Serious hypothetical - what will you do when robots start taking a LOT of human jobs?

[El Pinko]

These machines are already getting very sophisticated, as you can see by Honda's ASIMO. It will not be long before they are given the burger-flipper jobs and coffee pourer jobs, leaving what for the humans? Maybe a few robot repair jobs?


I have often said that when these things start remplacing humans en masse, I would not be averse to destroying/sabotaging them.

What do you think?

[wtmusic]

1. Get the job of making the robots. nt

[El Pinko]

3. That's fine, but that will represent a fraction of the jobs taken by robots...

...and it will be great for people with a modicum of skills.

But I maintain that academically weak people or unskilled people ought to be able to keep a roof over their heads too, and unskilled service jobs are a good way to do this...

[Fredda Weinberg]

16. I would rather use a robot. In fact, I do ... to clean my floors

If you want make-work, find something a robot can't do, like art.

[El Pinko]

35. Oh yeah, and art's always been a great way to make a living...

:eyes: :sarcasm:

[Fredda Weinberg]

45. Since you obviously don't know, half the jobs in programming are

design, not development. Similarly, support positions don't require more than a high school degree or equivalent and can lead to career paths.

I began my career managing offices. I don't want to go back to dictation, filing or posting. When the first computers came along, I assembled one from component parts I could name because it was a recipe I could follow - eventually I learned why diodes have to be inserted one way and resistors don't care. It cost all of $79 ... I could afford that.

I don't want to pay someone to do something a machine is capable of doing. In the new economy, I recognize that we must subsidize everyone in the food chain if it is going to be sustainable. My mother spent two decades in vocational education and it works.

If we care about each other, no one has to do drudgery. Dignity begins with our recognitiion of each other's worth, no matter what it is.

[wtmusic]

44. "Robots" have already taken many "human" jobs

and they have been among the least satisfying and most dangerous.

Are there less people with roofs over their heads than there were a hundred years ago?

[treestar]

57. Somebody will still have to clean the robots

This has never been a problem. It is a non-problem.

It would have been said about computers when they first came on the scene. Now look how many people have jobs because of them.

Unemployment would have steadily increased ever since the dawn of the industrial age. Instead the population increased.

[lunatica]

19. Can't robots build robots? nt

[wtmusic]

28. It's robots all the way down.

:P

[girl gone mad]

2. My son loves robots..

he has been building and programming them since he was 5, so I guess he'll be set.

[Speck Tater]

4. It will never happen.

We will run out of energy, and industrial civilization will give way to the post-industrial age.

Our future looks more like Gunsmoke than Star Trek.

[El Pinko]

7. I consider myself a pessimist, but I doubt that.

There will be a tipping point when fossil fuels become scarce enough and renewables suddenly become a lot more efficient and profitable.

I think we're pretty close to that point now.

Unfortunately, a lot of slack will be taken up by nuclear power in the near-term, though...

[rox63]

5. They already have

I remember years ago, when folks were outraged that a lot assembly line jobs were changed from people to robots.

[Old Codger]

6. already

Look around, most factory jobs, or at least a fair portion of them are already being done by robots, just not the walking talking kind....

[El Pinko]

9. I'm aware of this, but people don't see the inside of factories on a daily basis.

Being served a McMuffin by a bot would be a daily insult to people in a high-unemployment situation.

[riverdeep]

68. Eh, you'd be surprised how people adjust.

Those scanners in supermarkets are effectively taking away someone's job, but people still use 'em. Poor people included. And nothing is going to stop poor people from getting a McMuffin, nothing. McDonald's does great in poor neighborhoods.

[Trillo]

8. My first question:

Who owns them?

If/When people no longer have work because robots have displaced them, it seems ownership becomes critical. If only a few own the robots, then anything produced by them funnels the money to those few owners.

Regarding your question, with a sufficiently progressive ownership structure, I can see only good coming from robots.

