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Will robots steal our jobs?

theprestige said:
Terrible question. Humans will adapt.
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Maybe.

There is no certainty that they will adapt well, or cope with a condition that there isn't any past guideline for from human experience.

Nature doesn't handle abundant resources all that well. Usually any species which encounters such circumstances reproduces itself into catastrophe. Some suggest (I am not among them) that this is a course we are already well embarked upon.

To "adapt" only suggests survival, it doesn't mean much as far as the conditions of that survival are concerned.

I'm not questioning whether or not we can survive in a post-scarcity economy, I'm questioning how we might do it, and what the possible ramifications and pitfalls might be.

We have had relatively abundant resources at our disposal for quite some time, and haven't demonstrated any real talent at taking advantage of that. Mostly we have done little more than increase resource disparity. Some places more than others, but the general condition is clear.

Are we simply going to see more of the same, with haves that have more and more, and have-nots looking at a constantly growing gap?
 
theprestige said:
Terrible question. Humans will adapt.
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Humans as a whole will. I'm not sure that will involve taking care of the vulnerable who are left in the wake. We currently have enough resources to feed everybody on the planet, yet people are still starving. We currently have enough resources to give free healthcare to everybody on the planet, yet people are still dying of easily preventable conditions. The US is the richest country on the planet by quite a long way, yet a fifth of USAian children live below the poverty line.

I'm not sure I see that changing just because the number of vulnerable people has gone up.
 
Crossbow said:
If you actually want people to read the article you cite and then to write comments about that article, then it would be most helpful if you clearly said so.
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Well, it may be news to you but that link was the first line of my post. I thought that was obvious also.
 
lomiller said:
Machines have been taking our jobs for thousands of years and we haven’t run out of jobs yet.
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This same point was in the article, in fact on the first page:

The standard economic view for most of the last two centuries has therefore been that the Luddites were wrong about the long-term benefits of the new technologies, even if they were right about the short-term impact on their personal livelihoods. Anyone putting such arguments against new technologies has generally been dismissed as believing in the ‘Luddite fallacy’.


And then the main question is on the next page:

What exactly will humans have to offer employers if smart machines can perform all or most of their essential tasks better in the future2? In short, has the Luddite fallacy finally come true?
 
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barehl said:
What exactly will humans have to offer employers if smart machines can perform all or most of their essential tasks better in the future2? In short, has the Luddite fallacy finally come true?
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Somebody needs to purchase the output of these robotic industries? Which means that those consumers will need an income of some kind and must, therefore, have some kind of work? And that that work must in itself have some value to the consumers of its output?
 
GlennB said:
Somebody needs to purchase the output of these robotic industries? Which means that those consumers will need an income of some kind and must, therefore, have some kind of work? And that that work must in itself have some value to the consumers of its output?
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And yet, nowhere in that reply do you mention humans.
 
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Fizil said:
This is simply not true, and hasn't been true for awhile. Newer forms of automation are removing jobs faster than new jobs are being created from technological innovation. It is in fact different this time.

Hell, you might think that becoming a software developer would be the safe course in this new age of automation. Someone has got to write all that automation software after all. You know what my first job out of college was? Writing software that automated the creation of software for television automation systems. Instead of a few dozen software developers developing systems for many different clients, a few business analysts and a couple of software developers could simply input some parameters in that system, and it would output a mostly filled template project that just might need a tweak here and there for a particular client. And it isn't like that was state of the art software development automation.

edit: The point is that this isn't about blue-collar jobs going away. Robots are actually kind of expensive and finicky. This round of automation is about software taking over white-collar work. It isn't just coming, it is already here. What is my job right now as a software developer? Develop insurance software. Why? To reduce the need insurance companies have for underwriters, adjusters, and actuaries. When a company adopts my company's software, they can start slashing their HR costs because while humans are still needed, each individual underwriter, adjuster, and actuary can do the work of what took several of each before by leveraging the software.
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There definitely will be many blue and white collar jobs that will be replaced, but the pattern for hundreds of years of increased efficiency has resulted in less unemployment rates, not more (excluding the great depression, which was more of poor banking regulation problem). This latest potential employment shift has the potential to be very devastating on our economy and many people's lives, but unlike the great depression, we have time to plan for it.

