Free Market and Automation

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This thread will take as read the (in my opinion uncontroversial) assumption that science will continue to progress, and at some time in the future we will have created machines which have physical dexterity and mental agility exceeding that of humans (at a lower expense).

At such a point, the vast majority of the populace will be unemployed, due to automation of human jobs.

This is sometimes claimed to be an economic fallacy. We will also take it as read that such a claim is a risible absurdity.

The argument for the claim goes something like, "in past instances of automation, although the original jobs were superseded, the new abundance of energy and the technological progress that this engendered created a whole new echelon of higher-level jobs which were then occupied, stabilising employment rates. Therefore, automation will never create permanent high unemployment".

This is, of course, not a rigorous argument, but just an extrapolation from events in different circumstances in a previous era. What is a rigorous argument, however, is that when machines can do everything that a human can but for less money, there patently be no rationale in hiring humans any more. New jobs will be created, but a priori, this time, the existing machines will already be able to do those, too.

So, the question is this: how will the free market economy (where the companies creating these machines will presumably arise) deal with this situation, in which virtually all jobs are automated?

It seems to me that a small number of people who own the 'means of production' will end up with all of the wealth and income. Everybody else will have a finite and dwindling wealth (actually a significant number will presumably have negative wealth, looking at the current economic situation), and no income, nor any means of ever attaining an income.

The great irony is that labour will have been rendered obsolete; and yet with contemporary economic models, it looks like we will end up with a potentially nightmarish situation rather than a utopia.

That's the focus, but feel free to discuss the effect on the state, and other types of economy.

A world government and world peace will arise before we reach this point in automation.

Why do you think that, and how would it solve the problem; what would the politics of the world government be?

Also, what would you say if it transpired that that didn't happen? It's not impossible.

In my opinion, we are very close to an energy revolution. All current wars and conflicts between countries pretty much revolve around energy, except for a few select instances. I believe if we have world peace and a world government, the cutting edge of science will be lead by the government, not some companies.

If my vision of the future does not hold true, then I will agree with you, a lot of people will be out of a job, without any means of getting a job.
I suppose, when a man isn't needed in his environment anymore, he has no choice but to leave it.

I suppose you are referring to renewable energy generation, and some kind of battery technology?

What do you mean by an environment 'needing' man? A man's purpose is to sustain himself and enjoy himself (and other nuances). We have economies to provide sustenance and enjoyment to man. If a man's purpose were to support the economy, that would be cyclical.

Precisely. If he can't sustain himself in a given environment, he has no choice but to leave it. Otherwise he will perish.

edit: fuck you dreamviews

I understand what you mean when you say that a man must leave his environment when the environment can no longer sustain him, but I don't see how exactly that relates to the environment needing him. Africa did not need prehistoric man.

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Originally Posted by Xei

I understand what you mean when you say that a man must leave his environment when the environment can no longer sustain him, but I don't see how exactly that relates to the environment needing him. Africa did not need prehistoric man.

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That is true. I suppose the difference here, is that prehistoric Africa was run by lions, while dystopian future world is run by evil corporate robots.
What I really meant with an environment needing a man, I meant a modern environment, that uses concepts such as money and trade.

I'm almost certain that the usual responses to the Luddite fallacy/"technological unemployment" cover the majority of your post, but I'm a little confused when it comes to this part:

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Originally Posted by Xei

New jobs will be created, but a priori, this time, the existing machines will already be able to do those, too.

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Why would that be the case? Could you explain your reasoning?

That exact 'fallacy' is precisely addressed within the post...

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Why would that be the case? Could you explain your reasoning?

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A more accurate way to put it would be, "but once any human is able to do the new jobs, the machines will already be able to do them better and cheaper [and therefore human unemployment will never be offset by these jobs as it was in the past]". This is obvious given the premises, right..?

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Originally Posted by Xei

That exact 'fallacy' is precisely addressed within the post...

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I know. And I said the usual responses to the presentation of the fallacy cover (as in, rebut) what you said in your post. Except for the part I quoted of course.

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A more accurate way to put it would be, "but once any human is able to do the new jobs, the machines will already be able to do them better and cheaper [and therefore human unemployment will never be offset by these jobs as it was in the past]". This is obvious given the premises, right..?

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Not necessarily, no. Technological improvement occurs incrementally, as does its actual implementation into production processes. Unless I'm misunderstanding you (could be the case), the only way for that to be obvious is if you assume technological improvement (and implementation) occurs instantly.

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I know. And I said the usual responses to the presentation of the fallacy cover (as in, rebut) what you said in your post.

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But... my post doesn't just contain the assertion, it also contains a rebuttal of the common rebuttal to the assertion. :/

Moreover it has a watertight counterargument, and yes, you haven't understood it;

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Not necessarily, no. Technological improvement occurs incrementally, as does its actual implementation into production processes. Unless I'm misunderstanding you (could be the case), the only way for that to be obvious is if you assume technological improvement (and implementation) occurs instantly.

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We're talking about the invention of machines which exceed humans in both mental and physical capabilities. By definition there is literally no physical or mental task you could beat these machines at. This includes envisioning and performing any newly created jobs.

The question of machines in economics has been around for several centuries. Generally it is associated with somebody whining about a newly created machine which can produce several times more than a human and stealing that person's job. But then, if it is more desirable to have a human do the work instead of the machine, can we not continue this logic and conclude that we would be better off having no machines at all? A good example are some of the "lights out manufacturing" factories that exist in the automobile industry. If we continue the line of thinking in the classical argument's logic against innovation and technology, it would be better to have several thousand men and women working to produce these modern cars by hand. How many people would it take to maintain current levels of production? It would probably take several hundred thousand people working by hand to maintain the level of automobile production of one single automated factory. And that is not even considering the fact that special robotic machines are necessary to build the computers in modern cars that cannot be produced any other way. If a company had to hire this many people by some government mandate, it would go broke within a week. Then nobody would have a job.

But I digress...

