Humans Need Not Apply

[Sanguivorant]

The analogy with horses is an okay comparison. Horses at one point did have a very important role for civilization, but now that their role is replaced by machinery, even the fastest and most durable horse will not be used, because what is the point? But the thing is that horses do not have this way of thinking that they must be working in order to live. So the "Employed" horse is not going to complain about "unemployed" horses being able to eat and sleep, if you understand what I mean.

The difference is in our values and how it shapes our society. Here in the Western world at least, people have a utilitarian way of looking at the world. Either people are a benefit to society, or they are slowing it down. So you will find people look down on those that are unemployed or receiving welfare, since, "Why should I work all day while this lazy person sits around and does nothing, and collect the welfare that he would not be able to collect without me working my ass off?"

If we are just talking about economics, then the relation is between humans and firms and how useful humans are to firms.

But looking from an economic standpoint, even if machines are much cheaper labourers, they do not consume anything other than fuel, so a market economy based on all firms using automation is practically impossible if firms want to maximize profit, because who will buy their output? Other firm owners?

 

[Borachio]

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

Even criminals could be out of jobs soon.

Will robots ever take over from the feckless and the unemployed though, Mr Bender?


Link to video.

 

[Narz]

Why should we be afraid of bots?

Nobody "needs" a job. We need resources. If bots can create them we don't need to work.

Only problem is that humans define their value oftentimes by work. How will we detirmine our value & why gets to live or die in an overpopulated world where noone is needed.

 

[Narz]

because art is a fundamentally human endeavor

This is clearly not true (as demonstrated by the music in the video, written by a bot).

 

[madviking]

This is clearly not true (as demonstrated by the music in the video, written by a bot).

i disagree. the music written by the bot is not meaningfully artistic.

 

[Narz]

It can be for the listener.

 

[El_Machinae]

Why should we be afraid of bots?

Nobody "needs" a job. We need resources. If bots can create them we don't need to work.

Only problem is that humans define their value oftentimes by work. How will we detirmine our value & why gets to live or die in an overpopulated world where noone is needed.

You're right, we don't 'need' jobs. But the people who own the resources will only give you resources if you work. And your employer will replace you with a bot if he can

 

[Commodore]

Why should we be afraid of bots?

Nobody "needs" a job. We need resources. If bots can create them we don't need to work.

Only problem is that humans define their value oftentimes by work. How will we detirmine our value & why gets to live or die in an overpopulated world where noone is needed.

Exactly. With machines producing everything for us there is no need for anybody to work, own a business, or even participate in government. All of those are things that machines and computers can handle for us.

To answer your question as to how we will determine who lives or dies in an overpopulated world: we don't. Machines can even make those decisions for us by instituting population control measures that will ensure the human population remains at sustainable levels.

 

[madviking]

It can be for the listener.

hence my emphasis on 'meaningfully'.

 

[sophie]

This is clearly not true (as demonstrated by the music in the video, written by a bot).

Is the bot the artist then? Or is the programmer who designed the bot [and thereby using it in a similar way as a musician might use an instrument] the artist?

Again:

 

[warpus]

Here in the Western world at least, people have a utilitarian way of looking at the world. Either people are a benefit to society, or they are slowing it down. So you will find people look down on those that are unemployed or receiving welfare, since, "Why should I work all day while this lazy person sits around and does nothing, and collect the welfare that he would not be able to collect without me working my ass off?"

That's more of a American/North American point of view rather than a general western one.

 

[Sanguivorant]

That's more of a American/North American point of view rather than a general western one.

That's true, though in Europe, anti-immigrant sentiments are rising, and it stems mostly from the belief that immigrants just collect welfare checks without actually working, while the natives work a lot.

This is not exclusively a Western way of thinking either.

In the time that I was living in Egypt, a lot of Syrian refugees were allowed into the country, and many people complained about giving them support when Egyptians don't have much to offer.

 

[KevinLancaster]

I for one am for robots making us all communists.

But I don't expect imperfect machines made by imperfect men to come up with perfect solutions, and neither should you. I don't expect computer scientists to be great at running governments, either. In terms of consumption and depopulation, if the machines make the current methods of production easier, and need to reduce the population to maintain sustainable consumption, whose to say that those in charge now won't simply rig the machines to forcefully/secretly kill off and sterilize everyone else to sustain their own pleasures? People don't always follow instructions after all, and a physical solution guarantees an answer. It's easier than innovating to bring about solutions as well, because those might fail. Of course, all the technology in the world might not be able to bring about sustainability. I don't believe that, the world's a pretty big place and birth rates drop in developed countries, so it seems like we can cope without any additional persuasion, but it doesn't matter what I believe. Anyway if that's true, I don't believe the solution is to get robots to run things and reduce the population somehow using them, because that's too easily abused. We are crap at controlling massive complex systems and today to maintain our ways of life we have to, which leads to problems, but I don't believe that introducing an intelligence which has absolutely no conception of humanity to manage them will make things any better. Whose to say they can understand the data any better than we can? For some time now social media companies have been using programs to mine the data of their users to try and predict social trends, so that they can sell the data for consumer research firms to use. However, recently it was found that the data was inaccurate, because people don't always tell the truth.

All the learning in the world can be inadequate if you have no grasp of an actual experience, or if that learning was based upon mistaken notions. I wouldn't be against a techno-utopia, but technology has limits. An interesting look at past times when people overestimated the utility of analytical solutions is in the first 2 parts of the documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" by Adam Curtis. The third part is pretty scattershot though, and you don't get much of a point out of it. Also the game Democracy 3 has a DLC called "Clones and Drones" which seems like a less serious look at emerging technologies and other issues which may come about in the future, although I haven't personally bought the game yet.

 

[Narz]

Is the bot the artist then? Or is the programmer who designed the bot [and thereby using it in a similar way as a musician might use an instrument] the artist?

The machines will make our fuzzy, self-centered concepts obsolete. I welcome this.

Again:

Doesn't look very comfortable, maybe for someone with a bicycle fetish.

I'd rather have something beautiful made by something with no sense of meaning than made by some talentless modern artist who wants me to consider the meaning of a bike wheel on top a stool (my meaning - a waste of a perfectly good wheel & a perfectly good seat).

 

[Farm Boy]

With some modifications that might be able to be used to spin yarn.

 

[Narz]

With even less work you could have a usable wheel & a usable seat.

A bicycle is one of the society's most beautiful inventions. It's functionality creates it's beauty. A spinning wheel might have similar beauty.

Beauty almost always stems from utility. A crystal clear lake represents clean water, fish, swimming, bathing. A sexy woman's every curve suggest health & fertility. A tire on a stool just says "Hey, I'm bored, look at this s***".

 

[Hygro]

None of that beauty is art, though.

 

[Smote]

Bah. Nature is art. Just art absent a creator.

Or perhaps I can move a stick and then claim a forest as my art.

 

[Commodore]

Is the bot the artist then? Or is the programmer who designed the bot [and thereby using it in a similar way as a musician might use an instrument] the artist?

No the bot would still be the artist. Attributing art made by a machine to the programmer that programmed the machine would be like attributing all the art made by humans to a god/gods, or whatever catalyst brought us into existence.

 

[Sanguivorant]

No the bot would still be the artist. Attributing art made by a machine to the programmer that programmed the machine would be like attributing all the art made by humans to a god/gods, or whatever catalyst brought us into existence.

Funny that you say that, because without the creator that made the machine, there would be no art in the first place. So ultimately, the credit to the art goes back to the creator not the creation.