Toto deVeer Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Unless we're going to get a paradise where everyone is given what they need for nothing, it's income that counts. It doesn't matter if you don't have a job, provided you have an income. (Rentiers don't fret about not having a job, do they?) The question is, if jobs are going to be done by machines even more than they already are, how will wealth be distributed so that everyone has an income to pay for the things they need? The present system won't work, because by all accounts it doesn't allow us to pay people not to work now, never mind in the future. Personal robotic money printers would solve this problem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easy2012 Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 75% unemployment + some form of CI = a lot happier society. The robots are welcome to my job if they want it. It should be. But human are flawed creatures who want to feel/show that they are better off then the guy next door, or a chance that he might be able to be better off then the boss next door if he works hard. If we are satisfied with food, water and energy, we should have reached scarcity long ago (who really needs ipad3 or £50000 LandRover) Next door boss with robots have much bigger house with mass number of unemployed have too much time in his hand = riot or bosses live in robot protected compound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Traktion Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Personal robotic money printers would solve this problem... Not as far from the truth as you may think... with a 3D printer, you could print your own robot, as long as the schematics aren't monopolised. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wonderpup Posted February 1, 2013 Author Share Posted February 1, 2013 You are quite, quite mad. I don't think so. Consider this simple thought experiment: Plot two curves on a graph- the first describing the raise in average human intelligence over the past two hundred years, the second describing the progress of technology over the same time period. The first curve I suggest would show at best a shallow rise over the period, while the second would display the characteristics of an exponential- shallow at the beginning and then starting to rise very rapidly in the last 50 years. Even if the second curve started at a low to zero value it seems to me inevitable that- given their individual trajectories- at some point in the future the technology curve will intersect with the average human intelligence curve and eventually surpass it. So unless you believe that there is some fundamental limit as to the evolution of technology I think you must agree that the question is not if we can replicate the economic value created by average person by using automation- the question is only when this might occur. Note; I am not claiming that we will see a robot Einstein any time soon- if ever- this is not the issue. The correct analogy here is that of the hikers and the bear. To catch it's dinner the bear need not match the speed the fastest running hiker, it need only catch the slowest. Automation need only match the capabilities of those of average intelligence to create mass unemployment that is structural and permanent. Even if the higher levels of creative thinking remain forever beyond the reach of machines this will not prevent widespread automation of work because most of us are not Einstein's either and our work does not require such lofty intellectual abilities. The mistake I think you are making is viewing the world through a humancentric lens- so you find my views ridiculously reductionist- and you are quite right. But my point is that market has a similar reductionist view of human beings. Humans are complex and subtle creatures but how many jobs require more than a fraction of that complexity or subtlety? Very few. The reason that most jobs are boring is precisely because they are so limited in scope. So from the point of view of the market a machine that could duplicate that 20% of yourself that you bring to your job, and could do so more cheaply and with less fuss- that machine may well be worth investing in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
200p Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 All you need in the future as a autonomous sovereign human being in the future is: One robot terminator to kill and take property and wealth from others. One robot defender to defend you. One robot servant to do all the boring jobs. One robot lawyer/accountant to do all the paper work. One robot to transport you where you need to go. One robot to maintain and repair the other robots. Or one super robot that can do all this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erat_forte Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Unless we're going to get a paradise where everyone is given what they need for nothing, it's income that counts. It doesn't matter if you don't have a job, provided you have an income. (Rentiers don't fret about not having a job, do they?) The question is, if jobs are going to be done by machines even more than they already are, how will wealth be distributed so that everyone has an income to pay for the things they need? The present system won't work, because by all accounts it doesn't allow us to pay people not to work now, never mind in the future. The present system does exactly that, there are significant numbers of people not working, and they get a reasonable income (enough to pay for food, housing and spare for hobbies / entertainment). The money to pay them comes from taxing the productive parts of the economy. I don't see why this should not simply continue to