6 ms·

>all goods are free Making all goods very inexpensive (necessities for pennies/day) solves the problems of "free". Of course it's also a very dangerous idea,

>all goods are free Making all goods very inexpensive (necessities for pennies/day) solves the problems of "free". Of course it's also a very dangerous idea, because it's so similar to the present system that it invites one to change it. Here's a small exercise: 1. Choose a product (potatos, t-shirts, rockets, diamonds, *anything*). 2. Imagine you pay modern prices for it, but made in a totally automated factory. 3. Using your knowledge of business, ask yourself: When that money eventually reaches a person, who is it? Who ultimately gets your consumer dollar? The person who installed the solar panels? Mined the ore? Ponied up the capital? Built the building? Ran the company? 4. You haven't fully thought out the implications of the AI economy. Automate that person's job and repeat. Every iteration of this loop is a business opportunity. Contrast this with the "free" economy (à la Roddenberry's 'Star Trek'), which is non-threatening because there's no clear plan of action from here to there.

danbruc 14y ago
I am unable to follow your argumentation - if an economy is fully automated, there is no money - at least not in the way we currently understand it. No human is working and gets paid so there is no money to spend on goods. There will still be some limited resources and things will remain having a value that could be equated with an currency, but this will be different from our current money. For example it could be the case that we are only able to mine 10 grams of diamond for everybody. Whoever desires to have more diamonds is free to exchange them with others not caring about their share of diamonds probably involving some currency. I still have the feeling that I am missing your point; maybe you could elaborate it a bit more.
- ef4 14y ago
  > if an economy is fully automated, there is no money - at least not in the way we currently understand it. No human is working and gets paid so there is no money to spend on goods. Not true. Labor is one way to earn money. But not the only way. People also earn money from capital investments, and spend money on capital investments. The robotic car factory still pays the robotic smelter who pays the robotic miner. None of their prices are quite zero, because there are real capital costs in building and maintaining their own infrastructure. Why else would anyone build an automated economy in the first place, if not in pursuit of capital returns? The first person to build a fully automatic widget factory gets to sell widgets at the prevailing price, but with much lower costs, giving him fat profit margins. As his competitors also automate, the prices eventually fall and his margin goes away. We can expect to see this cycle repeat many, many times. It has already been happening for a long time. "Fully automated" is just one end of a long continuum we've already been travelling.
  - danbruc 14y ago
    Why would you pay robots? And there are no infrastructure costs because robots will build and maintain the infrastructure. Capital investment becomes useless - all goods are free, money has no value, so why would you want to make money? It may be questionable if we ever reach full automation but in this hypothetical scenario money as we know it will be worthless.
    - nazgulnarsil 14y ago
      goods are not the only thing humans value.
    - schiffern 14y ago
      >Why would you pay robots? Of course you are correct. But you still pay the company that owns the robots. (Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I?) The relevant question is, "what expenses does a company that runs a robotic factory have?" This was Step 3 of my exercise. I offer it as a tool someone might use to answer their own questions.
      - danbruc 14y ago
        Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I? That's actually what I had in mind - we build some robots doing all the work, maintaining themselves and what not. They would happily continue building iPhones even after the last human died. And they are owned - if you want to call it that - communistically by all humans. From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. You are hinting at some problems with that scenario but I am unable to see them - would you mind to elaborate on this?
        ef4 14y ago
        > From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. This is the crux of the problem: it's not just final consumer goods that need to be chosen, but every intermediate good up and down the value chain. And each of those choices is subject to differences of opinion, rapidly changing inputs, and shifting technologies. And even at the consumer-goods level, the complexity of the voting would be astounding. It's not going to be a question of simple two-way elections -- you really need to measure a gigantic matrix of relative preferences for each person, and nobody has enough information about relative inputs costs to even accurately fill out their own matrix. This is precisely why market pricing is so useful, and why it is unlikely to ever disappear entirely.
- schiffern 14y ago
  The economy will never be fully automated, if only because of demand for authentically human-created goods and services.

danbruc 14y ago

I am unable to follow your argumentation - if an economy is fully automated, there is no money - at least not in the way we currently understand it. No human is working and gets paid so there is no money to spend on goods. There will still be some limited resources and things will remain having a value that could be equated with an currency, but this will be different from our current money. For example it could be the case that we are only able to mine 10 grams of diamond for everybody. Whoever desires to have more diamonds is free to exchange them with others not caring about their share of diamonds probably involving some currency. I still have the feeling that I am missing your point; maybe you could elaborate it a bit more.

ef4 14y ago
> if an economy is fully automated, there is no money - at least not in the way we currently understand it. No human is working and gets paid so there is no money to spend on goods. Not true. Labor is one way to earn money. But not the only way. People also earn money from capital investments, and spend money on capital investments. The robotic car factory still pays the robotic smelter who pays the robotic miner. None of their prices are quite zero, because there are real capital costs in building and maintaining their own infrastructure. Why else would anyone build an automated economy in the first place, if not in pursuit of capital returns? The first person to build a fully automatic widget factory gets to sell widgets at the prevailing price, but with much lower costs, giving him fat profit margins. As his competitors also automate, the prices eventually fall and his margin goes away. We can expect to see this cycle repeat many, many times. It has already been happening for a long time. "Fully automated" is just one end of a long continuum we've already been travelling.
- danbruc 14y ago
  Why would you pay robots? And there are no infrastructure costs because robots will build and maintain the infrastructure. Capital investment becomes useless - all goods are free, money has no value, so why would you want to make money? It may be questionable if we ever reach full automation but in this hypothetical scenario money as we know it will be worthless.
  - nazgulnarsil 14y ago
    goods are not the only thing humans value.
  - schiffern 14y ago
    >Why would you pay robots? Of course you are correct. But you still pay the company that owns the robots. (Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I?) The relevant question is, "what expenses does a company that runs a robotic factory have?" This was Step 3 of my exercise. I offer it as a tool someone might use to answer their own questions.
    - danbruc 14y ago
      Unless you're suggesting that there will be robots with no owner? I don't have to point out the problems with that, do I? That's actually what I had in mind - we build some robots doing all the work, maintaining themselves and what not. They would happily continue building iPhones even after the last human died. And they are owned - if you want to call it that - communistically by all humans. From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. You are hinting at some problems with that scenario but I am unable to see them - would you mind to elaborate on this?
      - ef4 14y ago
        > From time to time everybody can vote if he prefers to have more iPhones or more Android phones, vanilla ice cream or strawberry to actually produce the desired goods and that's it. This is the crux of the problem: it's not just final consumer goods that need to be chosen, but every intermediate good up and down the value chain. And each of those choices is subject to differences of opinion, rapidly changing inputs, and shifting technologies. And even at the consumer-goods level, the complexity of the voting would be astounding. It's not going to be a question of simple two-way elections -- you really need to measure a gigantic matrix of relative preferences for each person, and nobody has enough information about relative inputs costs to even accurately fill out their own matrix. This is precisely why market pricing is so useful, and why it is unlikely to ever disappear entirely.
schiffern 14y ago
The economy will never be fully automated, if only because of demand for authentically human-created goods and services.