7 ms·

People's live shouldn't be wasted doing repetitive tasks year after year, just to afford food and shelter.

by mburns 14y ago

potatolicious 14y ago
Perhaps they shouldn't, but we've just gone and replaced their jobs without having solved scarcity - which is the magic pill that needs to be invented for a function society where you can do nothing productive yet still live. In all practicality this means we need to retrain tens of thousands of people in some other form of repetitive task that hasn't been taken over by a robot. It doesn't mean they get to go off to a Star Trek-ian utopia where they can pursue higher pursuits without having to worry about survival. In the long run this will probably pan out to be a net positive - these robots can do a job better, more precisely, and less expensively than a human, which will advance the state of the art further. In the short run this will create unrest, poverty, starvation, and possibly arrest the hard-earned development of a country trying desperately to claw its way out of poverty.
- geon 14y ago
  The thing is, the same value is created, no matter if the work is done by humans or robots. The extreme would be a world where all work is done by robots, and the same value is created without the involvment of any human. There shouldn't really be any reason for anyone to starve in such a world. It might sound like communism, but think of it.
  - jamroom 14y ago
    The last I looked food isn't free, and I don't see Apple or Foxconn planning on using their increased profits to provide food for those that are now going to be without work.
    - dmix 14y ago
      The comments above are talking about the long term future when robot production fully takes over. How are apples or Foxconn current plans relevant?
  - krapp 14y ago
    >There shouldn't really be any reason for anyone to starve in such a world. There is, because having food when your neighbor starves gives you power over them. Even in a world where all the work is done by robots, unless all the decisions about what work is done, how much and for whom, are also being made by robots, someone will find a way to oppress someone else with the system.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Robots destroy lives! It's funny, software automates far, far more than robots do, and yet you would be hard pressed to find people on this site who hold the opinion that software destroys jobs. Software adds value, it may create efficiencies but it is not a job destroyer. And the same is true of physical automation as well. We've come a long way since the days where everyone worked on the farm, or everyone worked in a factory. Automation has never created poverty or starvation. Look at Japan, which went through exactly the same process as China is today. In the mid 20th century it was a country heavily dependent on exports fueled by cheap labor (in 1950 Japan's per capita GDP was less than 1/5th of the US's). But it didn't take long for them to automated like crazy. Is Japan a poor, unruly, starving country today? No, it's one of the richest countries in the world with one of the highest standards of living.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    > "and yet you would be hard pressed to find people on this site who hold the opinion that software destroys jobs" You've found one right here. Not all software destroys jobs, but much of it certainly does. More often than not this destruction is a net positive for society - but it tends to create localized minima that are hard to resolve. In less abstract speech: by using software to destroy jobs we create more jobs that ostensibly have a greater positive impact to society, but that's really very little comfort to the auto plant worker in Michigan, or the call center agent in Minnesota, or the travel agent in California, most of whom are severely underqualified for these new jobs, and have no reasonable way of becoming qualified. Humans are not discrete units of productivity - specializations, experience, education, intelligence, all of which exist as substantial barriers in making humans easily interchangeable. One cannot reasonably take the position of "relax! we won't even remember this in 100 years", even though it is true. While society will recover from these periods of change, you still have millions of unemployed, hungry, desperate people at your door step right now, and you will have to face that problem regardless. > "Automation has never created poverty or starvation." Are you serious? "Automation has never created a net decrease in productivity in the long term (measured in decades)" is probably more accurate. If you want to see automation creating poverty and starvation just go to the rust belt in this country. Go to Detroit and see the boarded up houses, the burned out husks of neighborhoods, and then try to say with a straight face "automation has never created poverty or starvation". Whenever this topic comes up on HN (and elsewhere) the response is invariably highly binary. Either automation is a noble advancement with no negative effects, or automation is a complete evil that destroys people. Both views are equally ridiculous. Automation is an inevitable fact that is, in the long term, a positive for society - but it creates very significant localized destruction for substantial amounts of time (measured in terms of human life). The ignorance of that last part is dangerous. Automation has already put millions out of work just in this country alone, and will continue to put more people out of work. There are substantial gaps between the unemployed and the new classes of jobs that are being created, and bridging this gap is neither inevitable, nor trivial, nor will the magic of unbridled capitalism solve it automatically. It is a tremendous social issue that faces every society on this planet, and it should not be trivialized.
- Osmium 14y ago
  > but we've just gone and replaced their jobs without having solved scarcity But surely automation, by robots or otherwise, is part of the solution to scarcity? By your definition, you couldn't have a post-scarcity society without them, for who would do the farming and the like in such a society?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    People want a chicken omelet, but god forbid someone suggest we work on getting an egg or a chicken first.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    It is, but it's the transition process that's difficult - you need to sustain people gradually automated out of their jobs while the post-scarcity economy is not yet working.
- ars 14y ago
  > where you can do nothing productive yet still live. It's actually not possible to do that. Humans simply can't. As soon as a person has no reason to live, they start deteriorating. If the person is healthy enough they turn to vices and intoxicants (legal or otherwise) to try to feel something. Other people simply wither. But in all cases a persons life is cut much shorter. In lieu of a job, having children works too, since meeting their children's needs gives people a reason to exist (unless they have too much money, and hire a nanny).
gavinlynch 14y ago
Cool. So they should go back to Hunting and Gathering then?
pretoriusB 14y ago
Which is exactly what will happen when the higher paychecks deploy automation everywhere, thus solving the "we need all those people to make stuff" problem. The thing you're envisioning as a happy outcome, that is automation used everywhere and a society living happily above work is too "socialist" and "communal" to come to pass. The huge masses of people would be useless, and left to rot, as are the huge masses of African, Asian, Indian, etc people today.