I think a world where humanoid robots are able to do all of the menial tasks that we humans do on a regular basis would be ideal. (I am assuming these robots are not "intelligent," but they are simply capable of the cognitive abilites required to do manual labor. A monkey could be trained to do these things.) These robots would be doing us a grand favor by saving us the very precious economic resource of time. By giving us the time that is normally taken up in doing menial tasks like washing dishes, cleaning, repairing cars, etc... we now have more time for thinking. As the robots take care of the lower-order tasks, we are free and enabled to spend our time on more important, higher-order thinking and planning. Even the poor man of this distant future would be envied by the Warren Buffets of today, very much as someone who is considered to be at the "poverty line" today is actually living a life replete with more material things than a medieval king could have ever dreamed of. (e.g. cell phone, car, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, airplanes, television, newspapers, skyscrapers etc.)

I think the development of robots as a replacement for human labor is something that should be actively pursued and which will ultimately and drastically increase our standard of living. Now, the case in which said robots are made intelligent and capable of creating their own goals, desires, dreams, ambitions, vengance, hatred, etc. is altogether different and should be considered with caution. What if they became too powerful, and destroyed us? I think this is in a very distant future and isn't really something to worry about at present, but it is food for thought nonetheless.

Wouldn't your premise of having machines more intelligent (or "mentally agile") than humans lead to the technological singularity? In which case the question and its ramifications would go far beyond what's hypothesised, and I don't think that's your intent.

As a result, I'm going to ignore that part for now and instead focus on the idea of automation that's able to replace humans in a physical capacity, and most mental ones as well; no need for air traffic controllers for example.


Obviously this will pretty much spell the end for free market capitalism, but it's hard to imagine that the current prestige given to wealth will survive the transition as well. Many focus on gaining money despite it being little more than an arbitrary number, simply because they wish to be able to send out the social signals that wealth allows such as having a shiny new car.

With enough robotic labour, material goods reach a practically zero cost and thus even the poorest person would enjoy vast amounts of wealth. Perhaps this might require some charitable individual who possesses large amounts of wealth to give the means to them in the first place, but we already have plenty of those in the world. And since almost everyone enjoys some wealth at the moment, combined with economies of scale and production, it would surely mean that most could afford to get at least some robotic assistance for themselves.

The transition might have some bumps along the way, but ultimately I don't see it being a problem.

I think the bigger question is: just what would a society where no-one has to work look like? What would we all do with so much free time? No doubt there would be a huge amount of focus on entertainment and arts, as well as more people exploring new problems. Some people would work even with no need to do so simply because they enjoy it.

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Originally Posted by Photolysis

Wouldn't your premise of having machines more intelligent (or "mentally agile") than humans lead to the technological singularity? In which case the question and its ramifications would go far beyond what's hypothesised, and I don't think that's your intent.

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No, I don't want to talk about the singularity. At any rate it's possible to envisage a 'slow singularity', where there is a significant period of time where machines exist which are more agile than humans, but not hyper-agile; this thread is about the possible problems with the free market system. Although, it is possible to imagine that even in a world with hyper-intelligent servants owned by an elite class, we might see similar problems.

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Obviously this will pretty much spell the end for free market capitalism, but it's hard to imagine that the current prestige given to wealth will survive the transition as well. Many focus on gaining money despite it being little more than an arbitrary number, simply because they wish to be able to send out the social signals that wealth allows such as having a shiny new car.

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And I suppose the implication is that philanthropy will dissolve the problem?

I have a couple of things to say about that. Firstly, granting that enough of the upper class are altruistic to support the global population, would it still not be wise in principle to enshrine this new economy in law, for all time? Also, it seems likely that there would still be some who hoarded their resources indefinitely and used them to do as they willed, at the expense of others, even though it conferred no real benefit. Should these people be left alone, forever?

Secondly... I'm not entirely sure that the above would actually transpire on a large enough scale. As you say, history shows that humans have a strong desire for fame and power, despite receiving no practical benefits from it. Multibillionaires cling on to their wealth despite it making zero difference to their lives. This is probably biologically ingrained. And is there any reason to think this will stop, the moment that machine labour becomes less expensive than human labour? Couldn't a troublesome number of people keep very large quantities of land, resources, and power for themselves?

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With enough robotic labour, material goods reach a practically zero cost and thus even the poorest person would enjoy vast amounts of wealth.

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I believe this is a misconception, actually. There is a second component to cost other than labour, which is the material cost. After labour becomes cheap, resources will still be scarce. There will be a finite amount of materials in the ground, which can be extracted at only a finite rate, a finite amount of energy and food (and populations will multiply until this becomes an issue), and a finite amount of land. These things would still clearly be desirable, and thus competed for, which means they would still cost. In the case of land, it's particularly clear; the cost won't change in real terms. There will still be the same amount, and the relative cost of properties relative to one another. Land distribution is of course very uneven across the globe at the moment, and once labour became obsolete, this'd never change; except those with the means could keep expanding.

This pretty much reaches the point beyond which we cannot continue to live under the capitalist social paradigm. Money is even now a necessary evil, and by the time human society reaches the point you are describing, capitalism as we have known it in recent history will be dead if humanity is to make it that far.

Or we could have total worldwide economic collapse. Or perhaps more likely, such labor will be banned (controversially of course).

It takes a lot of indoctrination and a very strained mind to actually believe that the abundance brought about by total automation would result in anything other than materialistic utopia, regardless of political regimes. That's all I have to say on this shameful topic.

When you get to the point that all work is done by automation, production is going to be very cheap. So it isn't like a person will need a factory to go into business. The people who make the money will be whoever comes with with new ideas. You get the idea and then you can cheaply produce the goods. There isn't going to be anyone in control of the means of production because it is going to be spread out all over on small local levels.

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Originally Posted by Alric

The people who make the money will be whoever comes with with new ideas.

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I've explained this a few times now... people won't be able to get employment this way.

