I wonder how much that'll slow employment growth, if not cause downright job losses.

Well, that's different then. As long as it (he? they?) can adapt and learn, and isn't just executing pre-programmed tasks.

Well, of course it's executing pre-programmed tasks. How could it not? It just isn't programmed to act mindlessly and continue performing a series of events. It's programmed to learn and adapt and change to different situations.

An AI might be, but a robot is an automaton. They can't adapt to unexpected situations. If something happens while I'm on the surgery table I wouldn't want the robot to continue without a care in the world.

Well, it isn't a dichotomy, there's a massive gap between an artificial general intelligence and a mindless drone. The robots we have now, while not AGIs, are exceedingly intelligent. I'm not saying the surgeon robot might be better than humans, I'm fairly confident it already is in the same fashion automated cars are already better than drivers.

I'm not sure if Watson - the robot - has actually been put to genuine surgery yet, however, I'm merely stating it is most definitely superior to humans. And when you say artificial intelligence? Watson constitutes an AI.

EDIT: Hue, my bad, Watson is a doctor, not a surgeon.

I agree with what Sandtrap says. But I think I'm in a field of expertise that is never going to be replaced by robots, so I'll be safe.

Everything will inevitably be automated.

Such is the nature of progress. Law firms have begun using software to sift through paperwork, and I can imagine the remit of automation expanding beyond that in the future.

I have no answer to this, it's quite a scary thought although fortunately it won't happen in my lifetime

About 45% of jobs are in danger of being automated over the next two decades.

I'd fuck 1,000 people.

For the bragging rights more than anything else.

Invent new jobs.

Impossible.

The robots are better at everything.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on September 24, 2014, 05:52:36 PM

Quote from: Iberian Husky on September 24, 2014, 05:50:13 PM

extremely conservative, die hard Libertarian

what

Libertarians are conservative, are they not?

Oh, fuck that's a complication question.

If you mean conservative in the sense of wanting to conserve the constitution - Ron Paul, say - then yes, I suppose you could say conservatives are libertarian.

Current Republican conservatives, neocons and traditionalists? Perhaps not so much.

Absolutely. Unless she is severely mentally retarded, she is morally responsible. Her state of mind means jack shit when she has the circumstantial freedom to make the proper decision. Humans are condemned to freedom. She is responsible for every single one of her actions. I have zero sympathy for the depressed and mentally ill.

Thank God I don't have sympathy for the stupid.

Meta, you've asked perhaps the scariest question known to modern society today. And I'll answer it. Are you ready for some spooky fucking shit?

Spoiler

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Spoiler

Fucking really now, you'll have a heart attack.

Spoiler

Why do I write? Why do I draw? Why does my mother like to care for her garden? Why does her friend bake? Why does my sister's husband do pottery?

The very simple answer is, because we all like to. It's something that brings us joy, gives us purpose and fun, and keeps our respective minds in shape with the task or idea at hand.

In a society where Humans don't need to work, they'd have to figure out how to do something that's been lost in modern society. How to lead a life that you enjoy, doing what you want to do, when you want to do it, and how you want to do it.

I'm asking for concretes, not an abstract. Saying people would need to figure out how to lead a life you enjoy is a tautology.

People can't tend to their garden, write or bake for every waking hour. I'm asking if I) we have the capacity to fill our time besides employment II) what sort of social programmes could arise, if they would arise, from this paradigm and III) what are the political implications of that?

Well, look at Star Trek. They're post-scarcity, and pretty much everyone is a scientist, an artist, or a member of the military. I'm sure it'd be kinda like that.

And what about when robots take over those jobs too?

I'm on a technology kick at the moment, just roll with me.

So, let's assume we've reached a point where most jobs are automated and the civil unrest of mass unemployment has been solved by some sort of governmental implementation. The only people we really see having "jobs" are the likes of politicians, police officers, and a few engineers and scientists, although in ever-dwindling numbers.

With this in mind, everybody's end goal of employment - consumption - is effectively fulfilled despite not having a job. A lot of people would probably go "great", but the more pragmatic and conservative will ask "what about this. . .?"

