I'm Sorry...

[Sparko]

Just like when microprocessors, computers, and such came on the scene, it put some workers out of jobs, but it opened up an entirely new industry of computer programmers, designers, the internet, graphic arts, and so on that created new jobs. You have to grow with the times or you will be left behind. That is how it has always been, even back when the steam engine was invented.

[seer]

Just like when microprocessors, computers, and such came on the scene, it put some workers out of jobs, but it opened up an entirely new industry of computer programmers, designers, the internet, graphic arts, and so on that created new jobs. You have to grow with the times or you will be left behind. That is how it has always been, even back when the steam engine was invented.

No, it is not the same. We are losing too many jobs for unskilled or low skilled laborers. Most people will not or can not get into these high tech professions, and even they will become few and far in between. I see it in my field - electronics. Like I said, one SMT machine does the job of 10 women, and only needs one man to run it. The more this happens, the fewer jobs for the common person.

[Sparko]

No, it is not the same. We are losing too many jobs for unskilled or low skilled laborers. Most people will not or can not get into these high tech professions, and even they will become few and far in between. I see it in my field - electronics. Like I said, one SMT machine does the job of 10 women, and only needs one man to run it. The more this happens, the fewer jobs for the common person.

Yeah but some company and people have to design that SMT machine, build it, program it, and all that and those are jobs too. So while those 10 women lost a job, it could be have created an entire industry. And the company that uses the SMT machines will expand and hire new workers to do other things too.

I started out doing drafting by hand, then computers came along and someone invented Autocad. And then someone came and invented add-on software to automate creating schematics in autocad and symbol libraries and all sorts of stuff. I was able to do the work of two or three draftpersons which means some people lost jobs. But it created all sorts of jobs for the back end software business, programming, marketing, sales, etc. And the company I worked for became more efficient and made more profit, and hired more workers elsewhere.

Jobs have been getting more technical all the time. Unskilled workers have to keep up and get trained or get left behind.

[phank]

What I had in mind was robots who were better at humans at everything, including thinking. You know, doing inventing and science as well as manufacturing and services. Presumably, the result would be an abundance of everything people want at little cost beyond maintainance of the robots - and they will maintain themselves. No longer a scarcity economy. An alternative some science fiction authors have played with is a "universal fabricator" where you stick in matter of some sort (like dirt or sea water), and out comes whatever you want. The agency is different, but the principle is the same - everyone is as wealthy in material goods as they wish, and is free to garner wealth in immaterial goods (I called this "believing things").

Doubtless there would still be people who could only find satisfaction depriving others of what is freely avaiable, simply to have more than others. Philip Jose Farmer in his "Riverworld" series explored this - where there were magic fabricating machines that produced whatever people wanted, and rather than everyone being rich, the strongarm bully types too control of the fabricators and used them to maintain personal power. Because one thing a non-scarcity economy can't give anyone is power over others. Power can only be obtained by forcing an artificial scarcity on the weak, to maintain control by the authoritarians. Hopefully, the robots will be intelligent enough to see this happening and fix that too.

[phank]

Jobs have been getting more technical all the time. Unskilled workers have to keep up and get trained or get left behind.

Quite a few economists have pointed out that what made the US so economically powerful for so long (the dollar is still the standard global currency) was that the broad public education made for a widely literate public - they could read directions, they could understand fairly complex processes. American-style manufacturing was much less successful in much of the world because the general public lacked literacy as well as common value systems.

But three things have been happening for a few decades now. First, education levels around the world are rising, and in most countries literacy rates are quite high. Second, automation of most processes means that workers need less education, initiative and creativity, so automated manufacturing is more portable. And third, education in the US has fallen victim to political and cultural attitudes which do not place a high value on it.

Look at the academic pressures ALL Japanese students suffer. Competition is intense, hours are long. And "made in Japan", a codephrase which in my childhood meant "cheap and flimsy", has now come to denote the highest quality goods available in the world. There is probably a connection here...

[Sparko]

What I had in mind was robots who were better at humans at everything, including thinking. You know, doing inventing and science as well as manufacturing and services. Presumably, the result would be an abundance of everything people want at little cost beyond maintainance of the robots - and they will maintain themselves. No longer a scarcity economy. An alternative some science fiction authors have played with is a "universal fabricator" where you stick in matter of some sort (like dirt or sea water), and out comes whatever you want. The agency is different, but the principle is the same - everyone is as wealthy in material goods as they wish, and is free to garner wealth in immaterial goods (I called this "believing things").

