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from the how-many-robots-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-lightbulb dept.
Digital technology has been a fantastic creator of economic wealth, particularly in the twenty years since the Internet and World Wide Web were unveiled to the masses. And with non-trivial applications of artificial intelligence (such as Apple's Siri) finally reaching the mainstream consumer market, one is tempted to agree with pundits asserting that the Second Machine Age is just getting underway.
But Yale ethicist Wendell Wallach argues that growth in wealth has been accompanied by an equally dramatic rise in income inequality; for example, stock ownership is now concentrated in the hands of a relative few (though greater than 1 percent). The increase in GDP has not led to an increase in wages, nor in median inflation-adjusted income. Furthermore, Wallach says technology is a leading cause of this shift, as it displaces workers in occupation after occupation more quickly than new career opportunities arise.
This piece led to the latest iteration of the 'will robots take all of our jobs' debate, this time on Business Insider, with Jim Edwards arguing that the jobs lost tended to be of the mindless and repetitive variety, while the increase in productive capacity has led to the creation of many new positions. This repeated earlier cycles of the industrial revolution and will be accelerated in the decades ahead. Edwards illustrated his point with a chart of UK unemployment with a trend line (note: drawn by Edwards) in a pronounced downward direction over the past 30 years. John Tamny made a similar point in Forbes last month.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gravis on Monday June 08 2015, @11:23AM
The ebook Manna [marshallbrain.com] seems quite relevant so read it if you haven't. From our current point in time I see two possible futures, one where we pretend everyone has to "work for a living" or another where people can pursue to better themselves and let automation provide what we need. This would be a departure from concentrated power via wealth and/or authority to a system that can being completely decentralized and a single person be self-sufficient in isolation if they wanted to. some people seem to think not having to work means "oww, a utopia! yeah dream on" but it's not a utopia, it's the same world just without the burden of economics. people will still be shitty to other people but the ability of few to control many will be greatly weakened.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 08 2015, @11:31AM
That's why it won't happen. Enough people have too much to lose if it does turn into a Star-Trek-like society that's so prosperous nobody needs to pay for anything to ever allow that kind of material prosperity.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 08 2015, @01:30PM
Yeah, that's along the lines of what I was thinking. We've been thoroughly conditioned to buy what we need, and it has made us dependent. We must have an income, and from that arises much of the abusive hold employers have over people.
New technology could enable us to free ourselves from this corporate employee lifestyle. Maybe 3D printing and solar power will gain us the power to get a fairer bargain. But it seems more likely it could increase our dependence. If so, something else will have to be done. We're winning the fight over control of the Internet. The Internet shall not be the property of an oligarchy, it will remain under public control. We can win this, if we choose. Or we could do nothing and resign ourselves to becoming slaves, at first. If that progression continues, we will sink next to guinea pigs and cattle, experimented upon and made into soylent green. Not that that never happened to slaves or that the division between slave and cattle isn't blurry, but slavery will look heavenly compared to farm animal being everyone's lot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday June 08 2015, @02:19PM
The need for a salary mostly comes from these things:
* Housing
* Food
* Health care
If you can cover this without being employed. You have essentially beat the system. Farmers a few hundred years ago were in essence self sufficient. But when they got sick or got raided they were in trouble.
To make life somewhat nice you may want:
* Education - books, internet
* Internet - mesh networking
* Resources - metal, microchips, plastic, electricity etc
It usually is worthwhile to trade and specialize. So that is a likely component in any civilized society.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 08 2015, @02:30PM
You read my mind, about the Industrial Revolution. Farmers used to be pretty self sufficient, even making their own clothes. It was called homespun.
Don't forget the need for transportation. Cars are a huge expense for the typical family.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 08 2015, @02:49PM
Perhaps the key to the future is decentralized industrial production?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @04:29PM
Go show me how you can build a CPU with billions of transistors with decentralized industrial production. A CPU is built and assembled in many places, but it's more of interdependent than decentralized.
