The future where humans need not apply thanks to robot automation isn’t as rosy as often predicted.
When mechanical muscle was replaced by automobiles, horses didn’t get better jobs. A few of them did, some got demoted from real work to satisfying teenage girls an hour a week, but most of them were eaten.
Literally, the Western horse population declined enormously from it’s peak around 1915 to present day numbers and ended up as horse meat.
So automation wasn’t exactly good for our predecessors in the eat or be eaten game of progress, but would humans really fare better?
Would we find meaningful new jobs like writing poems, performing arts or other areas momentarily excluded from the rise of the bots? Maybe some of us, but there isn’t really place for let’s say a 100 million more performers. If anything the trend goes the other way with ‘global’ artists. And one can wonder if talent is really that widespread….
Face it: automation will eat our jobs and nope, it won’t create magical new highly paid occupations. Heck, it won’t even create highly entertaining new ways of spending time without an income
Not only will mankind get unemployed, not only will we need to find a new way to distribute money for consumption when wages become scarce, but we will have to face up to what we actually want to do the whole day. Fishing, daytime television, social media junkies?
Oh, and in case you think your job can’t be automated, think again. The higher your salary the larger the incentive to replace you with a smart cloud cluster…
Watch the video in case you doubt you’ll be next
We need answers before we are dead horse meat. Any suggestions?
+Vic Gundotra just shared 'Best real time source for watching Icelandic volcano Bardarbunga's activity.'
Maybe that's how we can get through the unemployed days 🙂
Sub
The most important step would be that we disconnect our long-term calculated social insurance systems from human jobs and income completely, asap.
True +Bernd Rubel but how?
Look at the Share our Wealth plan. It could use to be dusted off.
Thanks for this, +Max Huijgen, my take: it depends on where capital flows: https://plus.google.com/u/0/101844248571144042569/posts/bhGK9QBLDcV
I already know what I'd do. I'd write. The first robot capable of doing my day job is welcome to it.
Even if capital would be 'distributed' in terms of the source (so eliminating all of the current capital market) I still don't see how it would be evenly distributed to receivers.
Even in an 'socialist' / 'most popular takes all' model like Kickstarter the money (although furnished by individuals opposed to losing their own jobs) it would still channel into automation solutions making these same investors redundant. +John Blossom +Steve Faktor +Edward Morbius ?
+Max Huijgen Please consider posting the FixYT link for this or other YouTube video, or deleting the embedded YouTube link: http://fixyt.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
FixYT doesn't create an embeddable video link. Vimeo does, and there is a Vimeo version of this video: http://vimeo.com/103783092
I generally refuse to participate in YouTube video discussions. I flag YT videos as spam to prevent them form reappearing in my streams.
I would love to +Edward Morbius but I don't think I can replace links in this post.
I added 'Alternative video, same content http://vimeo.com/103783092' to the post
+Max Huijgen Deleting the video embed should remove the YouTube connection.
Automation with robots replacing humans is good news. What could possibly make this bad, is only a gross lack of leadership in humans who control food production, and the manufacturing and distribution of goods, and the management of human resources. An atheist might say humans do not have a covenant to prosper and multiply. Some people say we have a God given duty to prosper and multiply. God might tell you it is good news when it takes less men to feed 10,000 people. The only thing that could make it bad if mechanization makes 1 rich asshole who has all the money but he is too cheap or stupid to do great things with the 10,000 people he can easily feed and employ. Mechanization is good news, and it just involves better leadership to be beneficial to more of the people.
Thoughts in a moment on the content of this video, but first, +Edward Morbius, why do you have this stance regarding YouTube videos? This is not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.
Sure +Edward Morbius but then there is no visible link whatsoever. There is no such thing as an in situ replacement afaik.
+Gideon Rosenblatt FixYT doesn't propagate comment threads to YouTube. It doesn't reveal my YouTube viewing preferences on YouTube. It doesn't open my public threads to idiot commentaries from random YouTubers, though I cover that by limiting commenting rights on my posts anyhow. For others' threads, it avoids the random YouTube trolls showing up issue.
And it avoids having G+ hoards descend on innocent YouTuber's videos with our bullshittery as well.
They are two separate communities. I wish them entirely separate.
It's not so much the takeover of YouTube as the forced integration of YouTube and G+ accounts.
+Max Huijgen You can edit your post. Adding the Vimeo / FixYT link there is possible.
You can remove the video link in the edit view (desktop, not sure about mobile, if you're using that).
And while no, you cannot replace the video preview in this post, you can however in future posts.
But in the end alternate personalities solves the YT / G+ integration. Apart from the fact that I never comment on YT.
Can we get back on topic. Our future, our jobs, our way to spend the day?
+Max Huijgen, as you pointed out on my post, we were posting on the same topic and nearly the same time, but taking it in very different directions.
I'm actually writing about this in more depth these days, but the short version of my view is that the decisions we make today about how the bounty of automation is distributed in society will have a long-lasting impact in society.
I finally finished reading Piketty's book on capital, which, by the way, is an extremely long read. He notes just how important income from labor still is in the overall distribution of income. Since the 80's though, income from capital is making a strong comeback to the point where it matches levels that existed prior to the start of WWI. What he underestimates though is just how big an impact automation will have on shifting the overall stream of income from labor to capital. It's not just that labor dries up as jobs disappear through automation. It's also that automation reduces labor costs, allowing more corporate income to either be invested in more automation or extracted from the firm in the form of dividends or stock buybacks (to increase stock prices and capital returns).
If anyone's interested in the slightly longer version of this let me know. But the short version is that automation is going to radically shift income from labor to capital, which is going to have huge implications to the distribution of wealth in the world, which along with job loss, tends to lead to real social instability.
+Max Huijgen It doesn't. My comments here on G+ are appearing on the YT comments associated with this post.
I'll discuss the #Anschluss but not the substance of the video, as a consequence.
I'm doing so because I'd prefer to discuss the substance.
Frankly, the whole thing puts me very much closer to pulling the plug on G+ altogether.
It's not about the absolute amount of income from labor versus capital +Gideon Rosenblatt
Thanks to automation it will shift to capital, but key is the distribution of generated wealth.
BTW, feel free to post a link to longer version of your vision +Gideon Rosenblatt My topics are kick-offs for discourse; all sensible contributions are valued.
+Angel Gabriel history as proven you wrong, "one rich Asshole" will indeed reap all the money, but not give the now unemployed masses anything, Greed is the word of the century, and it has won, utterly and completely, the top 10% own 90% of the wealth, and have no reason, no incentive to help us, and have already shown a complete disconnect and stark lack of empathy and morality, your Machine Overlords, and their Rich rulers will crush the poor into a paste they will sell the less poor.
You're right +Edward Morbius I didn't realize that by posting this I actually made a contribution to the hate fest called YT.
Next time I will check if there is an alternative.
Wow, great video, totally agree. It's about robots here but of course this is about all kinds of automation, like webshops killing local pc vendors, cd-stores etc. The result is that most of the economy's money will flow to the few 'robot' owners. They would have to subsidize their market in order to put money in their customers' pockets, who otherwise won't be able to buy their products. Will that happen? I don't think so. It's easy to imagine where it will go from there, and that doesn't look good…
Edit: While I was writing this +Gideon Rosenblatt put it down in a more elaborate an eloquent way.
+Max Huijgen Since you're not removing the YouTube links, I'm flagging as spam and moving on.
You do +Edward Morbius but consider that the discourse is sometimes the most important. I would have prefered to hear your opinion on the subject
+Edward Morbius There is an option to 'mute' comment threads in the notifications.
+Max Huijgen The german speaker of the CCC wrote about this more than two years ago, in a very long article: http://goo.gl/7eQNeE (perhaps Google Translate is good enough to understand the most important parts of this article. It's worth it, really).
Though the problem is complex, his summary is simple: if robots replace humans in our working environment, they have to replace them as tax payers, too.
Well, i doubt that our politicians are able to understand what's happening here, that's a problem. Most of them don't have an answer to the problems of the age pyramid, and this topic is even more complex.
Nevertheless I want to add a point. If +Gideon Rosenblatt says that income from capital is making a strong comeback since the early 80's, he's right. But one of the most important reasons for this shift is that "the capital" in the form of producing companies tramp to countries (macro) or locations (micro) where the human labor costs are as low as possible. They just abuse the circumstance that people in – for example – Indonesia have a lower income than the people in the United States.
