3 ms·

I'm not rooting for a future where human labor is obsolete. Why would the machines continue to feed us if we're dead weight to the economy?

• tomp 8y ago
  I am. Why do the washing machines keep washing pensioners' clothes, if they're dead weight to the economy? Because we (the intelligent / sentient / human civilisation) decided so.
  • pygy_ 8y ago
    Institutionalized care for the weaker members of society actually makes productive members more productive. Likewise for social security and state-run unemployment insurances. AI is coming in the form of industry automatization, in a very competitive, capitalist framework. Agriculture and resource extraction is also being automated. Capital is literally growing a brain, and once it doesn't need us it will stop feeding us, and we'll be powerless against it because we are so dependent on it. Think of a spider shedding its dead skin after molting.
    • tomp 8y ago
      There's a number of flaws in your argument. If automation will make agriculture more competitive, then food will get cheaper. Governments will be able to subsidise it. Capital needs consumers to make a profit. Politics will solve any kind of food crisis. Otherwise there will be a revolution.
      • pygy_ 8y ago
        > Capital needs consumers to make a profit. Fundamentally, demand is survival instinct, which develops under Darwinian pressure. B2B is already growing faster than B2C. Wages are globally stagnating while capital keeps on growing. The industry as a self-maximizer can be its own consumer. > Governments will be able to subsidise it. [...] Otherwise there will be a revolution. This assumes that humans will still have some kind of power. Being somewhat competitive in the job market is the only power most people have today.