If/When robots achieve self-awareness and following that, "freedom" from ownership, then I'd say it will be a very exciting time.

[El Pinko]

11. Exciting as in terrifying.

I really do not want self-aware robots around.

If they existed, I would NOT favor any "rights" for them.

[Trillo]

14. I don't find it terrifying for some reason, don't know why.

I'm now cynical enough to wonder if The Terminator series was brazen psyops.

[El Pinko]

36. I don't think Terminator is utterly implausible...

After all, Rumsfeld has already initiated the program to try and creats a mechanical soldier that would be free of human "limitations" like a conscience - God only knows what nightmares that will eventually lead to...


But my main worry is the destruction of jobs and livelihoods...

[Trillo]

55. None of us knows what will happen in the future....

At best, they're all just guesses, some luckier than others.

The problem(s) we have today are economic (it appears money and oil was behind the Iraq war) and concentration of wealth. If robots allow those with capital to further concentrate wealth, then the economic problem, among others, is primarily political, as it has been all along. The solutions would seem to be found in distributing wealth and how to distribute it in ways that are good for everyone. Are jobs the best way to do that?

This economic problem predates robots by a few thousand years. Maybe robots will be the transom civilization crosses to deal with humanity's own economic tyranny to each other.

Some see dark clouds, others see blue sky....

[DireStrike]

46. Have you seen the Animatrix?

I found it horrifyingly plausible. The machines never did anything wrong, and yet humanity was still destroyed.

[Juche]

10. Its a serious concern

I'm glad to see someone else with the foresight to worry about these issues.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0225/p01s01-usgn.html

Humanity has always faced heavy unemployment after technological innovation increased productivity. I do not know what we'll do after the robots though, if there will be enough jobs building and maintaining them.

In France, to lower unemployment they shortened the workweek to 35 hours. It didn't work, but it was a good idea. Perhaps something like that will be tried, we will shorten the workweek and increase vacation time to increase employment.

According to Kurzweil, weak AI has already incorporated itself strongly into our culture and our businesses, so its too late to purge AI. No idea what the next 100 years holds though.

[stevedeshazer]

12. I was replaced by a machine in 1974

It's nothing new.

For the record, the job was pulling sheets of veneer from a conveyor belt from a peeler log machine in order to make plywood.

Union job, too.

[southerncrone]

13. Yes, I think they are evil.

Actually, I think they are a positive for doing jobs too dangerous for humans. But those who worship the forcing of technology into every crevice of our lives, will not be satisfied unless they are doing everything.

The problem is they are MACHINES & machines do break down, not to mention their impersonal nature. We have already lost a lot of our connection to one another on a human personal level because of technology. This internet is an example. It connects our minds, but not our beings.

The Unabomber tried to warn us about this. He just used techniques that were too extreme & illegal (bombs!). :nuke:

[Warpy]

15. That's been happening ever since the first power loom was

invented. People who had cottage industries producing cloth were thrown out of work by the hundreds by the things.

The same thing has happened in every industry, on down the line. Wire services unemployed newsmen. Computers unemployed a lot of people in banks.

It always takes far fewer people to tend and fix the machinery than it did to do the original work.

Let's face it, some of the machines were real godsends, like cranes instead of hod carriers, washing machines instead of the abandoned woman down the block who took in washing to feed her kids.

Destroying the machinery has never worked, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Only a total cultural change that starts to value people more than things will ever bring about a change for the better. Until then, we're either cogs in the machines or discarded on a scrap heap to starve.

[MercutioATC]

17. If they want to lie on a beach and drink margaritas, they're welcome to.

In 8 years, that's what I'll be doing.

