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Eventually technology should kill pretty much all of the jobs. Human time and energy should be spent on what they find interesting, not on mundane stuff such as

by sytelus 11y ago

Eventually technology should kill pretty much all of the jobs. Human time and energy should be spent on what they find interesting, not on mundane stuff such as farming, housing, construction, database plumbing - all of which could be easily automated. No human should have to work to pay bills because there should be no bills. That should be the promise of technology. Only jobs left for humans should be things that require creativity, higher level reasoning and new ideas. Of course, there may be AI one day that does better than us on these areas as well and that's just part of evolution. It doesn't necessarily have to mean humans will go extinct. Universe has plenty of space for all of us and next generation of intellectual species.

jackcosgrove 11y ago
If it were still up and running, I'd link you to regretsy.com for a primer on most people's level of creativity. But it's gone so now all I can say is that it showed the worst "user-generated stuff" people posted to Etsy. Not buying it - we have specialization and professionalization in part to maintain quality of work. Everyone cannot be, and should not be, an artist. Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs.
- sytelus 11y ago
  No one says everybody needs to be creative or artists or mathematicians or scientists. All I'm saying is human life is too precious to keep assembling iPhones for 12 hours a day or bag groceries at Walmart. I think assertion that everyone start doing drugs if they need not do jobs shows utter and incomprehensible ignorance. Sure, not all are creative but that's not the requirement to have a life without mandatory jobs you don't want to do. People may turn in to beach bums or surfers or just hippy wanderers - whatever. It's their life they got one shot at living and it's still better activity than forcing them to flip burgers mechanically at McDonnalds 10 hours a day.
- kaybe 11y ago
  If they had fun making it, why not? Not everyone will go to the Olympics..
  - jackcosgrove 11y ago
    People aren't thinking enough about what life would be like with no responsibilities. The sort of internal reward you're describing would be hollow because people would still see others' work that was better than theirs, and they would feel jealous. And ultimately everyone would know that it was all a sham, and that humanity was unnecessary and living in a zoo of its own creation. Most of my sense of self comes from overcoming obstacles, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree with that sentiment. I'm all for automation and AI doing the grunt work, but I don't want to live in a zoo. We should take the benefits of automation and continue to struggle and exert ourselves, and seek out greater challenges than we could before. Automation as an escape from work? I'll pass.
    - xnxn 11y ago
      > The sort of internal reward you're describing would be hollow because people would still see others' work that was better than theirs, and they would feel jealous. Well, that's the status quo. > Most of my sense of self comes from overcoming obstacles, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree with that sentiment. [...] Automation as an escape from work? I'll pass. You would be welcome to work as much as you like, of course. Obstacles would be self-selected, not assigned by chance or force. If you live in my hypothetical utopian society and truly feel that humanity must suffer so that you can derive meaning from "the struggle", you might have to emigrate to a polity of like-minded masochists.
      - jackcosgrove 11y ago
        I'm arguing we can't get away from the status quo. If everyone can follow their muse, muse-following will devolve into a pissing contest. And if some people choose to work and others don't, those who work will become wealthier/stronger/more advanced than those who don't. Then there will be conflict between the two. A surplus of resources does not eradicate human foibles. People were saying the same things in the Edwardian era about progress solving all of life's problems. Then we started World War I to a large degree because people were bored and wanted stimulation. This is just another utopian prediction that won't come true.
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs. And when people do have to work, they just alternate between drugs that make them better workers, and drugs that let them forget work.
  - Florin_Andrei 11y ago
    It seems like the basic blueprint of the human being, at every level, requires a certain amount of constant stress to function properly, an external challenge to the capabilities or even integrity of the system. At every level. Purely physical (motion), immunity, emotional level, intellectual level, etc. Unless we change the blueprint in a massive way, we won't do well in a life of complete leisure.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      What humans consider leisure is simply enjoyable work. If there is no "work" work and just leisure, we're fine. But not if there's nothing to do at all.
- Udik 11y ago
  Obligatory reading here: Riders of the purple wage, by Philip José Farmer.
