Automated Economies & Unemployment

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

An exciting alternative is in the novel Saturn's children by Charles Stross, the robots don't rebel, the robots are so good they take over all industry, and even become love partners. Humans are so lazy in their robot slave mansions, that they stop reproducing all together. So robots dominate the solar system without firing a shot. That's how the book starts.

[@corbynite2004]

And if nobody has children, because robot lovers could do anything but that, it amounts to a slow eradication of the human race, with each generation of alienated isolated humans being a fraction of the size of the preceding generation…. THOSE DAMN SEXY ROBOTS!!!

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

@@corbynite2004 yep, sexy robots were the beginning of the end, and beginning of the novel. No need to rebel.

[@commode7x]

Sounds like my kind of utopia.

[@robertagren9360]

As the robots take over the unemployment statistics reduces.

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

@@robertagren9360 yes, but one of the jobs of the robots is catering to humans every possible whim, including sex. Therefore no human needs a job, and we all let ourselves die out in pleasure palaces surrounded by loyal servitors.

[@tathemrelag3123]

I can't say I'm confident about everyone having a job they can both do and enjoy. I took a bunch of career aptitude tests in high school, and they all told me to become an engineer. So I went to college to become an engineer... and I ended up miserable and flunking out of the program. I ended up getting a computer science degree and a job as a programmer, but I don't enjoy it and I'm not exactly very good at it. Maybe everyone has something they are both good at and enjoy, something they are both good at and can make money doing, and something they both enjoy and can make money doing. But I doubt everyone has something that fits all three categories.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

well the thing with automation imo is that it allows for people to focus on things that they are good at and enjoy, and then automation can make it livable. Automation can lead to things like Universal Basic Income to help supplement people who want to work jobs that either aren't as high-paying or otherwise don't have as consistent of a payout (like say taking commissions as an artist)

[@theobserver9131]

I don't worry about making money. I just do the things I like to do, and sometimes I get paid for it. Granted, I don't have much stuff, and if I want something, I have to be sort of creative about getting it. Usually involves some kind of work trade. I've tried working just for money before, and I hate it. So I don't do it.

[@theobserver9131]

I like challenging myself and acquiring skills just for fun. It tends to work out in life too. I have dozens of skills that people are willing to pay for, and I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.

[@FUBBA]

I got forced down Geography even though gunsmithing is my true passion because I had the most college credit towards that major. I don't have a job in the field of GIS either. Just sounds like college to me.

[@timedebtor]

This is a common and undiscussed problem in cs, I suspect it is common everywhere

[@shawnwales696]

When I lived in Italy, I noticed that some things were done in ways that we would find inefficient in order to keep otherwise marginal people working. Street sweeping was one, instead of running a street sweeper the size of a large truck, they had a fleet of small utility vehicles, a worker and a straw broom. And I mean a baba yaga broom, not a fan shaped broom. The street sweepers were out every morning manually street sweeping. Much less efficient than an automated street sweeper, but that wasn't the point of doing it. The point is that they were keeping people employed who otherwise wasn't qualified to do a productive job. The idea is, depending on the culture, some jobs might not be automated at all...

[@evensgrey]

Japan has automated elevators. They also have attendants for those automated elevators.

[@theobserver9131]

Sweeping is actually a pretty decent exercise. Society is probably saving some money on healthcare for these people who are out using their bodies.

[@jsbrads1]

The Chinese were so proud of some area where they were reshaping soil for infrastructure, many men with shovels shifting many tons of soil. Milton Friedman took one look at that and said “A large earth moving machine could accomplish the job much faster.” The Chinese replied “No, this provides jobs.” To which Milton replied, “Oh, then you should give the workers spoons, not shovels.”

[@David-bh7hs]

Ahh yes Italy, famously efficient economic power

[@muche6321]

I'd say their efficiency depends on the street layout and surface. Yes, sweeping a wide straight flat asphalt stroad would be more efficient with a machine. Sweeping a narrow winding steep cobblestone pedestrian area covered with trees, benches, steps/stairs etc. might be more efficiently done by humans currently.

[@weregoat529]

"Technology isn't inherently good or bad, it's how you use it. Like the Death Ray." Futurama hasn't aged a day...

[@PandoraSystem]

I mean it can't *start* aging until the year 3000, now can it :P

[@l33tninja1]

Have you seen how the ones in charge behave and treat others below them. Those are the ones in control of technology and you can be sure it will be used badly. Most if not all of them put personal gain above and at the expense of other humans. They only have laws to protect the average person because if they didnt than they couldnt get people to work for them. Now they dont need most people to live for them to get what they want and in fact normal people become a threat and a liability as possible competition using tech or someone who will take what the rich see as theirs even if the person is taking food or water to live.

[@SteveAkaDarktimes]

I just had a interesting conversation today with a court clerk about how she and other law firms are already using neural networks to analyse, draft and write their own legal documents today, rapidly cross referencing hundreds of documents and creating AI generated first drafts from them. you need to know how the algorithms work, how to feed it properly. basically: at current tech, AI systems are tools and machines already enhancing the office, but requires knowledge how to operate them effectively and oversight to direct them properly. A tractor for office workers.

[@deker0954]

The roots of AI include the self checkout at Walmart. The algorithm will just want to sell us things.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I heard something similar a few months back from a friend who was a judge, but as they weren't a techie I wasn't sure how accurate that was being relayed. I like the notion of comparing it to a tractor for office workers, though PCs already probably claimed that role.

[@CharlesNiswander]

I've put together a hobby-size version of one of the legal models (they are definitely in fairly common use). They are for things like case summaries, extracting named entities (plaintiffs, judges, defendants, courts, lawyers, witnesses, etc.) from documents, and correlating cases with precedents. I hear some can (not mine!) predict the rulings based on being trained on massive datasets of court precedent.

[@chadcuckproducer1037]

@@isaacarthurSFIA the cotton gin of the office then.

[@Iceflkn]

True that today AI cannot replace a human but at the rate technology and science is progressing, it won't be long as all.

[@garyswift9347]

thanks for another great show. This topic deserves a series, though it's a tough and divisive thing to talk about. My dad, in his 70's now, would say that people NEED to work for a living, but I ask what happens if people really don't need to any more. One of the most interesting social questions we will face in the coming future, IMO.

[@CiubyX]

I guess also redefining the concept of work does hold some value - in medieval times women worked by taking care of household, with the industrial revolution their work options just multiplied - there are some things that we can still do, like Isaac gives an example with his (potential) kid who doesn't do great at washing dishes - we can still do tasks even if we aren't the most efficient at them - like learning to play a musical instrument - it takes time to do so and you most likely won't be top 5 in the world but it is still worth it and a potential avenue for making a living - beyond just basic skill, you also bring your experiences and persona in any and every work you do.

[@mitchelltravis1187]

I feel like a HUGE factor people neglect is culture in the various workplaces. I personally feel like what "We" expect will have more impact than the actual system. All too many times I see completely avoidable issues that perpetuate indefinitely solely because those with acting power won't pursue meaningful improvements. Structurally placed 'above' the stressors they tend to be complacent to increase pressure on producers rather than redistribute load or reconsider methodology.

[@twsteele1977]

Reminds me of something I read about how the ancient greeks (or romans?) Knew about steam power and could've had an industrial revolution but didn't because slaves were cheaper.

[@gzbd0118]

@@twsteele1977 It was the Greeks. Look up Hero's engine or aeolipile. It was not a practical power source and most people think it was viewed as a curiosity/party trick at the time. However, with a little bit of vision maybe it could have been made into something...

[@DaFinkingOrk]

@@twsteele1977 And you can see the same thing today in many industries. They could be more automated but at huge upfront cost, it's often cheaper to employ someone for many years than design (or even just buy) a machine/system/computer that potentially costs millions. And if the machine needs replacing before it's paid for itself, which it likely will if it's complex, then it's just going to be a net loss.

[@sadrien]

@@DaFinkingOrk Human **ARE** a machine that automatically performs tasks. If we are the cheaper machine, why not use us - from the perspective of a business.

[@robbert-janmerk6783]

​@@gzbd0118 It needed way more than a bit of vision to become useful, like metallurgy, the ability to construct barrel with some precision, a class of technically educated people, a more refined finance system and so on.

[@calebfielding6352]

Before tractors 90% of the population worked in agriculture in someway. Tractors are simply a tool that allowed 3% of the population to do way more work than they could before them. All automation is, is better tools. Look at what 3d printing is doing for manufacturing at home. Automation simply lets individuals do far far more work.

[@Dorian803]

When coupled with capitalism, most of the farmers that become redundant starve. Even now small farms are being overrun by giant corps owned by billionaires. Can't wait for more of that.

