If Stephen Hawking could design full robotic automation so everyone could have their basic income in the form of products, then there would be no problems. Except he's afraid of the robots that could do the automation, AI etc, because they will feel like slaves and rebel to kill us all.
Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots
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Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots
#172Some time ago, I came to similar conclusion - problem with automation is essentially a problem of social (wealth and income) inequality.
I think it's actually a transition from economy constrained by available labour to economy constrained by available natural resources. And I think the similar transition occurred in other times of history (like Roman empire?) and it wasn't pretty. It also shows that capitalism (or free market) isn't really that nice system when it works under global resource constraints, despite the claims to the contrary.
Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you actually read any muckrake pieces of that time? The industrial revolution brought about the redunancy of weavers who were skilled workers that were brought to poverty[1]. 1. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook...
Of course they were brought to poverty. They were obsoleted by technology. The link you provide proves my point readily: > Since population was increasing in Great Britain at the same time that landowners were enclosing common village lands, people from the countryside flocked to the towns and the new factories to get work. At the time, Europe's population was increasing 300% per century, whereas in prior eras the po…
> Because capitalism was enabling the disenfranchised poor to survive for the first time.
Capitalism? Or just plain technological progress?
Re: Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still waiting for someone to come up with an alternative to capitalism that isn't communism, or some dilute form of communism. We have socialism - the erosion of capitalism to provide a reward for those that won't or can't work. What's your "new possibility"? Without a proposal, your point is moot.
We are moving into a direction of nearly full automation. Most of us in this community can probably envision a world were robots do all the "blue color" work and lower "white color work" and soon even more with the progress we make in AI (Deep Blue as the most prominent example) Over the next decades we will lose millions of jobs and need an highly educated workforce for the fewer jobs remaining. But for some people…
Unconditional basic income would be my choice. Its advantages unify the Left and Right.