22-10-2004 20:52									#31
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Just like every other invention has benefited the rich and only the rich?

	22-10-2004 20:52									#32
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara We're talking about the complete elimination of labor, not merely labor saving devices. When humans are no longer involved in the role of production, then our only jobs will be to sell each other stuff, and that too can be handled by machines. So what do we do for money, just move things around?

as the service industry has shown, humans are more receptive dealing with other humans. It gives a more personal touch. You will sell more items.

	22-10-2004 20:54									#33
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And, btw, the reason change always benefits the "rich" is because the people who receive most of the benefits become rich.

	22-10-2004 21:05									#34
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The very fact more robots would be doing more elementary jobs means that there would be more "rich" people who have more leisure time to demand and create something else.

	22-10-2004 21:19									#35
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara We're talking about the complete elimination of labor, not merely labor saving devices. When humans are no longer involved in the role of production, then our only jobs will be to sell each other stuff, and that too can be handled by machines. So what do we do for money, just move things around?

Wrong, someone still has to design the machines, repair the machines, install them in the factory, remove them when they are broken, supply the factory lines with goods, etc... Then there are the nonfactory jobs of marketing, distribution, warehousing, sales, accounting, etc... There will be lots of jobs and we are only talking about the continuation of a long line of efficiency improvements.

	22-10-2004 21:19									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker Just like every other invention has benefited the rich and only the rich?

If you want to go off on your own tangent about something I'm not arguing, feel free. But I'm not following you there.

	22-10-2004 21:23									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin someone still has to design the machines, repair the machines, install them in the factory, remove them when they are broken, supply the factory lines with goods, etc... Then there are the nonfactory jobs of marketing, distribution, warehousing, sales, accounting, etc... There will be lots of jobs and we are only talking about the continuation of a long line of efficiency improvements.

Most likely, yes, though eventually these too could be handled by intelligent-seeming AIs.

But the assumption in the argument was the complete elimation of human labor. In that case, those who don't own any means of production are completely superfluous, and given our current method of handling superfluous people on this planet, they'll likely starve.

	22-10-2004 21:28									#38
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Maybe that's when communism descent us and we all can eat all we want without having to do anything if we don't want to.

	22-10-2004 21:35									#39
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara But the assumption in the argument was the complete elimation of human labor. In that case, those who don't own any means of production are completely superfluous, and given our current method of handling superfluous people on this planet, they'll likely starve.

Even if we assume machines 100% take over production, which is an impossibility, then we still have sales, distribution, accounting, design, and human to human services. That doesn't even count farming, science, engineering, energy production, human to human services, specialty art, handy crafts, or hundreds of other fields. We are in no danger of losing these employment opportunities and since manufacturing efficency is emproving so much we will be able to lower the cost of goods and through taxes provide more help to those few individuals who are displaced by the efficency gains.

	22-10-2004 23:45									#40
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Most likely, yes, though eventually these too could be handled by intelligent-seeming AIs. But the assumption in the argument was the complete elimation of human labor. In that case, those who don't own any means of production are completely superfluous, and given our current method of handling superfluous people on this planet, they'll likely starve.

Except assuming infinite production, there would be no point to not giving stuff to everyone. All it would take would be ONE person who had some means of production.

	22-10-2004 23:46									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Even if we assume machines 100% take over production, which is an impossibility, then we still have sales, distribution, accounting, design, and human to human services. That doesn't even count farming, science, engineering, energy production, human to human services, specialty art, handy crafts, or hundreds of other fields. We are in no danger of losing these employment opportunities and since manufacturing efficency is emproving so much we will be able to lower the cost of goods and through taxes provide more help to those few individuals who are displaced by the efficency gains.

You're missing the point - eventually we can replace humans in ANY job with computer programs and robots.

	22-10-2004 23:46									#42
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Che, I'm willing to concede that we'll eventually have to become communist if you're willing to concede it'll only happen when we reach a state of infinite production

	23-10-2004 00:03									#43
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We don't need infinite production, just practically infinite prodution, i.e., we produce more than we possibly use. The trick here, of course, is that in a capitalist society, that day will never come since capital will be shifted from overproductive areas. The problem for capitalism, though, is what happens when we reach the point when every important area is overproductive.

	23-10-2004 00:09									#44
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Capital will never shift to an area that won't sell.

	23-10-2004 00:10									#45
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When robots take all the jobs, everyone will become part of the porn industry.

	23-10-2004 00:15									#46
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In other news, some nice people have tried to plot the advances in nanotechnology, given the false starts experienced by all technology:

http://wise-nano.org/w/Slope_of_technology_curve



Best part? I'm only 46 in 2030, when self replicating nanofactories reach their prime

	23-10-2004 00:17									#47
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Haven't you seen Stargate SG-1. We only have until 2025 before replicators take over the earth, destroying everything else in their path.

