a really old location, either the parking lots will be half empty, or there will be buildings, signs, fountains, or something else that are taking up spaces where parking lots used to be, because it doesn't require as many people to produce a car these days.....and yet we have nearly full employment.

Obviously, the people displaced by the robots found other things to do. Why do we think it won't happen again?


I realize that we are coming up on a phase of human history where there will soon be robots that can do darned near anything a human can do, so maybe there really is something to worry about, but, somehow, machines have been displacing people in certain jobs at least since the invention of the cotton gin, and we have always found ways to keep busy, and get paid for it. I suspect that will continue to be the case.

At least.....I hope. I don't think it is inevitable that all wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few robot owners. I think society will find ways to adapt.

 

[Fudbucker]

And all this automation has resulted in a US unemployment rate of 4.1%, the lowest in over 17 years.



Yeah, I have to admit, I have never heard concerns about massive numbers of displaced humans during an era of near-record low unemployment.



Hmmm, looks like that article should have been written by a robot:



Nixon was not the president in August 1968; he wasn't even the President-Elect yet.

I do love this bit:



So the basic income did not give women too much independence? Yay--err. boo?

Wait, didn't I hear a lot about the Labor Participation Rate being the gold standard when unemployment began to fall during Obama's second term? I could have sworn...

Seems it's the exact same now as when Trump was sworn in: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

 

[Bob001]

I'm not advocating it. I am saying it will happen. Look, if all this comes to pass--that robots start taking all the jobs away, you don't think quite a few people will decide that maybe they can take a little less?

Or maybe you believe this fairyland nonsense about how the government is going to be able to tax the owners of the robots enough to keep us all in middle-class heaven?

Why not? Suppose the total value of the economic output of the robots was divided more or less equally among the humans, maybe with variations within a narrow range for age, disability and other factors. People who do actual work, whether as corporate managers, doctors, firefighters or nannies, would receive additional compensation for it. The pay would continue to be an incentive for people to work if they could.

Top corporate managers are paid as much as 400 times the wages of their line workers. That disparity is a recent development, and is far greater than in other countries or in the U.S. in the '60s and '70s. Their pay in all forms could be cut back. The wealthiest people in the country don't necessarily do any work, as most of us understand the term; they benefit from complex tax laws and inheritance laws and corporate regulations that could be changed. The top marginal income tax rate was 70% during the Nixon administration, and 91% during Eisenhower's. What's really fairyland nonsense is to imagine that what we have today is the best of all possible worlds for most Americans.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I'm not advocating it. I am saying it will happen.

That's a pretty lazy attitude toward the whole thing. (Predictable response: "It's not lazy; it's realistic.")

Look, if all this comes to pass--that robots start taking all the jobs away, you don't think quite a few people will decide that maybe they can take a little less?

"Quite a few" isn't going to be enough. People aren't going to be happy to starve a bit slower than their neighbors forever. History shows us how well that works out.

Or maybe you believe this fairyland nonsense about how the government is going to be able to tax the owners of the robots enough to keep us all in middle-class heaven?

One way or another, they will have to do something or cease to exist.

 

[casebro]

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?

TM, that is the most creative thing I ever saw you say. Differnet than you usual droll nonsequitor. Cudos.

 

[PhantomWolf]

corporate managers, doctors, firefighters or nannies

I know you just picked a bunch of examples, but it's interesting that these jobs would be ones that Robots would excel at in the new structure.

Corporate managers - With most of the mundane jobs being done by computers and robots, a manager isn't needed, rather an A.I. management software package that would be processing real time data from manufacturing through to sales would be the best for the position. It would be able to make decisions on what to produce and where to send it instantly stating ahead of any trends, preventing shortages and operating entire corporations seamlessly and efficiently.