If "decentralized industrial production" is key to the future, it's more likely the key to a dystopic future.
A dystopia where modern civilization collapses/falls apart and Intel, etc can no longer make CPUs/planes/cars/whatever because too many of the required dependency chains are broken. Go look at all of the dependencies of building some reasonably complicated modern tech - clean water, clean electricity, various metals and parts from all over the world, stuff made in China/Thailand/Israel/etc, stuff assembled in Malaysia/Puerto Rico/etc.
Then you have decentralized industrial production AKA making your own stuff from scratch.
Analogy - it's like a human body dying because of some important stuff failing and the body rotting (all the bacteria and fungi are doing the "decentralized production" on the corpse). The heart, kidneys, brain, liver will not work and will never work again- those "factories" can't get started. You need to grow a new body from scratch and wait for it to grow back.
See also how NASA has forgotten how to build stuff like the Saturn V. If something kills off much of the "ecosystem" you can no longer build a lot of stuff - all the suppliers making the little bits and pieces stop doing it or even vanish completely. The materials and "magic" mixes/ratios might be forgotten.
http://amyshirateitel.com/2011/04/03/the-lost-art-of-the-saturn-v/ [amyshirateitel.com]
When the robots are building most of the stuff and 0.001% are keeping the robots going and the rest are oblivious to how things work, things will get even more fragile.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday June 08 2015, @03:19PM
Not really:
* In the US at least, the land the farmers were relying on was either stolen from American Indians, or the subject of debts to the banks. The debt issue was a really really big deal in rural areas for most of the 1800s, including more than a few incidents of violent resistance against bank land repossession, and political organizing that turned into the William Jennings Bryan campaign. Lots of families did not end up with the land they had homesteaded.
* While farmers definitely produced a lot of their own stuff, they also relied extensively on manufactured goods. They knew how to make clothing, build a home, cook, keep work animals, and produce food, but did not make their own teakettles or ploughs or ox yokes or guns from scratch.
* Sure, they didn't rely on a health care system, but that was mostly because there wasn't much of anything resembling effective medical treatment for most ailments at the time. There was likely to be a doctor serving everybody in a fairly wide area, but a lot of farm families couldn't afford their services, and a lot of people ended up dead as a result.
It's unwise to over-romanticize the past.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Monday June 08 2015, @04:15PM
What we were speaking of was not reality but an idealized example that it takes fairly little to be (relatively) self-sufficient and healthy...but that in that system it does not take much of an external disturbance (i.e. drought, bankers, raiders, a broken ankle) to take that (relative) self-sufficiency away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @04:38PM
It's unwise to over-romanticize the past.
Or be ignorant of it and be modded informative.
Start here: The Homestead Acts [wikipedia.org]
Most farmers in the US neither stole land from Indians (land ownership was an alien concept to them) nor were they indebted to banks. They got the land for free to push people west.
Historically, manufacturing is rather new. Even in the us the population was split between farmers and what was self described as blacksmiths-a term that lost its meaning hundreds of years ago and was a catchall for a maker of anything that cant be folded. It was wives and daughters that did the rest.
What does the poor healthcare of the past have to do with self-sufficiency. Squirrels have no doctors, does that mean they are not self sufficient?
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:32AM
Ignorance does not mean that it was not stealing. If I have unknowingly left my wallet on the trunk lid and you come along and take it then you have still stolen. Minimizing what you did to my people (and assuming we were all without property considerations) is asinine at best.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:35AM
I should specify a generic you and not you personally. You did not do shit.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:06PM
Also, given that I had specifically referenced homesteads, assuming my ignorance of the Homestead Act was obviously wrong.