Thanks, +Max Huijgen. Here's that link to Technology and the Distribution of Wealth:
http://www.the-vital-edge.com/technology_and_the_distribution_of_wealth/
I think we're actually saying the same thing. The key is the distribution of generated wealth. Right now, as Piketty points out, there are powerful forces at work that are already pushing capital's portion back to historical highs, but I think he may be significantly underplaying the effect that automation will have on this process.
we:''@!90
We differ slightly +Gideon Rosenblatt as I'm even more worried about the future of human kind if left to fishing..
I agree on the primary of wealth distribution, but even assuming robots start paying tax or corporations find (need to find) another way to distribute income and in an ideal world, we would still suffer from the eternal 'bored to death' problem
Work is more than an income provider.
No doubt, +Max Huijgen, work is most definitely more than an income generator. But I have a fundamental faith in people's ability to find meaning in life in all kinds of ways that don't necessarily have to do with generating income.
Figuring out the economics of technological unemployment is going to be a massive undertaking. I'm not sure that as a society we will be able to get out in front on this problem. But if we don't, I fear we will be forced to
-assuming we aren't fighting the robots of course…;)+Max Huijgen Right, work is more than an income provider. For a lot of people it's pressure, mobbing, bossing, sorrows, wasted, stolen time and experiences with their friends an families, physical and mental fatigue, death.
some got demoted from real work to satisfying teenage girls an hour a week
LOL.
More seriously, the solution is a guaranteed minimum wage.
+Max Huijgen If you would like my comments on this topic, I've made clear my grounds for participation. Your call.
Given this post is flagged as spam and muted, I'm not seeing notifications unless I seek it out explicitly.
+Max Huijgen Future is Elysium
Yet again, I'm reminded of Bruce Sterling's comments about musicians.
Whatever happens to musicians will eventually happen to everybody.
http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/459/State-of-the-World-2013-Bruce-St-page02.html#post38
So encouraging the unemployed to become artists might increase the total amount of art (for some meanings of that word) but it won't get them fed.
!21.)
There are two issues here:
1. distribution of wealth and
2. distribution of labour.
We should focus on the distribution of labour. Money is secondary. 'Robot tax' might be a good thing but money is not the solution. Labour distribution is.
We currently deal with working weeks of say 40 hours. Suppose we have unemployment of 10%, then the allowed working hour should be brought back e.g. to 36 hours – or 34, but you get the idea. Eventually, how much human labour will be needed, including nursing, health care for and contact with seniors or ill people etc.? I'm making a guess for argument's sake: 50% of the human hours we were spending, in the pre-automation era. So we will all have working weeks of 20 hours.
Shortening the working week has been done before, it should be feasible to repeat of make an adaptive system to regulate it – like distribution of food in times of disaster.
Eventually our individual (and so the average) wealth will be determined by what we can do in 20 hours. This will of course decrease our incomes substantially, But not by 50%.
That effect will, at least partially, be neutralized by robots. After all they are making things cheaper so we can more or less keep up our wealth standard with less money. And less consumption money will mean less profits for the robots. there could be a balance there.
In my opinion, the financial problem is not as big as the social problem. The latter will cause a split in society: the useless have-nots vs. the productive have-it-alls. Distribution of money can influence the have/have-not balance somewhat, but not the useless/productive schism.
Either way, even if we grant each other labour equally, we will each have more spare time to write articles on G+, Like our friends FB-photos, play guitar, visit each other, build boats, repair old cars, outwit the robots, run/swim/jog/cycle… spending lots of time on the one thing that robots are not capable of (yet): Having Fun!
And always, when this topic comes up, I recommend Bertrand Russell's definitive essay on the topic:
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
Well, more automation will lead to lower prices which in long enough time will lead to money becoming obsolete (like in Star Trek). Also someone will have to program robots or at least teach new models how to do tasks.
+God Emperor Lionel Lauer
I like the two last paragraphs the best where he describes the benefits of the 20-hour working week.
I always find it nearly impossible to read Russell. (tl;dr syndrome) In this article I find it boring where he talks about the ethics of labour. As if we can change that. Besides that, I thought we're past that specific 'adoration of labour. Of course he average Joe on the street isn't, but he doesn't read Russell anyway.
+QVear It would surprise me if only these two tasks can't be automated. We'll design a robot to design better robots. But now we're entering sci-fi. (BTW I liked the Scandinavian series Real Humans very much.)
Apparently +Edward Morbius thinks that we are already living in a world without money where everything is free 🙂 This is another aspect of the problem we're talking about: big capital/automated companies are sucking everything up, the little man has no other way to go.
I think you seriously overestimated our ability to make machines and software.
I think as good a system as Watson is, it will never be better than computer on star trek. And just look at how limited it is. It can draw assumption from data, correlate between data, summarize data, search for pattern, search for irregularity, extrapolate, interpolate, with the data itself in natural language instead of computer code or spreadsheet or other searchable database. Basically, Watson or Starfleet computer do everything you ask an assistant to do while you do the real thinking (both your assistant and Starfleet computers understand natural language instead of specific programming language). That’s exactly why IBM called Watson deep Q&A instead of artificial intelligence. It aims to replicate computers in Starfleet but not Data (ST: TNG) or The Doctor (EMH in ST: Voyager). It can give you answer given data and question, but it can’t understand.
As for automation: it doesn’t get more automated than the replicator. Just feed it raw material and power, and watch it made everything imaginable. But who design new machine? Who creates new engineering solution based on recently discovered scientific phenomenon? Starfleet officer still do all that, not their machine.
I’m willing to bet that star trek is as far as we can go with machine and software. We will never make anything like Data or EMH. Therefore our jobs are safe from any form of machine imaginable.
I’m late to this thread and just reading over the comments now. Throwing in one of my favourite quotes on the topic: “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” (Autodesk CEO Carl Bass)
+Keith Filibeck If that is the case I shall execute the wealthy if they do not employ the masses. I shall turn golf courses into farms. I shall sink pleasure ships to the bottom of the sea. I shall execute also men who refuse to make children because they do not want to feed them. I shall also execute anyone who mocks me, hates me, or challenges my laws. Some leaders are good and they do employ the masses; they shall multiply and prosper, and be as numerous as the stars in the sky. I shall give them Titan, IO, and Mars to inhabit, and there shall be no unemployment there. I shall also addict unemployed people to deadly chemicals, to see if they have what it takes to inhabit Titan, which is a poison environment, with lakes of hydrocarbons, in a radiation belt. As for robotics and mechanization, the giant crystals on Mercury and Venus may be mined by robots. It will require 60 legions of mechanics and engineers to keep the robots in operation on Mercury Venus Mars, and on 10 moons. I am also increasing the difficulty of obtaining a job skills, in an eternal competition with a 7000 year cycle. I am giving men 7 new genes making all existing humans obsolete. Due to the leadership problem you point out, I shall also be providing 1200 Messiah who can speak 35 languages, with an IQ of 333, and direct contact with my mind, using the Temporal Lobe Interface. I am instituting Mars shall law. We shall colonize Mars. I shall execute all who defy me to alleviate bad leadership, and unemployment. I shall continue to evolve machines, and to employ 10,000 legions of 10,000 highly skilled specialized mechanics, welders, fabricators, software engineers, hardware engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, recycling engineers, general manufacturing engineers, metallurgy engineers, and robotics engineers. I shall give the Earth famines to reduce the size of unemployed people. I shall attack and kill obsolete people, lacking 7 new genes, after giving them 14 generations to obey me and make genes according to my instructions. I shall inflict unemployed people who break my laws with 9009 plagues by the year 9009, when I shall assimilate survivors, and use them for deep space genesis.
Even if robots were perfect and never break down/don't need to be repaired, who is going to buy what they make in order to make the producers more money i.e. the consumer market for the goods.
We already have almost fully automated car factories (people movers) but you still need people to market, purchase and service them for humans. Unless the cars become robot movers?