Doctors - Human doctors are prone to mistakes and have a limited experience base. A Robot A.I. could evaluate a patient using sensors humans don't have or require time to analyze, they could even take and process blood samples right there, compare the data with every known case of illness that there has been and determine a list of likely aliments based on the patient's symptoms, family history, and the test results. If surgery is required, a robot can do it faster, cleaner and with less chance of a mistake than a human doctor could.

Fire Fighters - This is actually the perfect job for a robot. Robots can be made fire proof and heat resistant, allowing them to enter into the heart of fires where humans simply cannot go. They can have sensors that allow them to detect fires and heat spots, literally seeing through the smoke to find the source. They don't need to breath, but can easily carry a tank of something such as compressed argon allowing them to quickly and effectively shut down a fire by oxygen replacement without fear of suffocation. We already have experimental water using fire-fighting robots such as these in China, they just aren't autonomous, yet.

Nanny - Who wouldn't want a 24/7 child minder? An AI nanny would be watching your kids 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They could provide instant medical care and they certainly wouldn't be able to be bullied or guilted into allowing the kids to get their own way.

Anyways, just thought it interesting that the four you picked were areas that are not only capable of being done by automation and A.I. but which are already under threat as developments are being made towards doing just that!

 

[Bob001]

.....
Anyways, just thought it interesting that the four you picked were areas that are not only capable of being done by automation and A.I. but which are already under threat as developments are being made towards doing just that!

I was trying to think of work where unpredictable circumstances might require human judgment and experience to improvise an appropriate response. I doubt many parents would turn their precious infants over to R2D2. But you're supporting the original link's point: Most workers at all levels of the economy will ultimately be replaced by machines. Then what?

 

[PhantomWolf]

I was trying to think of work where unpredictable circumstances might require human judgment and experience to improvise an appropriate response.

The thing is that a A.I. would be capable of making judgements as well, and would have the multiple lifetimes of experience of an expert system backing it up. It could react quicker, and more often in a more appropriate manner than a human, who tend to make errors when stressed.

I doubt many parents would turn their precious infants over to R2D2.

I don't know, would you rather leave your kids with a robot that will never stop watching them, never allow harm to come to them if it can possibly prevent it, and will be with them 24/7, or a human who makes mistakes that could injure them, or that could intentionally harm them, molest them, or even kill them?

But you're supporting the original link's point: Most workers at all levels of the economy will ultimately be replaced by machines. Then what?

That is the ultimate question....

 

[Darat]

Automation has been costing jobs since the Industrial Revolution. Up until now we have had a lot of jobs that computers can't do better, the problem is that we are fast heading towards a time when that isn't true. Computers can already drive vehicles better, fly planes better, sail ships better, drive trains better. They can do surgery more accurately, make your burger without a human hand touching it. It's no longer just blue collar workers that are in danger. Just as secretaries are no longer needed in a world of word processors and e-mail, in a few years we'll be seeing accountants and other professional jobs losing out to computers and the expert software that can do their jobs better, faster, with fewer mistakes, and also be able to provide real time information to the Boss.

Of course that isn't the biggest issue with an A.I.

The biggest issue with an A.I. is that it's goals and ours will not align and it want take into consideration our goals and rights in achieving its own goals.

An interesting example I heard was of an A.I. that was created to make as many paper clips as it can as efficiently as it can. Without certain parameters what is stopping such an A.I. from narrow mindedly working to achieve that goal to the point of considering Humanity and our civilisation as nothing more than raw materials for creating new paper clip manufacturing machines and for the clips themselves?

One would suggest that we won't care about not having a job then....

That's why you have an off switch.

 

[erlando]

When robots become as smart and capable as human beings.....

At the current state of our technology this "when" is pretty far in the future. Yes, we need to think about these things but the current tendency of crying "THE ROBOTS ARE COMING, WE ARE DOOMED" all the time is tiring. Despite good efforts we haven't even taught a robot to drive a car yet. Turns out that is quite a bit more difficult than expected.

General AI is far, far in the future. I'm not even sure we'll ever get there.