What would people do when robots produce everything?

What will happen to humankind?

  • Things won't change much.

    Votes: 4 13.8%
  • Fabric of society will disintegrate and civilization will end.

    Votes: 7 24.1%
  • World will live in plenty, pleasure and peace forever.

    Votes: 4 13.8%
  • Nobody could possibly predict.

    Votes: 14 48.3%

  • Total voters
    29
I thought we were talking not only about the post-work-job times, but also about the near future with intermediate stages.
You are talking now about a much later future where all economy is gone and unnecessary. This later future that you describe is far from certain. Voyager's comment shows an alternative future.
I agree the transitional time might be messy and difficult for many people, butit will be a rather short one like 30 years or so for manufacturing. Longer for some complex jobs and services, 100 years. However the financial reform of money flow will need to be in place early on, otherwise the whole economy will be a mess.
 
you can always argument that all activity is good. If you do gardening around the house for few hours a day, you can claim food production and beautifying your house, plus dose of physical activity. If you love cooking, you could invite your neighbors for home cooked meals. If you love sports, you can claim exercise and health improvement. If you watch TV, you can claim education in social skills and general knowledge. All good. :), of course in moderation.

I think you are right. It doesn't matter from where overproduction is coming, whether from robots, volunteers or hobbyists. It all would be automatically reflected by economic parameters like unemployment, wages and prices. If one of them changes in the wrong direction, overall official work time can be simply adapted accordingly, very good!

I think it is an overkill, like preparing for life without electricity. 150 years of electricity and the blackout didn't happen for longer than few hours at a time. We might as well teach our kids how to make stone tools in case our civilization collapses.

I don't think this is comparable. If there are problems with robots, it most likely is not just that robots stop. They probably will malfunction in many very unpredictable ways, I predict :) In this case high qualified human intervention will be required. After all we are the bosses, and like good bosses we are often idle, but always carry the burden of responsibility if SHTF.

You could do actual production job, like growing your food, or fixing your tools, but don't expect any money for it.

Think of it as a retirement. Do retired people sit all day doing nothing? Well, some of them really do, but most is active all day long. They don't make money anymore, they receive money from government every month, regardless if they are active or not, productive or not, lazy or not.

Yes, I agree, see above.
 
Last edited:
No worries about inflation because this is what the economy currently is lacking.

Although after so much Quantitative Easing there might be a risk of hyperinflation if money finally reaches the ordinary people. In worst case UBI or work time reduction could be the needle which bursts the QE bubbles. Difficult to predict at this late stage. Therefore the money/debt ocean from QE should be drained carefully while introducing UBI and production cut. I'm afraid that already now we need finance robots that can handle the QE trillion money/debt ocean.
 
Last edited:
Looking at poll results, 1 optimist, 2 pessimists and 5 neutral. I voted neutral, though I'm more on optimistic side. I just don't know if in times of plenty people will be able to appreciate it and be happy? As well they might get easily depressed from even smallest head winds, lose will to live and commit suicide in bunches. On other hand, in future this should be easily overcome with superior medications and natural selection would eliminate the hyper depressed in few generations.
 
Right now I design a machine that replaces about 7 full time workers

Robots cannot produce everything. Robots could only be done to manage repetitive tasks. Tasks so brainless and boring they are not worth dedicating so much of a human's time to. Instead, we shell aim human evolutionary selection toward creativity, which will never be replaced by any kind of robots. I am talking about design, arts, science, biotechnology.

But in a nutshell, we could not know the future so well as to tell exactly how far we could go with robots
 
Right now I design a machine that replaces about 7 full time workers

Robots cannot produce everything. Robots could only be done to manage repetitive tasks. Tasks so brainless and boring they are not worth dedicating so much of a human's time to.
Still, eliminating half of boring jobs we will eliminate half of working force from employment. What they will do? For that reason the guaranteed income will be implemented in next two decades in every developed country.

Soon however, not so boring and repetitive jobs will go too. The more "creative" machines have to figure out the fastest route and maneuver around traffic. The best examples are fully automated cars, which are almost ready for prime time. All driver jobs, or even various heavy machine operators, will lose their jobs too.

