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Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

economist.com

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Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#81

Post by forensic »

Mz wrote: post #71
forensic wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unrealistic because the people with the money are not going to give it away unless you force them. In the industrial revolution the wealthy had a motivation to educate the masses: get better workers and fill the military. What now though? Robots are better soldiers AND workers. Carnegie and Rockefeller were motivated by foreign competition to help people with education and social services. Rockefeller in particu…

How does someone with no money, no marketable skills, no way to afford education, no ability to exert physical power, continue to survive when the upper class only accepts appeals to their self-interest? Appeal to enlightened self-interest is more powerful than appeal to someone's "better nature". Find the sweet spot where those two meet. It does happen (that those two things meet) and that's the target if you want m…

You're not thinking this through.

Rome had to avoid rioting because Rome didn't have tear gas.

China does not have to avoid rioting. They are comfortable with using tanks to kill thousands of unarmed protestors.

The circumstances have changed since Rome. Technology has changed them.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#82

Post by forensic »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #78
forensic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actions speak louder than words. Billionaires stand by while the miserable and hopeless suffer. Billionaires fund FOX News to indoctrinate the middle class and push them toward self-destruction. Which billionaires are funding universal liberal educations or a culture of empowerment? By their actions the upper class is saying that they don't want a middle class. They are saying: if the middle class is so stupid to fal…

Which billionaires are funding universal liberal educations or a culture of empowerment? I have no clue what a "culture of empowerment" is, but as to funding education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundati... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/12/09/mark-zuckerberg-to-donat... Another billionaire was recently in the news for donating $40k to a Republican…

Those numbers are a drop in the bucket and generally are not targeted at increasing the size of the middle class. Remember that the lower class is literate.

Conspicuously absent: - lowering cost of higher education - lowering cost of mental health services - lowering cost of land / rent

Literacy doesn't create a middle class. Higher education, mental health, and ownership of land does. These issues never seem to be touched by philanthropists because philanthropists are ambivalent about the middle class.

Peter Thiel is a total elitist by the way. He has no interest or love for uneducated, mentally ill masses and is just the kind of guy who would probably quote Ayn Rand when people are starving to death.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#83

Post by [deleted] »

DannoHung wrote: post #16

I know that the suggestion that these are going to eliminate human positions is an unpopular sentiment here at HN because economics. However, are we really so sure that there will always be a human labor demand to effectively meet the human labor supply? What do we do when there is an excess of human labor? Everyone here is opposed to make work for good reason. But a suggestion that solves the moral issue of what to…

[deleted]

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#84

Post by forensic »

jamieb wrote: post #54
zizee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it could happen gradually (as these things usually do). But the original poster was talking about 50% of the population (500 million people in China alone). I have a hard time believing anyone could think that killing off half a billion people would be the way to go (rather than trying to work change into your social structure). It just sounds too James Bond villanesque. Also, if 50% of people are unemployed…

I have a hard time believing anyone could think that killing off half a billion people would be the way to go ... It just sounds too James Bond villanesque. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Number_of_deaths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War... http:…

And those are just the groups who actually achieved it. Many more thought about it or tried it.

The OP said he "can't even believe that anyone could think of [mass murder]."

Think!

Lack of imagination, lack of historical awareness, or just plain willful ignorance?

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#85

Post by clistctrl »

meow wrote: post #47
DannoHung wrote: post #16

I know that the suggestion that these are going to eliminate human positions is an unpopular sentiment here at HN because economics. However, are we really so sure that there will always be a human labor demand to effectively meet the human labor supply? What do we do when there is an excess of human labor? Everyone here is opposed to make work for good reason. But a suggestion that solves the moral issue of what to…

May be the future will be like Wall-e movie. Where humans do no work at all (even walking).

May the robot overloads find a solution to our growing fat problem.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#86

Post by clistctrl »

forensic wrote: post #31
zizee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it eventually happens, society will have to change. viva la revolution baby!

This is the classic view, but things have changed. Robots do not just make better workers, they are also better warriors. How many Chinese peasants does it take to kill a single UAV? How many protestors can modern riot police crowd control using sophisticated psychological warfare combined with advanced nonlethal weaponry? Once the violent, unskilled, uneducated, unmoneyed lawbreakers are rounded up by the riot polic…

It will take just 1 good hacker with ideals

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#87

Post by nTsplnk »

forensic wrote: post #31
zizee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it eventually happens, society will have to change. viva la revolution baby!

This is the classic view, but things have changed. Robots do not just make better workers, they are also better warriors. How many Chinese peasants does it take to kill a single UAV? How many protestors can modern riot police crowd control using sophisticated psychological warfare combined with advanced nonlethal weaponry? Once the violent, unskilled, uneducated, unmoneyed lawbreakers are rounded up by the riot polic…

They are not "better warriors." UAVs are not completely robots. They need someone to control them. There is not a single military in the world where robots have surpassed human beings in most capacities. Perhaps the only one being bomb control, and even then, they aren't autonomous.

The "rich" people need the poor people. Without other classes, there is no rich. If everyone is in jail, who buys the goods?

What is money worth if there is no one to compare it to? If everyone is poor or in jail...why do you want money? For what? To do what? To drive a nice car that no one cares about because they can't afford food?

People are too quick to overestimate robotics and artificial intelligence. 100 years ago we were supposed to have flying cars, laser guns and teleportation. These were exaggerated views, just as ours are now.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#89

Post by nTsplnk »

ebiester wrote: post #28
felipemnoa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. You do not want to have too many poor people or somebody will take advantage of this and use them to overthrow whomever is in power and put himself in power.

Tanks make this a difficult proposition.

Yes, if the tanks are enemies. But what if there are two powers, each with tanks?

What he is suggesting is, if there are two rich people, both with enormous power, they will ally themselves with the poor to gain an advantage over the other.

These propositions of the rich getting robots and killing all the poor are so absurd and exaggerated.

Re: Robots Don't Complain or Demand Higher Wages or Kill Themselves...

#90

Post by nTsplnk »

zizee wrote: post #24
jacques_chester wrote: post #7

Automation is bad for the economy. Think of the tens of millions of phone operators put out of work by rotary pulse dialling exchanges. Where are they now? Those 100 or 200 million phones worldwide won't connect themselves!

This won't last forever though. Once true strong AI is created we will be able to automate everything. It might not happen for centuries but eventually we will be forced to rethink the way society functions. Perhaps people will pay a premium for a "human made" sticker on the side?

If strong AI exists.

Humans think they can control everything. We can't. Even if Robots were to automate everything, what happens when a tsunami hits Japan? Destroys sources of power, robots, the power grid. What do they do then?

We talk about all this "AI" as if it's close to fruition. It is not close to fruition. The "robots" Foxconn is getting aren't autonomous. They're just machines that do what they are told to do.

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