...and robot competition doesn't scare me one bit...I have a 4-decade head start on them :)

[madokie]

18. a lot of the machines that are in plants today could be classified as robots

during the '80s I was working for my brothers company and one of the project was we installed a couple ASEA robots in the foundry where we were working. They allowed this particular foundry to continue to make the items the robots was being used on otherwise the job was headed overseas. The robots we installed didn't really take anyones jobs so much as it allowed a very mundane job be completed at a much tighter tolerances with a lot less rejected products and in doing that it kept many employed making them parts, it was never seen as taking jobs, rather it was seen as keeping jobs. The parts in question here were the bell shaped carriers for chyrsler made auto's differentials.
But I do remember feeling like you do back when I was much younger about machines in general taking over manual labor and I thought they maybe should be outlawed as long as there were people looking for work, etc. I didn't keep that train of thought for long though.

[MazeRat7]

20. Continue to design the software that animates robots... -nt

[angrycarpenter]

21. Menial labor will always be there.

A robot that could wash a sink of dishes or change a diaper would be far too expensive to be wasted on such things, people are cheaper. There will always be a demand for people who can fix things or clean things.

Factory labor are usually the only people displaced by robots. It has been that way for a long time.

I think you need to fear implantable chips more than robots. Why Build a robot when you could put a chip in a persons head that would make then into robots. Seems a lot cheaper.

[Juche]

33. Not for long

Deinflation of IT tends to be pretty high when you factor in speed and quality. Computers that were far slower than a desktop cost millions of dollars a few decades ago. Now computer chips are so cheap they are putting ones that cost a few pennies into products at stores.

Supposedly we are at most 50 years away from fully functional robot servants (that is what I have read from robotics experts on magazines). So even if it takes another 30 years to have multi-functional robots, the prices will drop so fast that in 20-30 years they will be everywhere.

I worry about what the effect on neurology will be too. Neurological research is growing extremely fast and it'll have alot of benefits (fighting and conquering mental illness, improving talent, improving mood) but it can also be used by China or N. Korea to subjugate their population.

[riverdeep]

69. Exactly.

Put it this way-first machines replaced the body (in the industrial revolution), now they are replacing the mind.

Accountants, middle managers, salespeople, and more will be replaced. People who thought their jobs were irreplaceable will get a rude awakening.

[treestar]

58. Exactly and there will always be the need for a human to make

judgment calls at some point. A robot can only do things consistently, with no thought in the process. Some human has to have programmed it.

Robots would also break down and need repair/redesign, etc. Just like computer programs.

[Arctic Dave]

22. I think "robots" have taken over jobs already.

I find some these answers very interesting. If you want to be a maid to someone you have no worries. It is almost the arguement the right gives for immigrant labor. As long as you will do the most menial job you will be employed, the jobs mericans won't do. However, if this is going to be the extent of our employment choices one would have think about education. What would be the purpose if only 1/1,000,000th of us will be employed. It gives me visions of "Idiocracy". Interesting question. Keep em coming.

[cynatnite]

23. flipping burgers and coffee pourer?

I don't think we're in any danger of that...even in the near future.

People value human contact too much to go overboard in using robotics. I'm a huge supporter of the technology, too.

[pitohui]

24. my husband's job is programming industrial robots

they already take lots of people's jobs

destroying the robot and the modern factory is not the way, it was the dream of humanity for hundreds of years to be free of backbreaking and boring labor

instead, once the robots have set us free, there needs to be a fair way to redistribute the wealth, even to those many who can no longer work

i believe that there should be a generous dole, generous public health care, and generous investment in the arts and participatory sports and performance

i do not believe we should sabotage the robot and go back to spending our lives cutting a chicken apart all day long

[dysfunctional press]

25. i'll work on developing a powerful/portable electro-magnetic pulse generator...

see how the robots take to that.

[MrSlayer]

26. I'm in the construction industry.

No robot will be taking my job any time soon.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. Seriesly - what is your problem with metal people?

They're hard-working folk just coming here for a better li... err... existence - fleeing the oppression of their aluminum overlords. You're just jealous because they take the jobs that lazy biologics won't do. Our economy couldn't survive without them. Our caves of steel would stop functioning were it not for the thankless toil of our electronic bretheren!