Obviously, employment provides a sense of fulfillment and a profitable way of passing the time. A few people on here would relish the chance to read more and have more time for general self-reflection, however, among most of society it could promote mental illness, boredom, suicide and lawlessness.

Basically, how would we fill our time when we don't need to work? How would people keep socially engaged? Would the government need to encourage this? How would they encourage it?

So, why is Kinder bant?

You should be educated, idiot. Robots are not fucking alive. They are a hunk of metal and wires. Animals are living and deserve more rights. If you're actually supporting the idea to give pieces of metal rights then give rocks, sand, fire, etc equal rights

Humans are an amalgamation of factors which gives rise to intelligence and emotion. If a robot is capable of reaching such a conclusion with a different amalgamation, the situation remains the same.

From Tim Worstall, a fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, felt appropriate with the current talk of automation, aliens and AI going on at the minute.

Paul Krugman is here actually addressing a slightly different question: have we reached a slow down in technological innovation? But in the answer to this question is the answer to what’s going to happen to us once the robots can do everything better than we can, what will happen when the robots take all our jobs.

"Well, suppose that we learned to build true androids – robots that could do more or less anything humans can do. Surely that would be transformative; it would effectively end diminishing returns to capital accumulation, and raising GDP per capita would simply be a matter of multiplying the androids."

That Krugman thinks we’re closer now to building androids than we were isn’t relevant to this next part of the argument. But that argument that “if we can build androids then” is exactly the same one as what happens when the robots take all our jobs? They’re the same statement in fact.

And the answer is that we humans all become immensely rich. Because if we want to have some more of something we just construct an android to go off and make more of whatever good or service it is that we want more of. We find ourselves in a world of pretty much no material scarcity. We’re still bounded by resource scarcity of course: we cannot have more energy or atoms of copper than is to be found on the planet. We also still have a scarcity of positional goods. But actual real material scarcity pretty much disappears. There is one further question though:

"You might also be a pessimist in the sense that you wonder what happens to wages once androids can do most human work."
 
That will depend upon the economic system we adopt. If we’ve pretty much abolished material scarcity then of course real wages have just soared. Real wages being, really, a measure of how much consumption is possible rather than the nominal value of earnings. If you are of a Marxist persuasion you might think that all of the money from those androids will just go to capital, leaving the workers starving and destitute without any jobs and thus not earning at all. But to do that you would have to believe in Monopoly Capitalism, this idea that the capitalists as a class will gang up on everyone else and keep all the good stuff for themselves. But note that this does depend upon that monopoly.

If the monopoly is broken then the various capitalists will be competing with each other for the custom either of building and selling androids to people or of selling the things made by robots and androids to people. Competition does, as we can see from the world outside the windows, bring prices down somewhat. And if everything is being made by robots (including the robots themselves of course) then there is effectively no cost of production. Or rather the only cost of production is the original capital investment in the androids, the hard limits of resource availability and the inherent shortage of positional goods. For everything else, as no human has had to drip the sweat of their brow to produce it then no human being needs to get paid to do so. Which is what is being complained about of course, the absence of jobs. But that very absence of jobs in producing anything means that the cost of production is zero.

At which point we’ve legions of competing capitalists attempting to outdo each other at selling us the production of their armies of robots. Prices collapse and we’re all near infinitely rich.

Amusingly, at this point, those of a Marxist cast of mind should be able to recognise the scene. For this is what Marx called true communism. When the productive capacity of industry has reached the point where all needs and desires could be met then we will indeed be at that communist nirvana. Marx though that this would means that people could do much as they wished, be a farmer in the morning and a philosopher in the evening. Or as we might put it, do a bit of gardening and then yakk with the guys over a few beers. If we’re honest it doesn’t sound like such a bad world either. And it is what will happen in a competitive marketplace if the robots ever do get good enough to steal all our jobs. We’ll have a cornucopian river of goods and services to consume that are produced for us by said robots. That is, we’ll all be rich.