De Grasse Tyson Takes on Luddites

Maybe the workers buy their own robots, then hire them to the companies for a reduced salary while getting to sit at home and only have to worry about maintenance on the robot.
 
AHarvey said:
Maybe the workers buy their own robots, then hire them to the companies for a reduced salary while getting to sit at home and only have to worry about maintenance on the robot.
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Why would companies use them when they could buy their own in bulk at a discounted rate?

I can't see how robots doing all the work can benefit the ordinary man with the current capitalist system, only the rich getting richer.
 
Firstly, the "singularity" is fiction. Actually it's become like a religion for some. But there is actually no evidence that such an event /can/ occur.

Secondly, I do not personally believe that a system where nobody works can exist. I believe it is fundamentally incompatible with our nature. And since I /don't/ believe in the "singularity", I also don't believe in a world where "AI" make wealth and humans live lives of leisure.

It's all fiction.
 
AHarvey said:
Maybe the workers buy their own robots, then hire them to the companies for a reduced salary while getting to sit at home and only have to worry about maintenance on the robot.
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That's fundamentally incompatible with the laws of economics, isn't it?

If a robot can replace you and earn your lifetime income for you, then its value to you is your lifetime income.

Hence that will be its cost. See the problem?

Who is going to sell you a "you" robot so far below its market value, that you will be able to buy it and then use it to earn your future income?

It's madness. It's a dream. It doesn't add up.

Also if this robot can perform your function, what incentive is there for its maker to sell it to you at all? All they have to do is front the initial cost of manufacter (and maintenance), and they then have a "you" which works for free.

So tell me, why is this company going to sell it to you so you can derive an income from it, when they can simply replace you with it, and keep the derived income for themselves?

None of this makes a single shred of sense or stands up to any scrutiny.

Sorry.
 
If we're building robots then can we start with more powerful spellchecks? Certain posts in this thread are very hard to follow.
 
estebanrey said:
I've never understood this logic seeing as it's an argument that is already several hundred years old and still hasn't come true yet.
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That's because up to now we have only built machines.
Machines generally need a human to build them, oil them and press the GO button.

What we will be building in the future are essentially new humans,
not machines that look or move like humans, but things that think like humans.

What is the point of biological humans when you've just built a better one?

It's the degree to which the current population can find new ways to be productive, which determines who will get to be fed and housed in the future.


Breeding also becomes a bit pointless, the world will no longer need new humans to replace the old ones, we can just build more robots instead.
In a world of scarce resources, having biological children will be seen as an inefficient use of time.

If the next war will be fought over resources, then the side with the best robots will win. It will be the Scramble for Africa all over again.
 
Jokester said:
It's not menial tasks though. Once the singularity happens, everything changes, there won't be anything that a robot can't do, and do it quicker and better than a human.


As noted above, the singularity


And there won't be anything that a robot won't be capable of doing when the singularity occurs.


Yes, people could own robots, but it will be the wealthy, not the ordinary person on the street. Automation will congregate wealth into the hands of the few at the expense of those who no longer can find work. The few that have the ability to creatively account their companies profits to more friendly jurisdictions.


Society won't be able to keep up with the change, when unemployment hits, 20, 30, 40% and there's riots on the streets and governments are paralysed by the inability to legislate. Sure once the dust settles maybe it will be all nice and rosy, but there will be an extremely painful transition to get there as the capitalist economy would need to be replaced.
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It will be a fairly rapid change though, and it won't come without warning.
The capatalists system will need to change dramatically before the transitin years.
 
estebanrey said:
I've heard plenty of people on these boards, in various topics, talk about how in a few years'/decades' time they'll be less jobs as we're replaced by computers/robots/automation.

I've never understood this logic seeing as it's an argument that is already several hundred years old and still hasn't come true yet. [..]
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The circumstances are different:

When automation took most of the jobs in agriculture, society changed and most jobs moved into manufacturing.

When automation took most of the jobs in manufacturing, society changed and most jobs moved into service.

Automation is starting to take most of the jobs in service and also increasingly wider ranges of jobs (e.g. driving could go soon)...where do the bulk of jobs come from next?
 
Yeah sure Robotics creates jobs but if one day we manage to make a massive leap in robotics and quickly create smart nimble robots then yeah I can see mass unemployment happening fairly quickly and this is could happen without real Artificial intelligence being present.

People don't want to retrain and some us aren't smart enough to do some of the new jobs, we may just get left behind.
 
Jokester said:
The difference is that we're now rapidly approaching the singularity, and there will be no job that can't be carried out by a machine.
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Computers couldn't beat professional Go players until now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35420579

Artificial and natural intelligence is a very challenging field of study.
Even simple creatures like bees are not well understood.
 
Up to now it has been mostly mass production blue collar industries that have felt the hand of automation, it's now moving into the white collar sector. Journalists, Doctors, Accountants, Surgeons, Financial Analysts etc are all next going to be affected.

But I don't think it will be armageddon for humans and our working ability, we will just create new, different jobs that we ascribe value to, just as we have over the last few centuries of automation.
 
People will just have to retrain or be left behind in most cases. The idea that everyone will be out of a job straight away is a bit out of touch with the real world.
Most companies do not have the financial pot to overnight fully automate its work force, most will gradually upgrade as o/e reaches its end of life, the majority of company's will wait until the equipment is time served before purchasing.

I was discussing this in work the other day and I reckon the next jobs to be seriously affected by automation are
Mass transport I.e.; taxi,lorry,bus,train emergency veichles etc these would be able to run 24/7 at a much lower cost.
General administrative, cashiers, warehouse operators, barristers , parking attendants, security, basic cooks, mechanics, house builders, road workers eyc
 
Jobs will just move to more creative and entertainment ones once the robots are making all our food, housing, transportation etc.

The thickos we can just throw in a pit gladiator style to amuse the rest of us while we sit around being fanned and fed grapes by sexy robots.
 
estebanrey said:
I've heard plenty of people on these boards, in various topics, talk about how in a few years'/decades' time they'll be less jobs as we're replaced by computers/robots/automation.
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Frankly, i haven't heard anyone say that in years, when i was younger there was real concern back in the 80's but that's not the case anymore

Maybe it's more of a US thing, but certainly in the UK we're far less worried about this
 
Angilion said:
The circumstances are different:

When automation took most of the jobs in agriculture, society changed and most jobs moved into manufacturing.

When automation took most of the jobs in manufacturing, society changed and most jobs moved into service.

Automation is starting to take most of the jobs in service and also increasingly wider ranges of jobs (e.g. driving could go soon)...where do the bulk of jobs come from next?
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As Tyson said, you are projecting forward only think of the jobs of today and not considering new types of job and work will appear. It's not different any all, just the same argument based on thinking no new types of work can exist.
 
estebanrey said:
As Tyson said, you are projecting forward only think of the jobs of today and not considering new types of job and work will appear. It's not different any all, just the same argument based on thinking no new types of work can exist.
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True, but i think the singularity side is based on what happens when theres nothing left that a human can do that a robot cant, that we will reach the limits of humanity, at which point we'll have been made obsolete by our own creations.

It'll be interesting to see if a robot religion could ever develop, given they'll plainly know who made them and why.

The idea of the asimov's laws for example are meant to try and prevent us ever being ousted by our creations, but as the stock of robot ai takeover films throughout the years shows if anyone would be stupid enough to build something that could wipe out their species it's humanity
 
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