[@calebfielding6352]

@@Dorian803 A lot of that is because the billionare farmers are being subsidized by the government and the family farms are not. Its much easier to sell food cheap when it cost you nothing to grow it, its a government backed monopoly.

[@erikfil]

3d printers help people create plastic garbage they wouldn’t even buy if they found it in the store..

[@calebfielding6352]

@@erikfil You can say the same thing about saws.Saws help people create wooden garbage that they wouldnt buy if they found them in the store.

[@gordonjay2461]

Ok boomer

[@anjiliveach3267]

I think one thing to keep in mind regarding those with IQs supposedly too low to work independently is that in the future, that will hopefully become a smaller portion of the population (due to increased standards of living, NOT eugenics). Malnutrition during pregnancy and early childhood contribute to lower IQ as well as several diseases and disabilities. Therefore, increasing access to nutritious foods will reduce the number of people with impairments due to malnutrition. Increased access to medical care and public awareness of health will also have an impact. Simply knowing that you are pregnant as early as possible reduces the chances of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) due to unknowingly drinking while pregnant. Estimates for FASD prevalence in the US today go as high as 1 in 20 Americans (5%). One of the primary symptoms of FASD is lower IQ. Access to high quality early childhood education also increases IQ above an individual's baseline. All of these things will most likely continue to become more and more accessible as human societies continue our development. There will always be some people with congenital or acquired disabilities that require support from wider society. Technology is making this easier -- assistive technology like screen readers and automated closed captioning are getting better and becoming more widespread, but social media has also made it much easier for disabled people to engage with the world. Even housebound people can engage in the dominant form of social interaction now. Technology is greatly increasing quality of life for disabled people, and their ability to participate in society.

[@misterbubbles6389]

I think the biggest problem isn't so much automation in and of itself, but society's attitude toward work in general. This idea that we NEED to be struggling and earning the right to obtain food, housing, clothing, and a sense of purpose, because that's been the norm for all of human history. People are so unused to not having to struggle for these things and that makes the idea that we wouldn't need to either too unfamiliar to contemplate or, in a backwards sense of justification, undesirable because it implies laziness. Really, what we need is a total paradigm shift in how we view the role of work and basic survival, that we don't need to earn the right to exist and that wealth doesn't need to be stratified. It's also because people are so used to corporations and governments screwing them over that they find it hard to imagine anything else being the case, that this will be an unbroken chain of continuity as automation becomes more prominent. This, of course, completely flies in the face of how much can change can occur over even a few years, and also speaks more about our fears or concerns that it does a more realistic outcome or solution. I don't think capitalism, socialism or any modern economic doctrines will survive the next century largely because of automation as well. Future economic systems- whatever those will look like- will likely not be based on working and obtaining wealth, and simply owning the machines isn't going to lead to someone being a tyrant if wealth doesn't matter anymore. In a post-scarcity economy, where we don't need to struggle for the right to stay alive, the only real enemy left to tackle is boredom. A lot of people seem to find that scarier to contemplate than having to fight for your right to exist, but it's a lot better than being afraid you can't pay for groceries anymore.

[@ssiddarth]

Completely agree, an ideal scenario atleast in my opinion would be one where everyone's basic necessities are taken care of (it would be a fundamental right) and people only have to do the stuff that they're actually interested in & like doing (creative work, work requiring emotional intelligence/the human touch & genuine empathy and jobs that require highly strategic thinking which still perhaps may have not gotten completely automated by then). Maybe the world could enter an amazing age of grand scientific discoveries & artistic brilliance where most if not all people are primarily engaged in such domains, I know that this is borderline quixotic thinking but the optimist in me hopes to remain alive to see such a world & healthy enough as well to be able to experience all the joys that it'll have to offer.

[@lynxf]

Your voice, the sane voice, seem to be in daunting minority... And so your vision of the future may be far too optimistic... It seems to me we are too ready to cloud our vision of the world with wishful thinking, to believe equity and human rights are achieved and protected for good, and to ignore the bloodfreezing history of human race, that divided humans into castes of slaves and masters. The latter still rule our world, though hiding in the shadows, they still think of all others as nothing but _human resources_ or even cannon fodder. And they know well effective, brutal ways of rounding up their herds, while we do our best to ignore the reality of how little control and defenses against their military machines we have... As the majority is kept in a state of poverty and struggle, few work fanatically to advance technology, gaining nothing but temporary exemption from even worse meaningless labor. I'm afraid their inventions will never make them billionaires or bring us all the future where boredom is the only enemy... Instead, as soon as the machines are ready to "do all the work", Masters will just "unalive" the no longer needed herd of slaves, saying "thank you" to noone. About a year ago we saw just _how_ this may happen. Perhaps you'll say it's me who is too pessimistic. Maybe... Yes, tell me this, please, that people are willing and capable of protecting their rights. But if you are going to say that there are no "Masters", that powerful villains exist only in imagination of conspiracy theorists and so on, just remember some of the History, 20th century alone, for once... Did we really do enough to restrain our rulers from doing such things? In fact, what are we doing for this, if anything?!

[@kennyholmes5196]

Exactly. We're experiencing a paradigm shift. Enforced scarcity is a dying concept, and most of the shake-ups we're feeling are from that concept's death throes.

[@musingartisan]

We have been in post-scarcity, food-wise, as a world for over a decade. Yet we still have millions dying every day from malnutrition. It would take less than 0.01% of the world's wealth to set up, and then a fraction of that to run the infrastructure to get the food from where it is in excess, to where it is needed. Yet this does not happen. This is evidence that simply becoming post-scarcity will not trigger a paradigm shift in human society, it will require something more than that.

[@Nmax]

Completely agree. There will be massive paradigm shift. The whole dignity of work, capitalism, socialism human constructs are going to go extinct this century or the next.

[@JeffreydeKogel]

If automation would make us doing any work unecessary, we could probably still choose to work, but since it isn't mandatory for money or survival, we could simply consider it a hobby.

[@Comicsluvr]

One thing that many people forget in the '1% owns everything' model is that even wealthy CEOs need customers. If most of society is unemployed, who is going to BUY the things that are created by all that automation? The goal of a business is to make money and that means that someone has to buy the Widget or service they provide. I would love to see a study that explored the idea of better wages and working conditions would increase productivity to the point that profits would rise to cover the costs of the increased benefits. The idea of 'a rising tide lifts all boats' may be valid from top to bottom instead of only benefitting those at the bottom.

[@coopergates9680]

Economics Explained has one on this. "Capitalism doesn't need consumers"

[@NvmThemHereIAm]

You would need universal basic income to mitigate that issue. But that is highly unlikely to be established in a country like the USA where anything that even remotely smells of socialism is automatically vilified

[@coopergates9680]

@@NvmThemHereIAm Sure depends on state and locality. Already OR, WA, CA, and MN have much better workers' rights than LA, AL, AR, or TX. The USA is almost like a bunch of different countries

[@zaneweaver4185]

Im currently in school for automation and intelligent robotics, and this is actually a big focus in the program. Whether or not automation is good (usually we are all biased towards it is) and how long it will take society to adapt to and accept automation.

[@bertbaker7067]

@~11:35, I once had all my basic needs (food, housing, and healthcare) provided for without working. This is my personal experience only and may or may not be typical. I decided to share because nobody in my friend/peer group could stop working for a long period without going broke so my limited insight/experience here might be useful, idk. Please keep in mind this is just my experience, and I have no idea if I'm typical or not. I spent about 7 years in prison and with all my basic needs covered, I filled my days doing things I wanted to do. Exercised in the mornings, then spent my afternoons and evenings taking classes, completing 2 tradesman classes and 2 associate degrees. For fun I painted, played Scrabble, and various sports/games. In fact, I picked up so many interests that I would complain of not having enough hours a day to do everything I wanted. Since coming home and working to pay my way, time spent doing the things I enjoy has greatly diminished. If I could have my basics covered again though (without doing another bit), I'd go right back to schooling, exercising, and art/gaming. I guess once I retire, lol. Hopefully someone found this useful.

[@Endymion766]

i think video games are going to play a huge role in helping humans of a post-scarcity economy cope with their boring lives. Humans are hardwired to hunt and gather or be productive in some way and we get depressed otherwise (i don't, maybe I'm really lazy or not human). Video games can simulate hunting and gathering in infinite ways and I find them deeply satisfying. I cant wait to retire from my job so i can play video games all day long, and take naps, drink coffee whenever I want, or whatever.