Of course, you are not going to work for anyone at all. If you come up with the idea you will either sell the information and people will create the item them self or you will make the item and then sell it to local people. More than likely you might just sell the information and not even produce anything. A good example would be the arts, you write a song or paint a picture then put it online and people can download it for a small cost. That is the type of jobs people will have.

No, I mean you won't be able to come up with any novel ideas...

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Originally Posted by Xei

This thread will take as read the (in my opinion uncontroversial) assumption that science will continue to progress, and at some time in the future we will have created machines which have physical dexterity and mental agility exceeding that of humans (at a lower expense).

At such a point, the vast majority of the populace will be unemployed, due to automation of human jobs.

This is sometimes claimed to be an economic fallacy. We will also take it as read that such a claim is a risible absurdity.

The argument for the claim goes something like, "in past instances of automation, although the original jobs were superseded, the new abundance of energy and the technological progress that this engendered created a whole new echelon of higher-level jobs which were then occupied, stabilising employment rates. Therefore, automation will never create permanent high unemployment".

This is, of course, not a rigorous argument, but just an extrapolation from events in different circumstances in a previous era. What is a rigorous argument, however, is that when machines can do everything that a human can but for less money, there patently be no rationale in hiring humans any more. New jobs will be created, but a priori, this time, the existing machines will already be able to do those, too.

So, the question is this: how will the free market economy (where the companies creating these machines will presumably arise) deal with this situation, in which virtually all jobs are automated?

It seems to me that a small number of people who own the 'means of production' will end up with all of the wealth and income. Everybody else will have a finite and dwindling wealth (actually a significant number will presumably have negative wealth, looking at the current economic situation), and no income, nor any means of ever attaining an income.

The great irony is that labour will have been rendered obsolete; and yet with contemporary economic models, it looks like we will end up with a potentially nightmarish situation rather than a utopia.

That's the focus, but feel free to discuss the effect on the state, and other types of economy.

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This is one of the major reasons I support a more collectivist attitude in regard to ownership. When the controllers of Capital refuse to support their labor with more than a temporary contract, they are not just refusing the labor their share for the time they gave, they are killing their legacy for the future. We built the future together, and we should all share it.

Communities could run participatory governments with each other. Communities collectively keep watch over the industry and infrastructure within their control. With this smaller model, they are not forced to take care of individuals that feel entitled. Generally, there would be a lot less labor to go around, but just as much capability to maintain shelter, food, water and energy for large communities meaning a large group of people could live together without having to work very much at all. The fear people have right now is that if the state enables people to live without work, they won't do anything. Conversely if you reward people to live a lot better than the rest of society, he will be more ambitious.

Competition does provide something for progress but historically cooperation has been just as imperative in all aspects of evolution. While societies should maintain capitalism, if communities were collectivist then they could compete together rather than amongst each other and when one of them is inspired by ambition to drive society forward then that person's community could benefit together from the invention and if they don't like that person's ideas he/she could migrate to a place that would. When people share their ambition, they double their potential. And simply because you remove a person's fear of losing their homes and starving if they fuck up, that does not mean no one will want to perform the work that is still required. You're still driven by the ambition to survive, you would just be driven by the ambition to survive as a community rather than an individual. The community would regulate this themselves and run their own government to maintain its own requirements and even threaten people with exile who refuse to lend substantiate aid; essentially a "have a broomstick or the door" policy. Social safety nets would take the form of community empathy, more or less. The disabled, pregnant, sick, injured etc. could excuse themselves as necessary. Because it would be so easy to survive, there would be no reason to hold back from helping these people. The only reason to even maintain regulations is for a sense of fairness. Maybe you're a police officer two days a week and that's all you're asked to do, but you also volunteer at the school as a councilor at your leisure and you would be out hunting right now but you're busy directing a school play. People like to be busy. They choose to be busy. Maybe you're required to sit behind a security camera for the three nights a week you work and you spend the rest of the time playing video games and smoking pot. Should the cop be angry at your lifestyle just because you don't do any of the stuff he's just doing for fun anyways?

There's this weird assumption that if you decide to be a lawyer or a doctor you should have a better life than your neighbors. Basically, you need to make more money so you can buy a bigger house and a better car and a jacuzzi and a cruise. I don't understand this philosophy, but I do believe competition drives you to be the best and progresses society forward. Football players drive themselves to be the best so they can get traded to the richest team that can offer them the strongest contract. Communities could also offer contracts in order to compete for the best doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and other vital assets. These contracts wouldn't need to be for cash, they could be for the best living conditions possible. So communities would be driven to let certain individuals to live much better off than the rest because that's the only way to get them to come live there.

The next questions I would like to address are these:

1. Shouldn't the cop be living at least slightly better off than the lazy stoner required to do nothing else but stare at a screen from the corner of his eye while he plays video games? (He's not even required to pay attention or stay awake, an alert system goes off when the automated sensor detects movement.)

2. If currency is eliminated from individual communities how do they trade with each other? For example, what does a community built around a steel mill get for the steel they trade, and why should they bother? For another example, what would store owners give for products they import, and why should they give these products to the community?

A single occupation could overlook both facets of trade. The store owner would be the same job (or shared work) as the steel trader. Regional Capitals would take the form of trade cities, as regions could haul goods to a single epicenter where middle-men would purchase the steel in order to sell to another community which uses it to build treadmills. (This community may also delve in cheese processing, circuit boards, etc.) This middle man exists, just as the trade city exists, in order to bottle neck stock so that the trader from the steel mill community can exchange all the steel at once in return for all the necessities the community doesn't have plus whatever luxuries they asked him/her to get.

This is where I get back to question one. If a member of a community is just partying all the time then dragging herself to a restaurant to wait people for her required eighteen hours a week, hungover every single day, even dropping her four kids off at the day-care center to feed and entertain so she can go drink, should this be enabled? Should she live just as well off as everyone else despite the fact that she's forcing them to look after all her kids and she doesn't even have to motivation to do her job well?