The only reason the US government had that land to give away to homesteaders was because they had taken it from the people who had lived there previously, as part of their approximately 300-year campaign of genocide against native peoples.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:43PM
No, it was ignorance on the part of the Natives. They did not know the game was rigged and many tribes did not have a concept of land ownership. On the East Coast there was ownership in that areas were specifically utilized by non-warring peoples and had been that way for countless generations.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 09 2015, @03:34PM
Oh yes they did. Or at least ownership over the various rights to use land - they fought wars with each other as well as the US over that ownership, and included rights to land in treaties with the US government. The stories of deals like selling Manhattan for beads had to do with the fact that the Dutch were making that deal with the Carnasee on Long Island, not the Manhattans, so the Carnasee leaders were obviously quite happy to sell what they didn't own.
Native American leaders were in no way ignorant of the threat they faced. The reasons they lost amounted to:
1. They weren't immune to European diseases (that alone wiped out something like 95% of their population in the 1500s, and is probably why they couldn't resist the English or Dutch or Spanish the same way they successfully resisted the Icelanders).
2. They were outgunned militarily. Even relatively late in the conflict e.g. Little Big Horn, most of their warriors were armed with bows, not guns. That wasn't because they didn't want guns, but because the only way they could get their hands on guns and ammunition was to kill or capture a white person who had them.
3. The US routinely violated treaties made with them. Or in some cases would invite a leader to a meeting to discuss a treaty and promptly shoot him when he arrived.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:09PM
I meant individual land-ownership but, obviously, was remiss in my submission. My sincere apologies. I had thought it clear but it certainly was not.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 08 2015, @06:26PM
The only problem is we live in a world where everything and everyone is under control by some entity. There is no land that you can legally live on without paying taxes or rent. I can't go into a park and set up a small farm. Same for private land. I can be arrested and charged with trespass. Every square mm is controlled by someone. Hunting requires a license as well as fishing in many areas. Licenses cost money and you can't make money without paying taxes.
The really sad part? You want to truly live for free? Go to prison. You can live in one for life and never have to work, pay taxes, worry about health care or bills. Sure it's a living hell but I suppose that is the price you pay for completely free living. Truly irony at its best.
My take? Life is perverse and sick.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 08 2015, @11:10PM
There's not much free land but there is cheap land.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday June 09 2015, @02:21PM
Still gotta pay taxes.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:54PM
Unless you got to little income?
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Monday June 08 2015, @02:29PM
That's why it won't happen. Enough people have too much to lose if it does turn into a Star-Trek-like society that's so prosperous nobody needs to pay for anything to ever allow that kind of material prosperity.
i had thought about this exact issue and what i concluded is that it will happen indirectly because of the greed of corporations. basically, the allure of reducing wages to zero is just too great and as a result, the investment in automation to replace more and more people will eventually lead to automation of automation. in other words, the automated design and reconfiguration of assembly lines so that you can go from design to finished product in a single bound. honestly, this is something we could have now but articulated robots are currently too expensive because of their designs (pricey motors, servos, vision systems). when a cheap-ass articulated robot comes along, things will change greatly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @09:47PM
Not quite yet, but how about a village that has abolished its police force and which has essentially no unemployment?
It's in the autonomous region of Andalusia in Spain and is called Marinaleda. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [jacobinmag.com]
Do I really need to mention that the means to accomplish that is Marxism?
Now, it does require an alternative to Lamestream Media. [spookmagazine.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 08 2015, @03:02PM
I don't care how small the pie becomes, I just want the biggest slice
- said, like, every rich/powerful dude in the history of humanity, ever.
I wouldn't bet on star trek.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:04AM
I wouldn't either. If I win, I won't collect my money because money will be abolished, so the only effect will be losing whatever money I put in the bet. And if I lose, well, I lose. So betting on a Star Trek like future is a sure loss.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dunbal on Monday June 08 2015, @12:15PM
people will still be shitty to other people
I'd say that people will be even shittier to other people, out of boredom. Idle hands make for mischief.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Monday June 08 2015, @03:10PM
I don't think so: lack of economic burden != boredom. And idle hands make for art, poetry, music, stories, philosophy and science.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 08 2015, @03:25PM
Didn't you learn anything from school bullies? Not all people with idle time are designed in way to do something useful. Instead the start gangs and rob other people etc.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @03:59PM
Maybe just give them PCs and some MMOs/online games and they can go rob/kill each other in games.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Dunbal on Monday June 08 2015, @05:52PM
Yeah there's so much art and poetry coming out of high welfare areas in the US right now. No rioting and looting at all.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @06:36PM
Blacks and whites are different.