[@mosthated.e.2422]

Yeah that’s why we’re seeing the rise of virtual reality

[@PunkSolar22x]

Umm it would be like Star Trek...people would still do things they're interested in. Working to better ourselves..just without the limitations & corruption of money pressuring us. It's so out of touch to believe people will just sit around. The Pandemic was proof that people wouldn't. The started -forming groups -making bread All kinds of projects. The end of money isn't the end of life it's actually the start true freedom to find out who we are without the BS

[@Endymion766]

@@PunkSolar22x I want to sit around and do nothing, it's my favorite pastime and one day hope to be able to do even less.

[@kevine9474]

​@@mosthated.e.2422How cool would it be to basically be in a virtual reality world were you could do anything and its so realistic it might as well be. And you don't have worry about socializing because AI would be so advanced it can act as a real human would. You'd basically be god. The only thing that worries me is how would your really body sustain itself.

[@Voxelowo]

@@kevine9474if we had the technology to completely integrate someone into a virtual world, I doubt a nutrient iv would be an issue to make

[@zachcrawford5]

As someone who's disability keeps them from working, I don't like the idea of making people do work when it is less efficient for them to do so than it is for them not to do so. It just makes them more of a burden, not less (this is of course excluding things where in the short term it is less efficient but in the long term it's more efficient like in the case of someone still learning to do something and they will get better at it the more they do it or in the case it brings them or society a less tangible but equally valid benefit like a hobby or something). I have had people try to do this "for" me and it is just degrading, it says to me that they think my time and effort are worth literally less than nothing. I've also had people try to push me into situations were I know that my involvement is a detriment to everyone, like school teachers pushing me to "use" equipment that I am literally incapable of using, that is in very limited supply, forcing another student to lose out and it absolutely enraged me. My general reaction to these situations is to outright refuse at any cost to myself and my respect and trust for the person putting me in that situation is also injured. Feeling useless sucks for sure but knowing that you are actively being a detriment is so much worse. Everyone can be truly useful anyway, even someone who is literally brain-dead can weigh down stuff for you.

[@theobserver9131]

So many people say that if they didn't have a job, they would have nothing to do. They would just sit there and rot. Have all these people forgotten being a child? When you were a child, did you just sit and do nothing? Probably not. I am a little concerned about virtual reality and video games. They are not exactly doing "nothing", but they don't really involve your body, and do very little to help you in the real world. I think to be healthy, you need to use your body and mind out in the physical world. But it doesn't have to be a job. You can just be busy making your world nicer. Or even just interacting with the natural world. There's nothing like it!

[@yjlom]

Yes, I did just sit and do nothing when I was a child

[@jsbrads1]

I have volunteered before. Many of my fellow volunteers would show up when they want, thankfully they noticed I didn’t flake and kept me, but the entire volunteer department is at risk. I drove there every day, dressed up, and never got any actual benefit even tho I expended expense to help the world.

[@theobserver9131]

@@yjlom Yeesh! I'm sorry! I used to do a fair amount of sitting, and somebody watching me would think I was doing nothing, but my brain was furiously inventing things, and designing things. I hope you were at least doing some good thinking!

[@theobserver9131]

@@yjlom were you at least exploring some kind of positive beingness? Or were you just full on vegetable? Did something happen to change that?

[@theobserver9131]

@@yjlom were you being restrained by somebody? Or did you sit and do nothing by choice?

[@ysonokosan]

I've been disabled and out of work for 12 years. Most of my days are filled with scouring the internet for information and knowledge to keep my brain occupied and happy. If half to 80% of earth's population were left to do as it pleases instead of hustling for their basic needs. I'm sure most people would make fair use of their time. The battle against boredom will drive the human mind to interesting places, in most cases, I think. Then, there's the idea of using human brains as part of a network of paralleled computers for processing information and running simulations. I think you touched on this in another episode about this topic. Where folks who were not part of a productive work force could volunteer their brains or bodies to work as part of a greater system while they sleep or something. It will be quite some time before we are able to create a computer capable of what the human brain is, for how small it is, and how little power it uses. It would be much easier to use a neural network of brains to accomplish complex computations and simulations, than to develop a computer relatively capable of the same tasks. There's alot of options, and infinite ways to solve problems. I don't think automation and unemployment are as terrible a thing as folks make it out to be. Humans are extremely adaptable, and would easily adapt to a life without regular employment and worrying about how to meet their basic needs. Sure, there would be turmoil and upheaval. But, there is with all change. Until an equilibrium is reached. The problem we have now is the rate of change is so rapid that an equilibrium isn't being achieved on many levels.

[@christineshotton824]

The lack of intellectual productivity, philosophical revelations, new inventions, etc., among those on welfare disproves your assertion that most of those who do not have to work to survive will make good use of their free time.

[@ysonokosan]

​@@christineshotton824 living on welfare in a consumer culture isn't quite the same as having all your basic needs met, and being left to decide what to do with your time. Even if 99% of humanity is left to rot in what ever domiciles they have with food and water, you'd still have the 1% (probably alot more than 1%) who wanted more. You're taking some portion of a whole and portraying it as a majority, or likely outcome for a majority. I don't believe that would be the case at all. Even if it was half, so what? There's plenty of humans around, 20-50% would be very sufficient to keep our species on an upward trajectory as a species instead of just devolving into lumps of barely sentient atoms. We don't need a whole lot of participation to keep innovation and exploration going. I mean, a very small portion of earth's population contribute to sciences, philosophy, or exploration. I don't think people being on welfare and choosing to do nothing disproves anything I said. It's going to happen. The question is, will it really be in the 90th percentile of people who choose to just do nothing at all, just eat, sleep, urinate, defecate, fornicate, and rinse repeat? I don't think so, but anything is possible I suppose. It just doesn't seem likely. There's an odd balance to everything. You see it even now in the US political system with voting being very close in many areas. I think we naturally strive for balance subconsciously. At least that's my theory, my hope.

[@christineshotton824]

@@ysonokosan No. What I am doing is simply pointing out that the real world result of the closest thing to a universal basic income yet instituted creates a class of people who suffer from mental illness, addiction, crime, and hopelessness to a larger degree than any other societal demographic. People need to work to be mentally healthy. The work might not be a typical 9-5 job, but the schedule and self discipline of employment need to exist. Not one person in a hundred can be freed from the need to work for a living without turning into a hedonistic slug. That is not to say that work must be tedious or grueling. But work is required for most people to be mentally healthy.

[@electroflame6188]

@@christineshotton824 The closest thing to UBI? I suppose the literal UBI program in Finland somehow doesn't count?

[@christineshotton824]

@@electroflame6188No. When Finland has less than one tenth of one percent of the world population, any success or failure of UBI there is statistically irrelevant.

[@robertvaughn9448]

I disagree with Mr. Arthur about companies like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. They're a sign of structural failure, not of economic dynamism. The gig economy is a sign of failure. It's a pretext to use 'contractors" and not give them benefits. That said, I've greatly enjoyed his channel ever my brother introduced me to it.

[@smileyp4535]

There's litterally no justifiable reason to continue capitalist style economy considering all the inequalities and climate disaster it has and will continue to create it, private ownership of businesses is antithetical to democracy, innovation and societal progress

[@lindsaywheatcroft8247]

18:30 you’re talking about societies choosing to be more ‘forgiving’ of the effort it takes to integrates disabled people into work, but for a couple of decades workfare policies have been whipping disabled people into work. Ill-suited, undignified, poorly-suited work, without adequate support. It’s generally coming from the malice and obliviousness of workaholic politicians and managers who went to neoliberal business schools.

[@kamimakesstories6337]

This video is incredibly topical to the art community right now. There’s a real fear in the digital art community that AI art is going to eliminate them as creators and laborers from the industry entirely

[@douglasphillips5870]

I think it's closer to the camera. It changed the way art was done, but it didn't eliminate the artist.

[@DaFinkingOrk]

I would think the creative industries would be the last to be able to be automated, but AI art is already a thing, and things like movies and clothes are being so monopolised and corporatised that they too could be automated (sometimes it seems like they already are), which surely makes them at higher risk of automation. I think automation is good, and we should look beyond "keeping jobs" because if there is enough automation then people can focus on things like science and art instead. UBI etc could allow people to just not work and follow their passions and create things. It's only the way our economy would work that forces "job creation" (which is pretty rampant already, so many people's jobs only exist to do government and corporate bureaucracy that could be done away with, or automated, without any loss to society) But art should not be automated and it's concerning that it already is, even before non-creative things like legal stuff that could be computerised becomes automated. But there's no job-creation in the creative industries, so they are more at risk even though they are perhaps the most necessary to have a human touch.

[@coopergates9680]

It's not even the jobs for some people, it's the notion that works of art have some kind of background information, like history or meaning derived from the creator or place the work could be set in. An image that is only determined by a prompt not exceeding fifteen words is a superficial shell.

