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If you take one look at the demographics of developed countries, the reality is that we absolutely need to replace the majority of human labor in order to maint

If you take one look at the demographics of developed countries, the reality is that we absolutely need to replace the majority of human labor in order to maintain any sustainable material standard of living. Old age entitlements are a ticking time bomb, with fewer workers in each generation to support the growing share of longer and longer lived retirees. You want social unrest, take a look at France, which is on fire at the moment because the government had the temerity to try and raise the legal retirement age to 64.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Firstly, we are talking in this thread about intellectual, not physical labour. There's no AI or robot forthcoming that will replace (already brutally underpaid) personal support workers or nurses in nursing homes. Instead it's the higher paying or more satisfying intellectual, artisan, and creative work done by those senior's children that are on the chopping block. Secondly, even if jobs are automated to support the aging population, the economic model we have doesn't facilitate this leading to an improved life. The incentives to automate in our market economy are strong, and produce amazing efficiencies. Unfortunately that incentive is to reduce labour costs, and there's always a period of unemployment and reskilling afterwards. And in places like the US, unemployment = no health care, among other insecurities. And in the past a lucky few reskilled towards more intellectual, creative, or informational-managerial jobs. Turns out those will be easier to automate than we thought. Building a robot is expensive. Automating a factory a huge capital investment. But once the R&D phase is done, reproducing and distributing software is dirt cheap. Machine automation of intellectual tasks will happen far more rapidly and with more brutal results than factory automation ever has. The Alvin Toffler fantasy of information age prosperity looks more preposterous every day.
- elforce002 4y ago
  100% agreed with you. The more we go down the rabbit hole, the more we see there's no utopia at the of the tunnel.
- philwelch 4y ago
  > Firstly, we are talking in this thread about intellectual, not physical labour. There's no AI or robot forthcoming that will replace (already brutally underpaid) personal support workers or nurses in nursing homes. Instead it's the higher paying or more satisfying intellectual, artisan, and creative work done by those senior's children that are on the chopping block. Cool, then we can free up a lot of those workers to do other work. And it’s not just a matter of nurses and the like. Retirees need food, energy, goods and services just like everyone else; it’s just that they no longer participate in the process of producing those goods and services. Plus, a ton of health care is knowledge work too. > And in the past a lucky few reskilled towards more intellectual, creative, or informational-managerial jobs. Turns out those will be easier to automate than we thought. Which is good. Half of the population has an IQ under 100, and there are just as many people with an IQ below 80 as there are above 120. Which means most people can’t reskill to knowledge work. However, the use of AI will allow these people to reskill to productive work just as POS systems allowed people to work as cashiers without the ability to do arithmetic. The only actual problem you’ve identified is a threat to the egos of knowledge workers whose sense of self-worth lies in their self-perception of having above average intelligence, or perhaps in not having to do any sort of physical labor. Just like the myth of John Henry, we’re going to feel compelled to eulogize the email jobs. Our grandchildren probably won’t pine for the days of open offices and daily standups though.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

Firstly, we are talking in this thread about intellectual, not physical labour. There's no AI or robot forthcoming that will replace (already brutally underpaid) personal support workers or nurses in nursing homes. Instead it's the higher paying or more satisfying intellectual, artisan, and creative work done by those senior's children that are on the chopping block. Secondly, even if jobs are automated to support the aging population, the economic model we have doesn't facilitate this leading to an improved life. The incentives to automate in our market economy are strong, and produce amazing efficiencies. Unfortunately that incentive is to reduce labour costs, and there's always a period of unemployment and reskilling afterwards. And in places like the US, unemployment = no health care, among other insecurities. And in the past a lucky few reskilled towards more intellectual, creative, or informational-managerial jobs. Turns out those will be easier to automate than we thought. Building a robot is expensive. Automating a factory a huge capital investment. But once the R&D phase is done, reproducing and distributing software is dirt cheap. Machine automation of intellectual tasks will happen far more rapidly and with more brutal results than factory automation ever has. The Alvin Toffler fantasy of information age prosperity looks more preposterous every day.

elforce002 4y ago
100% agreed with you. The more we go down the rabbit hole, the more we see there's no utopia at the of the tunnel.
philwelch 4y ago
> Firstly, we are talking in this thread about intellectual, not physical labour. There's no AI or robot forthcoming that will replace (already brutally underpaid) personal support workers or nurses in nursing homes. Instead it's the higher paying or more satisfying intellectual, artisan, and creative work done by those senior's children that are on the chopping block. Cool, then we can free up a lot of those workers to do other work. And it’s not just a matter of nurses and the like. Retirees need food, energy, goods and services just like everyone else; it’s just that they no longer participate in the process of producing those goods and services. Plus, a ton of health care is knowledge work too. > And in the past a lucky few reskilled towards more intellectual, creative, or informational-managerial jobs. Turns out those will be easier to automate than we thought. Which is good. Half of the population has an IQ under 100, and there are just as many people with an IQ below 80 as there are above 120. Which means most people can’t reskill to knowledge work. However, the use of AI will allow these people to reskill to productive work just as POS systems allowed people to work as cashiers without the ability to do arithmetic. The only actual problem you’ve identified is a threat to the egos of knowledge workers whose sense of self-worth lies in their self-perception of having above average intelligence, or perhaps in not having to do any sort of physical labor. Just like the myth of John Henry, we’re going to feel compelled to eulogize the email jobs. Our grandchildren probably won’t pine for the days of open offices and daily standups though.