So are women and men.
White men produce art, programs, science, etc when unemployed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:23PM
Unemployment leading to art and other productive things requires one to have food and shelter. If you're starving to death or living on the streets, your sole focus is going to be finding food and shelter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @10:24PM
What amazes me about this scenario is that folks have overlooked/forgotten the need for humans like Lister and Rimmer. [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 08 2015, @05:39PM
Of course, the protagonist in Manna only got into the good society because he happened to have a rich uncle who bought his way in early on.
People who are already rich are going to do just fine. Just like always...
(Score: 1) by Absolutely.Geek on Monday June 08 2015, @08:43PM
Not really; his dad brought in for $1000. While this is somewhat a lot of money it really isn't in the scheme of things.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday June 08 2015, @10:54PM
But he did buy the right $1000 lottery ticket. How many other utopian commune startups failed alongside this one that succeeded? Also, I would have trouble with my spine having an off-switch.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Absolutely.Geek on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:54PM
My major problem with the whole concept is the idea that privacy leads to badness.....it seems weird.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @08:10PM
but the ability of few to control many will be greatly weakened
Dream on.
The only thing that will increase is the ability of few to control many. When you can reach people's ears, eyes, stomachs and thoughts you have good control over them and can make them do anything. Just like what television/cinema and internet do today (and newspapers did in earlier times).
Want to occupy another country in a war? shift people's opinion of that nation and call them the biggest threat since something. Drooling public will back you. In the real world Good does not always win; Evil wins all the time.
If people don't need to educate themselves to be able to house, feed and clothe themselves, they will stop getting any education whatsoever and will not be able to think at all (think sheep or another animal). People have already been turned into sheep where they look at television to tell them what is right and wrong.
One thing that will happen is that cultural difference will increase. Some will sit on the curb smoking a joint, while others will make something worthwhile. All depending on culture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @08:46PM
"people will still be shitty to other people but the ability of few to control many will be greatly weakened."
THIS. That is the main problem with "This would be a departure from concentrated power via wealth and/or authority to a system that can being completely decentralized and a single person be self-sufficient in isolation if they wanted to. some people seem to think not having to work means "oww, a utopia! yeah dream on" but it's not a utopia, it's the same world just without the burden of economics"
those people will segregate themselves and become shittier and shittier to the other people/groups. violence will erupt and ruin the lives of all - participants and bystanders. "We don't like those people. Let's blow up the factory of robots that produces their needs." "They blew our factory up, let's blow theirs up as well." Of course, these factories served other non-combantant groups as well - who are now pissed at the combatants. "Let's go kill the mudafuckas". Later on, "Well, we didn't kill them all but we killed as many of them as they killed us. Hmm. There are no robots left to make food, clothing, and shelter for us. How did we used to do those things? Oh well, let's build some huts and kill some animals to survive until we can figure out how to rebuild civilization."
I sometimes wonder if civilization has already been here before and is some sort of infinite loop...because I can't see it playing out any other way unless we can spread out amongst the stars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:09AM
So you'd basically like this loopy scenario to play on more than one planet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @09:01PM
seriously. do you think mankind sprang forth from zeus' head fully formed into a society with centralized governing powers? hell no. ape men roamed freely - killing, eating, and fucking at will. one ape man said to another "hey, if we, like team-up, we are more likely to be successful in our killing, eating, and fucking." eventually, another victimized ape man (or woman) realizes they can 'team-up' too. they defeat the marauders the next time they come a pillaging. "Three cheers for !!! Let's make him/her king/queen! Cuz they so smart!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:12AM
No, mankind evolved from apes which already were living in groups with social structures, including leaders. It's already in our genes. All our intelligence and civilization did was to enable us to form larger and more complex groups than before.