Humans in the Robot Economy

[GORDON]

Star Trek 6. "Uhura receives a message from Starfleet Command to return to Earth immediately. Both she and Chekov agree they cannot abandon the captain and Dr. McCoy. Valeris tells the both of them how 400 years ago on the planet Earth, when workers felt threatened by automation, they flung their wooden shoes called sabots into the machines to stop them, thus coining the word "sabotage." Uhura comes up with a response that Enterprise's backup systems are all inoperative. "Excellent. I-I-I mean, too bad," Chekov says."

[TheCatt]

TIL

[Malcolm]

G's minimum income has been rejected by some bankers.

In a fragile global economy that is increasingly driven by mechanized labor, the deal might seem like a welcome security net from one of the richest governments in the world. The Swiss are sure that they could pay for a substantial guaranteed income, if voters got behind it. No specific amounts are mentioned in the wording of the initiative, but groups that support the measure have suggested about $2,500 for each adult Swiss citizen and foreigners who have legally resided in the country for five years, as well as an additional $640 for each child of theirs. Supporters of the initiative said a universal basic income would also provide people whose primary work is the care of their families with a steady income.

But Gfs.bern, a Swiss firm monitoring voter opinions, projected that only 22 percent voted yes for "free money" on Sunday, based on a partial count of ballots. Most Swiss vote in advance by mail, so most ballots have already been counted, according to Agence France-Presse.

A near 4:1 smackdown.

[Leisher]

The sky is falling!

I worry less about a robot uprising and more about the economy of a world where robots have replaced a large percentage of the workforce.

Who is buying the goods the robots make?

[TheCatt]

Me, cuz I program the robots? Wait, if I program the robots, wouldn't I just have some of them give me some free stuff?

[Malcolm]

Me, cuz I program the robots? Wait, if I program the robots, wouldn't I just have some of them give me some free stuff?

Goddamnit, stop telling the morlocks the plan.

[TPRJones]

Who is buying the goods the robots make?

Still people, just like now. Two things will happen: one is that the cost of goods will plummet. Labor is still currently the biggest expense in most manufacturing, and is the majority of costs in the service industries. When labor is replaced with robots all those costs go way down and so do the prices of goods. Oh, not right away, as businesses will first try to convert all those savings into profits, but long term the market corrects that sort of behavior.

The other thing is that money will still flow and people will still have incomes. It's hard to know the exact way it will work in the new economy, just like farmers couldn't originally understand how people would feed themselves if they were working in factories instead of growing food. But people are creative and innovative and all those robot goods need consumers and solutions will be found. I expect part of it will be an economy heavily driven by the creation and consumption of entertainment media. It may even come to pass that people get paid to consume specific sponsored content. That can't be the main driving money flow since the income from charging those wanting the attention could never be enough to cover the entire economic needs of the content consumers, but I bet it might be a single facet of what the future holds.

[GORDON]

When robots start doing a significant percentage of the grunt work in America, do you think we'll actually secure the borders since we wont need the constant influx of nearly-slave labor? If Min-Income goes into effect, it'll actually be kind of important to not allow in millions of new people a year who will take decades to put more into the system than they take.

[Malcolm]

You think the robot patrol drones won't have a fuckton of operators on hand just in case? And robot maintenance and mods. I promise you motherfuckers will get bots with custom paint jobs.

[GORDON]

I bet one of the first jobs becomes robot border patrol.

[Malcolm]

Hah.

Pizza Hut has partnered with MasterCard to deploy robotic waiters to its restaurants in Asia.
...
Former McDonald's USA CEO Ed Rensi warned on Tuesday: "It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries,"

I wonder how long before some luddites start smashing these and the self-driving cars that'll be around in the next couple decades.

Cars smash back.

[GORDON]

Cars smash back.

I, Robot already did that.

[Malcolm]

Cars smash back.

I, Robot already did that.

Yeah, but not everyone's Will Smith.

[GORDON]

Thankfully.

[GORDON]

So let's say there is a robotics breakthrough and now we have machines picking our harvests, digging our ditches, building our buildings, flipping our burgers, and delivering our mail and pizzas, putting 60% of everyone out of work. "Minimum Income" is in full effect, yearly incomes rising and lowering with the GDP. Voters suddenly became hyper-aware of our national debt as it directly affected their monthly checks.

Are we still going to have an "open border" policy? Peeps are going to redouble their efforts to get in and either get legal to get their checks or fake some IDs to get their checks.... there isn't any more work for them even at their slave wages. Are we still going to be altruistic, "Oh those poor people, of course let them in," when it "spreads the wealth" more thin with every new person?

[TPRJones]

The long term solution there is to start exporting our robot technology (which will further increase our GDP) and help raise the economic output of the entire world so it all becomes moot. Rising tide, boats, blah blah. When we no longer have to rely on human labor then goods and commodities become dirt cheap. The only limitation is physical resources, and with increased efficiencies there's more than enough to support the current entire population of the planet in comfort.

Short term doesn't really matter much in that scenario, as long as whatever happens we make it to the long term solution.

The longer term solution involves space travel to continue to expand without hitting a resource limit that causes massive problems. And once we start to spread out from this little corner of the universe our species becomes eternal.

[Vince]

Once to robot economy hits we'll all end up being government employees. Bureaucracies never die and they never shrink. Of course, the global economy will collapse at that point as the only people employed aren't producing anything.

[TPRJones]

If everything that needs to be produced is produced by robots, why would it matter that humans aren't the ones doing the actual producing?

[Malcolm]

Are we still going to have an "open border" policy?

Yes, and we should keep it.

Peeps are going to redouble their efforts to get in and either get legal to get their checks or fake some IDs to get their checks.... there isn't any more work for them even at their slave wages.

You overestimate the ability of robots to do ALL the work and underestimate their ability to create it. We'll eventually find other tasks that can't be automated, and they'll become the new "menial" jobs.

Once to robot economy hits we'll all end up being government employees.

False.

Bureaucracies never die and they never shrink.

Sure they do. They just get replaced by smaller ones which then grow to problematic sizes.

Of course, the global economy will collapse at that point as the only people employed aren't producing anything.

You seem to be assuming there's a finite, master list of "all the shit we'll ever want or need" stashed somewhere and we're going to exhaust those items which can be produced solely by people.

[Vince]

If everything that needs to be produced is produced by robots, why would it matter that humans aren't the ones doing the actual producing?

I will have to ponder this some more.

I think we've been heading towards a leveling out with technical advances. As the needs and rewards decline, innovation suffers.