Robots stealing our jobs!

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
I don't see any trend toward people becoming uneducated or poor, however. Quite the opposite. If the ruling classes have a plan to keep the people down, they're doing a piss poor job of executing their plan.

Ture, and uneducated masses are generally problematic both in political and economic terms in a democratic capitalism.

I don't see a trend of more and more people being uneducated with technological progress (actually, I see the exact opposite since the Industrial Revolution), even though I see a trend of the uneducated becoming increasingly exploited in the next few decades.

My point was that there is a point in keeping the masses poor and ignorant. Our kings sure understood it for centuries.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
There would be no point to a dystopia. There'd be no use in keeping the masses ignorant and poor.

Without wishing to sound cliché, 1984 is very much worth a read to answer that question

[Sandman]

In the long run, service robots will be everyday tools for mankind, the ECE and IFR say. "They will not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard our homes but they will also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs and be used in many other applications."

Well, we have machines that do that stuff already.

I doubt that we'll see the level of 'roboticisation' imagined by sci-fi authors in all but the longest term future. And even then it'll probably be the preserve of wealthy eccentrics, like having live-in servants today.

I think a lot of the stuff we believe about the future will be a laughable as Victorian or 1950's 'predictions'. Especially miraculous nano-machines that can make anything.

[Carolus Rex]

Sigh, will it never end...

First, google "Luddites"...

Next, check out the very instructive and funny essay "The accidental theorist" by Paul Krugman (follow link below).

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/hotdog.html

Carolus

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Sandman


Well, we have machines that do that stuff already.

I doubt that we'll see the level of 'roboticisation' imagined by sci-fi authors in all but the longest term future. And even then it'll probably be the preserve of wealthy eccentrics, like having live-in servants today.

I think a lot of the stuff we believe about the future will be a laughable as Victorian or 1950's 'predictions'. Especially miraculous nano-machines that can make anything.

Is this just an intuitive assessment based upon past/current progess and past unfulfilled predictions? Almost nothing we have developed so far makes a substantiative contribution to the innovation process itself. Thus we have not yet witnessed any feedback effects in augmented innovation. There is a hell of a difference between the hubris of the victorian age or 1950's and predictions that presume the posibility of innovation feedback loops. I agree that progress will crawl until the feedback process begins and I agree that it's tough to say just how long it will take to initiate it but there's nothing to say it couldn't happen very soon. The tools we currently have are already capable theoretically of matching the brains capabilities and we can either surpass the brains capabilites through innovating ways to use these current tools to maximum effect (very very very hard to accomplish I'm sure) or by eventually getting tools so powerful that even brute force methods can achieve a powerful AI without lots of clever innovation. If moore's law keeps going a few more decades, the latter seems inevitable and every step along the way the former becomes more feasible.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
There would be no point to a dystopia. There'd be no use in keeping the masses ignorant and poor.

The great depression was a dystopia of sorts and I daresay nobody saw much point in keeping it going.

Sometimes undesirable economic outcomes just seem to happen despite the fact that everybody recognizes behaviors which, if taken collectively, would set the market straight. The problem is that what is best for the overall economy isn't always what is best for the individual investor.

[FrostyBoy]

http://www.electroluxusa.com/node117.asp

check it out

[JohnT]

It's odd, but I, too, am one of those who are doing everything they can to use automation for the purpose of reducing employee costs, thereby contributing to the problem.

In our support operations, we have two work-intensive departments: routing and verification. Routing is creating and mapping the various delivery routes, plus a creating a map of the overall delivery area. Verification is calling people on the phone and asking them if they received their product.

In my parents company, born in 1984, they started using very manual and labor-intensive processes for both those operations - in the routing department, they hire people to take pen to paper, making a colored line over every single street in the delivery area, the lines corresponding to which postal route that section of street is in. In the verification department, people picked up phones, manually dialed them, and, while making their surveys, hand wrote the information on paper (which then had to be collated, interpreted, etc. Not to mention the vast paper cost involved in printing out all these lists). At that time, there was no way to really do this stuff by computer (especially the mapping, for who had a computerized road map of the entire US in 1986? The Pentagon?)

