6 ms·

As soon as this thing hit this was one of my first thoughts, once things recover there are going to be a lot of companies looking for ways to automate things be

by hpoe 7y ago

As soon as this thing hit this was one of my first thoughts, once things recover there are going to be a lot of companies looking for ways to automate things because robots don't get sick, they don't have to worry about social distancing they keep going until you tell them to stop or the power gets cut. I do wonder however if this effect will be hampered by the number of unemployed. More unemployed people means a greater supply of laborers and that translates to lower costs. Of course on the flip side it may be that many companies are starting to see what is actually necessary for their company to operate and will run with a leaner staff moving forward. The future will be wild that's for sure. EDIT: When I say "translates to lower costs" I mean lower costs for labor, realized what I said could be ambiguous.

dillonmckay 7y ago
Well, I do not think we are at the point where AI powered robots can fully replace a human service worker, but, we can definitely have a hybrid solution, where remote workers can control the more difficult parts. So, jobs for the unemployed, and robots that can’t get sick.
- erikerikson 7y ago
  This would produce excellent training data.
baron_harkonnen 7y ago
The flip side is really the question: Where does the money come from to buy the things produced by the robots if people are no longer being paid to produce things? If you answer something like UBI, then you're just passing the buck and the obvious question is, "where does that money come from?" This problem is secretly baked into the structure of the current crisis. More automation is inevitable, I'm not arguing about that, but it will only exacerbate the problem.
- FeepingCreature 7y ago
  The money is minted, which is to say printed, by the central bank. That is where the money comes from. That is where all money comes from.
  - airstrike 7y ago
    That's not where the value of money comes from, though
    - mikepurvis 7y ago
      But there isn't much value in people spending their lives driving delivery cars or bagging groceries either. The point of UBI proposals is that there is enough total value in our national economies to meet everyone's basic needs— the question of where the money/value "comes from" is simple, it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation.
      - vorpalhex 7y ago
        You're conflating financial value with moral value. There's a lot of financial value in delivery or bagging even if there's no moral value. Printing money doesn't increase financial value it only increases liquidity. > it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation. Again you're not increasing the financial value, you're changing how it's disbursed. Whether your fuel is in the form of gasoline or electricity you still have a finite amount of it and once you burn through it, it's gone unless you're adding more to the system.
        mrec 7y ago
        Could you expand on what you mean by "moral value" here? Something like job satisfaction, self-actualization etc? "Moral" as a descriptor seems likely to derail the argument here. There's nothing immoral about delivering groceries; it's providing a genuinely useful service, and can be intrinsically rewarding as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people volunteering to do it for free in the UK at the moment.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- narrator 7y ago
  Well with oil prices going negative, maybe they just bundle free unlimited gas with your car when you lease it and the oil producers pay you to take it. The government can bail out these industries to sell for negative prices. This is one way to sort of take the benefits of increased efficiency and push them back to the people.
- Scapeghost 7y ago
  > where does that money come from? The people hoarding it.
  - lolsal 7y ago
    Didn't they earn it? Didn't they trade for it?
    - Scapeghost 7y ago
      > Didn't they earn it? Can anyone prove it? Do they need it? Is a CEO with multiple mansions and private jets and billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines processing the raw materials of modern civilization but living from paycheck to paycheck and barely able to support a family? What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis? Or the traffickers running prostitution rings? There are many ways to make money without "earning" it. Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it? The point of UBI is to not have to ask or try to answer these sorts of questions.
      - nybble41 7y ago