	23-10-2004 00:18									#48
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I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

	23-10-2004 00:21									#49
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From my understanding, grey goo is an impossibility.

	23-10-2004 00:58									#50
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quote: Originally posted by Boshko Nah, won't happen people will always think up of more crap that they want. If robots become that advanced the demand for hand-crafted goods will probably sky-rocket.

Huh? Wait? There's going to be a craft fair everyday and people are just going to trade their crap? Do you have any idea how much crap that is?

	23-10-2004 01:04									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker Capital will never shift to an area that won't sell.

That's why it will fail.

	23-10-2004 02:18									#52
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Assuming we do hit practically infinite production, everyone will just not have to do anything.

	23-10-2004 03:21									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident if robots do most of our jobs, and we don't create new ones, we have no choice but to go to socialism. In that case, I might actually support it. It'd be like star trek

I have always felt socialism was totally unworkable becuase of the horribly inefficient use it made of human labor. Nonetheless I agree. If we ever managed for the first time in history to start automating work faster than we can replace it then once it got to a point where human labor constituted less than half the total productivity then the time for socialism would have arrived. Kinda depressing since I think socialism blows in general, but probably better than a weird dystopia where nobody with capital has any incentive to hire any human employees.

	23-10-2004 03:32									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Even if we assume machines 100% take over production, which is an impossibility, then we still have sales, distribution, accounting, design, and human to human services. That doesn't even count farming, science, engineering, energy production, human to human services, specialty art, handy crafts, or hundreds of other fields. We are in no danger of losing these employment opportunities and since manufacturing efficency is emproving so much we will be able to lower the cost of goods and through taxes provide more help to those few individuals who are displaced by the efficency gains.

When we learn to develop super fast super specialised AIs that can perform a certain intellectual labor task vastly more efficiently than a human can, a real big chunk of the rest of these jobs will cease to have any use for humans as well.

I agree that current automated capabilities would have to increase by a few orders of magnitutde to accomplish these things but the day in which we can build a machine that can information process as well as the human brain can't be more than a dozen or fewer decades away.

	23-10-2004 04:00									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker Why bother getting concessions from workers if you can replace them by a robot for cheaper?

You've completely missed the point of my post. You know, I find it alarming that right-wingers who have had no real-life experience of hardship can actually justify this train of thought.

	23-10-2004 04:40									#56
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You missed my point: they aren't going to try and get concessions (not that that's a bad thing: you don't have some "right" not to be replaced by someone or something that costs less but does just as good work), they'll simply fire people, who will then be free to do other labor. If there IS no other labor because we've hit infinite production, then, well, we're set anyway.

	23-10-2004 04:46									#57
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But you know as well as I do that capitalism doesn't work like that...the robots cost money to maintain, and they will try and extract such concessions out of the worker as to make them cheaper, even though the more feasible alternative exists where people could be far more effectively used...

	23-10-2004 04:52									#58
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In a world where all work is performed by the machines, those who own them will be living as kings and those who don't will be in the ghetto. They just won't have any work to do so they will have to subsist on charity, crime, prostitution. They will have their own para-economy. The elite will not mingle with them unless it happens by accident.

And one day, once all resources are plundered or if somehow the elite gets bored of planet earth, they will migrate en mase in another solar system and leave the others in the dark ages.

	23-10-2004 04:57									#59
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara We're talking about the complete elimination of labor, not merely labor saving devices. When humans are no longer involved in the role of production, then our only jobs will be to sell each other stuff, and that too can be handled by machines. So what do we do for money, just move things around?

As many people said, ppl will invent or increase the demand of needs that can't be yet done by robots, be it stand up comics, administrators whatever...
Think about it, the amount of jobs done by robots, and the amount of jobs saved since the beggining of time has kept increasing.
Just think about farmers.
One farmer and his tools and robots does what 100 used to do before.
What do the 99 others do?
New jobs that didnt exist, Un secretary general, fiscalist, managin a non profit organization, new age artist...
The same trend will go on.
Robots will take more and more jobs over, people will find more and more new jobs that produce things people didnt even think they needed before....

	23-10-2004 04:58									#60
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P.S.: Of course everybody in the elite will be working. They will just be doing sham jobs, like the borgeois class has been doing for centuries (academics, religion, art, politics, administration, charity, etc). Machines already tend to make work reserved for humans more and more superfluous. in order to replace some of the lost jobs, we create bubble economies around such things as management, marketing, adveritsement, styling, showbiz, journalism, etc, jobs in the service sector that is.

Btw, has anyone read "The end of labor" by Jeremy Rifkin?