When Atlas from Boston Dynamics is ready we will see fast loss of many manual jobs. Most of construction jobs and mechanic jobs will disappear to robots.

Robots, with huge brain power, like Watson from IBM will eliminate many positions in healthcare in diagnostics or even MDs. Wrist device like Fitbit will read your biosigns, sends it to diagnostic computer, and will tell you if you are sick or not, what medications to take and make an appointment with a specialist,...which might be a surgical robot.




Instead, we shell aim human evolutionary selection toward creativity, which will never be replaced by any kind of robots.
To do that you would need to insure that non creative people die young before having kids, or creative people have more kids than others. To be less cruel and controlling in new social policies, we should go towards human design selection. When parents desire a creative kid we can insert extra gene or two responsible for creativity. ;)


I am talking about design, arts, science, biotechnology.
Well, people have to do something. But it might not be a work for money as we know it.
 
Still, eliminating half of boring jobs we will eliminate half of working force from employment. What they will do? For that reason the guaranteed income will be implemented in next two decades in every developed country.

That won't come all of a sudden and replace half the jobs. Those robots will be expensive and work on them requires a bid deal of time, which will guarantee a very gradual implementation. It will take decades to replace simple workers. It is a few human generations. The demand on such work will decrease proportionally and thus less people will be left with nothing.
There must be a government supported programmes for reeducation of people who lost jobs in such a way, for sure. And yes, guaranteed income will surely help. They will have lots of time to learn a new speciality.

Soon however, not so boring and repetitive jobs will go too. The more "creative" machines have to figure out the fastest route and maneuver around traffic. The best examples are fully automated cars, which are almost ready for prime time. All driver jobs, or even various heavy machine operators, will lose their jobs too.

I somehow list driving cars as boring and repetitive job... Surely traffic full of robot-drivers is so much safer for everyone. They would just radar-track each other kilometres away. Moreover, we could make them all controlled from one centralised machine that controls and regulates all the cars movement in a city. And only go on manual controls on countryside.


Robots, with huge brain power, like Watson from IBM will eliminate many positions in healthcare in diagnostics or even MDs. Wrist device like Fitbit will read your biosigns, sends it to diagnostic computer, and will tell you if you are sick or not, what medications to take and make an appointment with a specialist,...which might be a surgical robot.

Just imagine, one robot can be programmed to do almost all sorts of operations and tasks. So many people die in this world because they can't access quality healthcare due to various reasons. It will never replace all medical workers, it will only make them more specialised.
Medical workers will be the hardest to replace. And it won't ever happen. There will be new specialities in medical field. For example - a doctor who is controlling repair nanobots inside our bodies. People who control nanobot actions inside a person's body. At least until we learn to program them to act like bacteria in our bodies.
Then, the genetic therapy...

To do that you would need to insure that non creative people die young before having kids, or creative people have more kids than others. To be less cruel and controlling in new social policies, we should go towards human design selection. When parents desire a creative kid we can insert extra gene or two responsible for creativity. ;)

Well, people have to do something. But it might not be a work for money as we know it.

Human design selection is a very good way. Definitely, it will be an interesting world we could not even imagine/predict. The world in which we can design our kids to be so much smarter we can't even start to imagine what would be their cerebral limits. Solving all the physics dilemmas. The why's of Life and Universe. No need to waste time doing jobs you already solved in your brain.
But what to do with all the 8 billion of people? We already need to disperse and colonise planets on that stage
 
That won't come all of a sudden and replace half the jobs. Those robots will be expensive and work on them requires a bid deal of time, which will guarantee a very gradual implementation. It will take decades to replace simple workers. It is a few human generations. The demand on such work will decrease proportionally and thus less people will be left with nothing.
There must be a government supported programmes for reeducation of people who lost jobs in such a way, for sure. And yes, guaranteed income will surely help. They will have lots of time to learn a new speciality.
Surely it will take some time, though it might be sooner than people think. Look at this graph about US productivity of last 60 years. It grew 10 folds while labour force shrunk by factor of 3. Even without complete robots, we are already involved in this rapid automatisation process.
Manufacturing_Data.jpg

So far people managed to create new services in place of old jobs in farming or manufacturing.

distoflaborforcebysector.png


Somehow nobody protests "bring my agricultural job back", I wonder why?


