Is roboticisation of jobs ethical ?

[Az]

Yes, as many have said here: Call it whatever you want, capitalism, communism, big pink banana, whatever - This all comes down to the basic question:

Does this mean that since work is being automized, people don't have to work, or whether that means that people don't have to exist.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Odin
Jaguar, quit trolling.

@Odin:
Libertarians rule. I have never seen a greater political philosophy than Libertarianism.

@Urban Ranger
Why is China so evil and imperialistic?

@Asher
Firefox sucks.

@OzzyKP
Young people shouldn't be allowed to have opinions.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Jaguar

@Odin:
Libertarians rule. I have never seen a greater political philosophy than Libertarianism.

Libertarians are idiots who don't know human nature.

[Jaguar]

Why am I going to stop trolling if people like you keep biting?

[Az]

@ Jaguar.



but, yeah, Libertarians suck.

[Dis]

what is ethics exactly? Don't they change with each generation?

In either case, there will never be a robot able to take my job (at least not in my lifetime)

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by aneeshm
My dear Ted , I am not cold-blooded by any standard . Indeed , it is my belief that the business that passes the benifits on to its customers is one who will survive , because it offers better things for a lower price - rule of the market . I have seen it happening in my country . I have seen how the telecom giants of India bought the mobile phone within reach of some of poorest .

And another thing - won't human jobs just be shifted up the value chain , as has been happening till now ?

Like I said, it's SUPPOSED to shifted up, but often times it is not.

Like I said, here in the US, CEOs make 300 times more than their average line worker. This 300 number has been increasing rapidly over the past 20 years, while technology has been replacing alot of jobs.

Technology is also SUPPOSED to free our lives up to focus on other things, but it never does, it just lets us squeeze in more stuff and get stressed out more quickly.

[Az]

Exactly, Ted!

Technology improving should also free our life, and enjoy socializing with friends, participating in sports, not just freeing our time to do more work.


Work
Fun

[Whoha]

Re: Is roboticisation of jobs ethical ?

Originally posted by aneeshm
There is an issue that I have thought may be important in future .

Methods and AI are evolving to a point where we may have humaniform robots capable of doing most manual labour and repetitive jobs within the next 20 to 30 years . The processing power required will have arrived by then , and the prototypes for neural networks capable of learning and evolving are already here .

If more is spent on this technology , robots will become capable of replacing unskilled and semi-skilled manual labour ( one where no deep analytical thinking is involved , and where the variations ae few ) . We will also have robots capable of adapting and learning from past problems , as neural nets are already doing . Thus , a robots imprinted with oly the basic ability to learn , and apply that learning willl be in priduction not too far off . THey will also be vastly cheaper than an average worker .

Is it ethical , then , for employers to completely replace low and semi-skilled human labour ( cashiers , receptionists , manual labourers , waiters , secretaries , etc. ) with robot labour as soon as it becomes available ? This will be accomplished within five to ten years , will lead to a collapse of social security , even if full severance benifits are given to said workers .

I say it is perfectly fine to replace humans when possible/necessary/benificial . What do you say ?

Well we already have done some of this, It is not a source for lost jobs, what it means is that more people will be involved in the design and manufacture of the capital improvements/machine tools/etc. Moving people out of menial labor and into manufacturing and tech is beneficial for everyone.

However, the society you are showing will never come to pass because we can not build AI the way you envision it.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


Like I said, it's SUPPOSED to shifted up, but often times it is not.

Like I said, here in the US, CEOs make 300 times more than their average line worker. This 300 number has been increasing rapidly over the past 20 years, while technology has been replacing alot of jobs.

Technology is also SUPPOSED to free our lives up to focus on other things, but it never does, it just lets us squeeze in more stuff and get stressed out more quickly.

What is happening is that automantion is driving down the demand for labor becaise of an oversupply of production, causing wages to go to hell...

[Dis]

Re: Re: Is roboticisation of jobs ethical ?

Originally posted by Whoha


Well we already have done some of this, It is not a source for lost jobs, what it means is that more people will be involved in the design and manufacture of the capital improvements/machine tools/etc. Moving people out of menial labor and into manufacturing and tech is beneficial for everyone.

However, the society you are showing will never come to pass because we can not build AI the way you envision it.

manufacturing of machines can be done by machines. And factory (assembly plant) jobs are just as menial as cleaning jobs.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Odin
The loss of jobs due to technology is what shows capitalism's main flaw. Idealy, when productivity increases, people should have to work less. In capitalism, the opposite happens, people are working just as long, but there are less people working.

Don't confuse technology with poorly negotiated trade deals, up to the 1980s increases in tech and manufacturing didn't lead to less people doing the same work, it lead to more people producing even more.

[Az]

and why are these deals poorly negotiated?

[Whoha]

Re: Re: Re: Is roboticisation of jobs ethical ?

Originally posted by Dissident


manufacturing of machines can be done by machines. And factory (assembly plant) jobs are just as menial as cleaning jobs.

Ok, Tomatoe farming, picking them by hand vs driving a machine. Just as menial? No. Delivering them by the bushel full vs truckload. Just as menial? No.

We do not know how to build the kind of intelligence into machines that you seem to think that we can, they can not do anything other then an extremely constrained problem set, where as an individual has a massive advantage over said machine because he can learn,recognize patterns,interpret them,etc.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Odin


What is happening is that automantion is driving down the demand for labor becaise of an oversupply of production, causing wages to go to hell...

There was a time when there was a blue collar middle class. People could work in factories and learn a trade and make a decent living and raise a family.

These jobs are nearly non existent nowadays.


This is the natural case when a mature economy like ours transforms from an industrial base to an information base.

However the assumption is made that these workers will simply start training for the information based jobs, which has happened to a certain degree, but is not totally the case, and even the computer field is oversaturated with supply now.

It seems that to make a decent wage, a high degree of specialization is required, that was not required so much in the past.

So you are right, wages are getting f'ed. And talk of not raising the minimum wage is BS. That wage needs to be raised drastically.