If the town has one export, then the hours a person puts into work and the type of work they do could entitle them to a share of that export. Individuals can make requests to the local trader for certain luxury items, and their item cap depends upon the value of the product they partially own. There's no reason to impose statewide measures to take care of the town drunk. If they aren't bad enough to face exile, that doesn't mean they deserve the same lifestyle as people that work much, much harder. They simply won't be granted as much ownership over the community's export to afford any of its imports.

Automation is both the best and worse thing to ever happen to mankind. But its a problem only because of the system we live in. Runaway automation in this system means the whole system could collapse! (will)

The steps are as follows: First we lose industry jobs to machines. No one cares because it increases profit (for the 1%). Service jobs increase instead. But service jobs require little to no skills so most are low wage. Unemployment, under-employment and the income gap increase.

But thats not what collapses the system.

Next we lose intelligent skill labor of all kinds to the digital automation that no one is paying attention to! Architects won't need engineers when computer programs can do the complex math for them. Contractors won't need architects when programs can design entire cities. Eventually a job that once required a huge task force of highly educated, highly skilled, highly payed people could be replaced by 1.

No industry is safe from the digital automation. The creative industries are already pulling their hair because they can't control the internet and illegal digital trade.

Medical technology is advancing so fast thousands of skilled medical jobs could be replaced. Machines could make better surgeons. With laser technology virtually all surgery can be non-evasive and only last minutes. Programs will be able to analyze, diagnosis and choose the best medication. I've already witnessed doctors input symptoms into a program so the program can LITERALLY DECIDE the best medication.

When medical technology advances what hospital wants to hire expensive doctors when unskilled labor can pat your head and push some buttons?

Even the programmers of the digital automated world are going to lose out. They want to make lots of money with their invention? Well too bad because china totally downloaded the information like yesterday and already made millions of cheap copies - with their unpaid robot workforce.

The digital automation will be revolutionary. But it'll collapse our system entirely. It's not the automation that's the problem. Its this system that requires us to be in debt so we work all day long. Lack of ownership of the home you live in is the real problem.

People don't understand this concept because millions own a mortgage and still suffer. They don't understand, owning a mortgage doesn't mean you own a home - it means you own debt.

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

The question of machines in economics has been around for several centuries. Generally it is associated with somebody whining about a newly created machine which can produce several times more than a human and stealing that person's job. But then, if it is more desirable to have a human do the work instead of the machine, can we not continue this logic and conclude that we would be better off having no machines at all? A good example are some of the "lights out manufacturing" factories that exist in the automobile industry. If we continue the line of thinking in the classical argument's logic against innovation and technology, it would be better to have several thousand men and women working to produce these modern cars by hand. How many people would it take to maintain current levels of production? It would probably take several hundred thousand people working by hand to maintain the level of automobile production of one single automated factory. And that is not even considering the fact that special robotic machines are necessary to build the computers in modern cars that cannot be produced any other way. If a company had to hire this many people by some government mandate, it would go broke within a week. Then nobody would have a job.

But I digress...

I think a world where humanoid robots are able to do all of the menial tasks that we humans do on a regular basis would be ideal. (I am assuming these robots are not "intelligent," but they are simply capable of the cognitive abilites required to do manual labor. A monkey could be trained to do these things.) These robots would be doing us a grand favor by saving us the very precious economic resource of time. By giving us the time that is normally taken up in doing menial tasks like washing dishes, cleaning, repairing cars, etc... we now have more time for thinking. As the robots take care of the lower-order tasks, we are free and enabled to spend our time on more important, higher-order thinking and planning. Even the poor man of this distant future would be envied by the Warren Buffets of today, very much as someone who is considered to be at the "poverty line" today is actually living a life replete with more material things than a medieval king could have ever dreamed of. (e.g. cell phone, car, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, airplanes, television, newspapers, skyscrapers etc.)

I think the development of robots as a replacement for human labor is something that should be actively pursued and which will ultimately and drastically increase our standard of living. Now, the case in which said robots are made intelligent and capable of creating their own goals, desires, dreams, ambitions, vengance, hatred, etc. is altogether different and should be considered with caution. What if they became too powerful, and destroyed us? I think this is in a very distant future and isn't really something to worry about at present, but it is food for thought nonetheless.

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I think this post pretty much nailed it. Humans will always have some other wants to satiate, so much so that the pursuit of those desires may lead to new industries. There will never be a state of full contentment.

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Originally Posted by cmind

It takes a lot of indoctrination and a very strained mind to actually believe that the abundance brought about by total automation would result in anything other than materialistic utopia, regardless of political regimes. That's all I have to say on this shameful topic.

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I don't know if it takes indoctrination or a strained mind. Personally I think the relative material abundance brought by total (or near-total) automation would be an enormous benefit to the human race, though perhaps not utopian on the grounds that, well, utopia is impossible to reach. But I can see why others would be worried. Would life for us just turn into some sort of realization of Wall-E? Personally I don't think so, but some might. I don't know why you'd consider this a shameful topic.

This predicted circumstance might seem like a big problem, but I definitely see a way to look at it positively. Along the lines of where Hercuflea was getting at, it could present an inevitable societal evolution. Humans would be left with their creativity in using these robots to make a living. Competitive and quality striven businesses would be one of the only salvations, aside from engineers producing, selling, and improving these robots, scientists, artists, and whatever else a robot wouldn't have the imagination or sentience to do. If we ever do find it possible to create robots with innovation and sentience indistinguishable from a human's (one's that would be able to do things like start businesses, own land, and marry lady robots) then I'd really wonder if it would be wise to build much of them considering building one would have the same effect as unnecessarily birthing another human into the world, which doesn't seem very fitting in today's world.

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I don't know if it takes indoctrination or a strained mind. Personally I think the relative material abundance brought by total (or near-total) automation would be an enormous benefit to the human race, though perhaps not utopian on the grounds that, well, utopia is impossible to reach. But I can see why others would be worried. Would life for us just turn into some sort of realization of Wall-E? Personally I don't think so, but some might. I don't know why you'd consider this a shameful topic.