        > Can anyone prove it? The burden of proof is on you to show that they did not earn it. > Do they need it? Irrelevant. It's theirs whether they need it or not. And whether they need it is not for you to decide. > Is a CEO with … billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines…? No, they are equally worthy of life. Which has nothing at all to do with how much wealth each of them has earned. In any case these CEOs are rare outliers; as rich as they are, if you took all their assets combined and diluted them evenly among the rest of the population nothing would materially change, at least in the short term. In the long term, since you'd no longer have competent individuals administering things, the economy would implode and everyone would be far worse off. What, you thought corporate shareholders hired CEOs and offered them huge salaries for administering their companies at a loss? The difference they make in the company's bottom line far exceeds their pay. Moreover, if you actually liquidated those billions of dollars worth of shares in order to fund consumption then the companies and the productive capital they represent would rapidly cease to exist. Those few of us who survive can look forward to a bare subsistence standard of living in exchange for long, hard days of manual labor in the fields. But at least we'd all be equally poor, right? > What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis? Raising prices on scarce goods during a crisis is economically and socially productive. It ensures that these essentials will be saved for the situations where they are actually needed most and incentivizes the production of more essentials. If you hold prices low and pretend that it's just business-as-usual then you're going to end up with shortages. > Or the traffickers running prostitution rings? That's what the courts are for. But you'll have to prove it, not just throw around vague accusations. > Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it? Guilty until proven innocent? That's not how this works. > The point of UBI is to not have to ask or try to answer these sorts of questions. That isn't really the point of UBI, and even if it were it wouldn't be a laudable goal. Solving the perceived problem of unequal outcomes at the expense of justice is not a trade worth even a moment's consideration—even if UBI actually had a chance of accomplishing that, which it doesn't.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  If consumer buying power drops too low relative to production, you enter the downward cycle seen in 1929. Where consumer earnings come from in the future is crucially connected to how society decides who owns the robots.
- freeone3000 7y ago
  Where does the money currently come from? Currently, it's paid to companies by consumers, which pay workers, which in turn, consume things. So an alternate path would be money is paid to companies by consumers, which are taxed, the tax money is redistributed to consumers again. It seems a bit circular, but so does the first one.
  - visarga 7y ago
    Money were once tied to gold, then became fiat. Most of society gets access to money by employment. Work for wage is a great equaliser, because the ability to work is distributed in the population. Now the equilibrium is under threat because automated work is not distributing money as much into society. I think money could be tied directly to people if we quantify human needs. Then fulfilling these needs of the population would be the source of money. The more needs a company fulfils - food, energy, housing, communication, health, child care, transportation, education, recreation, science, arts, sports, the more it earns. If it's not benefitting people, then it is should be worth nothing. Let them compete in serving the population, instead of us competing for jobs. Keep those incentives aligned with our real goal - to exist. We don't exist for money, money exist for us. If we redefine money to represent 'fulfilled human needs', we fix the goal alignment and the equal distribution problems.
    - gremlinsinc 7y ago
      What if we decided all resources and land were co-owned by Americans. If it is the ground or comes out of the ground. Land/oil specifically and minerals. Mining companies would still make bulk profit but there'd be taxes that are paid out in UBI. All land for skyscrapers, office buildings, etc -- all land would be taxed at a specific value, and that would also go into UBI. Then we could also have a VAT instead of income taxes so all Americans are also tax payers but UBI puts everyone above poverty so no biggie if we all pay tax on our purchases.
- fiter 7y ago
  We're not even close to the problem of not having any work to do. Let's limit the work week to 4 days, or give one week off every 5.