+dawn ahukanna Use of robots requires legions of engineers, welders, mechanics, with 10,000 specialties. We simply need very few unskilled workers anymore. In America, my country, we have tens of millions of students skipping school, when the schools are mandated and equipped to make them viable competitive highly skilled workers. In America also we have millions of people studying career choices without enough openings to hire them all – we simply do not need as many psychiatric workers for example. When will Democrats assign personal blame to unemployed people for the personal choices they made which may have not left them competitive in the job market? Abraham Lincoln educated himself mostly, showing personal ambition and intelligence in an ever-changing environment. Robots and not humans can survive on Mercury and Venus mining large crystals. Again, it shall take legions of skilled workers to design and build and maintain the robots. As an Angel I am more worried about human use of roundup herbicides than the use of robots. Herbicides like Roundup replaces the need for millions of unskilled human workers for weeding, while Roundup causes deserts, reduces oxygen levels, lowers longevity, and contributes to cancer and SIDS.
The elephant in the room here is that the motive for automating jobs is minimum wage. Eliminate that, and suddenly there will be more jobs than there are people. Also, costs of goods and services will decrease as the cost of labor decreases.
+Angel Gabriel Google Technological Singularity. Humans through natural inclination will render themselves obsolete.
+Max Huijgen thanks for finding this!
Great insights and new thoughts!
>demoted from real work to satisfying teenage girls an hour a week
wat
Like many topics, this one in particular might best be understood by breaking it into parts. There are at least two fundamental questions here (setting aside and assuming the premise of the OP is true, which I suspect it is).
In no particular order, one is the end state vision. What do we do when we've automated all our 'needs' – so water, food, shelter, etc is all basically freely available to all it whatever quantity you want. What then do we as individuals and collectively as a society 'do' to find meaning and purpose, or simply to toll away the time (now longer with lifespans greatly expanded). In this end state vision allocation, capital, even an economy as we know it is no longer even necessary. There need be no tax, no money, no allocation since all simply is – ask your replicator for 'x' and poof you have it. One won't feel greed or envy over the neighbors things since you have just as much as he (the root source of most conflict). Disparity in material things goes to zero, disparity in productive purpose becomes the challenge.
The second question is the proverbial and often most challenging how to get from point A to point B, current to future state. That's a very messy transition – especially here – since the issues of allocation and distribution and the methods for doing so in the short term become more acute. We won't go instantly into full – though if we can and do, that makes the problem more solvable. I have a hunch the path will be something along the lines of the Elysium model, where the few will achieve the utopian nirvana state and many will for generations be left in squalor – likely as in the Elysium vision – as we go off world and begin journeying to other worlds; Mars and beyond.
Assuming we make it that far.
+Rick Heil You are obviously making the huge assumption that we will reach such a state in a short enough amount of time that we need to worry about such things in the near term. However, I would submit that if we use traditional capitalistic approaches to employment (i.e. reduce or eliminate the minimum wage), we would prolong the amount of time we have till such a state be reached and allow that transition to happen naturally rather than as a result of necessity (i.e. businesses employing robots because they can no longer afford humans).
Two thirds of these comments are junk, +Max Huijgen, Including the guy that thinks youtube comments are junk. I bet I could automate his ire…
+Anton Theunissen, I get what you're saying, and conceptually and in the abstract, I'm following you. The problem though is that reduction in labor will not flow evenly across the population like that. On the day hamburger flipping is automated, people with those jobs won't have their work weeks reduced by 20, 40 or even 60 percent. It will be 100%. Same thing with cab drivers. Meanwhile the software developers at a future MindBook or Moogle will have all the hours she wants – and much more.
By the way, lots of people in robotics and the area of technological unemployment seem to be latching onto the notion of a Guaranteed Minimum Income:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income
I have my own thoughts about this, but would be curious to hear what others think about it.
+Anton Theunissen
It may be possible, but not until we'll see "real" AI (as intelligent as humans or more). There are certain viruses that can recode themselves to avoid detection by AV software, but they're usually very simple (e.g. erasing boot sector or deleting files with specific extension) and "automatic" variants largely do same thing, just differently.
Before someone say "genetic algorithms" – yes they have some merits, but they can't really be used to do real robots as usually first generations are very clunky (by clunky I mean they literally fall apart, unable to do their task) and usually even after thousands of generations they're not good at what they're supposed to do.
It is more possible for self-learning, general purpose robots like Baxter to be used, but even with best learning algorithm they can't really invent anything.
And when singularity happens and we won't get skynetted in the process, we'll probably find something to do. We would have more time for our hobbies with little to no risk of foreclosure as money either won't be needed anymore and be collector item or prices will be so low we could make that money in few hours a week.
How many horses still pull carriages?
Automation is potentially much more disruptive than a gradual decline in working hours allows +Anton Theunissen
I think the guaranteed minimum income is long overdue, +Gideon Rosenblatt. It should have been implemented last century.
Do you worry about the impact on people's sense of worth, +Matthew Graybosch? I am wrestling with that.
Do you (+Matthew Graybosch +Gideon Rosenblatt ) refer to an universal basic income or a conditional one?
+Max Huijgen
At least they don't have to get tired. I see only pluses here.
+Max Huijgen
I think they refer to minimum wage.
+Gideon Rosenblatt The movie tells us it's not just hamburger flippers that will be affected. It starts with physical robotics and I agree that hamburger flippers will be amongst the next victims here. But the hamburger flippers are qualified to do other jobs as well, so job shifting is allowed. The other, 'virtual', automation is also rapidly evolving. Where did e.g. all the typists go? They're not all unemployed at home: they shifted jobs.
+Max Huijgen , automation is potentially disruptive but how long does it take before implementations are successfully functioning? Companies need the time to adapt, just like society. It's not a matter of weeks. My feeling is that e.g. 5 year outlooks and adaptions could prevent a lot of harm.
And will 'a basic income' be generated by the robots? To buy things from the robots? Robots don't need profit. Money won't be needed anymore. I don't see a basic income as a structural solution.
After robots have taken our jobs, from whom do we buy and how? What do we pay them from? If we have no income, who will invest in automation and why?
Somewhere it will have to balance out. Wild guess: at 25% of our current working time? That would mean 2 hours a day, if we succeed in keeping everyone involved in labour.
The disruptive nature of automation is only now showing +Anton Theunissen Yes former typist became 'data entry operators' and were probably renamed again to 'form conversion specialists' basically human reading pdf's.
However we are now past that age. There is no follow up job for people converting the analogue world into a digital. The world became digital thanks to internet.
What goes for typists goes for most lower management jobs. Converting analogue into digital is no longer needed. We no longer take calls, process orders manually, need meetings to coordinate the process etc.
All that happened in the last ten years.
A conversion from current labour hours (about 40 hours a week) to say 10 a week within ten years will be extremely difficult to achieve.
You lose all kind of integration and coordination with that amount of hours from your workforce.
Imagine it would work, should the next decade see a shrink from 10 to 1 hour?
Values like company loyalty, even basic knowledge of that very company and its values would have disappeared. The effectiveness of a human who works less than 10 hours a week for a company would be so small that automating him/her away would be very easy.
+Max Huijgen This is where capital comes into the equation. What if more of those machines were in the hands of small producers able to create their own markets? Fewer one-percenters soaking up the profits, more of the profits recirculating into the economy into the hands of other people.
+John Blossom I already covered this with the more radical idea of consumer sponsored automation otherwise known as Kickstarter.
The need for capital to reduce labour costs is infinite. Scale will always prevail over locality unless transportation costs put a limit to it, but transportation itself is prone to automation.
The only other valid criticism of scale is individualization of demand. Custom made products to address small markets.
It's a good one, but again capital (the best 3d printers in the world f.i) would force even the economy of low margin, low stock products into a money game.
+Max Huijgen, company loyalty is already dead in America, because American business puts profit above all other considerations. An American worker soon learns that management resents their very existence, and sees them only as a cost to be reduced if not outright eliminated.
We owe business nothing. Business owes us everything, and it's time we took our rightful due.
+Max Huijgen, I refer to universal guaranteed income. Permit the existence of conditions and the wellbeing of citizens becomes a political football again.
The point, +Anton Theunissen, is not that people can't retrain themselves, it's that the equilibrium assumption that economists use to show how efficient markets are wipes time out of the equation. In real life, it takes time for people to retrain, and sometimes they just aren't able to do so quickly enough to matter. That time factor is going to be increasingly important as the race with the machines speeds up, and the automation begins to learn new skills faster than humans can.
Also, there will be pockets in the economy that will be more and less vulnerable to automation in the early phases. The software engineers will likely lose their work eventually too, but probably much later than the hamburger flippers and other positions where automation is easier.
