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100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

hyponymo.us

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Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#11

Post by javajosh »

I'm happy to see people thinking about this sort of stuff.

I foresee a Constitutional Amendment limiting the amount of computational power any private person or entity can own. Each person, upon birth, would be granted a certain allotment of computational capacity. This computational capacity can be hired out, but you collect it's paycheck. If you take this to the logical extreme, everyone could own the robot that replaces them at their job, and live out their life collecting it's paycheck.

Check out Marshal Brain's "Manna", where the concentration of wealth nightmare scenario is taken to it's logical extreme. (I don't find the scenario very convincing, but the thought to get it there was useful.)

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#12

Post by patmcc »

I really can't imagine 100% unemployment, because I think there will always be a demand for actual human people in some roles: hairdresser, waiter, singer, prostitute, masseuse, athlete, actor, croupier, etc.

Will robots/AI be good enough to do all these jobs? Sure, they might even be now. But as long as some people want to be sung to / served by / entertained by an actual flesh-and-blood human, there will still be employment in those sectors. In fact I wouldn't be surprised in the far future if those service positions were the most valuable in society, since that's where real scarcity will be.

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#13

Post by CarVac »

treelovinhippie wrote: post #8

At my last job, something I tried to push unsuccessfully was a company-wide automation initiative. Imagine a company-wide incentive structure for automation whereby if you automate 90-100% of your job, you receive massive bonuses. If you completely automate your job, the bonus could be the entirety of your annual salary as a single payout. Or perhaps a combination of bonus and equity. So now you're out of a job. But…

The problem there is the perceived unfairness that occurs when someone else in the company, sharing your approximate job, puts you out of work via automation.

How do you compensate those who lose their jobs as a result? What if they were also trying, but just happened to not be first to succeed?

It's a really cool idea though. (As a manufacturing engineer in a fairly old-fashioned company, I am currently trying to automate as much as possible; no idea yet about individual bonuses since I'm <1 year on the job)

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#16

Post by craigyk »

[deleted] wrote: post #15

[deleted]

Yes, but automation is getting better. "Historically always been the case" is a deceptive panacea. It isn't inconceivable to imagine that it might start eating into knowledge-based work even more, continually shrinking the percentage of the population that is employable regardless of talent or education. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing (10 hour work weeks anyone?), unfortunately, the current world economy isn't set up to handle this transition well.

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#17

Post by TeMPOraL »

Havoc wrote: post #7

This whole thing - I can see it coming and am fully convinced that it will. I just can't work out how to leverage that insight for personal benefit (not millions just modest advantage). Feels a little weird for once I'm ahead of the curve & recognise it as such but still can't seem to leverage it. My profession isn't anywhere near AI or even tech so it's a little difficult.

That's exactly what I feel too. Having this knowledge allows me for slightly more than just telling people that the end is nigh. I don't see the way to either leverage that knowledge to safeguard myself and my friends/family, or (preferably) do something to safegurad the society at large. It's easy for me to notice now when people around me, or even I myself do the Moloch's bidding, but I can't see a way to contribute to fight against it.

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#18

Post by gtirloni »

treelovinhippie wrote: post #8

At my last job, something I tried to push unsuccessfully was a company-wide automation initiative. Imagine a company-wide incentive structure for automation whereby if you automate 90-100% of your job, you receive massive bonuses. If you completely automate your job, the bonus could be the entirety of your annual salary as a single payout. Or perhaps a combination of bonus and equity. So now you're out of a job. But…

It's hard to change the status quo, specially when there are paychecks directly involved.

At a company I worked for, after they realized that things couldn't go on anymore without massive automation, their first approach was to introduce it into the infrastructure lifecycle and require all new infrastructure to be heavily automated. That allowed the legacy stuff to die slowly without much disturbance.

Another different idea entirely would be spin off a subsidiary with those ideals and slowly migrate the work there. Perhaps too much work, but if the situation is desperate enough..

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#19

Post by treelovinhippie »

CarVac wrote: post #13
treelovinhippie wrote: post #8

At my last job, something I tried to push unsuccessfully was a company-wide automation initiative. Imagine a company-wide incentive structure for automation whereby if you automate 90-100% of your job, you receive massive bonuses. If you completely automate your job, the bonus could be the entirety of your annual salary as a single payout. Or perhaps a combination of bonus and equity. So now you're out of a job. But…

The problem there is the perceived unfairness that occurs when someone else in the company, sharing your approximate job, puts you out of work via automation. How do you compensate those who lose their jobs as a result? What if they were also trying, but just happened to not be first to succeed? It's a really cool idea though. (As a manufacturing engineer in a fairly old-fashioned company, I am currently trying to au…

Yeah it would need a lot of thought around the incentive structures.

The original thought was that if you fully automate your own job you get your salary as a bonus. But if you fully automate someone else's job, you both split their salary 50/50 as a bonus.

Now both of you are free to work on automating other jobs in the org. So you'd end up with various teams working together to automate jobs in the org.

As a byproduct, it would also free up a lot of human capital in an organisation to focus on pure R&D and intrapreneurship.

Re: 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over

#20

Post by craigyk »

treelovinhippie wrote: post #8

At my last job, something I tried to push unsuccessfully was a company-wide automation initiative. Imagine a company-wide incentive structure for automation whereby if you automate 90-100% of your job, you receive massive bonuses. If you completely automate your job, the bonus could be the entirety of your annual salary as a single payout. Or perhaps a combination of bonus and equity. So now you're out of a job. But…

This is essentially a stand-in for workers "owning the means of production". Congrats, you are now a marxist (dirty commie according to some).
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