Another for the monthly topic:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In further developments likely to not improve overmuch one's faith in the human race as a collective bunch of mangy talking apes, this is a potential ticking time bomb that I don't see many leaders having the wit or the ability to address before it goes up in everyone's face:

http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/04/rise-machines-future-lots-robots-jobs-humans/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12155808/Robots-will-take-over-most-jobs-within-30-years-experts-warn.html

http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/what-happens-when-robots-take-our-jobs

^Each of these articles covers a crucial element in the growth of robotics. Anywhere from 50% to greater unemployment when complete mechanization obliterates the need for humans to do those jobs. It's not like new jobs can be created as when Cadmus sowed dragon's teeth, and it's not like this is going to go away. Nor is the solution here some Butlerian Jihad to destroy the thinking machines so humanity can exist in a neo-feudal hydraulic despotism controlled by highly rationed technology and genetically engineered supermen as poor substitutes for same.

Technological change and progress is always a two-edged sword. Growth is not infinite, nor is economics. So if robotics ends up causing mass unemployment in this sense, what if anything can be done about it? Like I said, I personally expect people to coast along knowing the problem's had warnings for as long as 30 years and not really getting it until "Wait, robots have caused permanent 50% unemployment? Who knew? Nobody warned us! Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind!"

But I admit to being a cynic who accentuates the negative and expects the worst from people a lot of the time. 

Comments

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Perhaps people could move on to doing more intellectual and creative jobs and leave the hard work to the robots.

Alternately, futurists have argued that man and machine will inevitably merge at some point, so who is to say the distinction robot worker vs human worker would exist in the future?

All sorts of alarmists have raised the alarm about all sorts of alarming potential future developments over the years... only to see their predictions crumble to pieces in the face of the true unpredictability of the real world.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'd hope that would be the obvious route, but this is a world where people like the Taliban and Donald Trump find followings, so..... O.X

That's true. So it'll be interesting to see what happens as these developments grow.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

The Taliban would still be able to plan their terror attacks, only this time they will be sending martyr-bots to carry them out (I know, a frightening thought, but it is much in the line of logic that I am espousing here).

As for the many Trumps that the world will surely be littered with in the future... I'm afraid those are a lost cause and cannot be helped. =)

[garote]

Man and machine merged the instant the first ape picked up a stick and used it to poke a termite mound. Ever since then it's just been a matter of degree of involvement.

In more recent history, the mail used to be delivered on horseback. The human took up a good fraction of the mechanism. Nowadays the mail is delivered by silicon and electromagnetic waves. The human has become a vestige, tacked on to swap out parts when the parts get fried.

On the other hand, our ancient ancestors wrote 0 letters, our recent ancestors wrote 10-100 letters, and we will write 1000-10,000 letters (as emails) as part of our "normal" lives. So demand seems to grow to fit supply. The mail used to employ riders and stable-keepers, now it employs way more sysadmins and linemen.

What vision of the future would actually end this progression?

Or would we need to adopt an ancient tool indeed: Philosophy? To convince ourselves that a straw bed and a little ratmeat is all anyone needs, worldwide. Assuming we let 99.99% of the current population die off (the approximate portion that is attempting to live in areas that are inhospitable without work)...

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I think it was Buckmister Fuller who opined that we produce more than enough to feed everyone, that really this idea that everyone must go out and get a job and work for their entire lives is outdated and based on old ideas of how resources are allocated. His idea, if I'm remembering correctly, was that everyone can be given what they need, and those who actually want to work and study can become scientists, healers, engineers, teachers, while the rest can just have lives of leisure. It's an interesting thought, though it certainly immediately rankles the sensibilities of those raised under a the model of the western "protestant work ethic."

But puritanical moral pearl-clutching that someone might get more than he "deserves" aside, I think the idea is pretty interesting. I don't know if such a Utopian vision is actually feasible or even desirable, but I do think that it would require greater automation than we have today, and that's where what seems a problem might become an eventual solution.

The real problem, in my mind, is that there's a middle area. Before we get to the place of post-scarcity, we'll still have a "you must work or you will starve" society where that needed work is more and more scarce. It's in the transition between models that the upheaval will be the worst, as will be the damage to the most vulnerable among us.

But, if we could find some way to undergo such a transition while catching those falling through the cracks along the way, we could achieve something only sci-fi authors have managed to create so far: a truly free society.

Modern Luddites

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

I have been absent from LJ and talk_politics for some time. Hope I have not pissed off too many folk here. It's been long enough I am most likely forgotten with regards to ancient transgressions.

I found this related and interesting TED talk a while back:
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn?language=en (https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn?language=en)

I see a time in the near future where 50%+ persistent unemployment will be a reality. We will find ourselves in an environment where the bulk of people will be relegated to the lowest and least profitable work. This will lead to a cycle of horrific instability and unrest. I wonder if this isn't planned. I wonder if the goal is not to have us turn on each other and reduce the population through wide spread violence.

The Luddites did not have anywhere near the reduction in jobs and labor skills we see today with the increases in industrial tech. They did not have the tech saturation we have today. AT their time in history, there were still places to go on the map that were empty areas marked with the legends of "Here be monsters" and many of them went off to see if those monsters were there, only to find less developed peoples they could dominate - or, at the least, where they could start anew. This is really no longer the case.

I feel the coming of a new age of Luddites, for good or for bad.

Thanks for having me back.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Interesting video.

crikey!

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

that first one's enough to give me nightmares the rest of my life!

http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/04/rise-machines-future-lots-robots-jobs-humans/

; P