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In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

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Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#21

Post by DanielBMarkham »

There are some interesting lessons to learn from history here that I'm not seeing brought up.

Looking across multiple cultures and economies that had slavery, slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders.

Of course, nobody cared about the impact on slaveholders while there were actual humans being enslaved, but as we move to a robotic society? This is going to be a huge deal. Slaveholders and multi-generation slaveholding families have a fundamentally different way of looking at themselves and their culture than people who do not own slaves. Once we enter an era where every person is effectively coddled by multiple robotic "slaves" that do their every whim, we're going to be hacking into the human social ecosystem in ways never anticipated before.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#22

Post by drieddust »

squarefoot wrote: post #18

Which will hopefully brings us to an inevitable change in our economics. If technological advance is going to create millions if not billions of unemployed people, the answer won't be rioting down the street and burning all machines in sight, although for many people this will appear the only viable solution.

This can also bring back collosiums where unwanted die for the pleasure of ruling class.

People rioting down the street can be crushed by autonomous machines remorsely and effortlessly.

There is a need to start political lobbying instead of hoping for an automatic economic change.

Those who will control the means of production will not relinquish control once they realize their power. Once they understand that those millions doesn't matter anymore.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#23

Post by _pmf_ »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #21

There are some interesting lessons to learn from history here that I'm not seeing brought up. Looking across multiple cultures and economies that had slavery, slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders . Of course, nobody cared about the impact on slaveholders while there were actual humans being enslaved, but as we move to a robotic society? This is going to be a huge deal. Slaveholders and multi-…

> Looking across multiple cultures and economies that had slavery, slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders.

Luckily, we have conveniently solved the ethic dilemma by defining work under slave conditions as better than no work at all ("think of the children!") and moving the exploitation sites far away.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#24

Post by thr3290 »

> On the other hand, if institutionalized slavery still existed, factories would be looking at around $7,500 in annual costs for housing, food and healthcare per “worker”.

There is a wrong assumption that factory has to cover those expenses. In reality this cost is often offloaded to government or another party.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#25

Post by XorNot »

ximeng wrote: post #15
mschuster91 wrote: post #5

The consequences for societies that define the status/value of their members based on their employment/job will be disastrous. In, let's say, 20 years robots most likely will have overtaken agriculture, manufacturing and driving - by far the biggest job providers. And I see no movement at all by our politicians to prepare societies for this shift, except a couple countries playing small scale UBI... and the USA actua…

Inherited wealth will just become a more important determinant of societal status than it already is.

Black market robotics will become a thing I suspect. High grade user friendly systems the most coveted - you set then up out of view and use them to drive your retail business.

We're going to go full cyberpunk yet.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#26

Post by ghshephard »

kevinr wrote: post #10
rejschaap wrote: post #4

"If it takes $2,000 to install what is basically an iPad and stand for customers to order from at McDonald’s or Chipotle, a restaurateur is looking at less than a month before recouping their entire investment if they eliminate just one cashier position." Obviously it takes a little bit more than that. You need to develop the software that runs on the kiosk. You also need a back-end system so the kitchen knows what t…

> And they will be able to provide better and faster service. On the contrary, my local grocery store took out their self-serve checkout kiosks and replaced them with human checkers. Turns out there was some skill involved after all.

That's interesting - I don't know if I've ever heard of someone going the other direction. As long as everything is bar coded, and you've got excellent industrial scanners (that's the key - not those crappy scanners that cashiers normally have to deal with) - Checkout via Kiosk is pretty effortless. In 12+ months of using them, I have not had a single bar code failure - which is pretty amazing.

About the only thing that's tricky is putting a large flat of eggs into the bag, and there's usually one person monitoring six kiosks who can swing by and give you a hand with the bag (it's kind of a two person job)

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#27

Post by pygy_ »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #21

There are some interesting lessons to learn from history here that I'm not seeing brought up. Looking across multiple cultures and economies that had slavery, slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders . Of course, nobody cared about the impact on slaveholders while there were actual humans being enslaved, but as we move to a robotic society? This is going to be a huge deal. Slaveholders and multi-…

With capital becoming self-sufficient and human labour non-competitive, why would you think robots would serve us on a large scale?

What's the incentive to serve and feed idle meat bags?

Automation is destroying the only power that people still had over capital. Capitalism is the ultimate paperclip maximizer... a zombie that feeds on growth rather than brains.

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

Edit: BTW, I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely scared by the events and the speed at which they are unfolding.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#28

Post by averagewall »

kevinr wrote: post #10
rejschaap wrote: post #4

"If it takes $2,000 to install what is basically an iPad and stand for customers to order from at McDonald’s or Chipotle, a restaurateur is looking at less than a month before recouping their entire investment if they eliminate just one cashier position." Obviously it takes a little bit more than that. You need to develop the software that runs on the kiosk. You also need a back-end system so the kitchen knows what t…

> And they will be able to provide better and faster service. On the contrary, my local grocery store took out their self-serve checkout kiosks and replaced them with human checkers. Turns out there was some skill involved after all.

Do you know why? Supermarkets everywhere have self-serve checkouts and they seem to be successful. What skill was needed at your local shop that the self-service checkouts didn't have? Was it preventing theft? Identifying produce?

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#29

Post by bsder »

ghshephard wrote: post #26
kevinr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they will be able to provide better and faster service. On the contrary, my local grocery store took out their self-serve checkout kiosks and replaced them with human checkers. Turns out there was some skill involved after all.

That's interesting - I don't know if I've ever heard of someone going the other direction. As long as everything is bar coded, and you've got excellent industrial scanners (that's the key - not those crappy scanners that cashiers normally have to deal with) - Checkout via Kiosk is pretty effortless. In 12+ months of using them, I have not had a single bar code failure - which is pretty amazing. About the only thing t…

> That's interesting - I don't know if I've ever heard of someone going the other direction.

You've never dealt with some of the cretins we have in the US.

It's a tradeoff between space vs. time. If square footage is cheap, you can add more lines until there are enough that even with your guaranteed cretin blockage there will always be a line open. If square footage is expensive, then having cashiers to manhandle the cretins is more productive.

Re: In Manufacturing and Retail, Robot Labor is Cheaper Than Slave Labor Would Be

#30

Post by aaron695 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #21

There are some interesting lessons to learn from history here that I'm not seeing brought up. Looking across multiple cultures and economies that had slavery, slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders . Of course, nobody cared about the impact on slaveholders while there were actual humans being enslaved, but as we move to a robotic society? This is going to be a huge deal. Slaveholders and multi-…

> slavery has a negative impact on both slaves and slaveholders.

What's the negative as a slaveholder again?

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