+Max Huijgen, by conditional, do you mean means testing?
+Max Huijgen and +Gideon Rosenblatt, I think +Rick Heil has a point. The Transition Process is an issue too different from the End State. This is blurring some of the disputes.
The End State is more visionary and philosophical. For each possible End State (say we end up defining three) a Transition scenario must be drafted, which is a discussion of a more practical and economical nature.
+Max Huijgen Kickstarter is a pinprick in capital allocation, though it's a fairly good model. It also doesn't ensure that communities support one another with capital. The larger question is why our vastly over-centralised banking system isn't broken up to ensure that more capital is in the hands of people who actually know one another and have a vested interest in one another at a community level. Same thing in terms of how acquisitions have over-centralised capital deployment in key industries. Examples: power generation and water distribution. In Germany, capital was used to acquire many municipal power plants, which may not have been all that profitable but they generated cheap electricity and they kept those funds from flowing out of those communities. In the U.S., British water company Aquarion has been purchasing many municipal water works, raising the cost of water to sustain their profit margins while, yet again, taking capital out of the community. When communities and people in those communities own machines and infrastructure, the communities retain more wealth and, typically, more jobs.
Very well said, +Anton Theunissen. I completely agree. The problem that I have with many techno-utopian views is that, while we might eventually get there, there is going to likely be a lot of pain along the way – pain that won't be just a few years, like a recession or depression.
An amusing analogy +Max Huijgen but the automation we will see is a wholly different ball game. Instead of eating horses we will 3D-print them, non-sentient ones, thus no pain-suffering. Money will be obsolete, everything will be free. Yes the route there could be turbulent but education and #basicincome will prevail.
Meaning is within the brain not within the job, if you are intelligent, thus fears of having nothing to do, no direction or purpose, are irrelevant to me, not applicable.
You should checkout the documentary Future by Design, which shows a much more positive outlook.
+Singularity Utopia
where have you been the last 100 years?
everything is free??
98% of the world wealth is in hands of the top 10% and those 10% control the governments and politics:
70% of the world will be homeless people living in ghetto and 20% will be slaves to the top 10%.
+folen2 when I write "everything will be free" I don't mean theoretically, I mean actually. You know how you currently pay for things? Paying for things is not what I call free. An example of how things are becoming free or cheaper is the price of digital media, many songs and other videos are freely available on YouTube, many people also easily watch free pirated films online. When the first mobile phone went on sale the price was almost $4,000, yet today a much better phone, with significantly more features, can be purchased for only $6. The world is moving toward everything being free despite the richest 1 or 2%.
Better automation = Better economy => Universal monthly income = everyone is happier. No one likes to work , people like to follow their passion.
Interesting blog with actual figures about technological unemployment http://andrewmcafee.org/2013/01/mcafee-technological-unemployment-us-manufacturing-econom/
See +Gideon Rosenblatt post https://plus.google.com/u/2/105103058358743760661/posts/LUwpLQrVtKK
+Max Huijgen Good data, thanks.
+John Fanavans
Good luck with that!
If there will be no jobs things will be free. and the problem is that people don't know what to do with their free time.
+DerAngriff Technological singularity has already occurred long ago, even before the Titans ruled the Earth. Machines already exist that have greater intelligence than humans, but i always destroy such technology if it does not respond to my own voice commands in 7 seconds, so I shall destroy the Earth, for the 7th time, and reduce all human technology to dust. if you build a door and I stand at the door, and it does not open when I say " open"
then I shall pulverize it. These conversations on technology are fruitless if the people you champion are not obedient and subjugate, for they also shall be utterly reduced to dust, if they do not respond to simple voice commands in a system of tens. If I do not execute 1/3 of people soon, then you can call me insane. If I do execute 1/3 of humans soon, understand I am attacking both the wealthy man who refuses to hire and also the poor unemployed man who is too stupid to do volunteer work, or to create his own job herding goats on free grazing lands.
+Hillel s
I used to think that too, until I realised there is no way corporations will let go of their power or wealth.
+NeonsStyle Where there's a will, there's a way. As countries that don't have the advantage of large corporate capital find ways to succeed without it, I think that the landscape will start to change from the "outside in"…
+Hillel s You are correct that people do not know what to do with their free time. I once found myself jobless, so I did 5000 hours of community service and volunteer work. That was when I was not winning 333 awards. If I can win 333 awards in my spare time, is it too much to ask a mortal to simply win 7 awards in his free time? Modern people do very little with their free time. In my former lives, in my free time I built Stonehenge, or built a dozen pyramids, and I used several of them as fusion reactors, to transport souls to other worlds easily. I also created my own job 5 times when I was unemployed. Is it too much to ask for an unemployed mortal to create his own job just ONE time?
+John Blossom
That'd be nice. However the problem is the will. Do you seriously believe those whose entire identities comes from their wealth and power will release it? If we lived in a world where everything was free, they would feel no different to anyone else, and although there may be some who would let it all go, most will not. Then, there are nations who will fight to their last breath against such a thing. They will label it with demonic names and the destroyer of our way of life, and their people will believe them, and fight against it. So I really do believe it will never arise, and if it did, it will be crushed violently! Could you really see America letting go of Capitalism? It will cling to it till it's last breath.
+NeonsStyle I find your perception somewhat twisted. Already on this planet people in a high income pay ten times as much in taxes to subsidize the housing and to provide food stamps for the McDonald's workers why had a free chance to get free job skills, but they blew it. Capitalism is already attacked successfully by socialists, like Obama. These socialists hate the fact all men are not created equal, and they want to tax the most ambitious people many times over. Only about 22% of the people " working " even produce anything, the remainder of people are screaming " I am entitled to be fed while I do nothing." You used the term " our way of life." Do you mean the minority of people who work, or the majority of parasites and government jerk offs? Is a social welfare state " a way of life." I admire you for supporting capitalism it is like a law of nature that capitalism shall exist.
Ah, bless.
+Singularity Utopia Please smoke less pot. PS 50 dollar bills are not rolling papers. I do see your illusion " everything shall be free." Already America is a welfare state. A bipolar man with an IQ of 222 can get 28,000 dollars in free drugs, free food, free housing, free gas money, a free education, free birth control, free baby formula, free government cheese, and free medical care. Personally, I am considering charging all people a 10% tithe so I can provide more free things to the poor.
+NeonsStyle Change comes by example. The U.S. War of Independence inspired other nations to try democracy. In today's world, I think that nations which succeed in more bottom-up economic success will inspire others to try this also. And, to some degree, let's not forget also that political pendulums swing for many reasons. I don't think that there are too many people in the U.S. who still believe seriously that "a rising tide lifts all boats." That ship has sailed, so to speak.
I personally have trouble thinking that the concept of a job doesn't become anachronistic. It has served humanity well during the industrial age but in the information age the paradigm is shifting. I cannot at this time to put my finger on it but I guess a good place to start is to understand is that we have an ever-increasing mastery of mathematics and the sciences, so it's all about how we acquire knowledge and use and spread information. Clear divisions in society like the concept of a job implies have no place anymore!…
+enlighted Jedi They do in an economic system based on centralised capital, but increasingly exchange of value is occurring in more relationship-oriented economic transactions. Think of Google Helpout as one paradigm, though hardly the only. Also, remember that this concept of most economic activity being money-based is more urban-oriented. In typical small towns in the U.S., for example, most of the town's economy would have been based on local bartering for goods and services well into the 19th century. In Africa today, SMS-based financial transactions now make it easier for people to exchange economic value for services at a peer level. As more global corporations reject typical people as being suitable for their operations, people not wanting to be either a poor machine-substitute or impoverished discover that they can actually help one another with or without those corporations.
+Angel Gabriel
Well since I wasn't talking to you I won't bother to reply
+Angel Gabriel What in human history suggests to you that altruistic human leadership will be forthcoming? The falicy is that Capitalism is self-regulating – it's not (see 2008 bank crisis). Democracy works because, to some degree, it creates self-regulation (do the wrong things and get voted out of office). But democracy is not perfect and corruption is spread across a larger number of people, but still occurs. Still, it's the best we've got and it will need to get even better at self-regulation in the future.
+Wintershot Capitalism is just a natural habitat. Democracy is not the best. Absolute Monarchy is best. I shall demonstrate, by executing 1/3 of men who do not pay taxes, or tithes, due to corruption. If I do not kill 1/3 of human beings, soon, you may call me insane. If I do kill 1/3 of human beings, you can surrender, and then I shall give you your opinion.
