It would have been disastrous if they hadn’t.

As it is China will have 50% of its population over retirement age by around 2050. Big problems.

Robot counselor, robot overseer, robot-human mediator, robot-human communication specialist, robot assistant, various unknown government positions (assuming there is a government), entertainer (making robots laugh at human stupidity, etc. — typical show: Stupid Human Tricks), robot-human planning commission member, editor (wishful thinking), anti-Skynet mercenary (temporary job, pre-Singularity).

Also then, most commentators refer to social welfare and rotting home as obligatory non desirable consequences of a completely robot manual work world. But thinking it differently, if world society pays a real salary to all that are born, and gives a bonus to those who WANT to better their community through manual labor, as art, friendly service or anything else, then it becomes a different story.

Many people would WANT to stay home, and do what pleases them. Many people are miserable at work but forced to do it to sustain health. If you can think of a meaningful life reading and doing as you please, then you do not see that as negative. Most people reading this newsletter are educated individual, hard working is a way of life and nonchalance is absolute nonsense. Most of that is inherited through culture.

This transition may take 200 years, or less, but in the end, I believe capitalism will leave its place for a mixture of social capitalism, which will later totally disappear in a world where equilibrium has reached it’s full potential.

The planet is not lacking food to feed its inhabitans, nor money to pay them, the biggest problem is distribution. But even that is starting to be addressed.

This comment is a much reduced version of what is needed to accomplish, to see this positive continuation in turmoil times. But the world shows signs of marching towards it.

And here and there a few contained Gaza-style internment compounds with hundreds of millions of “the economically unviable” fed dole yeast and made to feel grateful with an endless barrage of “XFactor” blaring from huge billboards.

Happy now?

The federal government could initiate a shorter workweek simply by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act. This would create a financial incentive for employers to limit weekly hours per employee and, if they can’t meet their operational needs, hire more workers. Wages would float according to the supply and demand for labor. (Shorter hours means a reduced supply of labor so that wages would tend to rise.)

These are proposed changes to FLSA:
1. Reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours.
2. Raise the overtime premium from time-and-a-half to double-time (if additional disincentive for overtime is needed).
3. Shrink or eliminate the exempt category.

This would be an appropriate response to the challenge of robot labor but, of course, neither Democrat nor Republican would consider it because they want the flow of taxable incomes to continue unabated.

As AI grows in sophistication, the cost of human labor will plummet. At some point in the future, it’ll cost a dollar to purchase the combined brainpower of a 1000 Einsteins or the craftsmanship of 1000 Michelangelos (all emulated in software of course). The value of anything that these AIs can possibly produce will fall vanishingly close to zero once you subtract the cost of raw materials.

Simultaneously, the cost of energy and those raw materials will fall. The amount of solar available to us is effectively limitless, as is the amount of matter that we’ll be able to harness (even if it means reaching into space). Hence these costs ultimately fall to zero also.

Both these changes are inevitable. The interesting question is, which one will happen first ? I believe this will determine how the next few decades unfold. “A” followed by “B” is a frightening prospect; imagine living in a world where your labor is effectively worthless yet physical goods are limited in number and out of the reach of most. On the other hand, A then B seems more palatable; our incomes may fall, but the costs of physical goods and materials falls faster.

Unfortunately, current evidence suggests that we are heading down the first path…

Today, big capital knows that bribing politicians, expensive as it may be, is still much cheaper than R&D, quality assurance/control, and customer service. So instead of offering good products and services they buy politicians to kill competitors and new entrants with regulations.

We are a people that is very intimate with our technology; we always have been…when we enter the realm of Strong AI, that will be even more so…and when that Strong AI is billions of times smarter then the un-augmented, it will be even more so….and when the lines are so blurred, what makes one think that it will be any easier for an AI to notice the differences between AI’s and human beings anymore?

The same way people don’t see computers and technologies as a “them” in today’s day (well, except maybe Luddites and radicals), I believe it will remain that way in the future….their will be no great war, or rift between man and machine because we will not allow one to happen.

It’s not a foolproof strategy, but it certainly puts the odds in our favor.

I for one will not buy an iPad because: 1) Apple is not as innovative as they pretend to be; 2) it is made by sweatshop labor in China; 3) the profits of Apple are possible based on the relative disadvantage of the Chinese people; 4) instead of investing in revolutionizing manufacturing in this country Apple employs 19th century models; and 5) I don’t really need it.

Such general education is necesary also in manual jobs:
See Matthew Crawford’s book : ” Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work.”
Where the author insists on the need of shopclass education as a basis for intellectual education, and vice-versa.
A friend a mine, Plumber by trade, told me that he had no problem finding youngsters who knew about soldering or plying and glueing pipes but his problem was finding young employees who knew “when to ply, solder or glue pipes”
Note that craft jobs directly in relation with customers are difficult to “offshore” and so far, in the present state of technology, also difficult to replace by automated machines.

Paul

Such general education is necesary also in manual jobs:
Sea Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work
Where the author insists on the need of shopclas education as a basis for intellectual education, and vice-versa.
A friend a mine, Plumber told me that he had no problem finding youngsters who knew about soldering or plying and glueing pipes but his problem was finding young employees who knew “when to ply, solder or glue pipes”
Note that craft jobs directly in relation with customers are difficult to “offshore” and so far also difficult to replace by automated machines.

Paul

Unemployment is not the result of the economic crisis, it is the cause of economic crisis.

Paul

However, although your suggestion takes an optimistic view of how we might productively use our redundant skilled labor, it fails to acknowledge the negative consequences. if we assume that all this extra effort spent on medical research is likely to yield some significant health benefits, we can also assume that there will be a further increase in life expectancy, which will simply add to over-population and aging-population problems that we currently have.

Whichever way we choose to solve this problem, we need to pay attention to the side effects that are likely to come as part of the package.

If we want to eat.

Also, calling taxes “bribes” is a sh*tty thing to say, and highly inaccurate. The government provides a pretty impressive array of services: roads, fire and police services, defense, social security, medicare. To be sure, there’s inefficiencies (and too much spent upon defense, if you ask me), but that’s NOT to say it’s just a big shakedown.

Indeed, I think that you’re *right* that these opportunities will present themselves, but only to the exceedingly gifted and/or lucky — which is pretty much the way it is now: A few billionaires, a million or so people trying to start the next new thing, and then the huddled masses.

Learning to do things for ourselves, and being dependent on each other, all over again?