8 ms·

Yep. If your job could conceivably be done by an automaton, eventually it will be. Since we are just automatons, that means that every job could eventually be a

• wheels 13y ago
  That's ok. The other animals in the zoo won't have to work either.
  • benologist 13y ago
    You realize most of us are in that zoo too? There's nothing inherently magical about being able to make CRUD web sites and apps that protects us forever.
    • wheels 13y ago
      My point, perhaps too veiled, was that as the amount of work that humanity is required to do approaches zero, so too does the likelihood that humanity remains the dominant species.
      • emiliobumachar 13y ago
        Who could replace us? Why can the task of keeping them at bay not be automated?
        • monkeyspaw 13y ago
          I think he may be referring to machine overlords. If the automated processes are what replace humans as the dominant life form, who will watch the automation? I think the "dominant life form" thing is a bit of semantics. But I have found this entire thread very interesting. It will be interesting to see what happens when humanity lacks scarcity. Research indicates that humans tend towards heirarchies, which are defined relative to neighbors. The "keeping up with the joneses" disease might be part of our core programming. In a surplus society, I wonder what will substitute for status. Probably something much like our current system, I suppose.
          • textminer 13y ago
            If you've never read this article in Jacobin magazine, I think you'd quite like it: http://jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/ http://jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
          • jamesaguilar 13y ago
            Instagram followers. You think I'm joking, but really I am only sort of.
• FreeFull 13y ago
  I think a big turning point in human history will be when computers will finally be capable of everything and more that a human can do.
  • adisbladis 13y ago
    Considering how far the research into EEG has gotten the line between you and the computer will eventually blur out.
    • ams6110 13y ago
      I think it's more likely that there will be a massive war and the survivors will be peasants again.
  • lukifer 13y ago
    If you want to talk about replacing jobs which are done more effectively by software, managing scarce resources to maximize utility and happiness seems like a pretty good candidate.
    • straight_talk_2 13y ago
      Hard to understand what you mean. It's not like the current resource managers are trying to maximize happiness, but just lack efficiency. Just the opposite - the majority of ambitions, rich, powerful people in the world are putting tremendous efforts into extracting as much resources from the poor as possible.
• seiji 13y ago
  From 1994 (I welcome any earlier references too): An easy change in the United States could be through the social security system. Social security was originally presented as a government-run pension fund that accumulated wages for retirement, but in practice it transfers income from workers to retirees. The system will probably be subsidized from general taxes in coming decades, when too few workers are available to support the retiring post World War II baby boom. Incremental expansion of such a subsidy would let money from robot industries, collected as corporate taxes, be returned to the general population as pension payments. By gradually lowering the retirement age towards birth, most of the population would eventually be supported. The money could be distributed under other names, but calling it a pension is meaningful symbolism: we are describing the long, comfortable retirement of the original-model human race. from http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1995/RobotMind.talk.html http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.artic...
  • prostoalex 13y ago
    The problem with "general taxes" is that they don't fall from the skies. In the economies with large percentage of makers and small percentage of moochers things work out decently, as the moochers category includes babies and elderly, so the work by makers is almost a social contract, a "thank you" to the society for support while being a baby, and a rainy day fund for one day when the maker himself will turn elderly. Having a large population of working-age moochers violates the social contract, and creates incentives for the makers to optimize their revenue generation, if not quit altogether, Atlas Shrugged style. The perverse incentives are apparent in post-Soviet economies, where under Soviet ruling government-owned enterprises frequently supported a vast infrastructure of company towns - everything from kindergartens to hospitals was included in the balance sheet of the local plant or factory. Fast forward a few decades ahead, when the government-owned enterprises are now privately-owned, and typical pattern you see is profit-less plants and factories now selling their products at cost, avoiding profit sharing, to a Cyprus or Cayman Islands affiliate, with affiliate (incidentally controlled by large shareholders and top management) pocketing all the profits in tax-efficient manner.
    • seiji 13y ago
• adisbladis 13y ago
  A thousand times yes! Automating away a lot of jobs as the economic system is now be disastrous, just think of Detroit at a very large scale. "Wouldn't that be perfect if she could actually pursue her hobby?" is a very ignorant statement if you start to consider the implications of industry automation for all of the workers who have been automated away. I believe that if we don't fundamentally change the economy through reform this will eventually lead to the next large revolution.
  • smacktoward 13y ago
    Yeah. Not a lot of laid-off auto workers doing backflips with joy because now they can devote more time their stamp collection. The "hobbies" line is also infuriating because it practically drips with condescension. "I'm sure you have a hobby, don't you, dear? Of course you do! Why don't you go and spend some time on that while the grown-ups do the important work." All it's missing is a little pat on the head at the end.