Doubtless there would still be people who could only find satisfaction depriving others of what is freely avaiable, simply to have more than others. Philip Jose Farmer in his "Riverworld" series explored this - where there were magic fabricating machines that produced whatever people wanted, and rather than everyone being rich, the strongarm bully types too control of the fabricators and used them to maintain personal power. Because one thing a non-scarcity economy can't give anyone is power over others. Power can only be obtained by forcing an artificial scarcity on the weak, to maintain control by the authoritarians. Hopefully, the robots will be intelligent enough to see this happening and fix that too.

But since robots would run everything and work for free, and they could think, they would have no need for us, especially if we just sat around. Pretty much like skynet in the Terminator, or the Matrix. End of humanity.

[Leonhard]

But since robots would run everything and work for free, and they could think, they would have no need for us, especially if we just sat around. Pretty much like skynet in the Terminator, or the Matrix. End of humanity.

I don't think we can create robots with free will. If the machines are programmed to serve us in a particular capacity, then that's what they'll do, they wouldn't be able to rebell... malfunction yes, but then why wouldn't other machines stop them?

Its a bit hard to speculate about technology like that, but the idea of the robot revolution never stings me. Though I don't think, potentially, automated weapons systems could do a lot of harm in the long run.

[Sparko]

I don't think we can create robots with free will. If the machines are programmed to serve us in a particular capacity, then that's what they'll do, they wouldn't be able to rebell... malfunction yes, but then why wouldn't other machines stop them?

Its a bit hard to speculate about technology like that, but the idea of the robot revolution never stings me. Though I don't think, potentially, automated weapons systems could do a lot of harm in the long run.

Yeah I don't think we will ever have truly intelligent free willed machines, but I was responding to Phanks hypothetical society where machines could do everything better than we can, including think. There is no reason for them to keep us around then, other than entertainment. They surely wouldn't do all the work so we could just sit on our butts all day. We would either become insignificant, or at worse a nuisance to be gotten rid of.

[Jedidiah]

One possible solution is to ensure that everybody has a subsistence income whether or not they work and give everybody the opportunity for education and meaningful work to supplement their income. There should also be a cap on income and excess wealth should be concentrated in common resources for the benefit of all – infrastructure, power, water, etc. Then the robots work for everybody not just the corporations.

Who would do this ensuring, and who would decide the level of the cap on income? I don't trust those ones.

[Jedidiah]

Doubtless there would still be people who could only find satisfaction depriving others of what is freely avaiable, simply to have more than others. Philip Jose Farmer in his "Riverworld" series explored this - where there were magic fabricating machines that produced whatever people wanted, and rather than everyone being rich, the strongarm bully types too control of the fabricators and used them to maintain personal power. Because one thing a non-scarcity economy can't give anyone is power over others. Power can only be obtained by forcing an artificial scarcity on the weak, to maintain control by the authoritarians. Hopefully, the robots will be intelligent enough to see this happening and fix that too.

Yeah this.

[Roy]

If we get to the point where robots are better than humans at everything, what prevents us from just sitting back, enjoying all their output, and just, you know, believing things?

Lack of oil?

Roy

[Roy]

The process of wealth concentration (this is where the problem is) means that instead of benefiting from automation, the working class are forced progressively into lower paid unskilled jobs, dependence of state benefits, begging, crime, and prostitution and so on.

With one or two exceptions, wealth is considerably less concentrated now than it ever was before the industrial revolution.

Roy

[phank]

Lack of oil?

Roy

Probably. Providing everyone with as much material wealth as they have time to enjoy, is going to run into resource limits unless people control their population, or unless the robots invent transmutation or FTL or some such.

[phank]

With one or two exceptions, wealth is considerably less concentrated now than it ever was before the industrial revolution.

Roy

Which gets us back to the accumulation of power. Power and wealth are opposite sides of the same coin. It's the real-world Golden Rule, that he who has the gold, makes the rules.

[jordanriver]

Doubtless there would still be people who could only find satisfaction depriving others of what is freely avaiable, simply to have more than others..

yup