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AI 'could leave half of world unemployed'

12 points by evo_9 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
We used to dream of a utopian society where robots did all the work. Now we fear it?
- Terr_ 11y ago
  The question is who owns the robots and what power-relationships those robots enable. The utopian dream is always a robot which is allied with you, not a robot which extends the power other people have over you. (Nor, going further, a robot which is independently a threat.) So the dream of a robot utopia is actually more of a social one, where robots somehow obviate the casual power-games of employment and obligation. That can either be by "eliminating scarcity", or else by serving as morally-acceptable targets for humans to dominate instead of one-another.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Currently they're industrial, helping make stuff for all of us. Putting us out of work is a transitional problem; the issue before us is, how do we deal with the transition?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
SixSigma 11y ago
That's a good thing.
api 11y ago
In the short term this is not something to fear, but in the long term it is. There is a qualitative difference between Turing-complete and non-Turing-complete automation. Imagine what the great Chinese outsourcing wave has done to the West's labor market, but without the normal economics of labor factoring into it. As more and more has been outsourced to China, Chinese wages have risen. That would not happen with automation. Instead you'd have the hyper-deflationary economics of high tech, with "wages" effectively dropping geometrically with volume. In the end we will face two choices: (1) Abandon the puritan work ethic and its liberal forms such as the labor theory of value. (2) Create a future that looks like "The Hunger Games."
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >Abandon the puritan work ethic and its liberal forms such as the labor theory of value. Even if we abandon it in the financial sense, there is it's currently unnamed cousin that applies to more personal human interactions that might not be left behind (unless we get androids that are able to meet all human needs, including those related to socialization and touch).
- kaonashi 11y ago
  In the Hunger Games, the people of the Capitol actually needed the people in the districts.
CM30 11y ago
And what happens when no one can afford to buy the stuff produced by companies mostly staffed with robots? Unless some sort of basic income is instated before that point, I guess they just go broke and things kind of even out a little. Robots don't buy things made by robots.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  A pity if its bread and milk? Or medicine? We really have to sort this out before that happens.

12 points by evo_9 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

We used to dream of a utopian society where robots did all the work. Now we fear it?

Terr_ 11y ago
The question is who owns the robots and what power-relationships those robots enable. The utopian dream is always a robot which is allied with you, not a robot which extends the power other people have over you. (Nor, going further, a robot which is independently a threat.) So the dream of a robot utopia is actually more of a social one, where robots somehow obviate the casual power-games of employment and obligation. That can either be by "eliminating scarcity", or else by serving as morally-acceptable targets for humans to dominate instead of one-another.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Currently they're industrial, helping make stuff for all of us. Putting us out of work is a transitional problem; the issue before us is, how do we deal with the transition?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

SixSigma 11y ago

That's a good thing.

api 11y ago

In the short term this is not something to fear, but in the long term it is. There is a qualitative difference between Turing-complete and non-Turing-complete automation. Imagine what the great Chinese outsourcing wave has done to the West's labor market, but without the normal economics of labor factoring into it. As more and more has been outsourced to China, Chinese wages have risen. That would not happen with automation. Instead you'd have the hyper-deflationary economics of high tech, with "wages" effectively dropping geometrically with volume. In the end we will face two choices: (1) Abandon the puritan work ethic and its liberal forms such as the labor theory of value. (2) Create a future that looks like "The Hunger Games."

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>Abandon the puritan work ethic and its liberal forms such as the labor theory of value. Even if we abandon it in the financial sense, there is it's currently unnamed cousin that applies to more personal human interactions that might not be left behind (unless we get androids that are able to meet all human needs, including those related to socialization and touch).
kaonashi 11y ago
In the Hunger Games, the people of the Capitol actually needed the people in the districts.

CM30 11y ago

And what happens when no one can afford to buy the stuff produced by companies mostly staffed with robots? Unless some sort of basic income is instated before that point, I guess they just go broke and things kind of even out a little. Robots don't buy things made by robots.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
A pity if its bread and milk? Or medicine? We really have to sort this out before that happens.