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when robotic physical labor and the cognitive tasks capable by automated software eliminates the ability for the bottom 50, 60, 80% of the population to compete

when robotic physical labor and the cognitive tasks capable by automated software eliminates the ability for the bottom 50, 60, 80% of the population to compete economically, what's going to happen? For all intents and purposes, we're already here. Farmers are only about 1% of the population, yet they feed us all. Add in house construction and clothing, and there's a very small number of people that provide the rest of us with food, shelter, and housing. That's all we need. The average westerner has thousands of times more resources than required to exist. So this scary future where robots rule the Earth and people don't have to work for basic needs? We're living it. We just found other stuff we like. Stuff like iPods, notebook computers, vacations, stamp collections. Then we make money and trade it around for that stuff. We'll keep automating, fewer and fewer people will be required to provide for our basic needs, and we'll keep coming up with new stuff we like. I don't see any reason that this pattern is going to change.

matt4077 9y ago
The fear is that today’s machines actually are smarter than (some) humans and therefore pushing that segment out of the economy for good. In the past, automation freed people previously working below their abilities: many manual laborers who would today be professors of literature, or interior decorators, or whatever. If you now automate the lower rungs of profession, like PR executives, it may no longer work like that. I’m not sure if that idea is right, and I doubt anybody can be. But it is also impossible to deny outright. This time, it could actually be different.
- DanielBMarkham 9y ago
  I agree. I think a good dose of humility is important. Induction doesn't always work. Simply because it happens over and over again doesn't mean it will happen this time. The turkey loves the farmer and thinks he would never harm him -- until Thanksgiving Day. Then inductive reasoning fails for the turkey :) Having said that, for those of us in developed countries, it's worthy of note just how far away we've come from struggling to provide our basic needs. If you took a poor person today and described their life to somebody from 500 years ago, it would sound like they were kings. To the guy 500 years ago, our modern-day life would be a place where nobody would have to work. Yet we still work. I guess humans are like that.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  That is a fear fanned by the 0.1% because they need a scapegoat which isn't them for the good jobs which they destroyed. They destroyed them with a combination of austerity (e.g. not fixing potholes) and outsourcing (e.g. the million odd Chinese not-robots who actually make your iPhone). All of this happened before in the 1930s - the austerity, the unemployment, the blame placed on automation by a subservient media and even the rise of budget-conscious automated restaurants (e.g. horn & hardart) that are profitable when the population is tightening its collective belt. Whether we get out of it the same way we did last time - with an end to austerity with a job guarantee that builds necessary infrastructure and fiscal stimulus is purely a matter of wresting power back from the 0.1%. Then, maybe in 100 years, the cycle will again repeat itself.
  - kombucha2 9y ago
    Please, bring on the automats.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      They went in to a decline in the 60s and went out of business completely by 1991 - mostly replaced by Burger Kings. Apparently the market only really likes them when people are short of cash. But, they could be making a comeback.
- ghostcluster 9y ago
  You don't even need to automate the whole job. Just automating a significant percentage of the tasks recquired to fulfill that job lowers the overall number of people needed in the workforce to complete those tasks.
exolymph 9y ago
> where robots rule the Earth I don't think that particular condition has been fulfilled :P
manicdee 9y ago
What new jobs are we going to invent apart from everyone making a living selling bad stick figure cartoons to each other?

matt4077 9y ago

The fear is that today’s machines actually are smarter than (some) humans and therefore pushing that segment out of the economy for good. In the past, automation freed people previously working below their abilities: many manual laborers who would today be professors of literature, or interior decorators, or whatever. If you now automate the lower rungs of profession, like PR executives, it may no longer work like that. I’m not sure if that idea is right, and I doubt anybody can be. But it is also impossible to deny outright. This time, it could actually be different.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago
I agree. I think a good dose of humility is important. Induction doesn't always work. Simply because it happens over and over again doesn't mean it will happen this time. The turkey loves the farmer and thinks he would never harm him -- until Thanksgiving Day. Then inductive reasoning fails for the turkey :) Having said that, for those of us in developed countries, it's worthy of note just how far away we've come from struggling to provide our basic needs. If you took a poor person today and described their life to somebody from 500 years ago, it would sound like they were kings. To the guy 500 years ago, our modern-day life would be a place where nobody would have to work. Yet we still work. I guess humans are like that.
crdoconnor 9y ago
That is a fear fanned by the 0.1% because they need a scapegoat which isn't them for the good jobs which they destroyed. They destroyed them with a combination of austerity (e.g. not fixing potholes) and outsourcing (e.g. the million odd Chinese not-robots who actually make your iPhone). All of this happened before in the 1930s - the austerity, the unemployment, the blame placed on automation by a subservient media and even the rise of budget-conscious automated restaurants (e.g. horn & hardart) that are profitable when the population is tightening its collective belt. Whether we get out of it the same way we did last time - with an end to austerity with a job guarantee that builds necessary infrastructure and fiscal stimulus is purely a matter of wresting power back from the 0.1%. Then, maybe in 100 years, the cycle will again repeat itself.
- kombucha2 9y ago
  Please, bring on the automats.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    They went in to a decline in the 60s and went out of business completely by 1991 - mostly replaced by Burger Kings. Apparently the market only really likes them when people are short of cash. But, they could be making a comeback.
ghostcluster 9y ago
You don't even need to automate the whole job. Just automating a significant percentage of the tasks recquired to fulfill that job lowers the overall number of people needed in the workforce to complete those tasks.

exolymph 9y ago

> where robots rule the Earth I don't think that particular condition has been fulfilled :P

manicdee 9y ago

What new jobs are we going to invent apart from everyone making a living selling bad stick figure cartoons to each other?