11–20 of 78 posts
If we accept that one day computers/robots will be able to outperform a plurality of the population, three questions arise. When will that be? Will enough of us see it coming? How should we respond?
The question that always occurs to me is, if most people are to be jobless, then who can afford all the products and services provided by the robots?
Maybe the "cost" comes from the loss of the mineral in the ground, but if we're going full on techno-utopia the robots would reclaim the mineral through recycling, so does it become negligible?
Marx touched on the paradoxical nature of automation and advanced technology: "Though machinery be the most potent means for increasing the productivity of labour, that is to say for reducing the amount of labour time necessary for the production of a commodity, in the hands of capital it becomes the most powerful means... for lengthening the working day far beyond the bounds imposed by nature"
And damn, he hits the nail on the head there.
Once again sethf hits the nail on the head. The response is entirely up to us. I'm not personally optimistic: this country has a deeply held Puritanical work ethic, and even if we get past that we have a real nasty habit of not liking to give any government benefits to " those people ". But if we can get past that...
I disagree. Short of halting the progress of robotics and software, there seems to be no way to avoid the continued automation of things, and economy, politicians and social habits will have to follow and adapt, like they always did. More and more I'm buying into the view that it's the technological progress that drives cultural change, not the other way around.
I recently found an interesting article touching this topic:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/07/we-wrestle-not-with-fle...
2. Wail and fret for 50 years.
3. Take it for granted for next ∞ years.
And then, in the next 100 or 200 years, a geomagnetic storm destroys all electrical systems and no one will know how to perform basic jobs because we delegated them to robots.. I know, a dystopian vision, but still possible :)
I'd be fascinated to see a study of how we might protect ourselves during such an event.
Sadly I imagine nobody wants to be the guy that spent billions on EM shielding 50,000 years before anyone needed it.
Whenever I see the "positive" prognostications, I wonder if the author is intentionally spinning a tale for their own ultimate benefit, or if I'm just way too cynical. I don't see any way that the advance of automation can do anything but destroy any desirable concept of society. To me, the future inexorably looks like Detroit or Nairobi, not like Tokyo or Singapore. Education is a red herring. Most people (and I'd i…
Whenever I see the "positive" prognostications, I wonder if the author is intentionally spinning a tale for their own ultimate benefit, or if I'm just way too cynical. I don't see any way that the advance of automation can do anything but destroy any desirable concept of society. To me, the future inexorably looks like Detroit or Nairobi, not like Tokyo or Singapore. Education is a red herring. Most people (and I'd i…
If the same work is being done without human intervention, why not just give people who're unemployed the products of that labour?
my favourite commentary on the singularity (comic) http://partiallyclips.com/2003/09/25/dome-house/
The question that always occurs to me is, if most people are to be jobless, then who can afford all the products and services provided by the robots?
The question is: who needs the jobless people? http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.p... Table 1 U.S. Equine Population During Mechanization of Agriculture and Transportation Year Number of Horses and Mules 1900 21,531,635 1905 22,077,000 1910 24,042,882 1915 26,493,000 1920 25,199,552 1925 22,081,520 1930 18,885,856 1935 16,676,000 1940 13,931,531 1945 11,629,000 1950 7,604,000 1955 4,309,000 1…
If we ever end up really asking ourselves this question it means that capitalism has been running for too long; that it grew into an entity that serves its own goals rather than ours. By that time it might be too hard to slay that particular beast though.