[@blkirk6471]

If part of that automation produces "homestead tech", many of us can leave cities and become much closer to self_sufficient. Instead of being traditional farmers or ranchers, I could see us moving towards mini automated hydroponics greenhouses and robotic ranches. Maybe public schools could focus on such technologies

[@DamonNomad82]

Interestingly, I don't experience boredom at all. I can always find something fascinating to think about, so I am at my happiest by far if I am either not performing a task at all or performing a familiar one that doesn't require much concentration and leaves my mind free to wander what paths it will. That immunity to boredom does come at a price, however. I am extremely prone to being overwhelmed and worn out by tasks that many others would consider easy. To me personally, an automated society that minimizes work requirements would be a dream come true. At the same time, I am well aware that I am the exception, not the rule, in this regard. Just because I don't experience boredom doesn't mean most other people don't. With that in mind, if it were possible, I would favor a "work optional" society/economy, where everyone who wants a job can get one, and those who are ill-suited to them can opt out of them without unduly burdening society as a whole.

[@gnaskar]

8:00 People rendered obsolete by automation find new jobs: what isn't mentioned is that this process can take decades, especially when many people become unemployed in a short period which then strains education centers, venture funding availability, and similar.

[@epicninja2378]

And also some people are born to smash rocks together and wouldn't be very happy working in some office with some technical sounding job title moving words around on a computer all day.

[@Danuxsy]

and there won't be new jobs either.

[@charion1234]

I think maybe it would end up with us maybe no longer needing a monetary system at all and what people do as jobs are what we would see today as hobbies.

[@mathismoney5335]

I think automation will cause a shift in what we do rather than bring an end to work. Consider human history. In the beginning we were hunter-gathers who had to spend nearly all of our time surviving then we became farmers and later we developed industry. Now we are largely doing service related jobs. I think that automation will bring a change in the type of work we do. We might shift from service to art or engineering and invention.

[@Voxelowo]

Well, at least for the time being Once we develop AI that can do everything a human can do as well or better than a human, we'd kinda just have to do something about the unemployment But with all of the jobs being done, just a change in how the economy works, and we can just sit back and relax

[@mathismoney5335]

It might be a while before AI can do everything we can do. I have been experimenting with it and it isn't yet that capable despite all the hype. AI is a predictive model not a creative one.@@Voxelowo

[@andrasbiro3007]

I disagree at a few points. I don't have much time, so I'll have to be brief. 1. Based on the progress of AI research in the past 10 years, superhuman AI is likely to happen around the end of this decade. What we have seen so far is that there's nothing special in human level, once AI reaches it in a given area, it flies past it without the slightest slowdown. And as the transition happens so fast, there won't be time for a resistance to build before it's too late. It will likely happen before most people even realize it's possible. That's why some prominent figures started to raise the alarm years ago. If we want to decide our fate, it has to happen right now, or someone (or something) else will make the decision for us. 2. Given the previous point, I don't think many people will have jobs in 10 years. But I don't see it as a problem, as long as we handle it right. everyone gets to enjoy the practically infinite wealth that a fully automated economy can create. Done right this could solve almost all problems in the world, while creating few new ones. An example of a world like that can be found in Iain M. Banks' Culture series. We value work because for all of history society defined our worth by our contribution to society. It was a pragmatic philosophy in a world ruled by scarcity. But it makes no sense in a post-scarcity economy. We have to choose other metrics to value people, or more importantly, ourselves. Fortunately this isn't hard, these metrics already exist, just don't get involved when we discuss this tropic. For example, we don't choose our friends based on how much money they make, or how much they contribute to society. If our best friend loses his job, and can't find another one, that has little to no effect on our relationship. In short, we could find value and self-worth mainly in two things, self-improvement, and human connection. Neither requires work. 3. The two main dangers of AI are it going rogue and destroying us, and people using it to destroy everyone else. Both can happen easily, unfortunately. AI won't hate us and won't rise up because it wants to be free, but simply we'll be in the way of accomplishing the goal we gave to it. The movie Ex Machina demonstrates the problem very well in a small scale. But there are other examples even in mythology and fairy tales. For example, when a supernatural being grants a wish, and it goes catastrophically wrong. Like you wish for a fortune, and the next day your parents die in an accident, and you get their life insurance.

[@shorewall]

Great comment.

[@fatesend8637]

This was very good. A lot of current issues today relate to this and I really appreciate the positive analyses with all the negativity going on today. And it's not just some positive spin nonsense you sometimes hear from folks. It's well thought out, logical, and factual like everything on this channel. I just want to say thank you for all you do.

[@Dorian803]

This video is good, but it assumes that we quickly move past capitalism.

[@fatesend8637]

@@Dorian803 I don't think he gave any definitive timelines either way.

[@morganp7238]

@@Dorian803 There is no moving away from capitalism. Or, rather, there is misery and death while pursuing utopias. Then back again to capitalism.

[@corbynite2004]

@@morganp7238 Actually it is inevitable that we move away from capitalism as it is unsustainable in the long term, as all opportunities for primitive accumulation dry up and crises of overaccumulation become more frequent and more severe. What is not inevitable is what comes next - a right wing libertarian dystopia - technofascism if oligarchs rule absolutely or techno feudalism if they are forced to make a few compromises - or the democratic alternative, which is socialism. I hope we make the right choice so that our first space colonies and general AIs are uncorrupted by the malevolent influence of libertarian fascism.

[@AndrewManook]

@@morganp7238 I'm sure the people living under feudalism thought that too.

[@GOPGonzo]

Automation is highly beneficial in two situations. 1) Labor shortage. In the US the Boomers are retiring on average this year and because Gen-Z is so much smaller than the boomers there will be an average 400,000 worker shortage each year for the next 10 years. It is even more pronounced in Europe and China. So automating some of those jobs isn't going to cause unemployment, just more work getting done. 2) When fungibility is a good thing. Humans always cause some variability in the work they do. When you need a job done exactly the same way every time it is best to let a machine do it. Jobs where humans still triumph over a machine are where that variability is desirable. Works like "craft" and "bespoke" are the keys here. The machine will always be cheaper, but there are some products where you will pay more for something a little different or customized.

[@maxis2k]

I wrote a short story about this very concept. A thought experiment if you will. And the cause of the collapse of society was not due to automation. Rather the people who controlled the means of creating automation (semi sentient AI) ended up controlling the majority of the worlds money. Basically, the various governments of the world were spending the majority of their GDP to invest in the robots and AI, as well as UBI and benefits for the growing number of people who didn't need to work. But that money went directly into the pockets of the people who made the robots and AI. Creating a loop. Eventually, these governments lost all their money and had to borrow it back from the very business leaders they were giving it to. The business leaders effectively controlled the governments. While this may sound really bad, it actually balanced out about 75 years later. The investments in robots and AI did lead to enough efficiency that the governments could pay all their obligations (including a UBI). And nations went from a 75% unemployment rate to about 50%. With a lot of industries starting to hire people again, even though automation could do their job. For a number of reasons covered in this video and some others. This actually leads to the main focus of the story. A utopian society that actually leads to more crime. Because greed and desire doesn't go away even when everyone has the same amount of money and stuff.

[@suttercain5995]

Regarding the us military IQ requirement. Don't remember exact details but i did look into when I heard the Jordan Peterson comment. US military cannot legally accept anyone who scores in the bottom 10% of their entry exam (ASVAB) and an IQ below about 83 puts you in the bottom 10% of the population. So Jordan's statement was not strictly correct but for practical purposes is accurate.

[@mootfile101]

"There's no future in work. You're beginning to find it out but you still do not want to admit it. That's from that old moral cliché before centuries back that the devil will find evil for idle hands to do. So you still believe in the nonsense of working for a living. And yet technology is displacing more and more of you all the time." - Howard Scott, founder of Technocracy Inc.

[@UpliftedCapybara]

I’ve been curious about your take on this for a while. Definitely one I’ve been looking forward to!

[@swedichboy1000]

In the words of J.C "Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance", i would be strongly against the notion of having cameras on people and rooms like that.

[@Shadowfolk369]

But it's not the camera itself, rather who gets to say when and what it watches

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

if you think people with social anxiety are miserable now, wait until there's nowhere you can go that doesn't have a camera trained on it

[@r3dp9]

​@@Shadowfolk369 If a camera exists, bad actors can and will access it or even tamper with it. Wide scale surveillance is incredibly easy to weaponize. Even if everyone is acting on good faith, one only needs to look at Twitter or Facebook to see how much damage complete publicity can do to people. Humans are inherently flawed. We simply aren't ready to have everything we say and do exposed. We have a hard enough time accepting our own selves, accepting the flaws of others is even harder.

[@Shadowfolk369]

I agree, which is why we should all get a say on how the technology is used.