Also, the most important thing about the automation debate that I find a large number of people do not take into account is the inherent limitations of AI/robotics, and how essential collaboration with human workers will be among all fields.

If we really want to look at the last major form of employment shift on the scale we are looking at now, the first industrial revolution is very applicable. There were massive widespread fears at the time that a very large portion of the country would become unemployed as we moved away from an agrarian society. They couldn't even imagine all of the different jobs that would be created from that massive shift.

Our economy is enormously based on social interactions, and that will not change anytime soon. There will be some jobs where fewer people are required, but there will always be a human required.

If you want to look at one of the first massive superhuman Artificial Intelligence devices that was adopted worldwide that revolutionized the labor industry, look at the calculator. No human could ever match the speed and power of what is now a handheld calculator, but it has dramatically increased the efficiency and employment options because of it across the world.

I have been very interested in this topic for a number of years, and very worried about the prospect of what would happen to societies when hundreds of millions of people are suddenly put out of work. Especially when you combine this with the quickly untenable demands of future food requirements, and the toxification of sea food. It is terrifying to imagine a nightmare situation where hundreds of millions of destitute people overwhelm the social safety nets. HOWEVER, increased efficiency and AI collaborative innovation is probably the best chance we have at meeting our most major current and upcoming human crises.
 
GlennB said:
Somebody needs to purchase the output of these robotic industries? Which means that those consumers will need an income of some kind and must, therefore, have some kind of work? And that that work must in itself have some value to the consumers of its output?
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When we reach a point where manufacturing is almost entirely automated, the economy will have to change. Most likely some sort of universal wage for starters.

Also, you also would reach a point where engineered to fail early products (planned obsolescence) could become less common. Your cars, shoes computers, etc. could be made to last much longer, and you would pay less for them.

It also means that unnecessary shipping expenses would create economic pressure towards a massive increase in smaller localized manufacturing centers that could produce a large variety of products.

Because of the smaller remote and likely largely additive manufacturing centers, recycling would become more common and profitable as common materials are adopted (and more easily utilized in additive vs. subtractive manufacturing), there would be more incentives to have open source products to increase efficiency, and less IP.

You would still have people working, especially in service industry positions, and AI integrated generative design development. However, you could do a whole lot more with a lot less waste, pollution, and social strife.
 
psionl0 said:
"trickle down" category. It is out of date. It ignores that individuals are being priced out ... All indications are that this trend is increasing with no end in sight.

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Unless we prepare for a world where labour is not needed we are going to see extreme poverty - even in the first world - on a scale never seen before.
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Things could get worse than they are now, but there is a limit how much relative perceived poverty the majority of population will tolerate. Then they vote for laws that nationalize robots once owned by the few. Unless the robot-owners make a coup d'etat with their robot armies, and that is the end of democracy. As long as democracy exists, there is a limit how bad the situation can get.
 
JJM 777 said:
Things could get worse than they are now, but there is a limit how much relative perceived poverty the majority of population will tolerate. Then they vote for laws that nationalize robots once owned by the few. Unless the robot-owners make a coup d'etat with their robot armies, and that is the end of democracy. As long as democracy exists, there is a limit how bad the situation can get.
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You guys expect a frog in the kettle to be relevant for this discussion?
 
JJM 777 said:
You guys expect a frog in the kettle to be relevant for this discussion?
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It sure is. The "technology will always create new jobs" mantra is constantly repeated like an article of faith. By the time it has rendered the average person obsolete it will be too late.
 
psionl0 said:
It sure is. The "technology will always create new jobs" mantra is constantly repeated like an article of faith. By the time it has rendered the average person obsolete it will be too late.
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This has been the case for hundreds of years. New industry technological advancements have gone hand in hand with lower unemployment rates. While demand and efficiency has shifted jobs to other fields, that is an inherent function of the economic affect of supply and demand.

What factors do you specifically see now that would change that trend?
 
HoverBoarder said:
This has been the case for hundreds of years. New industry technological advancements have gone hand in hand with lower unemployment rates. While demand and efficiency has shifted jobs to other fields, that is an inherent function of the economic affect of supply and demand.

What factors do you specifically see now that would change that trend?
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It's been referred to as "hollowing out the middle classes", though it certainly extends to relatively well-paid work in manufacturing. The fear is that more and more people, even those with high levels of education, will be relegated to poorly-paid service jobs.
 
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