If robots and machines take over our jobs

I'm curious. How do expect, simplified naturally, that our tax system and different social programs should be?

The setting would be where most, if not all, middle class and lower jobs are done by machines, and also many higher paying jobs are gone as well. Leaving us with perhaps an 80% unemployment rate.

You're not hoping some of them are like Bender so you have a drinking buddy? :P

u mean 80% time to do what we really want ... oh wait, no one remembers anymore because everyone was busy making money, wich is useless later, becasue there is nothing to buy as everything we Need will be plentyful available when machines will handle the basic and higher economics

With how things works today, it would mean most of us end up poor and some really rich...

i don't see us hitting a high unemployment rate like that. throughout human history whenever automation has displaced the need for human labor, it's not like human labor just went away.

what did the blacksmiths do when automobiles took over? what did the typewriter repairmen do when computers took over?

the people that lose their work due to automation will do what humans have always done. find work elsewhere.

Then the people who lost their jobs can find new job in this exploding industry of selling, buying, making, maintaining, managing robots.

I don´t have to worry, it´s going to take a good hundred generations of robots until there´s finally one that can do my job.

The coming of machines brings more jobs with it. Though usually the jobs it brings are less than the jobs it takes. The fall in employment rate will not be exponential but it'll be a fall nonetheless.

But wait, there's the option of turning to entertainment. Oh yea
New machinery often gives birth to new sources of entertainment which usually generates jobs. Or if not, then an unemployed person still has the option of becoming an artist of some sort -given that he has talent.

Robot fight clubs?

I'm not worry though. Humanity hasn't evolve to make any A.I robots to carried out our daily lives duties, so there's nothing to be scare about unemployment and really, has anyone actually seen an actual A.I Robot to do simple work?

depends on how long a robot generation is.

what if it's a week?

They terk er jerbs!! Like comp said, displacement doesn't mean complete elimination; we'll think of something.

Google the "Dell" + "12,000 jobs" ... You will find out that becoz they have more automated machines at work they will fire 12,000 people by 2017 and .... and thats HELLUVA! ... If one person gets 2000€ for example ... they will save 288,000,000 a YEAR. .... ????? O_O They cut the costs a lot.

I can't wait for the time to come where there is no need for money, and people can pursue whatever they like because they don't have to work.

But then again, there will always be an underclass...someone has to build the robots, run them, and eventually program them to overthrow their human overseers.

The thing is they wouldn't be getting money to pursue other interests.

the AI will become an independant live form that co exists with humans, not like in the matrix movies ... but as I remember correctly the third one does end with a peaceful coexistence of humans and machines ...

but chances are its impossible to develop AI on par with inteligent organic lifeforms ...

but what is possible to see int he next few decades is the overtaking of 3D printing in almost every field wich is now in control of industry conglomerats and a few select individuals ... but this, 3D printing is what will hold the key for the next big evolution in societys development ...

Topics like this are why we require ethical computer scientists. What is the difference between designing software that amplifies human productivity and the kind that replaces it?

There may be a good uses for automation, but totally replacing human beings right now is asking for trouble both economically and socially.

I see 1 of 2 things happening. Either we adapt, and merge with machine in a singularity, or they wipe us out due to our suicidal nature as a species. It's our fault. We are the ones who will keep raising their capabilities so we wont have to use our own.

so narrow minded ^^

Capitalism would either have to cease to exist, or robots will never replace workers.

If the lower and middle class don't have money to spend, big business will go out of business.

Actually, the numbers would probably work out because the robots would cull the population.

@horgen: what the hell looks of Earth were you born on? Every time we've had robots take new jobs, it has always created more jobs as a result. Absolutely every time and everyone knows. Unless you were raised by wolves.

Those robots take the jobs that no one else wants.

sometimes I wonder if in 1000 or 10.000 years something or anything at all will be left of our so advanced tech, our computers and devices, its all made of plastic and we all know it breaks after only a few years ... so what will people in 10.000 years be able to find as a proof there was ones a scoiety that used computers, airplanes and spacecrafts ? ... our buildings will be gone, fallen to dust and rubble ... our data storage devices will have been fallen apart long before that ...