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It's a shameful topic because these kinds of discussions lead to political actions that slow down the progress of humanity.

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I think this post pretty much nailed it. Humans will always have some other wants to satiate, so much so that the pursuit of those desires may lead to new industries. There will never be a state of full contentment.

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This was addressed in my last response to you, and in a few other places, including the OP. I thought that would address this (I wanted it to be an accepted prelude to the thread rather than the focus)... the reason there won't be any new industries for humans is a very concise and straightforward idea which follows directly from the premises.

It really depends on how far out you go. Short term the jobs will all move to more creative areas where computers are not as good. Medium term when computers can do everything better than people there are not going to be any jobs. During this time is seems extremely likely that the concept of wealth is going to go away and everyone will just share things. Long term people are going to end up upgrading them self with technology and are going to be smarter than computers because the computers will be inside their brain, so will be in charge of everything again.

Obviously there will be some overlap and probably never a point where everything is done by just one group.

Indeed. In this thread I'm only concerned with the medium term that you refer to (and which a few people are having strange problems conceding is real), and whether your assertion about the concept of wealth disappearing will truly occur.

Perhaps when all of our desires are catered to by the automatons we will all become Buddhists.

It will have to, because you can't have billions of people starving to death. Obviously if unemployment was at like 80% the government would have to feed and shelter everyone, or everyone is just going to die. Obviously they are not just going to die but are going to steal all the money if they have to. If you are rich the play to make is to share everything you have and just try to buy some position of power where you get to decide how the sharing works before all the money becomes meaningless.

I think social organizers will be too inept and myopic to prevent 80%+ of the population from starving to death if transitional steps aren't taken to change over our economic structure so people are not in direct, individual competition with machines for labor.

Seems straightforward to me. When new technology comes out, the outdated models are slowly phased out. Androids will simply replace humans.

Blessed are the synthetics, for they shall inherit the Earth.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

I think social organizers will be too inept and myopic to prevent 80%+ of the population from starving to death if transitional steps aren't taken to change over our economic structure so people are not in direct, individual competition with machines for labor.

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People won't be in competition with machines, people will own the machines. There most likely will not be robot entrepreneurs. There will not be robot philosophers. There will not be robotic love between robots. Humans will continue to be humans, and the robots will be performing the lower forms of labor that will no longer be necessary for humans to subject themselves to. If we have reached such a level of technology as to have robots doing all manual labor, then I suspect there will be the technology to grow food enough food in space or in the ocean to feed the masses. The fallacy you have presented of "machines stealing human jobs" has been refuted time and time again for three centuries.

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

There will not be robotic love between robots.

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How sad. Does that mean Daft Punk has been lying to us all these years?

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

People won't be in competition with machines, people will own the machines. There most likely will not be robot entrepreneurs. There will not be robot philosophers. There will not be robotic love between robots. Humans will continue to be humans, and the robots will be performing the lower forms of labor that will no longer be necessary for humans to subject themselves to. If we have reached such a level of technology as to have robots doing all manual labor, then I suspect there will be the technology to grow food enough food in space or in the ocean to feed the masses. The fallacy you have presented of "machines stealing human jobs" has been refuted time and time again for three centuries.

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This sounds delirious to me. Right now it looks like the people that own the machines are the capitalists and when they no longer need people for labor they'll probably let them all starve to death, keeping only a select few around for their amusement.

You should read my post. It's a little long but it thoroughly explains my position. It's not so different from yours but adjusts a couple problems I foresee.

Part of the reason we have a large debt in many countries if because of programs made to help out people who can't work anymore, and we greatly extended unemployment benefits as well. It isn't very effective but the government is trying to take some steps to help. In the future they will need to do better as more people lose their jobs.

How? Right now the worst off are being supported by the only-slightly-better-off because the people that actually own everything also avoid paying the taxes that support these social programs. Instead of spending this money on taxes, they spend it lobbying the government to continue enabling them not to pay these taxes. As the slighty-better-off continue to dwindle with technology continuing to remove jobs from people there will be fewer and fewer people to pay these taxes.

Steps must be taken to remove the monetary system at large and reorganize society without it. Only then will man and machine not be forced to compete with each other.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

This sounds delirious to me. Right now it looks like the people that own the machines are the capitalists and when they no longer need people for labor they'll probably let them all starve to death, keeping only a select few around for their amusement.

You should read my post. It's a little long but it thoroughly explains my position. It's not so different from yours but adjusts a couple problems I foresee.

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As he types this...on a machine...that he owns. :facepalm:

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

People won't be in competition with machines, people will own the machines. There most likely will not be robot entrepreneurs. There will not be robot philosophers. There will not be robotic love between robots. Humans will continue to be humans, and the robots will be performing the lower forms of labor that will no longer be necessary for humans to subject themselves to. If we have reached such a level of technology as to have robots doing all manual labor, then I suspect there will be the technology to grow food enough food in space or in the ocean to feed the masses. The fallacy you have presented of "machines stealing human jobs" has been refuted time and time again for three centuries.

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Please have the courtesy to at least read the first post in the thread before posting in it.

At no point in the past three centuries have there existed machines which can do any job that a human can. What is your basis for asserting that there won't be any 'robot entrepreneurs', by which you presumably mean inventors and businessmen? It certainly doesn't correspond to a situation prescribed by the first premise in the first sentence of the first post.

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Originally Posted by Xei

This thread will take as read the (in my opinion uncontroversial) assumption that science will continue to progress, and at some time in the future we will have created machines which have physical dexterity and mental agility exceeding that of humans (at a lower expense).

At such a point, the vast majority of the populace will be unemployed, due to automation of human jobs.

This is sometimes claimed to be an economic fallacy. We will also take it as read that such a claim is a risible absurdity.