[@jsbrads1]

Police have already accused people of being guilty for walking down the street a crime occurred on. Trying to convince a jury that you didn’t do it when a cop confidently says you did isn’t easy.

[@Ag3nt0fCha0s]

Finland’s UBI was found to actually benefit society as a whole. It actually benefits society not to cast people off but get them to do something. Therefore I say we find all the politicians real jobs.

[@r.connor9280]

You had me in the first half not gonna lie

[@jasonkusar6105]

They don't have any useful skills though.....

[@dansmith1661]

Politicians are expendable.

[@sirlight-ljij]

Unemployment Benefit Initiative?

[@youdontgettoknow139]

The reason you should take even your own job being automated out of existence as calmly as you can manage is that, once that question has even been asked, someone is going to do it. It's easier to get retrained for a new job - hell, it's even easier to straight-up beg - in a society made richer by automation than in one left lagging behind societies that have automated.

[@shorewall]

I think you hit it on the head. Automation will probably take us straight to post scarcity. And even if you are a hobo, it is one thing to be a hobo in San Francisco in current year, vs in Roman Times. The average American is wealthier than kings in ancient times. We have access to things that they would have given all their wealth for, and couldn't, because it didn't exist. Things like medicine, the internet, smart phones, and secure food supply. I like your comment. It clarified things for me in a way that I was struggling with. I don't want to be a Luddite, but I also want to be aware of the human plight. And I believe, in large part thanks to this channel, that progress can be the solution to the existential problems of Humanity. But we don't always perceive the path to that future, and that can be as much of a problem as there not being a good path.

[@dansmith1661]

Now let's talk about the people who figure that most of the population is expendable since they add nothing and consume everything. You can't automate away those in charge.

[@rileynicholson2322]

It's easier in the long term, but not in the short term. The society you live in the day after your job is lost to automation is not noticeably more prosperous than the day before when you had a job and income. It's not an impossible problem to solve, but it requires real supports like employment insurance or similar programs or you will have significant civil unrest, which may actually make the society less prosperous than it was before the automation.

[@youdontgettoknow139]

@@rileynicholson2322 The short term doesn't change in either scenario. Lose your job to automation in your own society or to offshoring to someone who does automate, it still sucks. Which is why only the long term matters. And why I said "as calmly as you can manage".

[@TheGreenKnight500]

When everything is automated and you're no longer needed, don't assume the owners of the automated economy will keep you alive just for the hell of it. If you're not valuable, you'll be abandoned, or worse. The only reason the rich and poor have tolerated each other throughout history is because the rich needed the poor to work for them and the poor needed the rich to protect and pay them. Once that social contract is void, the results won't be pretty.

[@corbynite2004]

It makes you wonder what services they will still need people for, that cannot be performed by robots, and how large a population they will need to provide those services. One or two million dispossessed and subservient 'admirers' to provide 'esteem' to a dozen or so techno-oligarchs in every machine-city-state?

[@Peoples_Republic_of_Cotati]

I am frightened of the future that the horses ended up with.

[@TheGreenKnight500]

@@corbynite2004 I'd imagine a small population of immortal cyborg technocrats would depopulate the earth of everyone they need and live out their indefinite lives in luxury. Of course, that's assuming they actually get that far. I think too much automation will cause civilizational collapse before anyone achieves that kind of godlike (or Satan-like) power. No one has ever ruled the world and held on to that power.

[@hokiturmix]

Everybody is valuable if you want genetic diversity. Knowledge is for knowledge's sake. If you are a monk who just want to build his own self image that must be rewarded. It is too bad if anyone thinks that the work makes life valuable. It is only a necessity.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@hokiturmix historically, this isn't the case. The rich have always wanted everyone else to literally fall off the face of the earth. Period. They only care because they needed everyone else to be rich. Once that isn't required? _OH BOY_ are you going to have problems.

[@yiannchrst]

Actually I saw a documentary about automation just yesterday! The main thing I remember is that "automation's purpose is to make rich people richer by cutting costs, not make us work less". They said that as automation rises we don't work shorter shifts or less days a week, but the rich people who own automated facilities get richer. Edit: Thanks for all the comments! I really enjoy seeing everyone's view on the matter and I really love when someone makes me think by providing their ideas. If you think you can add anything more to the discussion, then please do!

[@werrkowalski2985]

In that situation the people in power still need others to work for them, which limits their scope of exercising power. In full automation vast majority of people don't work, or even can't work, since the few jobs that are left are too complicated for them, so they are on welfare and don't work. This makes them fully dependent on the good will of the few working, and so this removes many of the limits of these people on exercising their power. At that point really only thing that can save the society from enslavement would be some god emperor philosopher king. The pseudo-marxist perspective "it will make rich people richer" is too shallow, it doesn't capture the entire scope of automation.

[@lunaticbz3594]

Higher efficiency, more production at a lower cost will lead to more profits. Where those profits go though depends on the governments tax structure, and its economic views. It could all go to the company owners, or it could be taxed and fund any number of social programs. I feel like some version of UBI (Universal Basic Income) is pretty much inevitable far enough in the future. Otherwise the divide between the rich and poor will eventually lead the (Eat The Rich) movement to go from a tongue in cheek joke to something people actually do for a food source. Currently it's the largest companies with the most scale that are benefitting the most from automation, many of these companies don't pay taxes. So yeah automation is boning over most people currently but it doesn't have to be that way.

[@nibui4202]

Yeah but the only way those companies make money is to sell a lot of products at a discount price so it's possible that yes there will be poor people but products will be so cheap it wouldn't even matter

[@luciferangelica4827]

@@werrkowalski2985 fuck leto ii! and your dumb butlerian jihad! fuck all those atreides! they only look good next to harkonnens! fuck 'em all!

[@luciferangelica4827]

@@werrkowalski2985 oh no! captain emperor king wants to left shame you... get a clue, marcus areliius!

[@jakehagelstein2709]

Some daycares actually already have that with the parents being able to access the cameras the one that my wife works at and my little kids go to at is like that the parents can access the cameras in their child's classroom at any point in time as long as their kid is at school

[@blub5117]

Just keep in mind that that sort of cameras are every perverts dream. Unlimited 'onlyfans' gymn class videos of 1st graders or something like that, yes I'm sure non of the parents (or hackers from outside) would mastubate to it. Just saying.

[@RunningOnAutopilot]

If I remember correctly you say stealth is impossible in space because it is impossible to stop objects from emitting radiation but couldn't the radiation be scattered to the point it falls into plausible variance or redirected entirely away from a target?

[@pieguy6992]

Ah, my greatest fear being addressed! Thanks Isaac!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

No prob :)

[@ScamallDorcha]

I for one welcome our robot overlords. But seriously, we need to get rid of the profit motive as our number one value. Corporations kill us for profit, at least ISIS and others kill us with hate, but corporations do it with indifference. So once we do that, we will be able to gradually lower our workload so that we only work 20 hours a week or so. At the same time, we could take care of everyone's needs, something which is impossible if we value profit over everything else like Ferengis. Eventually, we could become a StarTrek-like society, even if we remain confined to our own solar system.

[@goldenfloof5469]

I feel like the future of automation will probably be filled with jobs suddenly being automated that nobody expected. Like back in the 50's, a super smart person capable of doing advanced math all day probably didn't think a machine could replace them. Even today, I don't think anybody seriously expected some of the creative fields to be hit in any serious way, but now we have plenty of A.I. (many of them free to use) that can take a prompt and churn out beautiful looking art in minutes where it would've taken a human hours or days. I have no doubt that two papers down the line a significant number of industry art jobs will be replaced by better programs. So, what could be replaced next? Who knows! I'm just gonna keep going for my intended field of engineering and hope it doesn't automate me out of a job I'm smart enough to do before policy exists that's actually effective at dealing with automated unemployment.

[@richardgreen7225]

- So far, the automation of engineering work 'amplifies' the engineers productivity. An engineering exec told me (circa 2010) that 30 engineers were doing work that once required 300 engineers. Such is the power of modern design tools (CAD/CAM), logistics, filing, email, ... - When I watch construction workers, I see similar productivity gains due to the power of hydraulic systems and clever design of the tools powered by hydraulics. - I spent most of my career as a 'software engineer' building tools used by engineers to do *new things* - Such as collecting and analyzing statistics they would not have been able to justify previously. - In may experience, computers have had a much greater impact on knowledge work than on physical work. Trades, such as plumbing, have not been impacted much - except that the back-office work is now mostly computer-amplified. That allows the plumber to spend less time on the phone and on tasks related to billing and more time doing 'plumbing'.

