Corporations, while they don't need/want employees, still want customers and people to buy their stuff. How would people get buying power if they are "drafted"?
Yeah one of the dangers of AI and robots taking jobs is that they don't have any customers left as in B2C business model. They will have to do a B2B model but then all of the people out of work will damage the economy.
What about the people who got old and or sick? With all the people going poor without jobs some might resort to crimes to make a living.
The draft can only take so much of the population. But our military uses drones a lot and might use robot soldiers that share memories and kill the enemy more than humans can and don't need any training. Is it murder if a robot kills a civilian?
What about the people who got old and or sick? With all the people going poor without jobs some might resort to crimes to make a living.
You're absolutely right and things specifically like identity theft already work this way.
The draft can only take so much of the population. But our military uses drones a lot and might use robot soldiers that share memories and kill the enemy more than humans can and don't need any training. Is it murder if a robot kills a civilian?
Much like tragic losses of soldiers that occur during special ops missions are categorized as a soldier dying in a "training accident" one might assert that if a robot kills a civilian it would be chalked up to an "industrial accident."
Yeah one of the dangers of AI and robots taking jobs is that they don't have any customers left as in B2C business model. They will have to do a B2B model ...
Great point! B2B will be few oligarchs trading among themselves.
...but then all of the people out of work will damage the economy.
What economy? If you mean B2C, then yes. But, if you're talking about few oligarchs controlling everything and doing the exchange among themselves, then it will thrive. What could happen to other people is they will either become slaves or be eliminated.
> How would people get buying power if they are "drafted"?
Obviously, you get paid for your service - really, there is a long history in America of favoring 'payment for service' over social programs. Reagan gutted the civilian welfare state, while extending benefits for those who had served the military.
To be clear, I'm not saying I oppose a generous pension for those who have served in the military, really, for a lot of reasons, or even that it's unfair, because most government jobs pay pretty poorly, at least the government jobs I could get pay terribly compared to the private sector jobs I could get, at least if you don't count the pensions. I'm just pointing out that the military does function an awful lot like some sort of socialist state. Yes, yes, there are still hierarchies, with privilege accorded to rank, but the difference between the top and the bottom, at least if you count in money and not power, and believe there to be a difference between the two, is nothing compared to what you see in the private sector.
But, the main idea here is that in the USA, there is massive resistance to the idea of redistributing money to the "undeserving" - some people argue that it's mostly a race thing that defines 'undeserving' and I don't know if that's true or not, but I can say that I observe a lot more hatred for the "welfare queen" than of the banker, and that this resistance is quite often overcome by making it so that our social safety net is a reward for your service.
During the great depression, we really had the problem you all are talking about here.. there really were simply not enough jobs to go around. Something had to be done; even fairly conservative folks recognized that something must be done.
What was done? well, world war two, but before that, the WPA. To be clear, that wasn't involuntary, like a draft but the point being that the government can and did create jobs for people.
There's a lot of complaints about the WPA just digging holes and filling them back up again, and there's some truth in that, but there is also a lot of infrastructure still standing today that was built by the WPA.
Personally, I don't really have a horse in this race, but my observation of Americans is that there's going to be a lot of resistance to "healthy young bucks" as Reagan put it, collecting the dole.
If it comes to it, I think a prorated minimum guaranteed income is more likely. Given some of the payday crap, I would hope its paid out every weekday morning.
I doubt robots and AI can do every in the next 50 years, so someone is going to be doing something even its art or crafts.
[edit] who exactly owns these companies? Aren't people making money off the company?
Corporations exist mostly because of consumerism, though. Once those "humans" are not able to work and in turn, spend their money buying crap from corporations, then...?
Not just the corporation, but the owners. It's not as if employees and executives are blind to long-term thinking, but the higher up you are, the more dependent your salary and bonus is on your earnings report, and if the numbers don't satisfy the Street, they can kick you out.
The problem is that self-interested thinking doesn't often benefit the whole. Every corporation is in the right for cutting costs, reducing tax burden, and getting as much profit as possible (and keeping it!). Without a strong government to form and enforce public policy, the private sector creatively destroys itself and society every few decades, while the rich keep their cash.