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It's bad practice to start off abstract thought experiments such as these by immediately and arbitrarily ruling out the greatest threat to the primary proposition. Your argument ceases to be "rigorous" at

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It seems to me that a small number of people who own the 'means of production' will end up with all of the wealth and income. Everybody else will have a finite and dwindling wealth (actually a significant number will presumably have negative wealth, looking at the current economic situation), and no income, nor any means of ever attaining an income.

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After seeing the previous innocent postulations in the thread I felt the desire to post my own.

It is well known that the free market doesn't exist in purity now nor is likely to exist in purity in the near future.

So here we have robots which have been built which can outrun, outlift, and outsmart humans in all cases.

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What is a rigorous argument, however, is that when machines can do everything that a human can but for less money, there patently be no rationale in hiring humans any more. New jobs will be created, but a priori, this time, the existing machines will already be able to do those, too.

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Are we assuming here that the robots have been bestowed the human qualities of creativity, emotion, greed, power-lust, love, and the rest of our seemingly infinite repertoire of fanciful things?

If we are, then in all probability the robots, which are "owned" or created by the human businessmen, will overpower their creators and become the dominant species. At best they will look upon humanity as just another lowly life form, and we will be cut off from "civilization," likely with many casualties. At worst they will exterminate us entirely along with any other living species viewed as pests.

If we are not, then the machines will not possess the uniquely human qualities of innovation and entrepreneurship and the last eleven words of the previous quote will be mistaken.

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

It's bad practice to start off abstract thought experiments such as these by immediately and arbitrarily ruling out the greatest threat to the primary proposition.

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Erm... no it isn't? This thread is about what would happen in a certain situation. It is not about what would happen in a different situation. There's nothing wrong with clearly stating the premises and domain of discourse, in fact it's good practice.

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Your argument ceases to be "rigorous" at...

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I know that, and I never claimed it was rigorous. This is the whole point of the thread; to discuss that point of contention.

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Are we assuming here that the robots have been bestowed the human qualities of creativity, emotion, greed, power-lust, love, and the rest of our seemingly infinite repertoire of fanciful things?

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No, we are assuming they have the skills to replace virtually all employment. This does not necessitate creating robots capable and willing to commit violence. And as I have said, this isn't a thread about the laws of robotics, it's about economics and politics.

Then the answer seems to be quite simple...

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New jobs will be created, but a priori, this time, the existing machines will already be able to do those, too.

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This will not hold. The new jobs that are created after the machines have replaced human laborers will be intellectual, creative endeavors. Like designing and implementing new, ambitious products and creating "strategic visions" for one's company. Certainly other fields such as music, art, and literature can only be aided by the annihilation of manual labor. The opportunity cost to an author of washing the dishes is currently the time taken from her work on a new novel. This opportunity cost would not exist if the author had a robot to care to these primitive needs. More time for writing.

It follows that a great and desirable consequence of large scale robotic services is the elimination of undesirable opportunity costs.

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

This will not hold. The new jobs that are created after the machines have replaced human laborers will be intellectual, creative endeavors. Like designing and implementing new, ambitious products and creating "strategic visions" for one's company.

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Machines will be able to do these tasks. It's part of the premise in the first post. This isn't the focus of the thread. I have repeated this many times now.

I think you are contradicting yourself:

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(op)...physical dexterity and mental agility exceeding that of humans (at a lower expense)...

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Are we assuming here that the robots have been bestowed the human qualities of creativity, emotion, greed, power-lust, love, and the rest of our seemingly infinite repertoire of fanciful things?

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No, we are assuming they have the skills to replace virtually all employment. This does not necessitate creating robots capable and willing to commit violence. And as I have said, this isn't a thread about the laws of robotics, it's about economics and politics.

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You start off by saying that the machines will possess abilities superior in every way to those of humans, but then your answer to my question is that they will not possess creativity, drive, instinct, and entrepreneurship -- all human qualities?

In my earlier post I was just giving my explanation for two scenarios: one where the robots possess these sentient human qualities and more, and another where they are simply dumb machines.

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Originally Posted by Hercuflea

but then your answer to my question is that they will not possess creativity, drive, instinct, and entrepreneurship -- all human qualities?

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No I didn't? I just said they wouldn't overthrow their creators. That a creative (for instance) robot would necessarily try to do so is highly disputable, and at any rate, not the subject of the thread.

Saw this thread, and then lol'd hard when I received the Jan 2013 issue of Wired magazine - the cover article is all about the potential impact of automation in the near future.

http://www.pdfmagazines.org/uploads/...-2013-usa1.jpg

God damn it! People....

Read the fucking first post instead of just spouting your ideas about the general issue like a self-important asshole.
ROBOTS/AI WILL BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING A HUMAN CAN DO. This is the premise.
No more new industries or humans moving to creative fields. Robots can do it better. What will happen?

I am ashamed to admit, but, I agree with cmind.... he is correct. I don't think this discussion should be had, it's dangerous.
I mean, having it here really doesn't matter, we're mostly social incompetents here and we're not going to take the discussion out to the real world probably.
The reason I think it's bad is because if we look at a scenario where it just happens, and we are unprepared as a society, we will all lose our jobs and the robots will do them.
We can get free food and housing and therefore have free time just to be happy.
Robots will be producing energy to keep production going. Utopia. (And yes, I believe utopia is possible).

If we actually start discussing it, politicians and just friends and family etc.... This will all get fucked up.
They're gonna delay it as long as possible. Business will stop taking up machines instead of workers, at the government bequest.
People will be given meaningless jobs and everyone will continue suffering.

I've actually refrained from saying this before in another thread here, and also a few other times IRL and online. That's how important I think it is to not even discuss this.

However, there is also the possibility that this will come so fast that we will not even be able to stop it or plan for it, and we'll have no choice in the matter.

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Originally Posted by tommo

...The reason I think it's bad is because if we look at a scenario where it just happens, and we are unprepared as a society, we will all lose our jobs and the robots will do them.
We can get free food and housing and therefore have free time just to be happy.
Robots will be producing energy to keep production going. Utopia. (And yes, I believe utopia is possible).

