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I always have a question about this stuff: when the robots take all of our jobs (or the jobs of a critical mass of the human population), who is going to buy al

I always have a question about this stuff: when the robots take all of our jobs (or the jobs of a critical mass of the human population), who is going to buy all this stuff the robots make if the humans who are supposed to buy the stuff are broke because they lost their job to a robot? Has anybody tried to do some kind of study/educated guess about this impact? At the end of the day, while robots can do our jobs better than we do, they can't consume stuff better than we do, and ultimately our consumption of stuff is what creates the jobs the robots are taking over. With jobs even as "safe" as surgeons potentially under threat, how long before everyone is in trouble?

xapata 10y ago
Through most of history, people transition to doing other jobs. That transition is often painful. Thus various government welfare programs.
- DavidWanjiru 10y ago
  Well, if this video [0] is anything to go by, most of the other jobs will be automated as well. And although I have no foresight to know how it will pan out, it looks like advances in technology (which have produced previously unimagined jobs for humans - hello, Android dev), advances in technology in this new age will only create new jobs for automatons, not for humans. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
  - xapata 10y ago
    Until we hit the singularity, programmers can always get more meta -- thinking about how to do the job rather than doing the job, no matter what the job is. It's infinitely recursive. In the not-so-distant future, nearly all jobs will be programming jobs. That or shaking hands and smiling.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
applecore 10y ago
In a word, redistribution. With a rising share of income going to robots (capital) rather than humans (labor), there needs to be a stronger social safety net. This means guaranteed health insurance, health care, retirement benefits, and even a minimum income. That safety net will have to be paid for via some combination of taxes on wealth, profits, and investment income.
- hyperliner 10y ago
  I guess a question is: where would the income (that is supposed to be "redistributed") come from, in a world where the customers of every commercial entity cannot earn an income to pay taxes and contribute to the pool to be redistributed? I guess a country could always wage war against another and take their resources or enslave their people. Is that the ultimate outcome? Not trying to stir politics here, just to find the theoretical limit of an economy where all actors can be automated.
  - susan_hall 10y ago
    > where would the income come from You are confusing money with wealth (stuff people want). The money would come from the government, which can simply print it. Take a hypothetical situation where robots cause the total amount of wealth (stuff) created, in one year, to increase by 100%. Now assume the government prints enough money to increase the total amount of money by 100%. In this case, wealth has increased by 100%, and money has increased by 100%, so people's ability to get stuff has increased 100%, with 0% inflation. In the real world, things never work out so cleanly, but the above offers a simplified model of what could happen.
    - hyperliner 10y ago
      Why would there be zero percent inflation, if the money supply doubled?
      - zamfi 10y ago
        At the risk of being simplistic, because so did the "stuff" supply. Inflation is when the money supply increases without the stuff supply increasing, so each dollar is worth less stuff.
beaner 10y ago
Haven't people been asking this for the past few hundred years? And yet we're better off in life than we ever have been. Robots do things cheaper. This allows prices to fall. Also, if a business has nobody to sell to, then they themselves are in trouble. That they remain profitable is a sign that things are fine. Humans are adaptable creatures and we find other things of value to do. People from some industries will experience short-term pain. But pre-empting that with politics runs the risk of creating socioeconomic cruft that unnecessarily and inefficiently drains more resources in the long run.
- duaneb 10y ago
  > Haven't people been asking this for the past few hundred years? And yet we're better off in life than we ever have been. I don't think everyone--in this time or others--would agree with this. I certainly don't believe in being "better off", I think that's an illusion born out of minimization of our greatest fears. Just because you aren't about to die of tetanus does not mean your quality of life has improve at all.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > I certainly don't believe in being "better off" I do. Archeological evidence of American colonists' bones reveal that they worked extremely hard and died young. Look at their clothes in a museum - they look like childrens' sizes. Look at their teeth in bones in museums. Do you prefer teeth like that? I can buy an orange any day of the year. I have hot/cold running water. I'm warm in winter. I have clean water to drink. I have ice cream in the summer. I have endless entertainment at the push of a button. I can talk at any time to any family/friend anywhere in the world at my whim. I'd probably be dead by my age if I lived 200 years ago.
    - duaneb 10y ago
      If you have no option for better teeth, how much does that impact you? Serious question. I really should have framed my example in terms of happiness rather than quality of life.

xapata 10y ago

Through most of history, people transition to doing other jobs. That transition is often painful. Thus various government welfare programs.