bcook 11y ago
Some people find farming, construction, housing, etc interesting. Something like cleaning toilets... the robots can have that. :) Though, I must say that I subscribe to the notion that creating AI will very likely be the last big impact we will have on history. We will just live while AI will thrive.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  Plenty of people now a days find knitting interesting, and continue to indulge in it. Despite the fact that industrialization, automation and globalization has made home knitting in developed countries utterly unable to compete at a commercial level. Same for a lot of things in the maker movement. The people whose hobby is farming, building or something else of the sort would be quite able to keep doing that in a post-scarcity robot utopia (assuming we really get there). It would just not be something they do for commercial gain.
- undersuit 11y ago
  >We will just live while AI will thrive. Why let them thrive uncontested? What's stopping us from using our own resources for self improvement of our mental facilities. I don't necessarily want to be a Jupiter Brain, I'd be willing to settle for a intergalactic iron man suit with brain enhancement, interfaces, or reworks.
  - bcook 11y ago
    I meant it relatively. AI will be capable of near infinite growth. Us, not so much. I guess some sort of AI-cyborg hybrid could allow us some level of enhancement, but our brains are only physically capable of so much.
Florin_Andrei 11y ago
> Universe has plenty of space True, but that might actually be the challenge. There's too much space out there. I live in California. Let's say the Sun is a soccer ball right here next to me. Then the Earth is a large grain of sand a few meters away. Jupiter is a marble a few blocks down the road. Speed of light is like an ant running. And the nearest star is another soccer ball way out in Greenland. Think about that for a second. http://florin.myip.org/blog/i-had-no-idea-just-how-big-solar-system-really http://florin.myip.org/blog/i-had-no-idea-just-how-big-solar... To get out of the confines of the solar system, we need some massive breakthrough. Probably entirely new physics.
- anon1mous 11y ago
  No, if we really wanted we could build an H-Bomb spaceship in a decade or two and fly to the nearest stars in a few decades.
  - Florin_Andrei 11y ago
    It takes forever to get there. We know of no habitable exoplanet yet, so when you do get there, you still live in a tin can in orbit. I'm not saying we'll never make it. I'm saying the magnitude of the effort is enormous. In a sense, Sart Trek and Star Wars have done a disservice to space exploration by making it seem so easy. The scales of energy, time, and complexity involved are colossal.
- blacksmith_tb 11y ago
  Or to accept that we'll have to settle for expanding throughout our own solar system, which has quite a lot of real estate (especially moons and asteroids). We might even manage some probes to nearby stars.
Xcelerate 11y ago
As great as this sounds (and I'm a full supporter of the idea), I don't think it's going to happen. Humans have what seems to be a somewhat innate desire to "work". If there aren't enough jobs, we'll just add eight more layers of management positions to fill the gaps. If an improvement in technology led to more free time, then we should already have vastly more of it than we did in the 1800s.
- undersuit 11y ago
  No one is proposing we stop people from working. Go ahead and be a farmer, you may not be efficient as the robofarmers, but that's OK you aren't going to have to sell the farm.
- Rumudiez 11y ago
  And so we do. Two surveys placed mid-1800s average work weeks in manufacturing at close to 70 hours per week[1] with modern hours hovering around the common 40 hour work week, which is still actively being challenged[2]. 1. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ 2. http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/02/news/economy/sweden-6-hour-work-day/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/02/news/economy/sweden-6-hour-w...
dclowd9901 11y ago
I think this idea is almost unfathomable to humanity, which is funny, because who doesn't day dream of not "working" anymore (in which the meaning of "working" is doing something that you don't want to do to earn livable income). An obvious first step is a basic income, paid for by military spending cuts and increase on corporate, capital gains and high earner taxes. This will show people that such an idea is sustainable, so they can prepare their mind for the coming utopia.
csense 11y ago
Yes, eventually [1] we should reach a utopia where robots produce all the food, clothing and shelter needed so that 100% of humanity can play video games or watch Netflix all day, and still survive and have at least what's today thought of as an upper-lower-class to lower-middle-class lifestyle. But if we have to go through intermediate point where 50% of humanity needs to be on the job to keep the lights on and the other 50% can live the life of leisure, how do we decide who's in which 50% without dangerous social upheavals? [1] Assuming we don't kill ourselves or get sent back to the stone age with nuclear weapons or AI run amok.
rawTruthHurts 11y ago
Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone...