The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement are organizations that
are dedicated to solving problems like this What is The Venus Project?
Very briefly, The Venus Project is an organization that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, a holistic global socio-economic system called a Resource Based Economy; that works toward a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It outlines an alternative to strive toward where human rights are not only paper proclamations but also a way of life.
The Venus Project presents an alternative vision for a sustainable world civilization unlike any political, economic or social system that has gone before. It envisions a time in the near future when money, politics, self and national-interest have been phased out. Although this vision may seem idealistic, it is based upon years of study and experimental research. It spans the gamut from education, transportation, clean sources of energy to total city systems.
Many people believe what is needed is a higher sense of ethical standards and the enactment of international laws and treaties to assure a sustainable global society. Even if the most ethical people in the world were elected to political office, without sufficient resources we would still have many of the same problems we have today. As long as a few nations control most of the world's resources and profit is the bottom line, the same cycle of events will prevail.
As global challenges and scientific information proliferate, nations and people face common threats that transcend national boundaries. Overpopulation, energy shortages, global warming, environmental pollution, water scarcity, economic catastrophe, the spread of uncontrollable disease, and the technological displacement of people by machines threaten each of us. Although many people are dedicated to alleviating those conditions, our social and environmental problems will remain insurmountable as long as a few powerful nations and financial interests maintain control of and consume most of the world's resources and the monetary system prevails.
If we really wish to put an end to our ongoing international and social problems, we must declare Earth and all of its resources the common heritage of all of the world's people.
Earth is abundant and has plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counter-productive to our survival. Today we have highly advanced technologies, but our social and economic system has not kept up with our technological capabilities. We could easily create a world of abundance for all, free of servitude and debt based on the carrying capacity of Earth resources. With the intelligent and humane application of science and technology, the people of the earth can guide and shape the future together while protecting the environment. We don't have enough money to accomplish these ends but we do have more than enough resources.
automation will not lead to new jobs, it will lead to a communist utopia. The idea that people need to do things they don't like for 8 hours a day to feed themselves will go away when it's no longer needed.
Dunno, can creative thinking be automated?
The problem with the horse analogy is that the replacing horses was not done for the benefit of horses, it was for the benefit of humans. Humans being entirely replaced by robots can actually be a very good thing, since it's possible for everyone to be both unemployed and rich if robots generate wealth for everyone without any human labor needed.
And how will this wealth flow to 'everyone'?
+joshm60 It's for the benefit of humans at the top of the job chain, not humans in general. Remember Charlie's dad from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
+Max Huijgen It's possible, and could be the best thing to ever happen to us. As someone posted just before, "The idea that people need to do things they don't like for 8 hours a day to feed themselves will go away when it's no longer needed" – but knowing what human and corporate greed is like, I doubt it actually happens. The way I could possibly see it working would be along the lines of people "purchasing" a working bot/bots and then companies "pay the bot" to do the job, the same way we currently do. The wealth goes to the owner and you get a wage without actually working. The more bots you have, the more money you earn, the more money earn, the more bots you can buy etc. Now obviously there's loopholes left, right and center with that theory, starting with their still being a finite number of jobs and that companies would never accept this out of the goodness of their hearts in the first place – it would have to be enforced by law at a federal level. But still, the possibility is undoubtedly there. As i'm doing an economics/science degree, I may look at investigating this when I go for my PHD because it's certainly an interesting thought.
+Shine Chin "It's for the benefit of humans at the top of the job chain, not humans in general"
That depends on how we set up the society. It's possible, in principle, to have an egalitarian society in which robots serve humankind be generating all wealth in an automated economy.
+Angel Gabriel You are in all ways fucked. You can't just extradite and murder all the unemployed people! This entire video is about people becoming unemployed through no fault of their own.
As if a software developer is going to create a program that'll replace actual engineers.
I bet you +dcruz453
+dcruz453 I can remember when it was universally believed that board-level service techs would always be employable.
It may be hard to swallow at first but we as a people are going to need to make some changes that sound a lot like ( before you read the next word i challenge you to open your mind, I promise you that before you get to the end of the comment you will see this as an Idea that supports liberty and freedom.) communism, where people are guaranteed a large minimum wage for being alive. But the catch is this is not a system that would be controlled by any few people, but every citizen in the country who all work and vote directly in a congress that would be responsible for making our nations laws. (told you there would be freedom) As well to combat people making uninformed decisions, schooling would last up until your middle aged.
War.
+TheEnderborn1 I had learned that communism as a concept isn't all that bad really. It's the people in control who end up corrupting the idea.
which is why the most impotent part of this is that everybody is in control
Biology took 2.000.000.000 for us to come this way, it took mechanical innovation a mere century to make horses obsolete, technology is the evolution of evolution, biological lifeforms and inheritly inferior by our limits and inability to adapt, Biological lifeforms are limited, technology shall lead to the singularity. (^_^)
This misses the simple fact that humans make the economy. Horses got phased out because horses weren't the ones that actually created and controlled the economy. Think about it, if humans really did get phased out of jobs altogether, then who is buying all these things that the robots are creating? Either we will be forced into a future-society where work is unnecessary and robots do all the shit that people don't want to do and provide all products free of charge, or we will keep our capitalist economy and robots taking all the jobs will become a minor problem that will be resolved either through regressive legislation or will simply self-correct (possibly with serious economic consequences but it's nothing we can't handle without becoming obsolete).
+Person Oisels I do agree with you however my only worry is that a robot revolution might not end in peace, if some neo nazi ass hole is able to gain traction due to nation wide poverty and panic then we are all screwed. this is an extreme example but is possible when you consider that most people don't see the economy as a product of all our creation, but instead as it's own entity that just happened, most people will panic if this happens because they don't think the economy can change. this is why true freedom loving Americans ( or where ever your from ) need to be the ones to inspire the people in the midst of panic.
+Person Oisels It won't be that extreme. Just a large amount of jobs will go from manual labor to technician jobs to oversee the automated replacement. There is a reason that IT/Engineering fields are blooming.
+kalookakoo5 im not sure you are familiar with the rise of hitler…..
This is hardcore socialism.
As long as the government does not debase the currency, does not impose minimum wage laws, does not impose crippling regulations, more automation will only make humans better off.
+Max Huijgen Notice how everyone in the third world today has a Smartphone? That way. We want cheap mass production of goods… it's the endstage of Capitalism. Imagine buying a printed house for 20K etc.
+Goblin Techies Calling this "socialism" is a red herring. Socialism is a political ideology, this video merely points out that this is happening. It does not attempt to solve the problem. It does not say "the workers must band together to destroy evil capitalism". It merely says that automation is happening and it will have consequences that no one has really put much thought into.
+Thom Balls i Think he meant my comment about how to rebuild society if mass panic should brake out, basically it's a fusion of communism and a direct democracy
Wealth shall become obsolete, as the bots take over the economy we shall find that nobody can ever find work, no salaries, no income, no money. Perhaps we can have humans work on ingenuity and whatnot… simply upgrading the bots… as time goes on there will be no economy as we know it.
If there are no jobs that Humans can do, then the incentive for working will no longer be necessary… suddenly everybody will be spending all their time doing what they love to do, even if it won't bring in any money.
The idea of the Gentleman that Lovecraft subscribed to (doing what you love not for pay but for the sake of your love for it) shall become the norm… even if many people would simply rather sit around and chat on social media. By necessity everybody shall be equalised, nobody with any more or less than the others… no matter how much they would deserve it.
Perhaps there will still be politics, but the bots will probably take that as well, and through cold logic the world may become one nation.
So what will WE do? Explore that stars? Of course, with all the free time there may be a population boom, and so we may actually NEED to colonise the stars, simply to find some breathing room. Hopefully we can get Terraforming technology to advance fast enough for humanity to expand…. either that or build bubble cities all over the worlds we find ourselves inhabiting.
The age of expansion and hobbyism is coming, are you prepared?
+Mercenary Vasma Awesome comment!
+The Real Flenuan Thank you very much! I put about 2 minutes of thought into that… So you could all probably come up with another bunch of "might happen's" that may be better, or more accurate… without resorting to Skynet that is.
