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Well that only reinforces OP's argument... In this scenario you have a few powerful companies taking the pie away from taxi drivers, from small petrol station o

Well that only reinforces OP's argument... In this scenario you have a few powerful companies taking the pie away from taxi drivers, from small petrol station owners, from small car mechanics, etc... It is a zero-sum game because these people will have to beg on the streets. In this scenario, would the driverless car have helped improve life for humans? Yes it would improve the life of rich people; it will be very convenient for them to not have to drive... But what about regular humans? An alternative scenario would be to tax driverless car companies and give the money back to the people whose livelihoods were taken. I have no doubt that in a fully-automated world, society will either be socialist or communist. If wealthy people start thinking about inequality and actively work to improve things, then we will have socialism. If they don't, it will just spread misery and resentment among the lower class and will likely lead to a more dramatic change in the state of affairs. Oppression leads to extremism. Just look at what happened after world war one when Germany was burried in insurmountable war reparation debt... It created a generation of resentful german extremists - And along came WW2.

forrestthewoods 11y ago
That's not how it works. Automation doesn't put things in the hands of a few powerful companies. Those items become commodities. You don't get rich selling commodities. Corporations spend billions upon billions to make sure they aren't reduced to commodities. Cheap access to driverless cars will be a huge boon for the poor. Can you imagine what it would be like to have cheap access to goods no matter where you live? To receive delivery of materials cheaply and quickly? That's not a wealth destroyer. That's wealth creation infrastructure.
- jondubois 11y ago
  Maybe, but what is the point of having all that wealth if only 10% of the population can access it? If automation replaces 90% of jobs, then you're going to have a lot of unemployed people with no money. I disagree about automation becoming a commodity. Automation is all about monopolies. You only need to write software once and only the company with the best technology will control the whole market... Why would a consumer use a piece of technology if it is less efficient than a competing piece of technology? Just look at Intel vs AMD. Intel's CPUs became just a little bit faster, and as a result, in just a few years they decimated AMD financially. Technology is a winner-takes-it-all game.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

That's not how it works. Automation doesn't put things in the hands of a few powerful companies. Those items become commodities. You don't get rich selling commodities. Corporations spend billions upon billions to make sure they aren't reduced to commodities. Cheap access to driverless cars will be a huge boon for the poor. Can you imagine what it would be like to have cheap access to goods no matter where you live? To receive delivery of materials cheaply and quickly? That's not a wealth destroyer. That's wealth creation infrastructure.

jondubois 11y ago
Maybe, but what is the point of having all that wealth if only 10% of the population can access it? If automation replaces 90% of jobs, then you're going to have a lot of unemployed people with no money. I disagree about automation becoming a commodity. Automation is all about monopolies. You only need to write software once and only the company with the best technology will control the whole market... Why would a consumer use a piece of technology if it is less efficient than a competing piece of technology? Just look at Intel vs AMD. Intel's CPUs became just a little bit faster, and as a result, in just a few years they decimated AMD financially. Technology is a winner-takes-it-all game.