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I have never tried to claim that robots destroy wealth. That would be ludicrous. But they do take away jobs. New jobs might be created to replace them. However,

by marvin 14y ago

I have never tried to claim that robots destroy wealth. That would be ludicrous. But they do take away jobs. New jobs might be created to replace them. However, I don't think this will happen as easily as before. The Luddite fallacy is outdated. We won't be able to add new (profitable!) jobs indefinitely, because our standard of living can't keep increasing indefinitely. (Or at least not at the rate it is today - there are only so many fancy cars, nice apartments and computer entertainment systems a single person can use). Robots do free up parts of the labor pool, but the world needs to adapt to this extra "labor". I hope you're not misunderstanding what I'm saying; I believe that automation is unequivocally a good force. But our current system isn't built to handle a very high degree of automation. When the winner-take-all effect of the Internet starts becoming more visible in additional parts of the economy, reform will be necessary. To sum up my opinion in a single soundbite: The labor dislocations caused by current and future automation efforts won't resolve as easily as they have until now, where everyone simply switched to a new, profitable job right away.

bradleyland 14y ago
Imagine if you were to travel deep in to the Amazon and locate an indigenous tribe. This tribe is still a hunter gatherer society. What do you think would happen if you introduced just a little bit of modernization. Simple things like agriculture and irrigation. Sanitary water systems. Basic things that we take for granted. One possible outcome is that the now obsolete hunter class amongst the tribe would revolt. The sudden loss of their jobs would leave them with no purpose, so why wouldn't they revolt? Another possible outcome is that they would find a new purpose and help push their tribe in to the future. In a lot of ways, we're facing the same shift today. We need less labor to make "things" than we ever have in the past. Resenting the loss of this need is only one solution. If we look back over human history, we know that the lost of labor requirements for the current status of living has only resulted in an elevation of the tasks we set ourselves to. That is our choice, and that is why I'm so excited to see people like Elon Musk set themselves against tasks that others cower in fear of. I'm glad for people like Paul Graham who are looking for ways to make entrepreneurship available to more people. I'm thankful for people like James Cameron, who use their wealth to explore parts of the earth for the benefit of all. I'm not saying it will be easy, but I don't see the wall that you're seeing.

by marvin 14y ago

bradleyland 14y ago

Imagine if you were to travel deep in to the Amazon and locate an indigenous tribe. This tribe is still a hunter gatherer society. What do you think would happen if you introduced just a little bit of modernization. Simple things like agriculture and irrigation. Sanitary water systems. Basic things that we take for granted. One possible outcome is that the now obsolete hunter class amongst the tribe would revolt. The sudden loss of their jobs would leave them with no purpose, so why wouldn't they revolt? Another possible outcome is that they would find a new purpose and help push their tribe in to the future. In a lot of ways, we're facing the same shift today. We need less labor to make "things" than we ever have in the past. Resenting the loss of this need is only one solution. If we look back over human history, we know that the lost of labor requirements for the current status of living has only resulted in an elevation of the tasks we set ourselves to. That is our choice, and that is why I'm so excited to see people like Elon Musk set themselves against tasks that others cower in fear of. I'm glad for people like Paul Graham who are looking for ways to make entrepreneurship available to more people. I'm thankful for people like James Cameron, who use their wealth to explore parts of the earth for the benefit of all. I'm not saying it will be easy, but I don't see the wall that you're seeing.