Some on HN the other day speculated that the fiercely autocratic Asian governments are the only way to reign in the power of major corporations. I think there is a point to that.
I think we have lost touch with the reason we invented technology in the first place: which was to increase human productivity, not to remove the human from the equation altogether.
In any case, government-assisted income might not be in the interests of larger corporations, because they're essentially the ones paying for it. But I don't know. Perhaps at some point all this consolidation will begin to reverse. If the tools to manufacture goods became accessible to cities, and then smaller communities, and eventually individuals (I.e. fabrication at home), coupled with the service industry largely being replaced by robotics, then this could solve many of these issues.
In fact, it would seem that things like home fabrication become more capable as robotics become more advanced and inexpensive. So maybe workforce consolidation will directly lead to this.
Problem is with capitalism and it's founders that told us all that you can't live without work. In next decades we will need to change the system diametrical because robots will take all not creative jobs out there. If we want basic pay we will need to tax corporations that use robots at around 70-90%, money from tax will go for basic pay, money from people that receive basic pay will go to corporations etc. Thing that needs to be controlled is capital, it can't be taken out of the market like it's done now, companies are gathering billions of dollars which are taken out of the market. Capital taken from the market can not be redistributed again. One thing is for sure, current system need to be changed and adapted to robots revolution.
also the opposite: people want to do anything else but work; here work means fulfilling some other's ideas for a task based, stead revenue`profit`leverage based, compensation
there is a great line in iron man iii where the character happy says: The human element of human resources is our greatest point of vulnerability. We should start phasing it out immediately.
once people are given capitol simply for being alive robotics will develop exponentially
and companies and individuals will be the better for it
The biggest losers with AGI is going to be corporations, corporations and capitalism rests on a very simple idea - private property.
Humans are employed to create stuff that can be patented or owned and essentially converted into crystallized wealth ( house, factory, software )
However the interesting thing about software - ( something that paul graham pointed out ) - is its almost no-cost to copy it. Its the great equalizer - what would take a factory and a lot of workers to build - will just take a piece of software to create.
So software (a.k.a maths), the ultimate product of efficiency and capitalism is what is going to make capitalism not work.
2 #
The reason for so much unemployment is due to bad policies by govt. lack of growth in developed countries ( money moves from there to developing countries - if a dollar buys me more goods in china of'course my dollar is going to go to china ). Trade deals that do not take into account factors such as those.
3 #
I think there is a strong incentive of 'not dying' in all of us. If you pushed people far enuf they would innovate. You can build a robot from sticks and stones if the alternative is to starve.
The king divides his land up amongst his lords and promises them that they might become kings themselves if they produce enough wealth and capture enough lands for the crown. Then the lords take that land and make the same promise to the serfs: if you farm it well enough and produce enough strong warrior children, maybe you'll end up as a favorite of your lord.
This is feudalism, and it's not hard to see how the steady-state result of this system is everyone running to endless war, as there is ruthless competition at every level of the hierarchy. This is also how most corporations are run, and the promises of glory and wealth are largely as empty now as they were when feudalism was common.
Unemployment is not a problem. It is the goal.
>However the interesting thing about software - ( something that paul graham pointed out ) - is its almost no-cost to copy it. Its the great equalizer - what would take a factory and a lot of workers to build - will just take a piece of software to create.
My employment contract states that any patents I file are to be held by my employer, and that I may not participate in open-source software without their approval, and a good deal of other terms that protect me from economic freedom. Software hasn't equalized much in that regard.
>I think there is a strong incentive of 'not dying' in all of us. If you pushed people far [enough] they would innovate. You can build a robot from sticks and stones if the alternative is to starve.
They would die. You can't not die just because you want to. If the alternative is to starve, many many people will starve. It is callous to suggest otherwise.
Imagine you alone can control robots and grow animals(including humans) in a lab. You could use robots for specific tasks and use humans as sexual slaves or worker slaves. This could happen if there are 'designer babies', where you could create very beautiful women and have them as your slaves. Or you could create a race of slave super-humans(merge humans with mechanoids), which would fulfill certain tasks you gave them. Do you think in that case you would need some consumers buying from your companies? Of course not.