by hpoe 7y ago

dillonmckay 7y ago

Well, I do not think we are at the point where AI powered robots can fully replace a human service worker, but, we can definitely have a hybrid solution, where remote workers can control the more difficult parts. So, jobs for the unemployed, and robots that can’t get sick.

erikerikson 7y ago
This would produce excellent training data.

baron_harkonnen 7y ago

The flip side is really the question: Where does the money come from to buy the things produced by the robots if people are no longer being paid to produce things? If you answer something like UBI, then you're just passing the buck and the obvious question is, "where does that money come from?" This problem is secretly baked into the structure of the current crisis. More automation is inevitable, I'm not arguing about that, but it will only exacerbate the problem.

FeepingCreature 7y ago
The money is minted, which is to say printed, by the central bank. That is where the money comes from. That is where all money comes from.
- airstrike 7y ago
  That's not where the value of money comes from, though
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    But there isn't much value in people spending their lives driving delivery cars or bagging groceries either. The point of UBI proposals is that there is enough total value in our national economies to meet everyone's basic needs— the question of where the money/value "comes from" is simple, it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation.
    - vorpalhex 7y ago
      You're conflating financial value with moral value. There's a lot of financial value in delivery or bagging even if there's no moral value. Printing money doesn't increase financial value it only increases liquidity. > it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation. Again you're not increasing the financial value, you're changing how it's disbursed. Whether your fuel is in the form of gasoline or electricity you still have a finite amount of it and once you burn through it, it's gone unless you're adding more to the system.
      - mrec 7y ago
        Could you expand on what you mean by "moral value" here? Something like job satisfaction, self-actualization etc? "Moral" as a descriptor seems likely to derail the argument here. There's nothing immoral about delivering groceries; it's providing a genuinely useful service, and can be intrinsically rewarding as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people volunteering to do it for free in the UK at the moment.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
narrator 7y ago
Well with oil prices going negative, maybe they just bundle free unlimited gas with your car when you lease it and the oil producers pay you to take it. The government can bail out these industries to sell for negative prices. This is one way to sort of take the benefits of increased efficiency and push them back to the people.
Scapeghost 7y ago
> where does that money come from? The people hoarding it.
- lolsal 7y ago
  Didn't they earn it? Didn't they trade for it?
  - Scapeghost 7y ago
    > Didn't they earn it? Can anyone prove it? Do they need it? Is a CEO with multiple mansions and private jets and billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines processing the raw materials of modern civilization but living from paycheck to paycheck and barely able to support a family? What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis? Or the traffickers running prostitution rings? There are many ways to make money without "earning" it. Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it? The point of UBI is to not have to ask or try to answer these sorts of questions.
    - nybble41 7y ago
      > Can anyone prove it? The burden of proof is on you to show that they did not earn it. > Do they need it? Irrelevant. It's theirs whether they need it or not. And whether they need it is not for you to decide. > Is a CEO with … billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines…? No, they are equally worthy of life. Which has nothing at all to do with how much wealth each of them has earned. In any case these CEOs are rare outliers; as rich as they are, if you took all their assets combined and diluted them evenly among the rest of the population nothing would materially change, at least in the short term. In the long term, since you'd no longer have competent individuals administering things, the economy would implode and everyone would be far worse off. What, you thought corporate shareholders hired CEOs and offered them huge salaries for administering their companies at a loss? The difference they make in the company's bottom line far exceeds their pay. Moreover, if you actually liquidated those billions of dollars worth of shares in order to fund consumption then the companies and the productive capital they represent would rapidly cease to exist. Those few of us who survive can look forward to a bare subsistence standard of living in exchange for long, hard days of manual labor in the fields. But at least we'd all be equally poor, right? > What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis? Raising prices on scarce goods during a crisis is economically and socially productive. It ensures that these essentials will be saved for the situations where they are actually needed most and incentivizes the production of more essentials. If you hold prices low and pretend that it's just business-as-usual then you're going to end up with shortages. > Or the traffickers running prostitution rings? That's what the courts are for. But you'll have to prove it, not just throw around vague accusations. > Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it? Guilty until proven innocent? That's not how this works. > The point of UBI is to not have to ask or try to answer these sorts of questions. That isn't really the point of UBI, and even if it were it wouldn't be a laudable goal. Solving the perceived problem of unequal outcomes at the expense of justice is not a trade worth even a moment's consideration—even if UBI actually had a chance of accomplishing that, which it doesn't.
TomMckenny 7y ago
If consumer buying power drops too low relative to production, you enter the downward cycle seen in 1929. Where consumer earnings come from in the future is crucially connected to how society decides who owns the robots.
freeone3000 7y ago
Where does the money currently come from? Currently, it's paid to companies by consumers, which pay workers, which in turn, consume things. So an alternate path would be money is paid to companies by consumers, which are taxed, the tax money is redistributed to consumers again. It seems a bit circular, but so does the first one.
- visarga 7y ago
  Money were once tied to gold, then became fiat. Most of society gets access to money by employment. Work for wage is a great equaliser, because the ability to work is distributed in the population. Now the equilibrium is under threat because automated work is not distributing money as much into society. I think money could be tied directly to people if we quantify human needs. Then fulfilling these needs of the population would be the source of money. The more needs a company fulfils - food, energy, housing, communication, health, child care, transportation, education, recreation, science, arts, sports, the more it earns. If it's not benefitting people, then it is should be worth nothing. Let them compete in serving the population, instead of us competing for jobs. Keep those incentives aligned with our real goal - to exist. We don't exist for money, money exist for us. If we redefine money to represent 'fulfilled human needs', we fix the goal alignment and the equal distribution problems.
  - gremlinsinc 7y ago
    What if we decided all resources and land were co-owned by Americans. If it is the ground or comes out of the ground. Land/oil specifically and minerals. Mining companies would still make bulk profit but there'd be taxes that are paid out in UBI. All land for skyscrapers, office buildings, etc -- all land would be taxed at a specific value, and that would also go into UBI. Then we could also have a VAT instead of income taxes so all Americans are also tax payers but UBI puts everyone above poverty so no biggie if we all pay tax on our purchases.
fiter 7y ago
We're not even close to the problem of not having any work to do. Let's limit the work week to 4 days, or give one week off every 5.