    • Houshalter 13y ago
      I think you are missing the point that people don't usually want to work doing these menial, easily automated jobs. They do it because they have to, to support themselves and their families. If they could still support themselves or get paid, but not have to spend their day working, wouldn't they be better off?
      • unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Wouldn't they be doing that now if they could? How does losing their jobs make their "hobbies" suddenly profitable?
        • ckannan90 13y ago
          I think the argument about "hobbies" is a long term one, not one that applies to people who just got laid off. If there was no automation and everyone had to farm, nobody can pursue their "hobbies", because everyone has to work to meet their needs. At present, because of automation, less people have to farm. Because of that, people with a "hobby" of filmmaking can go make films, and other people with a "hobby" of watching films are able to spend their time (and money) watching those films. The argument is that automation eventually frees up society into doing less essential things and increases overall happiness. Also hobbies is definitely not the right word here.
• tartle 13y ago
  we'll need socialism much earlier than when all jobs are gone. the only problem is how to marry this transition with incentives for further technological development. technological elites enjoying fruits of the economic growth, while the majority gets gradually reduced to TaskRabbits - that's really a disgusting picture...
  • diminoten 13y ago
    We'll need less people, or smarter people, not socialism. Socialism, as a whole, leads to Bad Things. Sprinklings of socialism help and are good, but if you subscribe fully to any specific socialist doctrine, history shows your group will be harmed by it.
    • tartle 13y ago
      first of all, it depends what you define as socialism. what seems more important, history shows that there are no Iron Laws Of History Written In Capital Letters. what we see is always an outcome of particular circumstances. like - "trying to establish a particular form of socialism (i would rather say this was communism, not socialism, but let's not open an argument here...) in an isolated, pre-capitalist country, that was recently destroyed by war, and has no democratic culture, produces shitty effects". that doesn't tell much about choices we have today.
    • vacri 13y ago
      Patent nonsense. The 'specific socialist doctrine' of Social Democracy is what the countries with the highest quality of life currently run. If you mean 'communist', then say 'communist'.
      • smsm42 13y ago
        That's like saying Lance Armstrong took performance drugs, so if you want to bike like Armstrong then drugs is the best way to get there. In fact, for most people drugs would much faster get you into the hospital then into the Olympics. Same with socialism - some rich countries can take a lot of it and still maintain health, but less rich countries would just collapse.
• _ak 13y ago
  Socialism is such a harsh word. All it really needs is a welfare program for the general population that doesn't punish those whose jobs have been automated. A system how to solve that has been discussed in Germany by left-leaning parties. The idea is simple: give everyone a certain salary per month that allows them to rent a flat, buy groceries, and have a social life. Without the fear of losing their job, not being able to afford food or just becoming poor, people will do whatever they like: some will continue their job (which earns them extra pay, obviously), some will try out a business idea they have, some won't work. Or that's the idea, at least, with the assumption that people aren't lazy by nature and thus must be punished if they neither work nor actively seek for jobs (i.e. the current unemployment benefit system in Germany), but instead would like to work, except working on the stuff they like working on.
  • prostoalex 13y ago
    This already kinda exists in the United States, except not in the salary form. Food stamps + subsidized housing + disability pay.
    • igravious 13y ago
      Honest question. What kind of life does that give you? A decent enough life or a pretty miserable life? Also, if this is true why are there so many more homeless people in the US than any other Western country I've been to?
      • jamesaguilar 13y ago
        It doesn't give you a very good life. That said, there is still a question of when we should begin heavily subsidizing non-work. I think there's a decent argument to be made that we're not at that point yet. Also, homelessness in the US is barely related to the question of subsidizing non-work. It's more of a failure on the part of our mental health system. If you talk to a homeless guy in the US, odds are he'll have some pretty noticeable mental issue right from the get-go.
      • Daniel_Newby 13y ago
• smsm42 13y ago
  If there would be no scarcity, who needs socialism? If there would be scarcity, there would be jobs in producing scarce resources and delivering them to whoever wants to consume them. But if you are not happy with this, I can easily offer you a job creation program. Take two people. One would dig the ditch for 8 hours, the other would come next day and fill up the same ditch. Since you claim "jobs" are something we should pursue, this is a perfect example of jobs that can be created cheaply and abundantly. Of course, these jobs would provide zero value, but if you don't care about loss of value from employing people to do things that can be done with much higher value, then why should you care there? Just tax "the rich" and dig the ditch, and the jobs would be there forever. Hint: google "broken window fallacy".