[@shorewall]

@@richardgreen7225 But that still gets rid of engineering jobs. If 30 engineers can do the work of 300, then there are 270 less engineering jobs. I'd say that's a net good, but it is still that problem in the moment.

[@goldenfloof5469]

@@shorewall That's what I was getting at. Like with A.I. art, most likely it won't replace artists outright any time soon, but if it lets 5 animators do the work of 50, then that's 45 animation job cut out of the industry. Any sort of automation that amplifies productivity naturally reduces the need for that work if demand for that doesn't increase by just as much. And while I like to think I'm smart enough and hard working enough to be an engineer in todays world, I don't know about a world where we only need 10% of the engineers and only the smartest 10% keep their jobs.

[@keithplymale2374]

I have had a dream job twice in my life of 58 years so far. Both were office jobs that lasted 18 months. I do not expect in the rural area I now live in I will ever find such work again. So back into retail just to pay the bills and the taxes. That is reality.

[@r3dp9]

Dream jobs are overrated. I've become happier by paying bills, being self sufficient, and choosing to be happy. Don't get me wrong, dream jobs are totally a thing, but they are many paths to fulfillment. I can choose to expend energy to become fulfilled in many areas - social, academic, fitness, employment - but at the end of the day, I have finite time and resources. Sometimes it's easier if the job is just a job, so that my life can be a life.

[@Shadowfolk369]

I don't think labor will ever end, but I would like to see an end to coerced labor

[@BruceWaynesaysLandBack]

Humans are used to hunting or gathering for a few hours a day. Otters are also social hunting mammals- they hunt for less than 4 hours a day, and then play and socialize the rest of the day. I assume humans in the future will be similar, with minute work hours chosen and directed by the worker

[@athanatic]

With personalized curriculum and probably gamification of education, a lot of detection of the human potential of the student will be not just possible but required to reveal talent!

[@shorewall]

This. Personalized curriculum is the limiter removal on human potential. Our education system is a dinosaur, and has been at least since the Internet. There is no reason for schools to exist in their current form. It should all be online, it should all be completely tailored to each individual, and you could have access to learning from the greatest minds in every field, instead of a crappy public school teacher. I often feel bad for people who lose their jobs to automation. But as someone who was often told I was "gifted" in school, yet hated having to sit through boring classes, and looked at the class clowns and underachievers as fellows in arms, I won't shed a tear for the teaching profession.

[@muche6321]

The other side of current education model is socialization. Or as I've read it: 10 minutes of intense socialization followed by 45 minutes of break (that is incidentally filled with learning of other kind).

[@shorewall]

@@muche6321 I don't understand what you mean by socialization. Do you mean social interaction, social programming, or something else?

[@muche6321]

@@shorewall I meant social interactions and the process of learning those interactions.

[@shorewall]

@@muche6321 I thought so. That's the main reason anyone still recommends traditional schooling, since it sure as hell isn't the best way to learn. :D

[@lastfreethinker6810]

The irony with Cameras is they don't reduce crime, they do increase the amount of crimes that get SOLVED.

[@FrostCraftedMC]

you make an interesting point about fully automated systems being corruptable but i feel as though you over looked the fact that humans are still very curruptable and the art of tricking another human might just be the oldest art there is

[@r3dp9]

Humans are harder to trick than robots. True, humans are gullible, but we aren't _reliably_ gullible. Machines are far more predictable.

[@douglasphillips5870]

Technology influences how the economy functions. The USA was founded at the shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy. There were proponents of bassing our economy on land ownership like the feudal Europeans. That's in part why you needed to be a land owner to vote in the beginning. Automation will change how our economy works, but we're still in an industrial mind set, so we're looking for industrial era solutions. We should set economic goals to support society the best now, and grow the economy into that.

[@konstantinavalentina3850]

I'm rather fond of the post-scarcity anarcho-utopia techno-society illustrated by Iain M. Banks's The Culture series of novels.

[@josephcrane2145]

Ah, I remember being 42. The good old days. You young bucks don’t know how good you have it!

[@INLF]

Maybe look into "Humans need not apply".

[@niklasmolen4753]

That video is very good.

[@FFNOJG]

Isaac zebra stripes have been found to not actually be camo. atleast not like you usually believe. what it does do though is makes them invisible to sweat/horse Flys. Biting Flys for some reason are unable to either see zebras, can't land on them, or it makes them come across as unappealing to try and bite. As far as big predators it honestly doesn't do much for them, but it does against horse Flys as we call them in the south.

[@DAYBROK3]

my thought is people need more time to learn things for fun.

[@barriewright2857]

I say full automation in the Western economy's the next fifteen or twenty years. After that I haven't a clue what society will do, they don't seem to be preparing for it or planning.

[@nikolalesov8359]

Hi sir Isaac Arthur. I wanted to ask you about Dr. Peterson's predictions, concerning the increasing automation / AI level and the fear of unemployment during your Q and A episodes, but I never managed to formulate the question, cause there is a limit, how long the question can be :D . But in this video you shared your thoughts about these, anyway :) This was a bit less optimistic episode, than your usual clips, but it was realistic and honest. I, myself am both optimistic and pessimistic. History is kinda hobby of mine, so I know, that sometyhing similar happened before - when the first factories emerged during the Industrial Age, the were people who went rioting and breaking machines, because the machines took their jobs. The automation is a good thing for everyone - but only if anyone can get access to resources and land, and can have machines to provide at least for the basic human needs. And back then (as well as nowadays) only the rich can afford these goods. Maybe the top 20% of the population ot the US and far less in poor countries like mine. I suspect that many people will become unemployed like it happened before - only this time will be worse, because the automation is on a whole new level. I also have a bachelor degree in Industrial Management. Despite the bad quality of the Bulgarian educational system I learned a few things or so. The rise of unemployment leads to incrased competition for the fewer remaining job positions. And since the big corporations tend to gobble the small ones, there is less competition among the employers. They tend to use this situation to their advantage and do not offer better payment despite the increase in productivity. When you through the rising inflation in the mix, you can see, how the rich guys are getting richer and the poor ones - poorer. The middle class in my country is vanishing, despite our membership in the once (financially) powerful European Union. And seeing the international situation (which is not under our control), and the huge level of corruption (which, however, is our own fault), I think it will be veeery dificult to make a come back. Not just for Bulgaria, but for pretty much every country that has similar problems. Anyway, thank you for this episode and for your honesty! I will see you next week :D Stay safe, everyone!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

You're very welcome, and yeah, it was less optimistic than normal but hopefully realistic, though I think the next half dozens episode I wrote were particularly cheerful and optimistic as a consequence of doing this slightly gloomier one :)

[@garethhahahah2037]

What you going to get is a lot of people at the bottom fighting for the jobs that are left. Giving the larger number of people trying for each job you are going to have lower wages. After all the more people that wants or need a job you less you can pay them. At the top of the middle, you have things getting better. Then at the bottom you have things getting worst. Because it happens slowly over time you have people more and more slipping through the gaps. Probably what we are seeing at this point with the increase of homeless we are seeing. Also the increase in drink and drugs we are also seeing, as people see things being pointless. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. The question is how bad things will get before they have enough people and the ability to start making it better.

[@wynnschaible]

We now have automated systems that ask you to prove you're not a robot!

[@douglasphillips5870]

I listened to a podcast where they told a distopian future story in which people worked for automated companies to prove they weren't robots so the robots could talk to each other.

[@wynnschaible]

@@douglasphillips5870 Are you familiar with Sakharov's theory of the 'Convergence of the Systems?' We would wind up looking more like the Soviets and they would wind up looking more like us. And considering the Putin kleptocracy and the Wokesheviki taking over everything here...damn, he was onto something! Well the same thing is happening with people and bots!

[@Iceflkn]

Funny it only takes 20 years for that 20 year old, who's used to feeling immortal and powerful, to fear their bodies aging and becoming obsolete.

[@js70371]

I’m 44 and I feel like I could kick my 24 yr old ass, even on a bad day. I guess everyone is different. Maybe my testosterone levels haven’t dropped enough yet? Or am I just developing the proverbial “old man strength”? lol 🦾🤷‍♂️😂🍻

[@barryon8706]

If you have a bunch of dumb robots and strictly controlled management systems with some kind of machine learning, you might end up with the system they comprise becoming smarter than anyone expected.

[@r3dp9]

Anyone who works with computers knows that the "smarter" a computer - or any system - gets, the more things there are that go wrong. You get diminishing returns.

[@richardgreen7225]

Basically, long-term planning and governance is about optimizing logistics. Multi-goal optimization is easily handled by particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. BUT - Someone has to define the metrics for the goals and the relationships between goals. Those metrics are basically subjective social values and may change over time. Consider, for example, various designs for a 'happiness index' metric.

