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What I don't understand is why humans are so obsessed with labor. Robots are doing stuff for us, and some people are actually complaining about it. To me, this
by _Adam 13y ago
What I don't understand is why humans are so obsessed with labor. Robots are doing stuff for us, and some people are actually complaining about it. To me, this seems really sad. It's like they're saying "I'm so worthless, I can't even compete with a robot."
Maybe that's true for some people. If so, then the problem isn't robots, the problem is that there are people who are less useful than robots. For a human to survive in the era of intelligent machines, he/she needs to have unique skills that are not possessed by robots. If they don't have those skills, they need to find them.
For those in the tech industry, those skills are already there. It will be decades, or longer, until we can automate software/hardware engineers. Entrepreneurship is another unique skill that will be even harder to automate. I believe that once machines are capable of conceiving, starting, and operating businesses, they will no longer be called machines.
What we must never forget is that humans aren't intrinsically special. We just happen to be the most capable organisms on the planet right now. The current rate of technological progression suggests that this will eventually change. When it does, we'll need to adapt or we'll go extinct.
If we cannot adapt to this reality, we will simply end up serving as the spawning ground for a new species (biological or otherwise) that will make humans obsolete. If we survive, it will be as little but a historical curiosity.
To adapt, we cannot look at robotics and automation as an enemy. It IS the future - we need to accept it, exploit it, and ultimately incorporate it into ourselves.
- krapp 13y ago>Robots are doing stuff for us, and some people are actually complaining about it. To me, this seems really sad. It's like they're saying "I'm so worthless, I can't even compete with a robot." That's not what they're saying. The labor market isn't automatically going to expand to accommodate their need for employment. "Finding" new skills all too often means amassing a crippling amount of loan debt (in the US at least), to enter a job market which simply has no room, nor a desire to find room, for the population it put so much effort into letting go. Humans may not be intrinsically special, but being biased towards human survival, as a human being, should not be difficult to understand.