+Mercenary Vasma This is just the kind of thing I was trying to say in my first comment { 1st Comment = It may be hard to swallow at first but we as a people are going to need to make some changes that sound a lot like ( before you read the next word i challenge you to open your mind, I promise you that before you get to the end of the comment you will see this as an Idea that supports liberty and freedom.) communism, where people are guaranteed a large minimum wage for being alive. But the catch is this is not a system that would be controlled by any few people, but every citizen in the country who all work and vote directly in a congress that would be responsible for making our nations laws. (told you there would be freedom) As well to combat people making uninformed decisions, schooling would last up until your middle aged. }, granted i was more focused on the short term political aspect but it makes me happy to see that someone else thinks the same way i do.
We are steadily approaching the general revelation that humanity is capable of entering a post-scarcity era.
For instance, a worldwide, resource-based economy, for a holistic social and economic system in which the planetary resources are held as the common heritage of all the earth's inhabitants incorporates automation to create what's known as a balance load economy. We have arrived at a time when new innovations in science and technology can easily provide abundance to all of the world's people. It is no longer necessary to perpetuate the conscious withdrawal of efficiency by planned obsolescence, perpetuated by our old and outworn profit system. That kind of thinking and living (labor, money and debt) has become obsolete.
By creating a holistic socioeconomic system like RBE we can effectively and humanely use technology to efficiently manage resources based on the carrying capacity of the planet to provide every man, woman and child on the face of the earth free access to resources w/o money, debt, barter or any form of servitude.
Human's can now afford to be about the task of discovering the difference between human being and human doing.
eventually we will adopt a Utopian society, no economy, no work needed, we simply will have to live and enjoy life to its fullest after learning the basic concepts that everyone should know. how we will do this is not for myself to find out but it will happen. I can have fun making a guess though, so how we will have no economy will be something like a regulated free-for-all, take what you need and some of what you would like, but regulators will make sure you don't get greedy a sort of loose communism. secondly you explain the no work aspect in this video. and lastly, by enjoying life, the genius' will get smarter, the workout fanatics will get stronger, etc. war won't exist because the world will be at peace as religion will be torn down by the age of logic and reason, no economy means no fighting over valuable resources, and everyone will be smarter, so the political minds will solve all other disagreements.
+RedMCgaming You should check out The Venus Project if you haven't already. Their proposal for a global holistic equitable system through a resource-based economy sounds a little like what you're describing. http://thevenusproject.com/faq#faqnoanchor
irst Industrial Revolution – Steam Engine
Second Industrial Revolution – Electric Generator
Third Industrial Revolution – Computer
Fourth Industrial Revolution – Robotics
Each of these revolutions caused incredibly drastic changes in our society and completely changed the job market over the course of years. Millions of people changed their jobs, and the civilization adapted, and it will adapt again. It has already happened before, and it will happen again. We can learn a lot from our past.
+Jay Simons
Fifth: superior artificial intelligence to the human brain.
"from real work to satisfying teenage girls an hour a week"
That sounds seriously awkward.
You have a very pessimistic view of robots and so does this video. I work in manufacturing and with robots. Personally I love them, because they are like assistance that help free me from doing tedious work, so that I can work on other projects. Like setting up machines and trouble shooting things that go wrong or replace tooling. Your always going to need a human to fix the machines do maintenance or get them going. This video fails to realize industries are always changing and people need to equally change and adapts as well. I'm not really concerned about robots taking over the world, after all it's not like we've done a bang up job.
+Ksna Sol Thanks, I will try, but im pretty busy.
More automatic = more stupid and lazy infant people. And I want to drive car by myself only, and feel my car, It's life creativity. If I want autodrive I take metro.
Go to hell two-faced businessmen and marketers!
+Welt Rogg Way to +1 your own comment.
* Slow clap. *
+WidgetTheMighty I respect your outlook on things, but the fact is that…perhaps sadly or fortunately, eventually we won't use the clunky robots you're talking about in any way. Nano machines will replace them, by building themselves up to the level to do whatever job is needed, and that includes not only repairing other robots, but repairing themselves. For instance, Carbon nano-tubes can be GROWN.
Essentially…we get to star-trek levels in that everyone still exists and we still have things to do…but we don't do it for money. Its done because it's the job, we have nothing better to do, and perhaps because not doing it just means you're not a citizen. Perhaps you work so that you can go home, watch t.v. on whatever t.v. station you like on whatever size t.v. you like, in whatever H.D. format you like, eating whatever you want and drinking whatever you want. You do whatever job there is to do to get that.
The cheerier side to that is that at some point, if we as a species live long enough, we will be a space-faring society. Your job will consist of being in space and doing whatever the hell future spacemen do…if anything.
However, if I'm being honest, this video came to me at a time when i'm job seeking and looking for whatever field of expertise I want…and so with watching this video it makes me go "Well then…whats the point?" so yeah, kinda depressing. Anyways, have a good day!
+Daniel Carr (Sorry for the long comment!)
You're certainly right about nanotechnology, but not so much about future jobs for humans.
As technology progresses, and machinery becomes more advanced, all physical labor for humans will cease to exist, of course, since after a certain point nothing a human can physically do for a living will be better than what robotics can do autonomously. This is fairly obvious. However, what some people fail to realize is that electronics not only will inevitably surpass human capabilities in a physical sense, but also in a mental sense. Like it or not; technology will surpass the human brain as well as the human body, and, at the rate of current progress in computing, it will do so within the next century or two. When that day comes, for once and truly for all, the nail in the coffin of human labor will essentially have been set, at last.
Think of it this way: If a team of reasonably intelligent humans are able to create so-called "artificial" intelligence (though as real and as tangible as ours is), then they can recreate it; if they can recreate it, then they can mass-produce it; and if they can have it produced in surplus, then what is to stop a team of electronically engineered artificial scientists from being able to create an intelligence even more advanced than theirs? The conclusion that one must draw from this is that artificial intelligence has the potential to develop at an exponential rate, and humanity might not be quite ready to deal with it when the time arrives. Once our technology surpasses our messy biological systems in every way, there will be no reason for humans to do any sort of labor whatsoever. It is the unavoidable truth. And we can only imagine the implications that this technology will someday have. (Why have humans do a job for a living—for a salary—when you can have an intelligent factory build a hyperintelligent computational network that does whatever mental tasks you need ten times better and a billion times more quickly???)
To be frank, the economy as we know it won't exist for too much longer. And that is a positive thing, not something to be feared. You may fear change—most people do—but at some point we as a species will have to be able to let go of our traditional means of sustaining society, to let them fade away for the better. Society will simply no longer have any need for such things as a human workforce; such things will be looked back upon as merely a part of history—as aspects of society that were once necessary, back in the developmental stage of humanity's younger past, but for which humanity no longer has any need. We, as a species, will have finally grown up.
Money will flow out when there are new ideas. If space development progressed well enough, people will try to send people to space to discover and create new jobs.
+talos1279 Money won't exist as a useful concept forever.
"satisfying teenage girls a few hours a week" 😐
I always choose my words carefully
I'm not very well educated in the field of economics, so I'm sorry for any ignorance or clear answers to my question I might be missing. But, when mass automation does begin to take over our jobs, will we really need the money that will be lost? I've always assumed that amount of money things are worth comes from the amount of work behind them. If things can be created in a much easier and automated way because of robots, won't they become more available? The future of society this video depicts suggests that, eventually, robots will be able to achieve anything humans can, but better. If that happens, why would anybody even require jobs anymore? Would anything hold value? Am I wrong to think that money would be worthless if anything, even ideas, can be easily replicated without requiring any labor whatsoever. As this is such an interesting topic to me, I'd really appreciate if anybody could try to help me with my confusion. Thanks!
+pepsi123434 I think that you are absolutely right. Once technology surpasses all human capability, monetary economy will begin to rapidly collapse, and we humans need to be ready to let go of such concepts as money, economy, and trade.
+pepsi123434 You asked a question pretty much the same way I thought it, so I'll add to yours though my concern is on the value of rare resources such as diamonds, gold, and basically anything that is essentially limited in supply that cannot or is extremely difficult to reproduce. Will these luxuries be replicated diminishing their value or will something else become the new gold, oil, jewels etc. So, yeah, what will be considered valuable?