Now imagine few thousand people like you. Lets say those on Forbes list. Now, instead of one guy being in control, you have few thousand of them each specializing in certain area. One could make sexual slaves. Another one could have an army working to make video games. Third one would have slaves making clothing, houses or vehicles and so on... Those few thousand people could create a B2B economy with few thousand oligarchs trading among themselves. What about the rest? They could be eliminated very easily by certain viruses or through some other means. Humans could still exist, but they would be 'designed' or genetically modified to fit specific purposes.
Just remember genocides, slavery, nukes, wars etc. Nothing is off the table. The stakes are very high. Those few oligarchs would live like trillionaires, so they would probably be ready to do anything. I mean people today kill each other for $1k, imagine what could be done when stakes are this high. Contrary to popular belief, history doesn't follow the direction of progress of any animal species. It's fun until it's not (dinosaurs and many other extinct species).
This situation could trigger wars and genocides we haven't seen before. I don't think it's going to be cupcakes and rainbows. People in 19th century were very optimistic about the future, imagining all kinds of utopias, but what was 20th century? Huge wars, mass genocides, diseases etc. I am not optimistic and don't think there is some kind of an ark of human progress where people will reach utopia. It will be change, but no progress/regress.
Who will create the lab? Won't he be the most powerful ? Can't these people genetically modify themself to not care about sex slaves (or even consumption, so no worker-slaves needed) ? Maybe scientists-slaves?
The truth(by my simple/short unscientific observation) is that most people don't give a fuck at all about anything other than themself so why should the lab-designer care about them (and share his tech)?
What happens when you build you lab/fix-diseases and don't want to share them with the masses (you don't want their $$)(you just want to share with other lab-designers/scientists/doctors etc). They WILL try kill you. How to escape this ? Kill them first? Don't share at all (you supposedly want to share with other lab-builders)?
I think, the lab creator WILL have to also build crazy weapons to protect himself from "the others"? They just won't accept no for an answer.
So you have to create your weapons first, then build the lab (or enslave others by using weapons to build the lab for you).
Who will create the lab? Won't he be the most powerful ?
Every oligarch(if there are many of them, like there were many kings in medieval Europe) would need to have a lab. It will be specialized. Just like factories today are specialized. Today, one company might use factory to make phones, another one to make clothing etc. They all use different devices for different products.
Can't these people genetically modify themself to not care about sex slaves (or even consumption, so no worker-slaves needed) ? Maybe scientists-slaves?
That's equivalent to suicide. You could do something similar today to eliminate sexual or other desires, but people aren't doing it.
The truth(by my simple/short unscientific observation) is that most people don't give a fuck at all about anything other than themself so why should the lab-designer care about them (and share his tech)?
Care about who? Other oligarchs? If there are other oligarchs(which is not necessary, since it could be one king and few thousand people below him), then he would receive benefits from them and vice versa.
What happens when you build you lab/fix-diseases and don't want to share them with the masses (you don't want their $$)(you just want to share with other lab-designers/scientists/doctors etc). They WILL try kill you. How to escape this ? Kill them first? Don't share at all (you supposedly want to share with other lab-builders)?
Who will try to kill them? Masses or other oligarchs?
I think, the lab creator WILL have to also build crazy weapons to protect himself from "the others"? They just won't accept no for an answer.
What others? Other oligarchs with different labs?
So you have to create your weapons first, then build the lab (or enslave others by using weapons to build the lab for you).
This is true. It could be a hierarchy where the top dog (king) shares some wealth with the lower ranked. Kinda like in medieval Europe. Most robots and lab-grown humans would be like serfs and those closest to the king would get all the benefits and practically unlimited wealth.
That's equivalent to suicide. You could do something similar today to eliminate sexual or other desires, but people aren't doing it.
I assumed they can replicate at the lab.
Care about who? Other oligarchs? If there are other oligarchs(which is not necessary, since it could be one king and few thousand people below him), then he would receive benefits from them and vice versa.
Most people don't care about pushing human(ity) further, just want the current entertainment flavor of the generation. Why should the lab-creator care about them ?
Just because someone pays for your job, doesn't mean it should exist, ex: gossip magazines. And when you have no work/purpose, why should you exist ? To consume finite resources? He may think the same thing for other oligarchs.