If we actually start discussing it, politicians and just friends and family etc.... This will all get fucked up.
They're gonna delay it as long as possible. Business will stop taking up machines instead of workers, at the government bequest.
People will be given meaningless jobs and everyone will continue suffering.

I've actually refrained from saying this before in another thread here, and also a few other times IRL and online. That's how important I think it is to not even discuss this.

However, there is also the possibility that this will come so fast that we will not even be able to stop it or plan for it, and we'll have no choice in the matter.

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Thing is, that represents a relatively sudden and massive upheaval in the basic order of the world. Everything about the way our society is ordered revolves around the basic model of working for a living, and all of that would have to change. That kind of sweeping change is usually not something that human society has an easy time with. If anything, I think it should be talked about for that very reason. It should be discussed so that we can prepare for it, and be ready to implement it as technology gradually advances.

Humans have survived tragedies much more devastating than having a bunch of robots to do their work for them... I think we'll be alright.

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Originally Posted by ♥Mark

Humans have survived tragedies much more devastating than having a bunch of robots to do their work for them... I think we'll be alright.

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Plus, making the premise of the OP even more incorrect is that humans will also be merging with the machines all along the way. We will be augmenting our own neocortices with computers, so the comparison between a super-intelligent AI and a normal human will become irrelevant. The world will be populated with AIs suited to certain types of tasks, and augmented humans suited to others.

Yes, the OP's premise is not exactly realistic. But I think it is that way to highlight the actual question he was asking. Which is basically "What will happen to money?"

Holy shit, my fucking edit just got deleted again. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Okay so.....

Basically there is a problem with this scenario, if we're talking about what is going to happen IRL.
Because by the time robots can outdo humans on every level, we will have already gotten rid of money.
The last jobs left will be creative fields - arts and sciences. But these people will do it for free, because they like it, no one will have money to pay them.
OR everyone who doesn't have jobs will die out or go nomad, leaving the elite to survive, being happy and doing what they enjoy.

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Originally Posted by Supernova

Thing is, that represents a relatively sudden and massive upheaval in the basic order of the world. Everything about the way our society is ordered revolves around the basic model of working for a living, and all of that would have to change. That kind of sweeping change is usually not something that human society has an easy time with. If anything, I think it should be talked about for that very reason. It should be discussed so that we can prepare for it, and be ready to implement it as technology gradually advances.

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You should read my post before replying.
If we talk about it, it won't happen.
Do you think these rich scumbags and politicians want to give up there spot on the top?
No.
They will do whatever they can to stop it from happening.

My idea only appears unrealistic because I explained the endgame, not the road there, and I described the endgame through example rather than by going over every specific detail that would need to be adjusted. What I am attempting to explain is a new system of trade which incorporates the good aspects of free trade and competition but enlarges the competing spheres to groups rather than individuals.

This, I think is not only realistic, but inevitable. However, it's not inevitable in the sense that we don't have to care, only in the sense that cooperation is as much a cardinal value of nature as competition is.

And the state does not need to reorganize society, in fact if a state was maintained than the callous oppressors that want people to work or die would simply change hands from the elitists to the elite of the party. The revolution must be self organized and approached from a more libertarian point of view. In fact, it is big government which prohibits true communism. In history, communist revolutions have always been nothing more than labels meant to fool the mob into thinking they're acting for their best interest, just as trickle-down theory is used to fool the masses of this country that they're voting in favor of their best interests. Real communism begins with cooperative ownership of an industry, not by the "people" (which ends up meaning a very small handful of unaccountable supervisors) but by the "producers."

If the community collectively owns their product, they can vote in favor of their best interests, immune to propaganda for the first time in the history of democracy. This is because they know their product, and they can't be so easily fooled regarding the value of their product and the needs of their community.

If collective ownership was the best way to organize productive activities in a given situation (and I'm not saying it necessarily isn't; it's difficult to say for certain while living under an authoritarian regime), then the free market will favour those entities. So you see, OD, if syndicalism truly is BETTER, then you should be a free market libertarian!

Free market libertarianism neglects the necessity of unionizing as a means to reorganize industrial structures into democratic ones. Without this aspect, a libertarian revolution would not end wage-slavery. Even if it is advantageous to cooperatively own the industry, the current power structure would not allow (and has not allowed) the possibility to seed. You could argue that nothing can stand in its way without the government, but there's more to the structure of economic government than Washington DC. In fact the banking system and government have become irrevocably intertwined, especially because of the computerization of money. Currently libertarianism is used as a trojan horse to push an agenda of removing benefits from an enslaved middle class without actually removing the power structure. The purpose is to liberate the workers from wage-slavery. This cannot be done without first removing the government from trade, and this does not merely mean removing the Federal Bank but the entire monetary system with it. Ending the gold standard was merely one of the final steps to the enslavement of the working population.

Some of best trees in the forest require a fire to emerge from their seeds.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

Free market libertarianism neglects the necessity of unionizing

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Nope, it does no such thing. Collective bargaining is perfectly compatible with libertarianism. Unionism as it exists today however, where employees are forced to join a union (or lose the job), employees are forced to pay union dues (or lose the job), employees are forced to go on strike with the union (or lose the job/ be attacked with no repercussions), employers are forced to negotiate with the union rather than hire new workers regardless of how unwilling the union may be to negotiate, is not compatible with libertarianism or probably even your own anarcho-whatever if you think about it.

Then I suppose we're both facing the problem of conception vs practice. Just as communists end up reigning if fascism, so libertarians (at least in right-to-work states) end up reigning in financial oligarchy.

Let's hope we can find unlimited resources to meet such economic growth.

But maybe humans could focus on something more simple and tangibly-rewarding, like growing their own food, enjoying time with their families, and creating/experiencing whatever forms of entertainment arise by that time? Humanity has come through a lot; either we'll get through this, or we'll go extinct and then we won't have to worry about it!

Although the hippie in me thinks we should keep an eye on Earth's future, and not just humanity's future. If we run out of resources and destroy all of the most vital ecosystems, we're all fucked, regardless of how high unemployment becomes from automatons.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

My idea only appears unrealistic because I explained the endgame, not the road there,

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OP, Xei, not you OP.

Also free market libertarianism sucks. If you think it's bad now, you wouldn't want to see what it would look like when everything depends on people spending money ethically.

Because they won't. And massive corporations will rake in even more than they do now. Barely anyone cares enough to make change within our peudo-democratic system now.

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Originally Posted by tommo

OP, Xei, not you OP.

Also free market libertarianism sucks. If you think it's bad now, you wouldn't want to see what it would look like when everything depends on people spending money ethically.

Because they won't. And massive corporations will rake in even more than they do now. Barely anyone cares enough to make change within our peudo-democratic system now.

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Libertarians are not anarchists. We believe there should be laws against fraud, trademark/patent/copyright infringement, embezzlement, etc. We definitely don't agree with all of the laws we have in place now, but there are things that qualify as victimization we think should be illegal.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Libertarians are not anarchists. We believe there should be laws against fraud, trademark/patent/copyright infringement, embezzlement, etc. We definitely don't agree with all of the laws we have in place now, but there are things that qualify as victimization we think should be illegal.

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I hate to bring up this topic for what is probably the billionth time, but the term "libertarian" doesn't exclude anarchists. It's a big tent with varying groups who have varying limits on how much (or how little) power the state should have. Hell even some minarchists wouldn't agree with what you say "we" believe, specifically about trademarks, patents, and copyrights.

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I hate to bring up this topic for what is probably the billionth time, but the term "libertarian" doesn't exclude anarchists. It's a big tent with varying groups who have varying limits on how much (or how little) power the state should have. Hell even some minarchists wouldn't agree with what you say "we" believe, specifically about trademarks, patents, and copyrights.

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That's true. I was referring to mainstream libertarians, specifically members of the Libertarian (capital "L") Party. I probably should have put the word "necessarily" in there. The party platform is not anarchist. That was something Harry Browne had to clear up some when he was running for president.

What's your take on what Tommo said about free market libertarianism?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Libertarians are not anarchists. We believe there should be laws against fraud, trademark/patent/copyright infringement, embezzlement, etc. We definitely don't agree with all of the laws we have in place now, but there are things that qualify as victimization we think should be illegal.

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Then that's not a free market system. Maybe *you* don't want that, but that's what free market means.

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Originally Posted by tommo

Then that's not a free market system. Maybe *you* don't want that, but that's what free market means.

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"Free market" means the government is not screwing with prices and wages, distributing incomes, putting taxes on specific types of goods and services, or taking other such intrusive and controlling measures. It does not have to be economic anarchy. A free market can involve laws against theft. The government can value your right to your money while protecting it. I think they are two forms of the same philosophy.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

What's your take on what Tommo said about free market libertarianism?

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Originally Posted by tommo

Also free market libertarianism sucks. If you think it's bad now, you wouldn't want to see what it would look like when everything depends on people spending money ethically.

Because they won't. And massive corporations will rake in even more than they do now. Barely anyone cares enough to make change within our peudo-democratic system now.

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I'm tempted to ask how you know that people won't spend their money ethically or that massive corporations will make more money than they do now. If your response is related to how people act now, then you'd be comparing apples to oranges.

Don't think I'm saying there needs to be a new "libertarian man" for it to work - any system requiring that is unrealistic and will probably fail. But people tend to be guided by incentives, and there are a lot of incentives in the current system for people to act in ways you and I find unethical or contrary to a "democratic system."

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

I'm tempted to ask how you know that people won't spend their money ethically or that massive corporations will make more money than they do now. If your response is related to how people act now, then you'd be comparing apples to oranges.

Don't think I'm saying there needs to be a new "libertarian man" for it to work - any system requiring that is unrealistic and will probably fail. But people tend to be guided by incentives, and there are a lot of incentives in the current system for people to act in ways you and I find unethical or contrary to a "democratic system."

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Because people don't spend money ethically now....?
Most people just get the cheapest option, which is almost always from a large company, and therefore also almost always unethical (slave labour etc.). With no government restrictions on how large of a percentage of the market a company can hold, the big companies will get even bigger.

No tree grows to heaven.

/thread

Don't do that, you look ridiculous.

Declaring counterarguments "ridiculous" and "risible" certainly is rigorous logic.

How could an adjective be logical?

Stop trolling the thread please.

Here's what a recent Oxfam report said that people with more resources than they could ever possibly need are doing with them:

Nothing.

Lots of people have claimed that when the owners of the means of production have more than they'd ever want, there'd be no problem any more. I said that seemed rather naive about human nature, based on history. That is the very situation with these individuals right now, and yet the hoarding is just getting worse and worse. Why do you think it's going to change?

Of course.

What I want to do is study their brains and find out what makes them want to increase some digits on a hard drive to higher and higher numbers.
I think, assuming they aren't psychopaths (which a lot of them probably are) that they could be convinced to "see the light" and stop raping the world.
Bill Gates was convinced by his wife. Not sure exactly what she said to him....
Maybe the fact that their kids will grow up in a dying world and their gene pool will die with them will convince them to do something.
Maybe that there will be more consumers if they help get half the world's population out of poverty.

It has nothing to do with any of "them." We're essentially dealing with an industrial complex meaning people with a lack of vision outside their own interests are following a money trail. That's it, no one's really guilty things just evolved into this and will seemingly evolve into complete automation because cutting costs means more money. The only way to change it is to change the vision. The wealthy are in a better position but the responsibility remains in our hands.

And so it begins... Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour | Singularity Hub

Yeah, I'd seen that a month or so ago on futuretimeline.net.

It could hardly be said to be beginning there though; robotic cashiers are already outnumbering human ones in supermarkets, in the UK at least. Burger flipping and sitting on the checkout; two of the most stereotypical service jobs going the way of the dodo.