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> a so-called "robot tax" faces significant hurdles in design and implementation. To put it mildly. I want to make litter-bots: Imagine a ladybug about the si

> a so-called "robot tax" faces significant hurdles in design and implementation. To put it mildly. I want to make litter-bots: Imagine a ladybug about the size of half a beachball. It crawls around and collects litter. It's mostly autonomous, but to really do a good job it needs a minder, a human "oracle" for navigation and trash?y/N queries, etc. (The minders do not necessarily have to be physically nearby to the 'bots.) ML advancements have drastically reduced the amount of human oversight needed but not eliminated it entirely. In that context, what should the economic relationship be between the minders, the clients, and the robot factory? (Consider that the robot factory is likely very automated, a robot robot-factory.) FWIW, I had originally thought I would set up a kind of volunteer distributed remote workforce with a UI that folks would play like a game. Another possibility would be to sell or lease 'bots to operators, who are then responsible for finding their own contracts. The litter-bots would be akin to landscaper's tools (like an AI leaf-blower or chainsaw.) "Let the robots do the work and we'll take their pay." I do NOT think it would be useful to for the government to tax my litter-bot-company's robots and then somehow redistribute that to... whom, exactly? I am in favor of Universal Basic Income, but only when the robots are good enough to seriously impact the average person's ability to compete in the job market and get work. (Like, me. If I wasn't good at computers I'd probably be homeless!) A given economic regime must provide jobs or bread or "you're gonna have a bad time." I think we're at the tipping point: the hardware is COTS (Common Off-The-Shelf) the software is coming together nicely. There are already robot vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers that work pretty well, etc. So, yeah, what's the economic program for the automation revolution? Lords and serfs? Or some sort of Marxist distributed ownership of the "means of production"? (Probably not: even the communists didn't actually go through with that in the end, eh?) Why is Daiso so much more popular than RepRaps?

pdimitar 7y ago
> I do NOT think it would be useful to for the government to tax my litter-bot-company's robots and then somehow redistribute that to... whom, exactly? As much as I think a robot tax looks to be one of very few possible ways to improve current situation, I also agree with you that the whole thing isn't well-explained or argued for. It does sound like this: "government vacuums even more money but 10 years later, people still live under bridges or in slums". Sadly, knowing the average politician's thought process, the odds of us ending with an economic inequality shifted from corporations to governments is extremely likely. We the people are greedy no matter what positions we occupy... > "Let the robots do the work and we'll take their pay." I like that a lot, actually. It's a much better idea. Robot goes to work in my name sake, I get money wired in my account and I get the final say in what does the robot do and when. The reliability of the transaction hinges on economical interest (I want the robot to work with a stable schedule N hours a day because that makes me money). Really neat idea.
- carapace 7y ago
  Cheers! I can't take credit tho. I believe it was Dr. Philo Drummond or the NENSLO who said it first.

pdimitar 7y ago

> I do NOT think it would be useful to for the government to tax my litter-bot-company's robots and then somehow redistribute that to... whom, exactly? As much as I think a robot tax looks to be one of very few possible ways to improve current situation, I also agree with you that the whole thing isn't well-explained or argued for. It does sound like this: "government vacuums even more money but 10 years later, people still live under bridges or in slums". Sadly, knowing the average politician's thought process, the odds of us ending with an economic inequality shifted from corporations to governments is extremely likely. We the people are greedy no matter what positions we occupy... > "Let the robots do the work and we'll take their pay." I like that a lot, actually. It's a much better idea. Robot goes to work in my name sake, I get money wired in my account and I get the final say in what does the robot do and when. The reliability of the transaction hinges on economical interest (I want the robot to work with a stable schedule N hours a day because that makes me money). Really neat idea.

carapace 7y ago
Cheers! I can't take credit tho. I believe it was Dr. Philo Drummond or the NENSLO who said it first.