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Hawking does believe that AI will be a danger to humanity long term. The short term problems caused by near future robots is a different subject. Capitalism is

Hawking does believe that AI will be a danger to humanity long term. The short term problems caused by near future robots is a different subject. Capitalism isn't inherently the problem. We could have capitalism and tax capital owners at a high rate, and distribute the wealth much more evenly. It's possible everyone could become capital owners and it would be normal to live off interest instead of work. Like owning the robot that replaces your job. This has happened before, kinds sorta. Everyone mentions farming has been automated almost completely. But the farmers mostly owned their own farms, and didn't all become unemployed, and instead benefited from it. However many farm laborers were forced to move to the city.

sametmax 11y ago
It would be very hard to implement a capitalism with even distribution. By nature, this system leads to capital accumulation. Since no capital is infinite, accumulation in one place means removing it from somewhere else. So you need mechanisms to always redistribute the capital to avoid this problem and balance the system. But capitalists will battle these machanisms to gain efficiency, and you will be in a rate race between the redistribution measures and accumulation workaround. Since creating new redisitribution mechanisms is way slower than implementing the workarounds, eventually the system won't be evenly distributed. Hence the rat races between taxes, and taxe evasion.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  Well, a fair starting point would be a basic income. Capitalism can still do its thing, but all those people disrupted by the rise of the robots would still get to eat. As of right now the pendulum is too far on the side of inequality, yet governments are unwilling or unable to correct. Probably a combination of both.
- Gabriel_h 11y ago
  "By nature, this system leads to capital accumulation. Since no capital is infinite, accumulation in one place means removing it from somewhere else." I agree with the first sentence but the second assumes the economy is zero-sum. This is only true to a certain extent within some domains, like ownership of physical land.
  - sametmax 11y ago
    Not I don't money is zero zum. But in the end, what you can exchange for it is. The current virtual nature of money has nothing to do with it, it's just yet another mecahnisme to accumulate capital, in the form of the potential of things you can acquire represented by a number. This potential is virtual, and moving, it's a (broken) mecanisme, but the things you can buy with it are not.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Many countries have successfully implemented high taxes. Even the US had very high taxes at one time. Although there was lots of tax evasion, the distribution of wealth was much more even and CEOs were paid much less than they are today. A basic income is totally possible and would vastly level the distribution of wealth.
taneq 11y ago
There are WAY fewer farmers now than there were even 100 years ago. The rest of them are no longer employed as farmers.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Yes, but that happened over a long time. There was no single day where someone said "ok, you've all been automated, go somewhere else". It's not a perfect example, I admit. Because not all farmers owned their land, and there were a lot of farm laborers that didn't own capital. But it's a much closer example to what I am talking about. As opposed to factory owners being automated, where none of the workers owns capital, and it's far more unequally distributed.
jjoonathan 11y ago
Exactly! Start from a capitalist principle: if there's an excess of unextraordinary labor and a shortfall of jobs which will trade that for food/shelter/goods/etc, how would one take advantage of and simultaneously alleviate the supply/demand imbalance? By vertically integrating -- directly turning unextraordinary labor into food/shelter/goods/etc. This has been tried, they're called "communes," which is funny, because we started with a capitalist principle and wound up at a communist principle (people owning the means of production) while the popular dogma is that they're incompatible opposites. In any case, communes have a bad rap for a good reason. They're hard. Economies of specialization and economies of scale are very real, and historically communes have had a tough time competing with the "job+apartment+supermarket" combination. I'm pretty sure that won't be the case forever: the "extremistan" economy is leaving more and more people behind while technology of every variety is advancing and (presumably) making extreme vertical integration more and more feasible. There has to be a crossing point. The real question is "when?" It won't be obvious -- even once we have passed the tipping point, there will be a huge amount of friction. Putting together a decent commune that embraces modern modes of production will require significant risk and a huge chunk of capital (recouped with entry fees, presumably, since if it was able to more efficiently produce something already valued by the market why not just go into business doing that instead?). But once the business model is proven, it ought to scale nicely. Communes compete with each other and with the traditional job+supermarket on social contract, each one providing a lower bound for the other. Which is important, because for all the blathering on about how traditional capital markets are based on consensual transactions, mutual benefit, and value creation, they seem to do a fantastic job of making life a living hell for a huge number of people by repeatedly un-fixing already fixed problems (like how to feed and shelter ourselves). And the world is certainly no stranger to communes gone awry. But maybe, just maybe, if they're in direct competition with one another we'll get to see them both on their best behavior.
mtgx 11y ago
Capitalism isn't a problem per se. It's only a problem when those at the top of a capitalistic society make it so the people's representatives no longer represent the people, but themselves. If the people were actually vigilant, and didn't let this happen, as it already has happened in the US, then they wouldn't legalize bribery, and they would put those who give money to politician more than a small amount set in law, in prison. And it wouldn't matter whether the person giving the money is a small business owner or the CEO of Exxon. Both would go to prison for the same amount of time. If the societies were that just and the representatives actually followed the people's will like that, then capitalism would be wonderful!

