see this adorable robot and the mean things they're doing2it

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I beg to differ.

The brave little toaster wasn't so bold after he tried to mess with me.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

First thing I said to my spouse was, "I wonder what a HR manager at Amazon's warehouse thinks when they see that". Same for all the "self driving cars" - we see them and the press surrounding them and selfishly think, "oh! I won't have to drive myself to the store!". But it's far, far more likely that their early-adopter target markets are Fed-Ex, UPS, city buses and taxi cabs. That's a whole lotta jobs...


Always remember: Luddites were not afraid of the technology itself - many of them were what would now be called the engineers & mechanics of the very systems they railed against. They were afraid of the way capitalism would use technology against workers.

The way I see it society would simply have to adjust....perhaps there'd be room for more leisure time, if technology can decrease the need for a 40 hour work week who in their right mind would complain? Sure it will in a sense take some jobs away...but not by exploiting people in the third world in the attempt to not have to pay their workers a living wage, you see its the ethics of that which bother me not the 'less jobs' part.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 26 Feb 2016, 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it will force change, and that it wont necessarily be a bad thing....if workers start being replaced by robots in various industries, then it will force society to address how people will survive and have access to goods and services if their aren't enough 40 hour week jobs going around. I have heard an idea of Universal basic income that might be applicable in that case. Now sure change can be scary but it doesn't have to be all bad per say...or is everyone so stuck on having a 'working class' that occurs somewhere below upper middle class.

Interesting thoughts, Sweatleaf. I think some do fear that we'll end up with a tiny (compared to total) capital class and a working class that comprises nearly everyone else being either out of work or working menial jobs. Plus a very few workers (again, compared to world population) who design, build and maintain the new infrastructure & electronic bread & circuses. But even if that did come to pass, it seems such systems are inherently...unstable over time. I think you are right; either way it is likely to precipitate change for the better eventually. You are such an optimist, Thank You!

Sure, sometimes robots take people's jobs. And I'm of the opinion that we'll always need human workers, simply because many people work better with their hands or even prefer working with their hands.
But it doesn't mean that research on robots should be stopped. There are some tasks that people can't do, and other tasks that are too dangerous. After an earthquake, would you send a person or a dog to look under the rubble for survivors if the place is still unstable ? And once robots can do a variety of tasks, would you still send people to secure Chernobyl's nuclear reactor ?
Robots will be there in the future to do things that people should better not do. Of course there will be excesses and problems. But it's not the technology itself that is to blame, it's what people do with technology.

Another thing to consider is that the warehouse workers of today will have to be the rob0t repair men of tomorrow. Because all machines eventually need servicing.

So things will balance out one way or the other.

rather than go the way of universal income/bread and circuses, we believe amuuricans likely will go the other way of starvation/mass death. "AI" just showed the edges of it.

Take Amazon's Reno, NV warehouse. Around 4,000 warehouse workers would be displaced by at best a small handful of robot maintenance & repair people. And that's *if* Amazon decides it is worth it to have them in house at all. If they don't, that handful of jobs go to a regional company that also services the other warehouse-robot using corporations in the Western USA (perhaps excluding SoCal as the market might be big enough for its own repair & maint corp).

Not a very good balance, IMO.

It actually does seem sort of mean in that video. But they're robots, without consciousness. So far. And I hope they stay that way.

touché

DAMN, ALEX! I'm in a cube farm today - with short walls! And now everyone thinks I'm odd - okay MORE odd - for repeatedly laughing out loud for no apparent reason. All it needed was Sarah McLachlan singing in the background and I would've been crying for the poor dears and getting out my credit card to make my donation.

Actually kind of disturbing, but funny at the same time.