DavidWanjiru 10y ago
Well, if this video [0] is anything to go by, most of the other jobs will be automated as well. And although I have no foresight to know how it will pan out, it looks like advances in technology (which have produced previously unimagined jobs for humans - hello, Android dev), advances in technology in this new age will only create new jobs for automatons, not for humans. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
- xapata 10y ago
  Until we hit the singularity, programmers can always get more meta -- thinking about how to do the job rather than doing the job, no matter what the job is. It's infinitely recursive. In the not-so-distant future, nearly all jobs will be programming jobs. That or shaking hands and smiling.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

applecore 10y ago

In a word, redistribution. With a rising share of income going to robots (capital) rather than humans (labor), there needs to be a stronger social safety net. This means guaranteed health insurance, health care, retirement benefits, and even a minimum income. That safety net will have to be paid for via some combination of taxes on wealth, profits, and investment income.

hyperliner 10y ago
I guess a question is: where would the income (that is supposed to be "redistributed") come from, in a world where the customers of every commercial entity cannot earn an income to pay taxes and contribute to the pool to be redistributed? I guess a country could always wage war against another and take their resources or enslave their people. Is that the ultimate outcome? Not trying to stir politics here, just to find the theoretical limit of an economy where all actors can be automated.
- susan_hall 10y ago
  > where would the income come from You are confusing money with wealth (stuff people want). The money would come from the government, which can simply print it. Take a hypothetical situation where robots cause the total amount of wealth (stuff) created, in one year, to increase by 100%. Now assume the government prints enough money to increase the total amount of money by 100%. In this case, wealth has increased by 100%, and money has increased by 100%, so people's ability to get stuff has increased 100%, with 0% inflation. In the real world, things never work out so cleanly, but the above offers a simplified model of what could happen.
  - hyperliner 10y ago
    Why would there be zero percent inflation, if the money supply doubled?
    - zamfi 10y ago
      At the risk of being simplistic, because so did the "stuff" supply. Inflation is when the money supply increases without the stuff supply increasing, so each dollar is worth less stuff.

beaner 10y ago

Haven't people been asking this for the past few hundred years? And yet we're better off in life than we ever have been. Robots do things cheaper. This allows prices to fall. Also, if a business has nobody to sell to, then they themselves are in trouble. That they remain profitable is a sign that things are fine. Humans are adaptable creatures and we find other things of value to do. People from some industries will experience short-term pain. But pre-empting that with politics runs the risk of creating socioeconomic cruft that unnecessarily and inefficiently drains more resources in the long run.

duaneb 10y ago
> Haven't people been asking this for the past few hundred years? And yet we're better off in life than we ever have been. I don't think everyone--in this time or others--would agree with this. I certainly don't believe in being "better off", I think that's an illusion born out of minimization of our greatest fears. Just because you aren't about to die of tetanus does not mean your quality of life has improve at all.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > I certainly don't believe in being "better off" I do. Archeological evidence of American colonists' bones reveal that they worked extremely hard and died young. Look at their clothes in a museum - they look like childrens' sizes. Look at their teeth in bones in museums. Do you prefer teeth like that? I can buy an orange any day of the year. I have hot/cold running water. I'm warm in winter. I have clean water to drink. I have ice cream in the summer. I have endless entertainment at the push of a button. I can talk at any time to any family/friend anywhere in the world at my whim. I'd probably be dead by my age if I lived 200 years ago.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    If you have no option for better teeth, how much does that impact you? Serious question. I really should have framed my example in terms of happiness rather than quality of life.