grow; as productivity grows, it can be taxed more and the proceeds distributed in handouts to the non-working. The only problem is that the system is badly designed, so that it is percieved as unfair. Presumably it wil have to be adjusted to still do the distribution but without getting peoples backs up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petetong Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Robots will simply free up people to do other things. Innovation and machines have always been criticised. However as old jobs go, new ones come about. How many people are now employed with something Internet related, which 20 years ago barely existed. No it won't. I think you are under estimating the power of AI / robotics in the future. One of the easiest things to automate is internet/computer related ... All that will happen is software will be created, probably by other software, to create/write whatever the new thing is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Britney's Piers Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 Technology won't change anything. Employment will stay bounded within 90-95 percent, people will have precisely 40 hours per week to do per week, always, from now until the sun consumes the earth. I've seen this with my clairvoyant abilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpectrumFX Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 (edited) There was a thread on here a while back about a chinese woman who employed a bunch of people in china to develop property in Second Life. There was apparantly enough demand to make this economicaly viable, so virtual jobs in a "virtual economy" are one option. To be honest i've had real world jobs that were at least as pointless : ( Edited February 2, 2013 by SpectrumFX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wonderpup Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 The present system does exactly that, there are significant numbers of people not working, and they get a reasonable income (enough to pay for food, housing and spare for hobbies / entertainment). The money to pay them comes from taxing the productive parts of the economy.I don't see why this should not simply continue to grow; as productivity grows, it can be taxed more and the proceeds distributed in handouts to the non-working. The only problem is that the system is badly designed, so that it is percieved as unfair. Presumably it wil have to be adjusted to still do the distribution but without getting peoples backs up. The problem is before you can redistribute the gains from automated production you first have to get hold of them- and the higher those gains and the taxes they attract are, the higher the incentive to avoid the tax. So you could end up with a scenario in which taxes from income fall as jobs get automated, while the increased profits gained are 'Starbucked' into a tax haven- leaving the state starved of funds. Of course if you think that the state is a bad thing this outcome will have a lot going for it- but I am not convinced that the free market on it's own could solve the problem- it's the free market that is driving the automation of jobs in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkG Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 In a post-scarcity world, why would you need communists (to redistribute scarce resources)? The whole idea of 'a post-scarcity world' is a lefty fantasy. They're the people who think that, with replicators that can produce anything they want, someone will still prefer cleaning the toilets on the USS Enterprise to having a huge starship of their own. No matter how many resources you can imagine, someone can imagine a way to use them all and need more. And societies which steal resources from people who can use them the most efficiently and give them to people who'll waste them will soon be outpaced by those who don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toto deVeer Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldbug9999 Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 As an approximation there is currently no such thing as artificial "inteligence". So-called AI is mainly using brute force pattern matching algorithms to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldbug9999 Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 As an approximation there is currently no such thing as artificial "inteligence" as it exists in living organisms. So-called AI is mainly using brute force pattern matching algorithms to solve certain classes of problems so as to give the superficial appearance of inteligence, chess being the most well known example. However the ability of a computer to beat a human being at chess is no more indicative of true intelligence that the ability of a pocket calculator to multiply two 10 digit numbers faster than a human. Computers are not "brains" and software is not thinking. Computing is an externally organised activity where as thinking is a self-organsing activity. If you want to know the real state of true AI then see here someone has just kicked off a project to simulate the nervous system of the microscopic Caenorhabditis elegans worm which has the most redimentary thing resembling a brain of any creature alive. http://www.artificialbrains.com/openworm The think is that even if they succeed and even if this line of research ever progresses to being able to simulate brains of human complexity, such artificial minds will not be willing infallible slaves, they will have much the same limitations and failings as our own because those things are an integral part of a self-organising system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEATH Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 I am still waiting for the Cherry 2000 I ordered off ebay, they said she would be delivered before xmas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybernoid Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 As an approximation there is currently no such thing as artificial "inteligence" as it exists in living organisms. Excuse me, this is not a thread for those who know what they are talking about, the robots are coming and we are going to be their slaves ok? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_duke_of_hazzard Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 As an approximation there is currently no such thing as artificial "inteligence" as it exists in living organisms. So-called AI is mainly using brute force pattern matching algorithms to solve certain classes of problems so as to give the superficial appearance of inteligence, chess being the most well known example. However the ability of a computer to beat a human being at chess is no more indicative of true intelligence that the ability of a pocket calculator to multiply two 10 digit numbers faster than a human. Computers are not "brains" and software is not thinking. Computing is an externally organised activity where as thinking is a self-organsing activity. If you want to know the real state of true AI then see here someone has just kicked off a project to simulate the nervous system of the microscopic Caenorhabditis elegans worm which has the most redimentary thing resembling a brain of any creature alive. http://www.artificialbrains.com/openworm The think is that even if they succeed and even if this line of research ever progresses to being able to simulate brains of human complexity, such artificial minds will not be willing infallible slaves, they will have much the same limitations and failings as our own because those things are an integral part of a self-organising system. Ever read any Hofstader? AI was the biggest scam in academia until it fell out of fashion a few years ago. There was some ridiculous project to record every fact in the world in the hope that this would result in an intelligent computer. Drove me nuts trying to explain to people why that was moronic. Although Watson is interesting, as it seems to do a good job of doing better than young medics in some cases. However, that says more about the routine nature of most medicine and the fallability of people than the intelligence of computers. It's an important but easily misunderstood distinction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EllieCuteMe Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 Yawn... yawn... the invention of spades and digging sticks looks set to have radical repercussions on the economy. Now one person will be able to dig an entire field in a day and everyone else will become unemployed. It is a nightmare. The spades and digging sticks will take over! In the end, people will become useless because one super-spade will be able to dig an entire farm in an afternoon, imagine! One automatic spade feeding ten thousand people! What will everyone else do? What can they offer the automatic digging stick in exchange for the food it produces? Our rustic subsistence economy is doomed, I tell you, doomed! Super-Spade; Are you suggesting we employ the Irish again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MississippiJohnHurt Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 No one mentioned all the unemployed robots when they make 75% of consumers unemployed. Maybe the 2120s will be a time of general strikes and exciting music for the robots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shipbuilder Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 It seems to me that the arguments in all of these threads can be summed up as 'automation is obviously good thing but causes a problem for our current economic system'. See my quote from Bertrand Russell below. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wonderpup Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 As an approximation there is currently no such thing as artificial "inteligence" as it exists in living organisms. So-called AI is mainly using brute force pattern matching algorithms to solve certain classes of problems so as to give the superficial appearance of inteligence, chess being the most well known example. However the ability of a computer to beat a human being at chess is no more indicative of true intelligence that the ability of a pocket calculator to multiply two 10 digit numbers faster than a human. Computers are not "brains" and software is not thinking. Computing is an externally organised activity where as thinking is a self-organsing activity. If you want to know the real state of true AI then see here someone has just kicked off a project to simulate the nervous system of the microscopic Caenorhabditis elegans worm which has the most redimentary thing resembling a brain of any creature alive. http://www.artificia...ns.com/openworm The think is that even if they succeed and even if this line of research ever progresses to being able to simulate brains of human complexity, such artificial minds will not be willing infallible slaves, they will have much the same limitations and failings as our own because those things are an integral part of a self-organising system. A car is a far more simple thing than a human body- but that does not mean I would prefer you carry me to work on your back every day. The point here is not that computers will be capable of duplicating human intelligence in it's totality- only that they will be capable of duplicating the fraction of that intelligence required to do the average job. Most jobs involve the sorts of routine