What if entire social (jobs, work from 9 to 5, education, etc) society would be exchanged by robots that can do exactly the jobs we currently do. What is the use of a clock while everybody can do whatever they want at any moment? A disadvantage can be that our children don't have to go to school, because you don't need education? A lot of people will become free, lazy and not very educated (depends on what parents learn their kids), but who cares? Because 10.000 years ago the only thing people did was hunting, eating and sleeping and building shelter and stuff to advance their survivability, and some art, and leisure. The hunting and all that is not needed when we have robots (as high tech automatic tools) that provide us everything we want with the touch of of button (to a certain maximum per person), because nature cannot provide unlimited materials and foods, the amount of people have to be stabilized to a few billion, because the feeling of survival is going to drop?) The current type of social system would completely change into something very different. No need for a clock and time? (because that is needed to be on time for work) Program the robots to behave like we had to do , and all processes of survival would fade into the background. Wars will be completly useless, because the rulers, royals and regimes become part of the same robotic driven (but not controled) world, their domination and rule would become useless. Humans keep control over their robots (because robots will be more primitive as we are, because it is impossible to recreate the same level of primitivity (because our emotion is, and most robots don't need that, only the ones that interact with humans, to deliver foods and materials) Some people are afraid to lose their job (which is not a problem, because bills and taxes and the entire capitalistic system is of no more use) Social system and life will change completely (no more friends from work or from a company, but that moves more to leisure type of social system (human comunication and social structure stays the same) to cafes, bars, restaurants, cinemas, and so on. Politics would also become useless. So it is politics, governments and regimes that are afraid of robots (and afraid of natural energy sources that are out there) This is why some politicians let the working class believe robots would take their jobs (it's the other way around) They fear an educated population, so they fear robots too (people copycat the ideas and believes of politicians) But all this would take a few centuries, or will even never happen (because of the change of course of history since 2001)
Actually, that is not really spread by politicians as much as it is by the workers who might be displaced. And they are generally of a lower non-skilled level of employee that does rote repetitive tasks that robots excel at. However, the increased use of automation actually required a higher degree of educated and skilled workers. Because somebody has to design and build the robots. And somebody has to program and operate and maintain them. Automation is nothing new, even when replacing workers. In the 18th century they destroyed looms which were replacing hand weavers. You will always have a class of workers who feel threatened by newer technology pushing out their job and who simply refuse to adapt to the new ways of doing things. But the ones that are really a success are those who actually adapt to the new technology. My mother is a great example. She was working for a lingerie company as an accountant when in the late 1960's they first announced they were computerizing their department and that within 2 years many would be laid off (and my mom was one of the junior employees). But instead of fighting this by screaming she should keep her job even if the department was computerized, she instead started to take courses in computer programming and when the department did computerize she became one of their first programmers. Generally, the only politicians I ever hear who scream against automation are those deep in the pockets of labor. But for those who actually embrace the technology, they actually tend to have better lives then if they remained simply numb robots doing the same chore over and over and over again. Technology does not replace workers, it simply changes what kinds of workers are needed.
Why do you think Robots are going to usher in an era of leisure? If people can't get money how are they going to live? To get ahead? And, what incentive is there for employing robots if there are no human customers to make it worthwhile? What I think happens from employing a complete robot workforce is that the entire economy crashes and we go back to the stone age. And don't tell me about jobs as technicians. Those jobs are going to be taken over by Robots too.
Well, how about jobs as artists then? I think that we could easily find everybody jobs in one aspect or another of creating new works of art, and those really cannot be automated as the work is a new thing. I don't mean just our conventional works of art, though we could easily make many more of them, but things that might be completely new and never seen before. Under this kind of society the world might transform itself daily. OTOH it might be that complete automation WOULD result in the collapse of what we call civilization, but as long as we all survive in comfort would that be so bad? I refer you to Jared Diamond's seminal "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race." http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=rnkhg4trSUzFSDWENGrBCw&bvm=bv.83134100,d.eXY with the suggestion that it offers a hint of what a completely automated society might be made to be like.
No we won't all be artists. Look, I'm looking forward to the Robot revolution as much as the next person. But, I just don't see how it's going to work. I read your link. I think people tend to romanticize past forms of existence. I don't think the agriculture revolution was a mistake. It was just a step. Anyway we're better off today we have meat, vegetables, and vitamins and minerals.
Yes, but what if the robots mean we will still have them, and can go back to a pre ag lifestyle too. I don't really agree with Diamond's article either but he is, as you probably know, no lightweight in this field. (He wrote Guns, Germs and Steel.) That is a pure appeal to authority and it is really doubtful he would even agree his article supports me, but he should not be lightly dismissed as a "romantic" in any case, just saying.
Yea, right. Show me a computer that can fix itself. Or program itself. Show me a computer that can design anything. You are really living in a fantasy world if you believe that.
I don't want to go back to a pre ag lifestyle, I don't want to become a bushman. Bush meat, yuck! lol. The Earth can't support us all that way. Anyway, I don't want to disrespect your idol, but he kind of sounds like a romantic to me.
same here, I do not mind rouging it for a week here and there, but would not want to return to that and like you said, we could not support the current population if we did return to that
we have top men working on the future, our future, when robots and automation replace most human beings in an economy. The Venus Project is one, the Zeitgeist Movement another. At least some good brains are thinking about it, along with the end of Capitalism which robotics will implode.
Socialism or a hunter-gatherer society? How can that be the only two choices? That's a false dilemma if I ever heard one.
if there is no jobs, how are people gonna survive? the other choice is to let people starve and thin the heard I suppose .
How will people survive when there are not many jobs around? The population would be divided into two parts, one part would own the robots and the factories; the other part would survive on mostly low incomes. Democracy would be threatened with the ending of the middle class.