I somehow list driving cars as boring and repetitive job... Surely traffic full of robot-drivers is so much safer for everyone. They would just radar-track each other kilometres away. Moreover, we could make them all controlled from one centralised machine that controls and regulates all the cars movement in a city. And only go on manual controls on countryside.
I'm sure taxi drivers would disagree with you. :)




Just imagine, one robot can be programmed to do almost all sorts of operations and tasks. So many people die in this world because they can't access quality healthcare due to various reasons. It will never replace all medical workers, it will only make them more specialised.
Medical workers will be the hardest to replace. And it won't ever happen. There will be new specialities in medical field. For example - a doctor who is controlling repair nanobots inside our bodies. People who control nanobot actions inside a person's body. At least until we learn to program them to act like bacteria in our bodies.
Then, the genetic therapy...
Then again, why would you control them manually if you can program them? Use Watson type program to find best programming for different diseases. I'm not saying that people won't do the highly specialized jobs, but in few hundred years they possibly will lose them too, due to intelligent and creative computers. The competition for last paying job will be between super smart computer and super smart designed human.



Human design selection is a very good way. Definitely, it will be an interesting world we could not even imagine/predict. The world in which we can design our kids to be so much smarter we can't even start to imagine what would be their cerebral limits. Solving all the physics dilemmas. The why's of Life and Universe. No need to waste time doing jobs you already solved in your brain.
But what to do with all the 8 billion of people? We already need to disperse and colonise planets on that stage
If we get to the designer stage, all people will be smart, healthy, good, optimistic and beautiful. I'm less sure what they will do all day long or how many will live on earth.
 
I don't really think you can predict the future is such detail. However, if we've learned one thing once you give robot's emotion it'd be safest if we treat robots with respect. Remember, we as Americans are having trouble finding and keeping jobs in this day and age; especially in small town. There are cities that have thousands of residents without work or on the street so I do not think the present day is the best time to be building robots.
 
I don't really think you can predict the future is such detail. However, if we've learned one thing once you give robot's emotion it'd be safest if we treat robots with respect.
It is a big NO. Once you give robots emotions they will start to care for what, when, why and ask questions. Is it good or is it bad? Is it fair or unfair? Should I or shouldn't I? etc. Robots without emotions will be our perfect slaves. They do everything without asking questions, without thinking if it's fair or not and demand compensation and equal rights. As long as they don't care they do as they are told, period.
If you want they could be program to act compassionate, but they shouldn't feel and care if they do or not.



Remember, we as Americans are having trouble finding and keeping jobs in this day and age; especially in small town. There are cities that have thousands of residents without work or on the street so I do not think the present day is the best time to be building robots.
As you can see from this chart below it is already done deal, and the last stage the robots with AI, will seal the deal. Instead of fighting it and going against this strong, and pretty much unstoppable trend, embrace and adapt to it. For example bigger compensations should be given to unemployed people so they can go to school or become more mobile and move to where the jobs are. Secondly, slowly all rich countries should go to guaranteed income program. There also should be international agreement to tax corporations the same rate all around the planet. This would take away incentives to move production elsewhere, but rather build factories where the market is.
Manufacturing_Data.jpg
 
It is a big NO. Once you give robots emotions they will start to care for what, when, why and ask questions. Is it good or is it bad? Is it fair or unfair? Should I or shouldn't I? etc. Robots without emotions will be our perfect slaves. They do everything without asking questions, without thinking if it's fair or not and demand compensation and equal rights. As long as they don't care they do as they are told, period.
If you want they could be program to act compassionate, but they shouldn't feel and care if they do or not.




As you can see from this chart below it is already done deal, and the last stage the robots with AI, will seal the deal. Instead of fighting it and going against this strong, and pretty much unstoppable trend, embrace and adapt to it. For example bigger compensations should be given to unemployed people so they can go to school or become more mobile and move to where the jobs are. Secondly, slowly all rich countries should go to guaranteed income program. There also should be international agreement to tax corporations the same rate all around the planet. This would take away incentives to move production elsewhere, but rather build factories where the market is.
Manufacturing_Data.jpg
Forgive me for being blunt and I totally understand your secondary concern. In Port Angeles where my parents grew up, there has been a lack of jobs also so they moved to the city however I'm afraid I'm really really confused trend wise. So jobs aren't just going to Mexico? If anything, the robots are also taking the jobs from the American people and the Mexicans/illegal immigrants shouldn't get all the blame for taking people's jobs. Im sorry to say this but city of Seattle has enough people and Seattle and has swelled to over 3,000 homeless individuals. It's gotten so bad that the Mayor declared a Homeless crisis a couple of years ago.