by sytelus 11y ago

jackcosgrove 11y ago

If it were still up and running, I'd link you to regretsy.com for a primer on most people's level of creativity. But it's gone so now all I can say is that it showed the worst "user-generated stuff" people posted to Etsy. Not buying it - we have specialization and professionalization in part to maintain quality of work. Everyone cannot be, and should not be, an artist. Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs.

sytelus 11y ago
No one says everybody needs to be creative or artists or mathematicians or scientists. All I'm saying is human life is too precious to keep assembling iPhones for 12 hours a day or bag groceries at Walmart. I think assertion that everyone start doing drugs if they need not do jobs shows utter and incomprehensible ignorance. Sure, not all are creative but that's not the requirement to have a life without mandatory jobs you don't want to do. People may turn in to beach bums or surfers or just hippy wanderers - whatever. It's their life they got one shot at living and it's still better activity than forcing them to flip burgers mechanically at McDonnalds 10 hours a day.
kaybe 11y ago
If they had fun making it, why not? Not everyone will go to the Olympics..
- jackcosgrove 11y ago
  People aren't thinking enough about what life would be like with no responsibilities. The sort of internal reward you're describing would be hollow because people would still see others' work that was better than theirs, and they would feel jealous. And ultimately everyone would know that it was all a sham, and that humanity was unnecessary and living in a zoo of its own creation. Most of my sense of self comes from overcoming obstacles, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree with that sentiment. I'm all for automation and AI doing the grunt work, but I don't want to live in a zoo. We should take the benefits of automation and continue to struggle and exert ourselves, and seek out greater challenges than we could before. Automation as an escape from work? I'll pass.
  - xnxn 11y ago
    > The sort of internal reward you're describing would be hollow because people would still see others' work that was better than theirs, and they would feel jealous. Well, that's the status quo. > Most of my sense of self comes from overcoming obstacles, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree with that sentiment. [...] Automation as an escape from work? I'll pass. You would be welcome to work as much as you like, of course. Obstacles would be self-selected, not assigned by chance or force. If you live in my hypothetical utopian society and truly feel that humanity must suffer so that you can derive meaning from "the struggle", you might have to emigrate to a polity of like-minded masochists.
    - jackcosgrove 11y ago
      I'm arguing we can't get away from the status quo. If everyone can follow their muse, muse-following will devolve into a pissing contest. And if some people choose to work and others don't, those who work will become wealthier/stronger/more advanced than those who don't. Then there will be conflict between the two. A surplus of resources does not eradicate human foibles. People were saying the same things in the Edwardian era about progress solving all of life's problems. Then we started World War I to a large degree because people were bored and wanted stimulation. This is just another utopian prediction that won't come true.
forgottenpass 11y ago
Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs. And when people do have to work, they just alternate between drugs that make them better workers, and drugs that let them forget work.
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago
  It seems like the basic blueprint of the human being, at every level, requires a certain amount of constant stress to function properly, an external challenge to the capabilities or even integrity of the system. At every level. Purely physical (motion), immunity, emotional level, intellectual level, etc. Unless we change the blueprint in a massive way, we won't do well in a life of complete leisure.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    What humans consider leisure is simply enjoyable work. If there is no "work" work and just leisure, we're fine. But not if there's nothing to do at all.
Udik 11y ago
Obligatory reading here: Riders of the purple wage, by Philip José Farmer.

bcook 11y ago

Some people find farming, construction, housing, etc interesting. Something like cleaning toilets... the robots can have that. :) Though, I must say that I subscribe to the notion that creating AI will very likely be the last big impact we will have on history. We will just live while AI will thrive.