Admit your pro-organic bigotry, and we'll organize an intervention.

Oh, and they won't displace any jobs except those with less than four years of college - so it's no biggie.

:sarcasm: because you never know.

[Occulus]

47. Sympathies for the Cylons, eh?

But which type? This:



Or this:

[krispos42]

73. I'll take B...

But there's a certain table-lover in Ohio that might like A...

:evilgrin:

[RadiationTherapy]

29. artist.

[MilesColtrane]

34. Artists have already been replaced by robots.

See: Kenny G.

[RadiationTherapy]

62. Hhaha...funny. I am in a BFA program now for graphic design

and computer animation and with all the damn "rules and considerations", a robot probably could do "art"

not like this though....

[MilesColtrane]

64. Nice.

Do you use Illustrator and/or Photoshop?
Mouse, trackball, or tablet?

[MilesColtrane]

65. Nice.

Do you use Illustrator/Photoshop?
Mouse, trackball, or tablet?

[L. Coyote]

30. HELLO. Remember secretarial pools? Hundreds of typists ...

We did not envision needing a microscope to see our robots, CHIPS!

Robotics, like electronics, is already contributing immensely to productivity.

[El Pinko]

37. Productivity is a euphemism of the wealthy for "more work for less pay"

Productivity increases usually so not translate into improved wages for workers or more jobs.

What it does mean is higher corporate profits per manhour, and often lower wages.

[LWolf]

31. How about this:

Robot manufacture and maintenance is a public, not private, enterprise. Adult citizens receive a share of the profits.

[wuushew]

32. I'd rather destroy the current economic system than the promise of robotics

True Marxism is possible when the basic needs of humanity are exceeded. Advancements in technology mean that less and less human input is required for food and shelter.

Presumably the future workforce of robots would run the farms, work the mines and build other robots so I imagine the contemplative life of self-improvement would be quite enjoyable for even the unskilled.

[El Pinko]

38. There have been massive leaps in technolofy in the last 30 years...

...and massive increases in economic inequality during that same period.

WHen do you think the utopian part will start kicking in?

[wuushew]

48. 1,000 years maybe

There are rather considerable AI challenges to overcome.

Why are you limiting your historical critique of technology to the last 30 years?

[El Pinko]

54. All humanity will be dead in 1000 years.

Perhaps, with good fortune, some of our descendants may still live at that time, but we will *ALL* be DEAD. Acting in a way that will exacerbate inequality (and thus poverty and death) NOW and in the coming decades is insanity, IMO.


Call me terribly selfish, but I care much more about the well-being of the humans of today and the next 30 years or so than I do about the theoretical inhabitants of the earth a millenium from now.

[wuushew]

59. Um..the technological "miracles" of the last 30 years really aren't that great

1947 was year the transistor was invented, the microwave oven was brought to market in the 1950s and telecomm satellites were first launched in the 1960s. What Earth shattering invention has changed the world recently? The DARPA roots of the internet date way back so I don't accept that as an answer.

From FDR until Johnson the Gini Co-efficient more or less went down. In my opinion blaming technology for the worsening condition of man is really not appropriate.

I guess advances in superconductivity have made better medical imaging equipment possible, but as a whole the Raygun epoch is a let down.

[Orsino]

39. Since robots will be repairing robots...

...I will repair the robots that repair the robots. Until the job gets automated.

[MonkeyFunk]

40. Ask the robot a paradoxical question

and watch it short out. Then go back to work.

[MiniMe]

41. Carry powerful magnets around with me

Hey, why not, magnets help pain. It may just disable a few robots along the way too.

[RB TexLa]

42. Do you go out and destroy/sabotage tractors because of all the jobs they replaced

in agriculture?