People's live shouldn't be wasted doing repetitive tasks year after year, just to afford food and shelter.

by mburns 14y ago

People's live shouldn't be wasted doing repetitive tasks year after year, just to afford food and shelter.

Perhaps they shouldn't, but we've just gone and replaced their jobs without having solved scarcity - which is the magic pill that needs to be invented for a function society where you can do nothing productive yet still live. In all practicality this means we need to retrain tens of thousands of people in some other form of repetitive task that hasn't been taken over by a robot. It doesn't mean they get to go off to a Star Trek-ian utopia where they can pursue higher pursuits without having to worry about survival. In the long run this will probably pan out to be a net positive - these robots can do a job better, more precisely, and less expensively than a human, which will advance the state of the art further. In the short run this will create unrest, poverty, starvation, and possibly arrest the hard-earned development of a country trying desperately to claw its way out of poverty.

geon 14y ago
The thing is, the same value is created, no matter if the work is done by humans or robots. The extreme would be a world where all work is done by robots, and the same value is created without the involvment of any human. There shouldn't really be any reason for anyone to starve in such a world. It might sound like communism, but think of it.
- jamroom 14y ago
  The last I looked food isn't free, and I don't see Apple or Foxconn planning on using their increased profits to provide food for those that are now going to be without work.
  - dmix 14y ago
    The comments above are talking about the long term future when robot production fully takes over. How are apples or Foxconn current plans relevant?
- krapp 14y ago
  >There shouldn't really be any reason for anyone to starve in such a world. There is, because having food when your neighbor starves gives you power over them. Even in a world where all the work is done by robots, unless all the decisions about what work is done, how much and for whom, are also being made by robots, someone will find a way to oppress someone else with the system.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Robots destroy lives! It's funny, software automates far, far more than robots do, and yet you would be hard pressed to find people on this site who hold the opinion that software destroys jobs. Software adds value, it may create efficiencies but it is not a job destroyer. And the same is true of physical automation as well. We've come a long way since the days where everyone worked on the farm, or everyone worked in a factory. Automation has never created poverty or starvation. Look at Japan, which went through exactly the same process as China is today. In the mid 20th century it was a country heavily dependent on exports fueled by cheap labor (in 1950 Japan's per capita GDP was less than 1/5th of the US's). But it didn't take long for them to automated like crazy. Is Japan a poor, unruly, starving country today? No, it's one of the richest countries in the world with one of the highest standards of living.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "and yet you would be hard pressed to find people on this site who hold the opinion that software destroys jobs" You've found one right here. Not all software destroys jobs, but much of it certainly does. More often than not this destruction is a net positive for society - but it tends to create localized minima that are hard to resolve. In less abstract speech: by using software to destroy jobs we create more jobs that ostensibly have a greater positive impact to society, but that's really very little comfort to the auto plant worker in Michigan, or the call center agent in Minnesota, or the travel agent in California, most of whom are severely underqualified for these new jobs, and have no reasonable way of becoming qualified. Humans are not discrete units of productivity - specializations, experience, education, intelligence, all of which exist as substantial barriers in making humans easily interchangeable. One cannot reasonably take the position of "relax! we won't even remember this in 100 years", even though it is true. While society will recover from these periods of change, you still have millions of unemployed, hungry, desperate people at your door step right now, and you will have to face that problem regardless. > "Automation has never created poverty or starvation." Are you serious? "Automation has never created a net decrease in productivity in the long term (measured in decades)" is probably more accurate. If you want to see automation creating poverty and starvation just go to the rust belt in this country. Go to Detroit and see the boarded up houses, the burned out husks of neighborhoods, and then try to say with a straight face "automation has never created poverty or starvation". Whenever this topic comes up on HN (and elsewhere) the response is invariably highly binary. Either automation is a noble advancement with no negative effects, or automation is a complete evil that destroys people. Both views are equally ridiculous. Automation is an inevitable fact that is, in the long term, a positive for society - but it creates very significant localized destruction for substantial amounts of time (measured in terms of human life). The ignorance of that last part is dangerous. Automation has already put millions out of work just in this country alone, and will continue to put more people out of work. There are substantial gaps between the unemployed and the new classes of jobs that are being created, and bridging this gap is neither inevitable, nor trivial, nor will the magic of unbridled capitalism solve it automatically. It is a tremendous social issue that faces every society on this planet, and it should not be trivialized.
Osmium 14y ago
> but we've just gone and replaced their jobs without having solved scarcity But surely automation, by robots or otherwise, is part of the solution to scarcity? By your definition, you couldn't have a post-scarcity society without them, for who would do the farming and the like in such a society?
- jlgreco 14y ago
  People want a chicken omelet, but god forbid someone suggest we work on getting an egg or a chicken first.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  It is, but it's the transition process that's difficult - you need to sustain people gradually automated out of their jobs while the post-scarcity economy is not yet working.
ars 14y ago
> where you can do nothing productive yet still live. It's actually not possible to do that. Humans simply can't. As soon as a person has no reason to live, they start deteriorating. If the person is healthy enough they turn to vices and intoxicants (legal or otherwise) to try to feel something. Other people simply wither. But in all cases a persons life is cut much shorter. In lieu of a job, having children works too, since meeting their children's needs gives people a reason to exist (unless they have too much money, and hire a nanny).

gavinlynch 14y ago

Cool. So they should go back to Hunting and Gathering then?

pretoriusB 14y ago

Which is exactly what will happen when the higher paychecks deploy automation everywhere, thus solving the "we need all those people to make stuff" problem. The thing you're envisioning as a happy outcome, that is automation used everywhere and a society living happily above work is too "socialist" and "communal" to come to pass. The huge masses of people would be useless, and left to rot, as are the huge masses of African, Asian, Indian, etc people today.