and limited problem solving that computers seem to do quite well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toto deVeer Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 No one mentioned all the unemployed robots when they make 75% of consumers unemployed. Maybe the 2120s will be a time of general strikes and exciting music for the robots Humans entertaining robots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wonderpup Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 A few more straws in the automated wind: The automation boom has flourished since 2010, when Chinese companies rushed to embrace industrial robots for manufacturing and equipment operation, Sun recalled. The new market buoyancy saw new orders piling up and provided a decent return for Risong. As evidence of the trend, in 2011 Foxconn Technology Group, whose factories on the Chinese mainland assemble iPads for Apple Inc, vowed to install as many as 1 million robots over the next three years.Robots are efficient: They can work 24 hours a day, offer more output in repetitive work, are much more accurate and keep manufacturers away from reliance on human labor, said Zhu Shiqiang, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. Globally, 2011 saw robot sales soar 38 percent year-on-year to 166,028 units, by far the highest level recorded for a single year, according to the IFR. China accounted for a large part of that robust growth, with 22,600 units sold, a rise of 51 percent compared with 2010. The number of industrial robots sold in China annually quadrupled between 2006 and 2011. China now ranks as the globe's sixth-largest market in terms of robot installation, and the IFR predicts that the country will overtake Japan as the top consumer of industrial robots by 2014, with demand reaching 32,000 units. http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2012-12/06/content_15992180.htm "The jobs that are going away aren't coming back," says Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of "Race Against the Machine." ''I have never seen a period where computers demonstrated as many skills and abilities as they have over the past seven years."The global economy is being reshaped by machines that generate and analyze vast amounts of data; by devices such as smartphones and tablet computers that let people work just about anywhere, even when they're on the move; by smarter, nimbler robots; and by services that let businesses rent computing power when they need it, instead of installing expensive equipment and hiring IT staffs to run it. Whole employment categories, from secretaries to travel agents, are starting to disappear. "There's no sector of the economy that's going to get a pass," says Martin Ford, who runs a software company and wrote "The Lights in the Tunnel," a book predicting widespread job losses. "It's everywhere." The numbers startle even labor economists. In the United States, half the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession were in industries that pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. But only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained since the recession ended in June 2009 are in midpay industries. Nearly 70 percent are in low-pay industries, 29 percent in industries that pay well. In the 17 European countries that use the euro as their currency, the numbers are even worse. Almost 4.3 million low-pay jobs have been gained since mid-2009, but the loss of midpay jobs has never stopped. A total of 7.6 million disappeared from January 2008 through last June. Experts warn that this "hollowing out" of the middle-class workforce is far from over. They predict the loss of millions more jobs as technology becomes even more sophisticated and reaches deeper into our lives. Maarten Goos, an economist at the University of Leuven in Belgium, says Europe could double its middle-class job losses. Some of the most startling studies have focused on midskill, midpay jobs that require tasks that follow well-defined procedures and are repeated throughout the day. Think travel agents, salespeople in stores, office assistants and back-office workers like benefits managers and payroll clerks, as well as machine operators and other factory jobs. An August 2012 paper by economists Henry Siu of the University of British Columbia and Nir Jaimovich of Duke University found these kinds of jobs comprise fewer than half of all jobs, yet accounted for nine of 10 of all losses in the Great Recession. And they have kept disappearing in the economic recovery. http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-recession-tech-kill-middle-class-jobs-051306434--finance.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toto deVeer Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 No worry. The Federal Reserve has 'full employment' as a mandate. That'll fix it. ...Zimmerman, who is CEO of Nimble Books, is pioneering a new technique he calls combinatorial publishing that can create a book that is useful in seconds for pennies. He persuasively argues that algorithmic content creation has an important role to play, even if the virtuosity of the human will always be the beating heart of content creation. How Algorithmically Created Content will Transform Publishing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snugglybear Posted February 5, 2013 Share Posted February 5, 2013 No worry. The Federal Reserve has 'full employment' as a mandate. That'll fix it. How Algorithmically Created Content will Transform Publishing Is algorithmically created content the same as the monkeys with typewriters, only worded to sound funkier? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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