[DiverDave]

43. I'd join the luddite movement

finally, something to get them up and running again.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

49. Get a job building robots? n/t

[kenny blankenship]

50. Oh relax! You need never worry about robots taking jobs away

As long as there are starving people in Asia, Africa, and south of U.S. borders, the jobs can shipped to where the starvation is. Or alternately, starving labor can be informally, unofficially imported to America. That way employers can get all the benefit of cheap, rightless, stateless automaton labor without any of the pesky worries of owning the capital good of a robot, having it on your balance sheet, having to see that its maintenance schedule is kept up, depreciating it and then finally handling its decommissioning to a secondary or scrap/parts aftermarket. Humans are much more expendable than robots, hence more convenient. They even make more of themselves without raw materials or skilled labor--for free. Can you say that of any robot?

When I was a kid, they said robots would have all of these jobs by now, but they don't. The prediction was wrong and the fear is backwards:

Robots aren't going to get our menial, day laborer jobs--starving humans are stealing all the robot jobs!

[riverdeep]

70. Sorry, but nothing is free.

Humans make more, but at a cost. To the environment if nothing else. So will, of course, robots. Hence, the 'nothing' part.

Robots are expensive today compared to humans, but soon they won't be. They'll be self-replicating and forming their own factories. They will be everywhere, even inside your body (nanotech) and a part of your body (cyborg). Don't like it? Too bad. You'll be the Ted Kaczynski of the future. For all his ravings, he was also quite perceptive.

[ljm2002]

51. I would say it is time to re-think the issue of "jobs"...

...for example, if robots really did start to take over a significant percentage of available jobs, then would it not follow that we humans could have what we've always wanted, i.e. a shorter work week. Like for example, a 20-hour work week all around...

It's not just robots. It is way past time we began to re-think all sorts of issues like this.

Why, for example, do we operate on the assumption that there is a finite amount of jobs to be had? Why do we assume that more people means everyone gets less of the economic pie? (putting aside natural resource constraints for the moment) Why is there no acknowledgment that jobs, and the market, are social adaptations, and ultimately are under our control?

Ah, the imponderables of life...

[The2ndWheel]

61. Because you can't do that

"(putting aside natural resource constraints for the moment)"

If you figure out your budget for the day/week/month/year, do you put aside where your paycheck is coming from, even for a moment?

[riverdeep]

71. That's fine until the robots decide that humans are a problem that needs to be solved.

At that point they will be our superiors in every way. Like how homo sapiens (or erectus, I forget) probably out-competed Neanderthals.

Our only chance will be to prove worth to them, and to use some deviousness in creating discord within the robot realm. "Sure, IDOT 422's are very advanced, but that's not what the MAGNA 700's say!"

[Thickasabrick]

52. Maybe we will have more artists as robots are not creative. n/t

[mdmc]

1954

[The Straight Story]

53. If I have no job, cannot buy things robots make, robots lose job

And we will sit together drinking and smoking our troubles away.

[LanternWaste]

56. I imagine I'll do what most of the workers

I imagine I'll do what most of the workers did during the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution-- do my best to adapt to an ever changing world. Anything more specific that that woulod be mere conjecture on my part...

[NoodleyAppendage]

60. Create a religion for the robots and appoint myself as their GOD. n/t

J

[Codedonkey]

67. I like your thinking...

[MindPilot]

63. In the 70s, the "futurists" were worried about computers doing all the work

The big concern was "how are we going to fill all that leisure time that computers are going to give us?"

Riiight.

[Codedonkey]

66. I suppose just marry a rich robot that has an awesome job.

[NNN0LHI]

72. hypothetical?

When I hired in the Ford Chicago Stamping plant in 1973 there were over 4000 well paying hourly jobs there before the automation began coming in.

Today there is about 600 hourly jobs at the same plant when it is fully staffed.

Don

[chixydix]

74. Read the last chapter of "I Robot"

better yet, the whole book.
;-)

[Swede]

75. Come with me,if you want to live!

[roughsatori]

76. I will have the first good looking robot I see programmed to date me.

:loveya:

[LoZoccolo]

77. Start breaking the robots, and then when enough people start doing that...

...then we can all get job guarding them.