However, they decided to automate - and it was their vision of automation that was the straw that eventually drove me to leave their company. I'm not going into detail, but I do know that they have spent well over $250,000 on computers/printers/predictive dialers in the past 3 years on those two departments alone... all of it unwisely.

For they still have the same people doing the same tasks in the same way.

The little old ladies who would take marker to map and hand-trace all the roads in the city of Sacramento CA are still doing the same thing... oh, now they all have shiny Dell's with high-definition monitors on each desk, but they're still putting pen to paper, reading off the same lists of streets that were generated by their custom-made 1992 Foxpro DOS application.

The revolving door of nuts, fools, and other oddballs that tend to be attracted to call-center applications is still, largely, doing the same tasks that they were doing when I left: writing down responses on pieces of paper. This after $150,000 was spent on a predictive dialer and the attending hardware.

Luckily for CRG, we are so small that by automating, we aren't going to get rid of any current jobs - but we will be getting rid of future employment opportunities. Our routing and mapping process is completely automated, with the number of hours needed to put together a job decreased by 85%. Our automated verification system is capable of handling a distribution level of 150,000,000 books a year - currently, we are using just 1.3% of the systems capacity.

All that for the cost of $11,500. $10,000 for the IVR system (including programming, web-interface, and 48 lines), and $1,500 for an automated mapping system. There are, of course, other costs as well, including paper for the maps, phone charges and the like, but we have cut the costs of our support operations to industry lows, that I guarantee.

You still need people to operate it, however, but instead of the 70+ people needed to fill a manual operation, 5 would do just nicely - for both departments!

Employees are expensive, and the government (combined with today's litigious society) makes them a dangerous nuisance - and it's that second issue that takes greater precedence in most small companies.

That's just the cold hard facts, people: we automate so we won't be bothered. By you or by the government.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Geronimo
The great depression was a dystopia of sorts and I daresay nobody saw much point in keeping it going.

Sometimes undesirable economic outcomes just seem to happen despite the fact that everybody recognizes behaviors which, if taken collectively, would set the market straight. The problem is that what is best for the overall economy isn't always what is best for the individual investor.

It wouldn't have to be collective behavior, it'd just have to be a few individuals.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Without wishing to sound cliché, 1984 is very much worth a read to answer that question

They didn't have infinite production in 1984.

Plus, if everyone has as much as they can want, you don't have to go to all those insane security measures.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Yes there is:
If the population is too busy craving for survival, and if it is too ignorant to become interested in politics, the leader is more likely to keep his throne. Revolutions are initiated by educated bourgeois, and the poor and uneducated are only there to do the grunt job.

What's the point of ruling if you have infinite production?

Remember this would also be thousands and thousands, if not millions and millions, of individuals with access to this infinite production.

[:) Smiley]

Infinite production =

[Blake]

It is possible that one day a machine will be invented that can construct stuff at the molecular level, from raw materials and power. This would be incredibly valuable technology because it would herald a new era of manafacturing, mass production of fully personalized goods. This technology will get developed.

Such a machine could be made to self-replicate, clanking-replicator style. So lets call the machine a Replicator, it can replicate stuff from blueprints, and replicate itself.

It would only take one person to release one such self replicating machine to the public, open-source it so to speak.

Soon, everyone could have one due to exponential growth.

What sort of scenario could this result in? Suddenly anyone can build nearly anything provided they gather the raw materials (power is provided by solar panels).

If the replicator is not particular sophisticated it may be limited to materials like metal and plastic, this could result in any unclaimed, or even unprotected, resources being pillaged to feed the replicators. But if it can work with silicates a lot then they could just be mostly fed sand, dirt or rock which are pretty plentiful.

This would put unprecedented power in the hands of the invididual, as blueprints proliferate through open networks people will be able to achieve near complete self sufficiency (fex, you could outfit your house with solar panels, water purifer, waste treatment, automated hydroponics, network relay etc). Plans would also include advanced weapons, want a drone gun mounted over your front door? Or maybe a personal laser cannon? Violent Anarchy, or post-money Utopia?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What's the point of ruling if you have infinite production?

What do the two have to do with each other?