Who will try to kill them? Masses or other oligarchs?
If you build a life-extension (or a human backup+restore) lab you'll be at war with whoever you don't want to share.
What others? Other oligarchs with different labs?
2 main ways to change the world would be: Kill those who oppose you, or build better tech and don't save them (but those will better weapons will kill you first).
The more you automate and advance, the easier it would be to not need(and pursuing of not needing) other oligarch/normal sheeple.
I think it's a bit funny to anthropomorphize corporations. If this is restated as "Shareholders of Corporations Don't Want Employees", it may still be true, but it shows that there is a choice.
Basic income is the path to humanities demise. If people are only given enough to survive they won't have children. No one wants to support welfare babies.
Capitalism doesn't work as well if your less intelligent. As computer's get smarter they will just siphon the money away from the dim witted meat bags(even the smartest of us).
32 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 75.7 ms ] threadCorporations, while they don't need/want employees, still want customers and people to buy their stuff. How would people get buying power if they are "drafted"?
What about the people who got old and or sick? With all the people going poor without jobs some might resort to crimes to make a living.
The draft can only take so much of the population. But our military uses drones a lot and might use robot soldiers that share memories and kill the enemy more than humans can and don't need any training. Is it murder if a robot kills a civilian?
You're absolutely right and things specifically like identity theft already work this way.
The draft can only take so much of the population. But our military uses drones a lot and might use robot soldiers that share memories and kill the enemy more than humans can and don't need any training. Is it murder if a robot kills a civilian?
Much like tragic losses of soldiers that occur during special ops missions are categorized as a soldier dying in a "training accident" one might assert that if a robot kills a civilian it would be chalked up to an "industrial accident."
When we had an active draft, they were paid.
Obviously, you get paid for your service - really, there is a long history in America of favoring 'payment for service' over social programs. Reagan gutted the civilian welfare state, while extending benefits for those who had served the military.
To be clear, I'm not saying I oppose a generous pension for those who have served in the military, really, for a lot of reasons, or even that it's unfair, because most government jobs pay pretty poorly, at least the government jobs I could get pay terribly compared to the private sector jobs I could get, at least if you don't count the pensions. I'm just pointing out that the military does function an awful lot like some sort of socialist state. Yes, yes, there are still hierarchies, with privilege accorded to rank, but the difference between the top and the bottom, at least if you count in money and not power, and believe there to be a difference between the two, is nothing compared to what you see in the private sector.
But, the main idea here is that in the USA, there is massive resistance to the idea of redistributing money to the "undeserving" - some people argue that it's mostly a race thing that defines 'undeserving' and I don't know if that's true or not, but I can say that I observe a lot more hatred for the "welfare queen" than of the banker, and that this resistance is quite often overcome by making it so that our social safety net is a reward for your service.
During the great depression, we really had the problem you all are talking about here.. there really were simply not enough jobs to go around. Something had to be done; even fairly conservative folks recognized that something must be done.
What was done? well, world war two, but before that, the WPA. To be clear, that wasn't involuntary, like a draft but the point being that the government can and did create jobs for people.
There's a lot of complaints about the WPA just digging holes and filling them back up again, and there's some truth in that, but there is also a lot of infrastructure still standing today that was built by the WPA.
Personally, I don't really have a horse in this race, but my observation of Americans is that there's going to be a lot of resistance to "healthy young bucks" as Reagan put it, collecting the dole.
I doubt robots and AI can do every in the next 50 years, so someone is going to be doing something even its art or crafts.
[edit] who exactly owns these companies? Aren't people making money off the company?
The problem is that self-interested thinking doesn't often benefit the whole. Every corporation is in the right for cutting costs, reducing tax burden, and getting as much profit as possible (and keeping it!). Without a strong government to form and enforce public policy, the private sector creatively destroys itself and society every few decades, while the rich keep their cash.
Some on HN the other day speculated that the fiercely autocratic Asian governments are the only way to reign in the power of major corporations. I think there is a point to that.
In fact, it would seem that things like home fabrication become more capable as robotics become more advanced and inexpensive. So maybe workforce consolidation will directly lead to this.