sametmax 11y ago

It would be very hard to implement a capitalism with even distribution. By nature, this system leads to capital accumulation. Since no capital is infinite, accumulation in one place means removing it from somewhere else. So you need mechanisms to always redistribute the capital to avoid this problem and balance the system. But capitalists will battle these machanisms to gain efficiency, and you will be in a rate race between the redistribution measures and accumulation workaround. Since creating new redisitribution mechanisms is way slower than implementing the workarounds, eventually the system won't be evenly distributed. Hence the rat races between taxes, and taxe evasion.

anexprogrammer 11y ago
Well, a fair starting point would be a basic income. Capitalism can still do its thing, but all those people disrupted by the rise of the robots would still get to eat. As of right now the pendulum is too far on the side of inequality, yet governments are unwilling or unable to correct. Probably a combination of both.
Gabriel_h 11y ago
"By nature, this system leads to capital accumulation. Since no capital is infinite, accumulation in one place means removing it from somewhere else." I agree with the first sentence but the second assumes the economy is zero-sum. This is only true to a certain extent within some domains, like ownership of physical land.
- sametmax 11y ago
  Not I don't money is zero zum. But in the end, what you can exchange for it is. The current virtual nature of money has nothing to do with it, it's just yet another mecahnisme to accumulate capital, in the form of the potential of things you can acquire represented by a number. This potential is virtual, and moving, it's a (broken) mecanisme, but the things you can buy with it are not.
Houshalter 11y ago
Many countries have successfully implemented high taxes. Even the US had very high taxes at one time. Although there was lots of tax evasion, the distribution of wealth was much more even and CEOs were paid much less than they are today. A basic income is totally possible and would vastly level the distribution of wealth.

taneq 11y ago

There are WAY fewer farmers now than there were even 100 years ago. The rest of them are no longer employed as farmers.

Houshalter 11y ago
Yes, but that happened over a long time. There was no single day where someone said "ok, you've all been automated, go somewhere else". It's not a perfect example, I admit. Because not all farmers owned their land, and there were a lot of farm laborers that didn't own capital. But it's a much closer example to what I am talking about. As opposed to factory owners being automated, where none of the workers owns capital, and it's far more unequally distributed.

jjoonathan 11y ago

Exactly! Start from a capitalist principle: if there's an excess of unextraordinary labor and a shortfall of jobs which will trade that for food/shelter/goods/etc, how would one take advantage of and simultaneously alleviate the supply/demand imbalance? By vertically integrating -- directly turning unextraordinary labor into food/shelter/goods/etc. This has been tried, they're called "communes," which is funny, because we started with a capitalist principle and wound up at a communist principle (people owning the means of production) while the popular dogma is that they're incompatible opposites. In any case, communes have a bad rap for a good reason. They're hard. Economies of specialization and economies of scale are very real, and historically communes have had a tough time competing with the "job+apartment+supermarket" combination. I'm pretty sure that won't be the case forever: the "extremistan" economy is leaving more and more people behind while technology of every variety is advancing and (presumably) making extreme vertical integration more and more feasible. There has to be a crossing point. The real question is "when?" It won't be obvious -- even once we have passed the tipping point, there will be a huge amount of friction. Putting together a decent commune that embraces modern modes of production will require significant risk and a huge chunk of capital (recouped with entry fees, presumably, since if it was able to more efficiently produce something already valued by the market why not just go into business doing that instead?). But once the business model is proven, it ought to scale nicely. Communes compete with each other and with the traditional job+supermarket on social contract, each one providing a lower bound for the other. Which is important, because for all the blathering on about how traditional capital markets are based on consensual transactions, mutual benefit, and value creation, they seem to do a fantastic job of making life a living hell for a huge number of people by repeatedly un-fixing already fixed problems (like how to feed and shelter ourselves). And the world is certainly no stranger to communes gone awry. But maybe, just maybe, if they're in direct competition with one another we'll get to see them both on their best behavior.

mtgx 11y ago

Capitalism isn't a problem per se. It's only a problem when those at the top of a capitalistic society make it so the people's representatives no longer represent the people, but themselves. If the people were actually vigilant, and didn't let this happen, as it already has happened in the US, then they wouldn't legalize bribery, and they would put those who give money to politician more than a small amount set in law, in prison. And it wouldn't matter whether the person giving the money is a small business owner or the CEO of Exxon. Both would go to prison for the same amount of time. If the societies were that just and the representatives actually followed the people's will like that, then capitalism would be wonderful!