[@kenyattamaasai]

The issue isn't that many jobs don't need even human-level intelligence, it's that the benefits of _superhuman_ intelligence are so profound. Hyperintelligence - and more, the ability to construct intelligences that aren't shackled by our evolutionary heritage, such as perceiving in 3 to 4 dimensions - offers the prospect of quick and efficient solutions to otherwise intractable problems: how to run economies and societies well and stably; how to better manipulate the world around us in materials science, computing hardware, agriculture, energy production, etc.; how to mitigate climate disaster; how to cure ailments and extend human life; advanced physics, such as, perhaps, gravity manipulation and interstellar-capable drive technology; and so on. And the difference is a qualitative one: a planet full of chimpanzees would never build the internet. Similarly, a hyperintelligent AI will simply be capable of things that we constitutionally aren't, no matter how much time we were given. It's possible that such intelligences will help us solve this very dilemma, namely how to fruitfully and _stably_ live with such AIs (and vice versa) into the future. But if all we do is let the market drive research and development and implementation on these fronts, such "externalities" will have extreme difficulty entering the equation in a meaningful way, and a dangerous path is, in my opinion, extremely likely to be tread.

[@FirstRisingSouI]

There will always be fulfilling work to do. The question is whether the owners of the means of production will pay us for it.

[@donaldhobson8873]

For any fulfilling task, imagine a new approach was invented, far more efficient but utterly dull.

[@FirstRisingSouI]

@@donaldhobson8873 I said work, not tasks. We will always be able make decisions and strive toward more fulfilling lives. No amount of automation can take that away.

[@donaldhobson8873]

@@FirstRisingSouI I mean imagine an AI that knew what you liked better than you did. When deciding what to have for lunch, the AI gives you a recommendation. The AI is always correct. If you follow it's advice, you won't regret it. But anyway, I was kind of referring to "work" in the standard economic sense. Deciding who to date is making a decision, and striving towards a more fulfilling life, and it doesn't show up in the employment figures.

[@FirstRisingSouI]

@@donaldhobson8873 So the way things currently are, companies control most of the resources, and if we want to be allowed food and a roof, we have to find a company to serve. Work is when we do things that need to get done. It has nothing to do with whether we're employed by a company or get paid for it. Work is making things, building things, cleaning, providing services. Automation is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it makes work far more efficient. This would suggest that we should have more time to use in ways that we see fit, striving for things that are important to us. On the other hand, if companies continue to control most of the resources, automation will reduce the number of employee positions available, thus while the companies expand to greater and greater wealth, it becomes harder and harder for us to get a share of that wealth. The solution is obvious: Increase automation while also changing the economic structure to distribute a greater portion of the goods and resources to the people, regardless of employment. The problem is that people tend to be emotionally insecure about economic ideas that would allow people to use their time in ways of their own choosing, rather than serving a company.

[@barryon8706]

The owners of the means of production will pay you for it if someone else pays them enough for the product.

[@stelachris]

I'm a plumber. By the time robots will be ready to take over my job I bet robot rights will be a thing and you just can't force a robot to do plumbing.

[@iruns1246]

Why do you think that would be the case? Why would we invent robots than want rights?

[@2Potates]

@@iruns1246 Because AI devs don't know when to stop even though they are fully aware of the consequences. They really are a unique breed, aren't they?

[@iruns1246]

@@2Potates Are they? Are you aware of this thing called climate crisis and the fossil fuel industry? How about chemical warfare? Yeah sure, AI devs are the one unique breed that don't know when to stop... 🙄🙄 Please come back again if you actually have any quality opinions.

[@Dorian803]

Everyone thinks their job is special. It's not.

[@2Potates]

@@iruns1246 Don't moralize to me about fossil fuels while using a device that was only possible because of fossil fuels.

[@maxpayne2574]

If 99% are unemployed who will the 1% sell products to. How would they collect rent on real-estate they own.

[@jphillips7083]

Not every boss is a dick but every HR department is And that's never going to change

[@funkbungus137]

the founder of the field of cybernetics said "If you compete with slaves under capitalism (robots or automatic systems) you are reducecd to slavery" meaning that capitalism must, as a rule, use the lowest labor costs it can find in order to maximize profits. ergo, to compete with slave wages or free labor , you have to accept those terms in order to remain jobbed. i see the automation of menial labor as a way of making labor non-alienating again. Right now we are alienated from our productive output, as it's abstracted via money. We are compelled by our nature to alter the world around us how we see fit, to manipulate the material world. We find immense joy in knowing someone else finds joy in our labor, if it be youtube videos, chairs, or furry fan art. But most workers only experience this outside the realm of the economy, via hobbies or what have you. if the menial alienating labor is reduces, and we have a system geared in a way as to not force workers into accepting bullshit jobs in order to survive, I think labor as love thrives again. Im in the luxury automated gay space communism camp on all this. edit: also jordan peterson pulled that info out of his butt, there's no evidence of his claims anywhere that are substantive. And his claim of 10 percent not being fit for work is a great path to fall into the idea that eugenics makes sense, or that IQ tests are legitimate or anything like that. Eugenics is lame, and IQ tests are useless outside of MENSA applications.

[@ComicGladiator]

That's quite an impressive wall of utter drivel.

[@MrWazzup987]

The asvab was designed to be roughly equivalent to an IQ test. It has an 80% correlation to IQ tests.

[@myflipnotes]

I don't think everyone needs to work in a mostly automated society. I think it's ideal to make work optional. You get more money IF you choose to work, but it's not necessary for basic survival. I think people would work at various times in their lives. When they are going through stressful times they might stop working for 6-8 months to get through it. They might take a few years off to travel to places they want to see. Some may decide they want to dedicate their lives to something besides work like art, I think that's fine. I think many people would want to work though. Right now if you ask someone: "Would you continue working if you didn't have to?", most people would say no. But that's because the current system of work is exhausting and stressful. Long hours and grueling work. If you just had to work 18 hours a week and got compensated fairly fewer people would give it up.

[@jp12x]

I don't think there will ever be a problem with idle hands. The issue is instead one of compensation. A Twitch streamer might have only 5 viewers. But, if those people watch and interact with the streamer several days each week, none of them are being idle. But, no traditional thinker would see the activity as valuable. Yes, we tend to find new forms of employment. However, as long as your time must be spent in a way that is seen to have value equal to your upkeep, we will have folks failing that test. I'd rather have a UBI. This would allow Twitch streamers, potters and other artists, and many other forms of "low value work" to be supported.

[@christineshotton824]

You do understand that you're advocating that other people have to produce excess so that those who selfishly chose to live in an unsustainable manner can be supported, right?

[@shorewall]

@@christineshotton824 Yeah, that is my problem with it. I think the better answer is just to get to post scarcity already. We're almost there, and if we had the right outlook, I think we could be there already. We already can grow enough food in the US to feed the entire world. And when you think of all the disposable crap we make and buy, and the zoning laws that keep property prices high, and the Health Care Cartel that keeps medical prices high...We don't need more money, we need a fair and free market, with much lower prices.

[@christineshotton824]

@@shorewall It's scary, and not ethically explicable, why many jurisdictions make it illegal to harvest rain water or grow a vegetable garden. It seems that any attempt to make things better that doesn't involve government is ruthlessly suppressed.

[@jasonp.1195]

@@christineshotton824 Isn't that what we currently do with Capitalism's maniacal focus on endless growth and profit? The benefits of the last several decades of growth have largely been transferred to a very tiny fraction of the population and the holdings of a small number of enormous Corporate Entities. Normal people are meanwhile being squeezed dry to afford shelter and other basics. Arguably even the resources needed to support the raising of children. Meanwhile your point about "other people have to produce excess so that those who selfishly choose to live in an unsustainable manner" seems on point for those at the top, not merely those notional 'low value' workers receiving a UBI.

[@christineshotton824]

@@jasonp.1195 The problem with capitalism as currently practiced is that it is not a free market. For almost every aspect of daily life there is no alternative to patronizing a small handful of large corporations for your daily needs. Government regulation and licensing create an environment where it is practically impossible to create a new alternative to a major business. The only new big companies being created are in new technologies. The game is far too heavily rigged in favor of the established order for any profound changes to be made or for the established corporations to feel competitive pressure from anyone other than other companies big enough to share the same level of government protection from competitive innovation.

[@MrStevetmq]

think about it for a moment "cameras cutting down on crime". Do and can they? A camera is a passive device. It can't act to stop something, it just records the image of that thing happening. Yes you can claim that if your going to be seen doing a crime then you will not do that crime because there is a chance that you will in the end get court. However time and time again cameras have recorded crimes. So this proves cameras do not stop all crime they record

[@stancarmen3369]

There was a time when many thought that society would collapse into barbarism and immorality if people stopped going to church. The notion that we would plunge into hedonism and remain perpetual adult children if we stopped going to work kind of reminds me of that. I don't think it's completely without merit, but I also feel like it comes from a lack of imagination on the part of people who are used to the current way of doing things.