But none the less, I recommend adding more factories in small towns and spread the productivity around the country and not just creating more robotic factories in the cities so we can spread out the U.S. Population more evenly. ^_^
 
Forgive me for being blunt and I totally understand your secondary concern. In Port Angeles where my parents grew up, there has been a lack of jobs also so they moved to the city however I'm afraid I'm really really confused trend wise. So jobs aren't just going to Mexico? If anything, the robots are also taking the jobs from the American people and the Mexicans/illegal immigrants shouldn't get all the blame for taking people's jobs.
Exactly. Look at this chart. US production rose 10 folds while employment dropped by factor of 3. It is all due to automatization and robotics.




Im sorry to say this but city of Seattle has enough people and Seattle and has swelled to over 3,000 homeless individuals. It's gotten so bad that the Mayor declared a Homeless crisis a couple of years ago.
Homeless people have psychological problems. That's the reason why they can't find a job or have family. Making a factory close by won't make them work.

But none the less, I recommend adding more factories in small towns and spread the productivity around the country and not just creating more robotic factories in the cities so we can spread out the U.S. Population more evenly. ^_^
This type of economic engineering was tried in communist countries. ;) Wait till we have full robotic economy. People will live wherever they want.
 
Exactly. Look at this chart. US production rose 10 folds while employment dropped by factor of 3. It is all due to automatization and robotics.





Homeless people have psychological problems. That's the reason why they can't find a job or have family. Making a factory close by won't make them work.

This type of economic engineering was tried in communist countries. ;) Wait till we have full robotic economy. People will live wherever they want.

I suppose so, we'll see how it goes for dealing with the homeless crisis. However this leads to another question, will us humans still get jobs and get paid; becides for jobs like robotic engineering or will there be another way to buy stuff?
 
I suppose so, we'll see how it goes for dealing with the homeless crisis. However this leads to another question, will us humans still get jobs and get paid; becides for jobs like robotic engineering or will there be another way to buy stuff?
Robots and AI will do everything for production and services. People will be given money by government to buy things and services produced by robots. Sort of like Saudi Arabia now. Foreigners work like robots and citizens get income from government to buy things, the guaranteed income. Or you can think of it like all society is like retired people in US and Canada. They don't work but still get money from pensions and old age security payments and they buy stuff. The difference is that in "robotic economy" everybody will be retired at birth for the rest of their life.
Mind that in today's developed countries half of society don't work already. The kids, infirm, injured, retired, and born rich. All of them buy stuff and services every day without making money at work.
 
Robots and AI will do everything for production and services. People will be given money by government to buy things and services produced by robots.

If so people still need to be given some type of job. It isn't healthy or pleasant to have no work to do. We're hard wired to be productive and ambitious.
 
If so people still need to be given some type of job. It isn't healthy or pleasant to have no work to do. We're hard wired to be productive and ambitious.

We can farm our own crops and plant trees :). I suppose it would be a problem in the winter but we can get the money to buy Greenhouses.
 
If so people still need to be given some type of job. It isn't healthy or pleasant to have no work to do. We're hard wired to be productive and ambitious.
Oh, they will be very busy with activities, sports, games, dating, hobbies, social life, traveling, etc and they can do any project and work they only desire every day. However, it won't be for money.
 
We can farm our own crops and plant trees :). I suppose it would be a problem in the winter but we can get the money to buy Greenhouses.
You get the drift now. ;)
 
If so people still need to be given some type of job. It isn't healthy or pleasant to have no work to do. We're hard wired to be productive and ambitious.

I don't know, personally I love being slothful and doing nothing productive (hence my time spent on eupedia).
 

This thread has been viewed 57811 times.

Back
Top