I mean no one knows why 'cavemen' painted stuff on walls that is visible to us even now after thousands of years ... but it is knowen that the first symbols that were deemed worth to be painted on stone are spirals ...

@sonicare: No. That's not it either. Robots are there for efficiency, not because farmers are too lazy to hand pick produce.

Sooner or later they will take jobs that we don't mind doing either...

We'd be like those people in Wall-E.

Butlerian Jihad anyone? No? Ok, i can't pass up the chance for some Dune discussion.

so the Butlerian Jihad is a fictional event in the Dune universe that was a war between humans and machines, started by humans to overthrow the machines that ruled all human life.

How did that happen? well, artificial intelligence and robots got so advanced that people didn't work anymore; they didn't need to, the machines provided everything. they merely lay around doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, while machines served them like eternal slaves serving them food and providing for all their needs. Eventually, some smart-but-evil humans thought they could become all powerful but subjugating humans because they had become so weak and lazy. The villains used the machines as their tools for subjugation. The humans revolted by waging a war, the Butlerian Jihad to rid the universe of all robots, computers and thinking machines.

The fundamental tenet of the Butlerian Jihad, "Thou shalt not make a machine with the likeness of a human mind", brings the universe into a new age rid of all articial intelligence, so humans may never be enslaved by robots again.

personally, i hope we reach and stay at the age where humans can do whatever they want because machines do all the work.

i just want my robot housekeeper.. i wonder if i'll get one in my lifetime

If robots and machines take over our jobs, then push for the singularity and become more machine then man.

There we go, problem solved.

Disclaimer : The sentence above is a joke.

And my idea is obviously if replaced, something has to be done with the current system. Even Norway with the oil money we saved over the years won't last long if we were to wake up one day and find us in this situation.

It would not happen in one day. The advancement of artificial intelligence is a gradual process. It might be thought of as obvious, but it probably is more likely that similarities in intelligence, which would be the identifiable trait to replace human beings in most jobs, would be subtle.

Of course not. Neither would it be to shape society into something that works if the world goes there.

@horgen: I think that if computers are used to amplify human intelligence rather than replace it, then we will be doing right.

robots and population control will be good for this planet.

@horgen: Since when in all of the history of robots has this ever been true? Never. Because only an uneducated buffoon would believe otherwise.

Lol ..

I came in here to say this very thing. :*(

Early bird gets the worm brah :P

Skynet shall be upon us...

You'll not need a job in that case.

Prepare to kneel before your digital overlords...

For real though, I see artificial intelligence evolving to incorporate synthetic organic lifestyle, or partially organic and partially artificial, or have a command of both to truly blur the lines of what constitutes life. But, I see humans playing an integral part of their evolution and vice versa, I see a symbiotic relationship evolving where eventually both meld into one, be it through cyborgs, or a digital frontier. Maybe humans can transfer our minds to artificial brains, or have our minds be transferred as just a file running on futuristic supercomputers with no need of a physical body. And, if our personalities, our way of being can be deconstructed to a simulated environment, what's to say artificial constructs too can't manifest under such conditions and be valued equally under such conditions. Who knows, maybe when we have our next Einstein we can make two or three or four or a hundred and have them tackle the world's greatest mysteries. Maybe as evolved beings we'll be capable of synchronized our consciousnesses with each other, or totally merging personalities.

Coincidentally, one of today's news headlines concerns the laying off of 60,000 workers by Foxconn, the Chinese sweatshop that makes products for Apple and Samsung. They were replaced by robots.

Story on BBC

The only true satisfaction that any human gets from a Fast Food Cheeseburger, is the thought that another human has to slave over a hot grill to make them a burger. Therefore-robots will never replace certain humans as employees. Maybe because humans need to believe some other human suffers more. Then we can feel special.?

Now, wasn't that a horrible way to dismiss this Robot Takeover Conspiracy? -OR- Could the idea actually contain some truth?