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First off, that's not what he said. Secondly, lots of smart people have been talking about the need for basic income when robots take over large portions of the

First off, that's not what he said. Secondly, lots of smart people have been talking about the need for basic income when robots take over large portions of the labor force. I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy.

cjbprime 12y ago
> First off, that's not what he said. Can you elaborate on the divide between his claim and my interpretation, operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow? I honestly don't see it. For the record, I also advocate strongly for basic income. But I don't think that robots taking jobs leads to particularly poor outcomes. For example! Driving a car 17 hours a day (or at all!), as described in the Uber article, is a needlessly dangerous activity for a human to be performing.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  "operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow" Uber is not automating its fleet tomorrow, either.
- ewzimm 12y ago
  Basic income was included to show that removing jobs is not necessarily bad, but it can have immediate negative effects. This is just an instance of consolidating wealth. It is moving a system which distributes wealth to many taxi drivers into a system which distributes wealth to a few people who run Uber. When there's no system in place to correct this imbalance, it contributes to the wealth gap between rich and poor which is accelerating in many other ways. When we see a massive shift of resources to just a few people, it leaves everyone worse off, even the wealthy ones, because we all have to live in a world in which more people are more disempowered and desperate. He just didn't go into detail because he likes short statements.
gnaritas 12y ago
> I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy. Why? It's quite inevitable that it will, unlike all previous eras, there won't be new jobs for humans because it's human thinking that's going to be automated. Robots destroy jobs, that's a fact; sometimes, that creates new jobs, but it's usually always far less jobs for far more skilled humans and that pattern is and must come to an end. Jobs that require smarter humans don't work for the vast majority of barely capable humans that exist. Mass unemployment is coming, the masses aren't capable of knowledge jobs and labor jobs are being taken over by machines, what other possible outcome do you see?
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs?
  - delucain 12y ago
    Currently, they certainly are not. Our education systems (non-higher education) are largely designed to produce good workers for a manufacturing/labor economy that we're (relatively) quickly automating out of existence. And our higher education systems are being "dumbed down" to handle the influx of students not capable of handling the old curriculum. Anecdotally, most of my extended family couldn't write a line of code if their lives depended on it; nor could they design a serious science experiment or write a novel. They aren't trained for those things, and that training has to start young or come with serious motivation, time, and effort. Not one of those people have any interest in learning those things. I think it's possible to have a knowledge based economy, but we would have to drastically redesign our education systems and our culture in ways that I find it hard to even imagine how we would do so. But, I think it's only a matter of time before we gain more skill in writing programs that automate out even the most complex knowledge based jobs. Watson is already showing the potential to be a better doctor than any human. The program named "Emily Howell" can already write symphonies that pass whatever the musical version of the Turing Test is. How long before we apply those things to all the other knowledge based jobs? What'll be left? More automation and maintenance programmers? How many of those will we even need?
  - 12y ago
deeviant 12y ago
I don't think we're pretty far off down the road from mass AI/Robotic created unemployment, but I do think it will happen. Perhaps in 50 years, maybe 100, but I see the writing on the walls. Humans seem almost universally have this hubris that says that machines will never be able to take their place, think as us, be as smart or creative as us. They almost certainly will, but it will take time, perhaps a long time. After all, biology and evolution has had(and used) billions of years to create the human brain, and we've only been building computer for less than a 100.
deeviant 12y ago
I don't think we're pretty far off down the road from mass AI/Robotic created unemployment, but I do think it will happen. Perhaps in 50 years, maybe 100, but I see the writing on the walls. Humans seem almost universally have this hubris that says that machines will never be able to take their place, think as us, be as smart or creative as us. They almost certainly will, but it will take time, perhaps a long time. After all, biology and evolution has had(and used) billions of years to create the human brain, and we've only been building computer for less than a 100.

cjbprime 12y ago

> First off, that's not what he said. Can you elaborate on the divide between his claim and my interpretation, operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow? I honestly don't see it. For the record, I also advocate strongly for basic income. But I don't think that robots taking jobs leads to particularly poor outcomes. For example! Driving a car 17 hours a day (or at all!), as described in the Uber article, is a needlessly dangerous activity for a human to be performing.

dllthomas 12y ago
"operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow" Uber is not automating its fleet tomorrow, either.
ewzimm 12y ago
Basic income was included to show that removing jobs is not necessarily bad, but it can have immediate negative effects. This is just an instance of consolidating wealth. It is moving a system which distributes wealth to many taxi drivers into a system which distributes wealth to a few people who run Uber. When there's no system in place to correct this imbalance, it contributes to the wealth gap between rich and poor which is accelerating in many other ways. When we see a massive shift of resources to just a few people, it leaves everyone worse off, even the wealthy ones, because we all have to live in a world in which more people are more disempowered and desperate. He just didn't go into detail because he likes short statements.

gnaritas 12y ago

> I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy. Why? It's quite inevitable that it will, unlike all previous eras, there won't be new jobs for humans because it's human thinking that's going to be automated. Robots destroy jobs, that's a fact; sometimes, that creates new jobs, but it's usually always far less jobs for far more skilled humans and that pattern is and must come to an end. Jobs that require smarter humans don't work for the vast majority of barely capable humans that exist. Mass unemployment is coming, the masses aren't capable of knowledge jobs and labor jobs are being taken over by machines, what other possible outcome do you see?

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Why are the 'masses' not capable of knowledge jobs?
- delucain 12y ago
  Currently, they certainly are not. Our education systems (non-higher education) are largely designed to produce good workers for a manufacturing/labor economy that we're (relatively) quickly automating out of existence. And our higher education systems are being "dumbed down" to handle the influx of students not capable of handling the old curriculum. Anecdotally, most of my extended family couldn't write a line of code if their lives depended on it; nor could they design a serious science experiment or write a novel. They aren't trained for those things, and that training has to start young or come with serious motivation, time, and effort. Not one of those people have any interest in learning those things. I think it's possible to have a knowledge based economy, but we would have to drastically redesign our education systems and our culture in ways that I find it hard to even imagine how we would do so. But, I think it's only a matter of time before we gain more skill in writing programs that automate out even the most complex knowledge based jobs. Watson is already showing the potential to be a better doctor than any human. The program named "Emily Howell" can already write symphonies that pass whatever the musical version of the Turing Test is. How long before we apply those things to all the other knowledge based jobs? What'll be left? More automation and maintenance programmers? How many of those will we even need?
- 12y ago

deeviant 12y ago

I don't think we're pretty far off down the road from mass AI/Robotic created unemployment, but I do think it will happen. Perhaps in 50 years, maybe 100, but I see the writing on the walls. Humans seem almost universally have this hubris that says that machines will never be able to take their place, think as us, be as smart or creative as us. They almost certainly will, but it will take time, perhaps a long time. After all, biology and evolution has had(and used) billions of years to create the human brain, and we've only been building computer for less than a 100.

deeviant 12y ago