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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

#61

Post by adrianN »

visarga wrote: post #47
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-…

> Once we enter an era where every person is effectively coddled by multiple robotic "slaves" that do their every whim We're already there. Cars, computers and all sorts of machines serve our every whim - at least compared to a few hundred years ago. Our modern day affordances are simply amazing. For example, the Empress Sissi of Habsburg was the first person in Vienna to have a water toilet, 150 years ago. It was co…

Access to WCs is actually still a big problem in India.

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

#62

Post by koonsolo »

mjevans wrote: post #57
pygy_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

History. The French Revolution speaks of what happens when the populace at large decides that the situation cannot continue. Of course what would history remember of them had they lost?

Power is currently about having lots of people doing your bidding. If that large group is unhappy about you, good luck!

But as stated, times are changing. Power will not be about you commanding lots of people, but it will be about how many robots you have under your control. Military, police, etc, can all be robots.

Your robot army just has to match the fighting power of the unhappy people.

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

#63

Post by WalterBright »

aaron695 wrote: post #30
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?

When you force people to work, they're apt to poison you, sabotage the work, do as little as possible, be as unhelpful as possible, etc. Defending against that is costly.

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

#65

Post by majewsky »

adrianN wrote: post #61
visarga wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once we enter an era where every person is effectively coddled by multiple robotic "slaves" that do their every whim We're already there. Cars, computers and all sorts of machines serve our every whim - at least compared to a few hundred years ago. Our modern day affordances are simply amazing. For example, the Empress Sissi of Habsburg was the first person in Vienna to have a water toilet, 150 years ago. It was co…

Access to WCs is actually still a big problem in India.

Correct, but not in Austria, which was grandparent's point.

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

#66

Post by syshum »

ghshephard wrote: post #54
syshum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Self Service Kiosks in stores are not designed for User Experience or Efficiency in mind, that is way the fail They are designed with Loss Prevention in mind, so they end up treating every customer that walks up to them as a criminal looking to steal something. This is one of the reason I still use a human checker when I go to the grocery, it is far more efficient and takes less time than the Self Checkout. Now…

I guess it depends on where the Self Service Kiosks have been deployed - I can Scan, Bag, Pay, leave in Concur - if I have a cart, probably would use a checkout person - but, when you get used to buying stuff from the store 1-2x a day, you rarely have a large load.

>- I can Scan, Bag, Pay, leave in Yea if you only have 6 items sure... I never go to the store when I am only buying 6 items.... If I only need 6 things it can wait until I need more

I go to the store 1 or 2 times a month, not everyday

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

#67

Post by richthegeek »

kevinr wrote: post #19
Quarrelsome wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the sad truth is that slave labour needs no startup cost beyond a fist.

Fists ain't cheap. Slaves are capital, and, like all capital, acquiring and maintaining them has nonzero cost. In the antebellum American South, some tasks like ditch-digging were sufficiently hazardous that a plantation owner would rather not risk their investment in their slaves, and so would hire Irish ditch-diggers by the day, as the plantation owner would be out less money if they died while digging the ditch.

Somewhat off topic, but I can't figure out how ditch-digging would be particularly hazardous? The only danger I can think of would be a wall collapsing, but that could surely be avoided..

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

#68

Post by mtgx »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #53
mtgx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least until the robots rebel. The EU is already planning on giving robots rights. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/12/give-robo...

Why rebel? Robots are effectively immortal. Why not just coddle us and give in to our every whim until we stop breeding and disappear? Couldn't take more than a few hundred years or so. Looking at the lifespan of MI, it's rounding error.

For treating them like slaves. You wouldn't mind being a slave for a few decades or hundreds of years if you were immortal?

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

#70

Post by samsolomon »

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…

You know, I'm not sure this goes into the automation category—this is more of an operational improvement.

Originally, you'd go to a restaurant. You'd sit at a counter. They would take your order and give you a drink along with your meal.

Then someone realized that it saved a huge amount of time just giving people cups and letting them fill their own drink. Not only that, but it made the job of staff easier, because they had one less thing to worry about.

That happened again when they started putting the credit card readers in front of cashiers. It was one less thing staff had to worry about. It also reduced the amount of time ordering took and made stealing credit card information more difficult.

I see this type of improvement inline with operational improvements. That's not to say automation isn't a threat—certainly self-driving cars are. I'm just not sure everything should be classified as automation.

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