Or, more likely, this is just wishful thinking.
there is a great line in iron man iii where the character happy says: The human element of human resources is our greatest point of vulnerability. We should start phasing it out immediately.
once people are given capitol simply for being alive robotics will develop exponentially
and companies and individuals will be the better for it
1 #
The biggest losers with AGI is going to be corporations, corporations and capitalism rests on a very simple idea - private property.
Humans are employed to create stuff that can be patented or owned and essentially converted into crystallized wealth ( house, factory, software )
However the interesting thing about software - ( something that paul graham pointed out ) - is its almost no-cost to copy it. Its the great equalizer - what would take a factory and a lot of workers to build - will just take a piece of software to create.
So software (a.k.a maths), the ultimate product of efficiency and capitalism is what is going to make capitalism not work.
2 #
The reason for so much unemployment is due to bad policies by govt. lack of growth in developed countries ( money moves from there to developing countries - if a dollar buys me more goods in china of'course my dollar is going to go to china ). Trade deals that do not take into account factors such as those.
3 #
I think there is a strong incentive of 'not dying' in all of us. If you pushed people far enuf they would innovate. You can build a robot from sticks and stones if the alternative is to starve.
This is feudalism, and it's not hard to see how the steady-state result of this system is everyone running to endless war, as there is ruthless competition at every level of the hierarchy. This is also how most corporations are run, and the promises of glory and wealth are largely as empty now as they were when feudalism was common.
Unemployment is not a problem. It is the goal.
>However the interesting thing about software - ( something that paul graham pointed out ) - is its almost no-cost to copy it. Its the great equalizer - what would take a factory and a lot of workers to build - will just take a piece of software to create.
My employment contract states that any patents I file are to be held by my employer, and that I may not participate in open-source software without their approval, and a good deal of other terms that protect me from economic freedom. Software hasn't equalized much in that regard.
>I think there is a strong incentive of 'not dying' in all of us. If you pushed people far [enough] they would innovate. You can build a robot from sticks and stones if the alternative is to starve.
They would die. You can't not die just because you want to. If the alternative is to starve, many many people will starve. It is callous to suggest otherwise.
Now imagine few thousand people like you. Lets say those on Forbes list. Now, instead of one guy being in control, you have few thousand of them each specializing in certain area. One could make sexual slaves. Another one could have an army working to make video games. Third one would have slaves making clothing, houses or vehicles and so on... Those few thousand people could create a B2B economy with few thousand oligarchs trading among themselves. What about the rest? They could be eliminated very easily by certain viruses or through some other means. Humans could still exist, but they would be 'designed' or genetically modified to fit specific purposes.
Just remember genocides, slavery, nukes, wars etc. Nothing is off the table. The stakes are very high. Those few oligarchs would live like trillionaires, so they would probably be ready to do anything. I mean people today kill each other for $1k, imagine what could be done when stakes are this high. Contrary to popular belief, history doesn't follow the direction of progress of any animal species. It's fun until it's not (dinosaurs and many other extinct species). This situation could trigger wars and genocides we haven't seen before. I don't think it's going to be cupcakes and rainbows. People in 19th century were very optimistic about the future, imagining all kinds of utopias, but what was 20th century? Huge wars, mass genocides, diseases etc. I am not optimistic and don't think there is some kind of an ark of human progress where people will reach utopia. It will be change, but no progress/regress.
The truth(by my simple/short unscientific observation) is that most people don't give a fuck at all about anything other than themself so why should the lab-designer care about them (and share his tech)?
What happens when you build you lab/fix-diseases and don't want to share them with the masses (you don't want their $$)(you just want to share with other lab-designers/scientists/doctors etc). They WILL try kill you. How to escape this ? Kill them first? Don't share at all (you supposedly want to share with other lab-builders)?
I think, the lab creator WILL have to also build crazy weapons to protect himself from "the others"? They just won't accept no for an answer.
So you have to create your weapons first, then build the lab (or enslave others by using weapons to build the lab for you).
Makes sense ?
The more you automate and advance, the easier it would be to not need(and pursuing of not needing) other oligarch/normal sheeple.
Capitalism doesn't work as well if your less intelligent. As computer's get smarter they will just siphon the money away from the dim witted meat bags(even the smartest of us).