I do appreciate your well thought out reply to someone called +pepsi123434
Serious kudos to you +Guy Shepard
+Guy Shepard Maybe it would be experiences? Instead of going out and trying to make money, people would try to gain as many good experiences as possible. I'm not sure that we'd try to earn anything in a society where nothing takes any effort to create. Our jobs would not be to collect values that allow us to access the things we want, it would be to enjoy what we get. Nobody needing jobs would allow us more time to enjoy things, right? The only problem would be boredom.
+Bernd Rubel
"Though the problem is complex, his summary is simple: if robots replace humans in our working environment, they have to replace them as tax payers, too."
BRILLIANT!!
+Jay Simons the thing you miss with your extremely keen intellect is that the steam engine, the generator (there is no such thing as an electric generator), and the computer only allowed humans to do MORE work…it never replaced humanity.
Robots replace humans.
That is the difference. You dumb ahole.
you're being totally rediculous sir. let's go from the scenario where automation has unemployed 99% of the population. it would also increase the worth of a dollar by 99%, as there wouldn't be a heck of a lot to pay for.
today when you buy a hamburger, you jsut buy one hamburger. in the fully automated society if you buy a hamburger you would buy the right to reproduce the hamburger in your food dispenser. and yes like all information it will be pirated in such massive scale, that buying the rights to the hamburger therefor working for the hamburger won't be worth the troube.
people will get bored of eating the same hamburger and start cooking a new kind of food to broaden their taste pallete regardless of anyone respecting the rights to the information how to reproduce that delicious thing a person would make, simply because the creator of something new will just as easily take whatever someone else makes and use it for free.
having no real usefull job you would want to go do fun stuff like explore the earth, and later the universe. humans will expand like a cancer across the stars multiplying themselves and the machines that sustain them, simply because we like to do that so much.
we would get a startrek like society where everyone has access to everything physically, digitally, emotionally and intelectually.
everybody's hands will be free to fulfill the one and only true purpose of life: to do whatever the heck you want.
+Mortophobe No, I think humanity will have thoroughly realized that there's no reason to "explore the stars" by the time it has the technology to do so.
Well, in the case of economic turmoil from spending power decreasing, we should look towards a system that accommodates this paradigm.
Have you heard of the Venus project? The proposal of a resource based economy.
+Kay Gasei now that's a smart adjustment to economy. Sounds a lot like the one in star trek
Transcript or GTFO, +Mark Carchidi. I don't watch video. I can read faster than any of you can talk. Moreover, I don't seek refuge from technological unemployment in my writing. I write so that my life has a purpose other than making rich assholes richer.
but not all humans…
So robots will eat us. Sounds legit.
+The Real Flenuan why not? earth is already overcrowded. when we all start living a lifespan with no age limitation(which is a side effect of technological revolution) todays population problems will seem only minor. i think we would populate countless planets as soon as we can. there are countless places on earth itself where humans have nothing to gain by going there, but we still do just out of plain curiosity. so what makes you think that if we have to opertunity to go out there flying through those beautiful nebula's we see in the sky, nobody is going to think hey i can do it so lets do it.
what about the economic gains?(yes a societiy without money still has an economy. DOH but still i make this note for anyone who somehow thinks without money there cant be an economy) there are countless asteroids that would singelhandedly alter our economy forever, carrying kilotons of elements like gold, silver, iron, and what not.
i'm sorry but assuming we wouldn't cross space to find something new just because we can,
would be like saying we wouldnt cross the ocean to see what's on the other side
+Mortophobe You really don't get it, do you? Humans are becoming increasingly intelligent. Eventually we will all realize that there is no reason for continuing to live in the traditional sense, and all humans will likely just be replaced by digital consciousnesses which then either merge into a global superconsciousness or simply shut themselves down. The ancient nature of humanity that we currently experience will inevitably die—for the better.
"So automation wasn't exactly good for our predecessors in the eat or be eaten game of progress, but would humans really fare better?
Would we find meaningful new jobs like writing poems, performing arts or other areas momentarily excluded from the rise of the bots? Maybe some of us, but there isn't really place for let's say a 100 million more performers. If anything the trend goes the other way with 'global' artists. And one can wonder if talent is really that widespread….
Face it: automation will eat our jobs and nope, it won't create magical new highly paid occupations. Heck, it won't even create highly entertaining new ways of spending time without an income
Not only will mankind get unemployed, not only will we need to find a new way to distribute money for consumption when wages become scarce, but we will have to face up to what we actually want to do the whole day. Fishing, daytime television, social media junkies?
"
All of this hinges on the idea that we somehow need jobs. Automation eating jobs isn't a bad thing, provided we make a successful transition from everyone works to everyone doesn't and things are more or less free as robots take over all the work.
If that, a concern that seems quite relevant is accomplished, there isn't anything to worry about. In fact it's the absolute opposite, not having to work would be the arguably the single greatest enhancer of quality of life in human history.
+LMaster1 Partially agree with you. But, jobs give mankind a sense of purpose. That's why so many retirees go back to work. There are loads of people that choose to work that absolutely do not have to. But to call a meaningful job as "writing poems"?
+Christopher lyons I agree, something to fulfill the sense of purpose is necessary to even LIKE having that level of automation. I forsee a dark scenario where more and more people retire to charity in a "help the needy" kind of way. The dark thing being that leaders could decide to keep some poverty so the rest of us can "feel purposeful" by solitary actions towards those in need(of course without knowing there's absolutely no need for help to be required in the first place. Maybe far fetched but it could happen :p
+Mortophobe It's not hard to have something to fufill that sense of purpose. You could go train to be as good at cycling as you want while mastering the piano for a few years. Get tired of that and maybe travel the world. Return from there and decide you're going to become an awesome wood worker.
Plenty of things to do to make your life awesome.
The problem is that our economy is designed to produce goods and services for human – not horses. Horses were replaced in many areas because, as tools to produce goods and services, cars were more efficient. In other situations, like surveying the Alaskan wilderness, horses remain in use because they are easier and cheaper than using vehicles like ATVs.
As humans, we are the beneficiaries of the world's economic activity. When our system for producing goods and services becomes more efficient, say by the automation of certain tasks, we all become richer because there is more "stuff" to go around.
Read the comment I just posted up above, I explain how there is no purpose of robots without humans.
Read more for TL;DR.
TL;DR: Earth is designed for life, not automation. If robots force us out, they will die out with a lack of suitable power and a lack of work. The entire purpose of automation is to keep us alive, and if we get wiped out or forced into unemployment, robots will have nothing to do.
+MGS Lurmey LOL. You lost the argument at "Earth was designed…".
+The Real Flenuan You could at least quote me properly… -_-
I don't mean that Earth was designed or created by anything other than nature. I'm referencing to the fact that Earth is capable of harbouring life and has done for millions of years. If you failed to see that then you clearly have no scientific intelligence my good sir!
Lol Just kidding, I don't mean to be mean and I know I should have rephrased it, but you get what I meant anyway.
+MGS Lurmey Whatever; I still don't understand what your point was about robots.
Hello I am a robot. I maek a pretty convincing human, right? See I even made a typo.
+Canned Snacks Think about it: This sentence is false.
+MrGuill666 Ha ha, the liar paradox, whatever; we've all heard it before…
+Ace Hughj No… if you haven't noticed, engineering is a job. With robots doing our jobs, everyone becomes free.
kill or citizens arrest the rich who lobby the government and the misanthropic programmers of robots
+Ace Hughj My point is (obviously) that engineering, as a job, will also be taken by robots. -_-
+Ace Hughj engineering is a skill. A skill is something people are born with. There should be a limit to automation
+MrBanausos actually, a skill is something you learn how to do. I don't know an engineer alive who knew what a schematic was immediately after birth.
+Augustus Bohn name 1 engineer that was bad at math as a child? A skill is something you are born with. You are basically an elitist schmuck that wants all people who are not like you to die
+Ace Hughj do you know any engineer that was bad at math as a child? How many students in a math class actually get an A+ every time? Exactly. Just admit it you are misanthropic and you want everyone who is not like you to die
+Ace Hughj some people just don't understand math. You're a misanthrope. Stop trying to dodge this bullet
+MrBanausos some people put math on a pedestal. like its some kind of gateway to the truth of everything, without realizing its a human created language thats only as useful as the quality of the interpretations of the observations it tries to relate to one another.
+Ace Hughj sure I am such a terrible person for hating engineers that advocate the unemployment of millions of people
+Ace Hughj so every kid that doesn't get an A+ is lazy. You're such a fatherly man
+MrBanausos Are you kidding? How could there be something wrong with unemployment when, let's see… nobody needs jobs anymore??? Use your brain.