lazaroclapp 11y ago
Plenty of people now a days find knitting interesting, and continue to indulge in it. Despite the fact that industrialization, automation and globalization has made home knitting in developed countries utterly unable to compete at a commercial level. Same for a lot of things in the maker movement. The people whose hobby is farming, building or something else of the sort would be quite able to keep doing that in a post-scarcity robot utopia (assuming we really get there). It would just not be something they do for commercial gain.
undersuit 11y ago
>We will just live while AI will thrive. Why let them thrive uncontested? What's stopping us from using our own resources for self improvement of our mental facilities. I don't necessarily want to be a Jupiter Brain, I'd be willing to settle for a intergalactic iron man suit with brain enhancement, interfaces, or reworks.
- bcook 11y ago
  I meant it relatively. AI will be capable of near infinite growth. Us, not so much. I guess some sort of AI-cyborg hybrid could allow us some level of enhancement, but our brains are only physically capable of so much.

Florin_Andrei 11y ago

> Universe has plenty of space True, but that might actually be the challenge. There's too much space out there. I live in California. Let's say the Sun is a soccer ball right here next to me. Then the Earth is a large grain of sand a few meters away. Jupiter is a marble a few blocks down the road. Speed of light is like an ant running. And the nearest star is another soccer ball way out in Greenland. Think about that for a second. http://florin.myip.org/blog/i-had-no-idea-just-how-big-solar-system-really http://florin.myip.org/blog/i-had-no-idea-just-how-big-solar... To get out of the confines of the solar system, we need some massive breakthrough. Probably entirely new physics.

anon1mous 11y ago
No, if we really wanted we could build an H-Bomb spaceship in a decade or two and fly to the nearest stars in a few decades.
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago
  It takes forever to get there. We know of no habitable exoplanet yet, so when you do get there, you still live in a tin can in orbit. I'm not saying we'll never make it. I'm saying the magnitude of the effort is enormous. In a sense, Sart Trek and Star Wars have done a disservice to space exploration by making it seem so easy. The scales of energy, time, and complexity involved are colossal.
blacksmith_tb 11y ago
Or to accept that we'll have to settle for expanding throughout our own solar system, which has quite a lot of real estate (especially moons and asteroids). We might even manage some probes to nearby stars.

Xcelerate 11y ago

As great as this sounds (and I'm a full supporter of the idea), I don't think it's going to happen. Humans have what seems to be a somewhat innate desire to "work". If there aren't enough jobs, we'll just add eight more layers of management positions to fill the gaps. If an improvement in technology led to more free time, then we should already have vastly more of it than we did in the 1800s.

undersuit 11y ago
No one is proposing we stop people from working. Go ahead and be a farmer, you may not be efficient as the robofarmers, but that's OK you aren't going to have to sell the farm.
Rumudiez 11y ago
And so we do. Two surveys placed mid-1800s average work weeks in manufacturing at close to 70 hours per week[1] with modern hours hovering around the common 40 hour work week, which is still actively being challenged[2]. 1. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ 2. http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/02/news/economy/sweden-6-hour-work-day/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/02/news/economy/sweden-6-hour-w...

dclowd9901 11y ago

I think this idea is almost unfathomable to humanity, which is funny, because who doesn't day dream of not "working" anymore (in which the meaning of "working" is doing something that you don't want to do to earn livable income). An obvious first step is a basic income, paid for by military spending cuts and increase on corporate, capital gains and high earner taxes. This will show people that such an idea is sustainable, so they can prepare their mind for the coming utopia.

csense 11y ago

Yes, eventually [1] we should reach a utopia where robots produce all the food, clothing and shelter needed so that 100% of humanity can play video games or watch Netflix all day, and still survive and have at least what's today thought of as an upper-lower-class to lower-middle-class lifestyle. But if we have to go through intermediate point where 50% of humanity needs to be on the job to keep the lights on and the other 50% can live the life of leisure, how do we decide who's in which 50% without dangerous social upheavals? [1] Assuming we don't kill ourselves or get sent back to the stone age with nuclear weapons or AI run amok.

rawTruthHurts 11y ago

Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone...