Humans Need Not Apply

[Kozmos]

Maybe. But I can't help remembering all the dumb things that I've been obliged to do in the interests of simply making a living for myself. In fact, I've difficulty recalling any things that seemed really useful to me. Most of my paid employment seems to have been a exercise in total futility to me. And much of it actually harmful in one way or another. How much of it would I have done if I hadn't been paid to? Not a lot, I think.

Ah, I've just thought of something: I did take a lot of fruit and vegetables to market at one stage. That was surely a little bit useful.

A lot of stuff seems useless, but we are cogs in the machine, unable to see the bigger picture. Everyone is replaceable however, even cancer-curing geniuses. Without the purpose of work, I'm kind of scared what we'd figure to do. Certainly hobbies, socializing and what-not would take up some time...but beyond that, well you have to go a little insane.

 

[classical_hero]

The Industrial Revolution, specifically assembly lines, largely reduced the need for physical labour, and even skilled labour, since once the factory was set up, it could outproduce a single human being. People like artisans were most affected by this revolution, because now their skilled work could easily be done by cheap labour, and that is the difference between these two revolutions. The IR effectively decreased a specific market that could be automated, while providing many new jobs in these factories for the poor.

We are starting to see a trend where skilled labour is becoming back in vogue because customers and employers are seeing the value of a skilled employee over a machine. It is not in every industry, but it shows that humans will always be required to be there. As good as machines are, if you want quality there is on the human touch that can provide it.

This time, it is different. Eventually, you might be able to run a business with a very small workforce, and that is true today. My dad is an oil engineer. A few decades ago, he worked for a project to expand oilfields, and he told me that it requires hundreds of people to set it up. He says nowadays, you only need 70 individuals operating a computer to do the same thing.

That has happened throughout recent history and yet machines haven't taken over every human position. What a human needs to do is make sure they aren't made redundant and make them valuable to the employee to keep on. This is not changing what is already happening in the workforce.

Automation will increase productivity, but for what purpose? Why do I need to cheaply make 1,000 widgets if I can only sell 10 because not enough people have the ability to buy what I am selling? My only option is to give away my widgets for free, otherwise I will have an ever expanding marginal cost without any revenue to account for it.

Then you are in the wrong business if your supply outstrips demand. There are plenty of businesses where producing more things at a cheap cost and thus a cheaper selling price means more will get sold.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

When machines make a large segment of the population unemployable, that large segment of the population will eat the machines.

 

[Greizer85]

To come out of self-imposed lurkerhood for a brief while: isn't this what some bearded dude from the 19th century wrote a lengthy tome about (rather ahead of his time)? Resident reds, where are you when you're needed?

Even some hard-core capitalists agree that communism would work fine with totally selfless agents... Machines are wholly selfless (if we make them so, and we really should), ergo communist paradise.

Imo, the most obvious danger lies in giving the machines actual intelligence, or the tools to develop it on their own over time. To have slaves that are 10 times stronger than you and can think 100 times faster is dangerous indeed, once those slaves become aware of their predicament. (Without awareness, they wouldn't *be* slaves of course, so there'd be nothing unethical about employing robots on a massive scale.)

Barring that, some corporate hell-on-Earth where the 1 % refuse to alter the economic model and have robot police keep the starving masses from an overwhelming revolt while their companies suck out what little profit there remains to be collected (because most people will have become unemployed, and in every real sense unemployable). But it has to end *some* day, I guess. The very meaning of 'greed' might become compromised in a society where you can literally have any material good at the snap of your fingers. Why not give it to others as well at that point?

Interesting times; I hope I live to see them.

 

[Commodore]

if you ask plato, good art contains some sort of ideal that we as humans are striving to achieve. while a machine could replicate these ideals, it wouldn't be meaningful (hence the qualification in my original statement), as machines aren't humans and aren't subjected to the same sort of experiences.

But why must a machine be able to be subjected to the same sort of experiences as a human to create meaningful art? Wouldn't a machine capable of independent thought have its own experiences and its own ideals that it is striving to achieve? Couldn't it then express those experiences and ideals in a creative manner just as a human does?

 

[Borachio]

A lot of stuff seems useless, but we are cogs in the machine, unable to see the bigger picture. Everyone is replaceable however, even cancer-curing geniuses. Without the purpose of work, I'm kind of scared what we'd figure to do. Certainly hobbies, socializing and what-not would take up some time...but beyond that, well you have to go a little insane.

Human beings are already more than a little insane, imo.

However, from the OP's video it seems that mankind has managed to cope with 90% of the population no longer being involved in just agriculture. How is it that mankind couldn't cope with not having manufacturing jobs all of a sudden?

Let's not forget, moreover, that a lot of people make a living from such things as playing golf, chatting to each other on TV, and just wearing clothes, already.

Gary Kasparov still managed to make a living from playing chess until 2005 despite being soundly defeated by a computer in 1996. And despite the land speed record being 760 mph, people still compete in running races; successfully making money from doing so.

I just don't buy this "humans are redundant" scenario at all. Though, again, insanity helps. And sometimes provides employment all by itself.

 

[madviking]

But why must a machine be able to be subjected to the same sort of experiences as a human to create meaningful art? Wouldn't a machine capable of independent thought have its own experiences and its own ideals that it is striving to achieve? Couldn't it then express those experiences and ideals in a creative manner just as a human does?

tell me when there is a machine which feels pain, doubt, guilt, love, pride, etc

 

[ArneHD]

Well, best case scenario we end up with something like a "The Culture" society.

 

[Farm Boy]

It is possible that industry and services will be fully mechanised and automated and most human labour will be reshuffled into agriculture, as they would be the cheapest source of labour available for that thing.

Not a prayer. Agriculture is practically a dream automation industry. It consists of brute power applied for long stretches of time doing fussy and repetitive tasks. 34000 seeds an acre, even spacing, even depth, 60 to 80 acres a day while the sun shines and that's with largely early 1980s technology. Newer technology skips even the human driving, humans are inaccurate, you steer the implements from space with GPS, variable rate inputs managed by automatic calculation. The operator is there for decision making and repair. Biologically powered farms won't produce value from their labor to cleanly cover the space, resources, and calories they consume in a fully automated capitalist market.

Granted, we could use it as make work, but is going back to livin' it like it's 1890 really the progress we're aiming for?

 

[Commodore]

tell me when there is a machine which feels pain, doubt, guilt, love, pride, etc

Seriously? Of course there isn't a machine capable of feeling such things yet. The key word in that sentence though is 'yet'. What makes you so certain there won't be machines in the future that are capable of feeling emotions just like a human can?

Of course by that point the word 'machine' simply will not suffice to describe such a creation. 'Synthetic life form' would be more appropriate for such a creation.

 

[madviking]

Seriously? Of course there isn't a machine capable of feeling such things yet. The key word in that sentence though is 'yet'. What makes you so certain there won't be machines in the future that are capable of feeling emotions just like a human can?

just call me a skeptic

 

[Rashiminos]

The answer some seek is to remove said humans from the equation.

 

[Perfection]

I hope to appease our future robot overlords sufficiently that I will be pampered as some sort of amusing spoiled pet until the end of time.

I pray that when they dig through my posts they'll find this one cheeky and fun and it will be used to spare me from the horrors they may commit.

 

[El_Machinae]

This is honestly a real worry of mine, since (AFAICT) the only workaround is aggressive taxation and deliberate redistribution. The market incentives to make any specific group of workers unemployable are just too strong. You can make millions or billions of dollars doing so. They're SOL.

My suggestion is workfare, not welfare. Hire people to create public goods or anything that has a reasonable economic surplus. People will continue to compete and innovate in order to supply these goods. Morale is also much much higher in workfare settings. Look at the military or the various science foundations. These people really do feel like they do valuable work. What they're doing is what I'm suggesting, producing a public good and being paid salaries gotten through tax dollars

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Robots are starting to break the law and nobody knows what to do about it

Maybe it’s a sign that robots are growing up, and thus hitting the rebellious stage.

The Random Darknet Shopper, an automated online shopping bot with a budget of $100 a week in Bitcoin, is programmed to do a very specific task: go to one particular marketplace on the Deep Web and make one random purchase a week with the provided allowance. The purchases have all been compiled for an art show in Zurich, Switzerland titled The Darknet: From Memes to Onionland, which runs through January 11.

The concept would be all gravy if not for one thing: the programmers came home one day to find a shipment of 10 ecstasy pills, followed by an apparently very legit falsified Hungarian passport– developments which have left some observers of the bot’s blog a little uneasy.

Even criminals could be out of jobs soon.

 

[madviking]

it's the deep web what did you expect?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I guess it was inevitable.

 

[Sanguivorant]

This is honestly a real worry of mine, since (AFAICT) the only workaround is aggressive taxation and deliberate redistribution. The market incentives to make any specific group of workers unemployable are just too strong. You can make millions or billions of dollars doing so. They're SOL.

My suggestion is workfare, not welfare. Hire people to create public goods or anything that has a reasonable economic surplus. People will continue to compete and innovate in order to supply these goods. Morale is also much much higher in workfare settings. Look at the military or the various science foundations. These people really do feel like they do valuable work. What they're doing is what I'm suggesting, producing a public good and being paid salaries gotten through tax dollars

I definitely see a more socialist method of economics coming as long as automation continues to happen. In the best case scenario, these robots will be considered as public property, and their output can be shared by everyone within the society.

Or maybe there is a new method of economics coming out way. All I can say is that I am really worried about this kind of future.

That has happened throughout recent history and yet machines haven't taken over every human position. What a human needs to do is make sure they aren't made redundant and make them valuable to the employee to keep on. This is not changing what is already happening in the workforce.

Being considered valuable is becoming more and more expensive every year.

If you go back to the 1980s, you can be employed practically anywhere with just a bachelors' degree and minimal experience.

Nowadays, if you look at most job offerings, employers do not look for any less than 4 years of work experience, and maybe even a master's degree.

At one point, it only took four years to be competitive. Now, you need to remain in education for at least six years, and have work experience in what you have studied for at least two years in order for you to be considered competitive.

Sure, there are some gifted people who have families that can afford to provide them with all the money they need to continue their education, but to the average person, the expenses that are required to remain competitive for any good earning jobs are just too high.

Ultimately, the people who were born into wealth are better suited to be competitive in the modern workplace, having not only the funds they need for it, but some possible family connections, that will land them a job. This leaves the non-competitive workers to jobs that not only make their education redundant, but are susceptible to automation within the next several decades.

 

[Smote]

This is honestly a real worry of mine, since (AFAICT) the only workaround is aggressive taxation and deliberate redistribution. The market incentives to make any specific group of workers unemployable are just too strong. You can make millions or billions of dollars doing so. They're SOL.

My suggestion is workfare, not welfare. Hire people to create public goods or anything that has a reasonable economic surplus. People will continue to compete and innovate in order to supply these goods. Morale is also much much higher in workfare settings. Look at the military or the various science foundations. These people really do feel like they do valuable work. What they're doing is what I'm suggesting, producing a public good and being paid salaries gotten through tax dollars

Robots could produce these public goods more cheaply. It'd be in the interests of anyone getting taxed not to have to support this "workfare" which is a bunch of inefficient government spending. Welfare could work just fine. It's a more efficient solution.

I don't see why it's necessary to try and require people to work. There are already incentives to work, without government forcing anything.
1. The market rewards those who create useful things with economic benefits.
2. Those with economic advantages enjoy social advantages.
3. Working in something you are interested in is fun.

Work is overvalued, imo. Nobody on their deathbed says "I wish I spent more time at the office!"

 

[Sanguivorant]

Robots could produce these public goods more cheaply. It'd be in the interests of anyone getting taxed not to have to support this "workfare" which is a bunch of inefficient government spending. Welfare could work just fine. It's a more efficient solution.

I don't see why it's necessary to try and require people to work. There are already incentives to work, without government forcing anything.
1. The market rewards those who create useful things with economic benefits.
2. Those with economic advantages enjoy social advantages.
3. Working in something you are interested in is fun.

Work is overvalued, imo. Nobody on their deathbed says "I wish I spent more time at the office!"

Yeah, I don't see why taxes should be collected and then given by those who do work. There's no point having people work if automation can do that work faster than they can.

Unfortunately, in this kind of universe, the only people I see working are engineers, who are always finding ways to automate human work. They will obviously be entitled to a greater share of resources than everyone else. The technocracy is coming.