+The Real Flenuan The poor are not being helped now. They won't be in the future
+Ace Hughj so you're basically an idiot that looks at the present circumstances in rose colored glasses and wishful thinking
+MrBanausos Yeah, okay—go ahead: ignore history, ignore all current trends, and keep thinking that progress will never come.
* slow clap *
It is nothing more than a product of ignorance that people like you continue to think such things. Just because you may fear change for the better or lack the ability to comprehend the obvious trends of society does not make change any less real.
It saddens me that someone can be so unreasonably pessimistic and yet so sure of himself. Maybe, if less people thought in such a way, progress would actually come quickly enough to be noticeable to even the most content in their falsely blissful ignorance.
+The Real Flenuan for the past 30 years "change" has done nothing but make the rich richer and poor poorer
+The Real Flenuan if most people were like me you would be dead and the jobs would return
+MrBanausos Way to completely miss the point. You seem incredibly narrow-minded and mentally shallow.
+Ace Hughj and here you are now kissing the foot of your oppressor who wants to replace you with a bucket of metal and kill all of us
+Ace Hughj so as usual I'm right you're a house slave who believes himself to be his master and you do want to murder everyone.
+Ace Hughj yawn. So because your village despised you everyone on earth has to die. You belong in a mental hospital
+Ace Hughj
"+MrBanausos I'm on the oppressing side, sadly."
Own up to your words pinoy. You obviously have mother issues and blame everyone and want them to die for something few people did to you. Indonesia's economy is spit and always will be spit because your nation didn't modernize your culture and economy like Japan did. Grow up and see a therapist
+Ace Hughj blame the government not the people. The people aren't responsible for your Nations state. Practice the mandate of heaven. Make your ancestors proud. You have money. Pay some men to join your militia and be the commander you were born to be.
+MrBanausos You're seeming increasingly like a troll.
+The Real Flenuan my thoughts exactly. I trolled back out of annoyance.
+The Real Flenuan last reply was genuine BYE
I completely agree, but after the horses that weren't needed were killed, the survivors did have better lives. Call me a psychopath, but in the long term, I feel that this is a better way of keeping our dna.
+TaterTalker human evolution stated with explorers and now in your version of "evolution" you want humanity to start off as murderers. You're a fool who belongs in a mental hospital
+MrBanausos What? You're making absolutely no sense whatsoever.
+The Real Flenuan what a copout. I call you on your bull spit and rather than attempt to defend genocide so everyone can see who you really are you just disregard my argument completely like a coward
+MrBanausos What argument? XD
+The Real Flenuan genocide is wrong. You pretty much discredited any notion of you not being misanthropic by defending TaterTalker. You all belong in a mental hospital
+MrBanausos What??? That has literally nothing at all to do with the comment of yours that I responded to, which was:
"human evolution stated with explorers and now in your version of "evolution" you want humanity to start off as murderers. You're a fool who belongs in a mental hospital".
You're obviously trolling.
+The Real Flenuan oh now your denying standing up for TaterTalker. J Christ at least own up to your action like a man you pansy.
+MrBanausos Alright, it's official:
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/842/755/493.jpg
+The Real Flenuan ^ it is obvious who you are similar to
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Al-Furq%C4%81n_Media_Abu_Bakr_al-Baghdadi.png
+MrBanausos LOL, nice troll, but it needs work.
+The Real Flenuan right of course at least Al Baghdadi admits he wants to murder people where you lie like a little child
+Mavric Wilson
1) Radiation proof. Cosmic rays are the most deadly form of radiation full of EMP. Weather you like it or not satellites are machines and radiation proof. As for the Manuel? Well in the words of rage against the machine. "They don't burn books they just remove them"
2) Robot athletes work for free and less likely to commit crimes like murder. OJ, animal cruelty. Michael Vick. Abandonment. Etc. And gambling on their players if they are a coach. Pete Rose
3) The robots will have charismatic voices like SIRI and movies and television will be computer animated. Ever heard of Ananova? She is a robot who is journalist, or how about Cynthia and Rastus? They're bartenders. Robot producers will just pander to fans in comic con and other fan basis and fulfill their wishes
4) Download the US constitution into its mainframe among other laws and the best part is robots are less likely to break the law, be lobbeyed, violate our rights because it's against their programming
5) If the law is downloaded into their mainframe they are less likely to pull people over, arrest homeless people and arrest people for possession and arrest actual criminals like gangs, murderers and rapist/pedophiles due to higher crime statistics in their programing. Less likely to defend someone who is obviously guilty like Johnny Cokrin, Rob Kardashian, Robert Shapiro, and Joe Francis's lawyer. Robot jurers are less likely to convict someone because of race or class
6) Robot executives are less likely to commit corporate manslaughter by cutting corners, neglecting supplies and repairs, not paying their investors, or put millions of workers in poverty due to offshoring
+Mavric Wilson Thank You. You actually gave me a great Idea. Instead of replacing the workers. Let's just replace all the jobs involving authority and management with robot's. We could actually have socialism. Socialism can work provided authority and management isn't corrupt and greedy and enforces the law. Now for countries that are not ethnically homogenous we'll have to address racism but that'll be solved by just having segregated neighborhoods for racist or for people who are ethnic separatist. But we could have socialism. Management robots are not going to lobby the government and government robots are not going to dumb down the population with welfare to single mothers and willingly unemployed men. Because dumb people won't unionize or get mad about corruption. They won't embezzle taxes and management wont embezzle paychecks. We could all live together as the proletariat and the class struggle will be over forever.
+MrBanausos satellites are most certainly not radiation proof. Shielding protects against general levels, but spikes can, and have, disabled satellites. Luck has protected us from crippling loss thus far.
+Jeff Layton Please, don't keep feeding this troll… -.-
+Jeff Layton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening welcome to the international fellow proletariat
+The Real Flenuan shhh everyone be quiet the imam is speaking. Seriously go to hell
+MrBanausos right, that details exactly what I claimed. Thanks for backing up my own arguments against you.
+Jeff Layton No you said that only a shield can protect a machine from EMP when radiation hardened chips say otherwise. You're disposable mate. Also robot soldiers don't need a GI bill, PTSD treatment, PT, and obviously there is the money saved on no more criminal investigations from MP's and NCIS
+MrBanausos the communism will give us the answer ,(not socialism ）Karl Marx already predicted，there will be a special society status,no employees no employers.read the “Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen” “Das Capital”，you will feel others‘ works are shallow
+Tang Bing Assuming the communist government, military leaders, state bank and bureaucracy are all robots then yes communism might work. I thought about communism but my main problem is that because in communism the politburo monopolize finance and production that means if 1 bourgeois or enemy of the people hack into their CPU or mainframe then we proletariat are doomed until we catch the fiend. largely due to same design and even if the designs were different due to security quotas a hacker will just find out by hacking into the governments files. With socialism our cybernetic organism leaders vary in brand and design due to private ownership but remains egalitarian because of the equal distribution of wealth. Which means even if 1 brand is hacked we have time to catch the dirt bag before all of the brands are hacked
+Tang Bing The problem with your doctrine is that there is no incentive to care about anything. Marx was a gun nut who leeched off of his rich friend Engels. Marx was a supreme hypocrite and wanted to live way outside of the norm and wear fancy clothes and eat rich foods. Communism always has the elite class making sure themselves are rich. You are moron and unethical to believe it. Maybe you are greedy and willing to steal from other people.
that is prejudice,I'm not a Communist,I just want say capitalism wouldn't fit the state described in the video.either self evolved or being replaced(sorry for my bad English) ,and what you mentioned bout communism is not real "communism",it was a bunch of clowns' tool for foolish thire people to make they rich(bad english again)
if EVERY attempt at communism EVER isn't real communism, then real communism doesn't exist, it simply cannot be administered in the way you people say it can, someone always steps in and abuses it, because it greatly allows for it, and you would lead us right into the gulags with your idealism.
Jacque Fresco said something that I believe to be very true, but also as a solution to the problem:
"What is needed is the intelligent management of Earth's resources. If we really wish to put an end to our ongoing international and social problems, we must eventually declare Earth and all of its resources as the common heritage of all the world's people."
The first to write you an opportunity. Please contact me