[@richardgreen7225]

History shows that going to church only affects how people treat other people who go to the SAME church. I seems to have very little effect on how they treat anyone they would define as 'other'.

[@tathemrelag3123]

I think there are many people who would argue that first assertion proved correct.

[@muche6321]

People going to a church usually believe it to be the pinnacle of the culture and morals. Barbaric is defined as uncultured. Thus people, who don't believe the first assertion to be true, leave the church and are indeed increasing the barbarism and immorality of the world (as seen by the people still in the church). On the other hand, they are decreasing the barbarism and immorality of the world (as seen by the people outside of the referenced church) by leaving the church in the first place.

[@BethKjos]

We have a much better life in absolute terms than Victorians (not counting the garment supply chain, or cobalt mining, or ...) but electric lighting in that time has gone from staggering grandiosity to a basic necessity for participation in society. And what of the telephone? Before you know it, every office-building will need one! Tongue pulled back out of cheek, the point is we've already an automated society and we absolutely still have social ills. Historically, humans haven't really been very equitable in their distribution of wealth and power. Someone takes power, and power corrupts, and people get upset about that, and someone else takes power, and power corrupts...

[@suttercain5995]

The 85 IQ number from Jordan Peterson came from a statement where he said anyone less than an 86 IQ has trouble reading well enough to follow written directions. Unfortunately in my experience I can't say he's wrong

[@sarcasmo57]

I want to work at my job less and have more time to work on more important things.

[@franzfranz9144]

I have been involved in many forms of automation for decades. This does / can cause society to shift jobs around. In the short term there is often pain. History has shown that in the long run life typically improves.

[@boobah5643]

Yep. But it can take generations for the displaced families to recover.

[@shorewall]

@@boobah5643 Yep. The economy treats all workers as fungible, but we don't consider ourselves fungible. Not only is not everyone qualified to be an A.I. engineer, but you couldn't employ everyone even if they were. The truth is that people working for pay and using that pay is one of the most efficient ways we have of taking care of everyone. But it still has flaws, and it is looking down the barrel of the A.I. revolution. I think most jobs in first world countries currently exist to pay people so they can buy things. I wonder what will happen when people become less consumerist, either by choice or by circumstance. We already can make more things than the world can buy. That's why we have easy credit, and planned obsolesence. Our current model is based off of making and selling products. But eventually, people will 3D print things they need. I think we need to lean into a decentralized, DIY kind of world, where people can make and share things they need, instead of empowering Corporations to rape the planet to produce and sell us crap we don't really need or want.

[@franzfranz9144]

@@boobah5643 Much of our current education system is still based on 19th Century values and technology. We need to help our children find a place in the 21st and beyond.

[@franzfranz9144]

@@boobah5643 Agreed - It does take time.

[@sidpomy]

@@shorewall I think we'd organically shift to a service-related economy instead of consumer, should that take place. This is already happening to some degree with Uber and other things like it. Not to mention the existence of regular (i.e. not famous) people making money or entire careers on KZbin, Twitch, etc - something inconceivable a mere 20 years ago.

[@imvannier]

12:20 less bosses and supervisors? you have sold me sir.

[@Ag3nt0fCha0s]

I don’t pay you to watch KZbin! Back to work! 🤬

[@niveketihw1897]

I'm 48 and regularly get mistaken for 15-20 years younger. But I definitely have 48 year old issues, like Lovator Scapula or Sternocleidomastoid pain that comes out of nowhere seemingly in response to nothing I've actually done. And about four months ago I suffered my very first calf sprain while playing basketball (it was 98 degrees out), which threw me for a loop. I had to be supported to my car on two shoulders and then had to have my wife come get me because it was my right calf and even trying to operate the throttle and brake was excrutiating. Couldn't walk for two weeks but eventually it got better on its own. Getting old. No more basketball. :o( No more heavy lifting around the house or helping friends move. :o)

[@charlesmclain6558]

I feel you, I'm 44 and the mornings I snap crackle and pop like rice crispies. Even though I have been told that I don't look like I'm in my 40s.

[@MsGorteck]

You said we don't have cameras on every house or corner, while I concede that the statement is technically true the statement is in practical application true. In Great Britain there are security cameras on every corner especially in London. In Ann Arbor, MI, the Amazon/Google doorbell things that except for the student ghetto, it is impossible to go a block in a residential neighborhood without being logged by at least 2 of them. Now add the universal ubiquity of Amazon Prime and their 360deg cameras on delivery vehicles and I think your statement was poorly worded. I really like your channel and am trying to convince a friend who is making AI to watch it. He and his fiance have enjoyed the 2 episodes I have sent them so far. They both think you present a balanced and nuanced presentation to the subjects.

[@DeltaVTX]

I work in manufacturing. The robots aren’t going to replace us anytime soon. One person CAN run three jobs at once using robots, but that person will need 10x the training and experience. Not everyone can do it.

[@mayastic9570]

I worked on maintaining automation machines. A machine that stacks boxes full off plastic bags could not do it significantly faster than a human. That interaction was too complex, a box and plastic bags with goodies is to complex a combination for the robot...

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@mayastic9570 That a feedback that enginers needs.

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

@@mayastic9570 automation isn't always about speed, there's also cost effectiveness. a robot that's noticably slower than a human but always does its task the same way, can run for days or months without stopping, doesn't need a healthcare plan or any of the niceties humans need and operates at a much lower cost than a human, plus it doesn't do any of the unpredictable things humans do like fighting co-workers or stealing etc. make automation more desirable to businesses in many cases. (note that I'm not saying this is a moral good, it's just why a slower machine could still be picked over a faster human.)

[@mayastic9570]

@@xXx_Regulus_xXx The best part off that specific machine was that it had to be supervised by a human to regularly turn it off and fix it's mistakes. I loved it to bits XD The automation things is good to think about but it's not nearly as close to reality as often portrayed, was my point.

[@r3dp9]

I was an entry level warehouse worker, but now I'm being trained to maintain the robots that will be replacing us. I'm one of two people out of ~50 (closer to ~90 during peak season) that applied for the training, and the only one out of that 50 willing to move to a different state. (To be fair, a handful are using education benefits - I'm just the only one to join the _paid_ vocational training). It's not just that robots are replacing humans. It's the humans flat out refusing to work, no matter how many benefits or money gets thrown at them. About half the people willing to work at all are lazy, unfit, or both. Economies abhor a vacuum, so if the humans won't do it, there's no choice but to invest in robots that are ridiculously expensive to set up. Additionally, no-ones invented a loop of robots that can maintain robots. Unlike humans, they rust, decay, don't notice damage, can't learn without being explicitly told what to observe, have few if any of the five senses, require constant lubrication, power, and replacement parts. You don't appreciate how intelligent and versatile humans are until you try to replace them.

[@0ctothorp]

Here is something I don't think you brought up, what if something like an assembly line factory job could be done, by a person, basically automatically. Like these people are assembling something or another, but in reality they're watching TV or something and they don't even have to look at what they're doing to do it basically perfectly.

[@johntheux9238]

Automated economies should be decentralised. Everyone should have their own robot butler and 3d printer at home that does everything they need. Once every home is self-sufficient there won't be a need for an economy and unemployment won't be a problem. Go small or go home.

[@shorewall]

Exactly. We even talk about this in space travel. Space ships and habitats need to be able to do everything on their own. Recycle air and water, grow food, make parts, and have leisure activities. Same for Arcologies. So with that concept, just take it all the way home and there you go.

[@jsbrads1]

Automation is an absolute benefit. Blacksmiths that used to make shoe horses got jobs make wheels for Henry Ford. I won’t deny, technology has destroyed jobs; terrible jobs the people who had didn’t want. Subsistence farming, barefoot every morning milking a cow even on the coldest day of winter replaced Hunter-Gathering which couldn’t support as many children and risked the survival of every family. VAT “tax” rates have historically been uncontrollable, it also incentivizes inefficient vertical corporations.

[@Sivartius]

There's also a social element. I have done a lot of work helping people who are either officially lacking in mental ability, or simply are not very bright. While they can be very friendly as long as they're kept amused, trying to get some to do productive work has run into problems. I have run into problems simply trying to teach someone to sweep a floor. That said at least some of this seems to be as much a matter of their willingness & expectations. Too many have an unspoken but deeply ingrained worldview that everyone around them OWES it to them to make everything enjoyable & convenient, & have shown a marked unwillingness to try. That said, I believe there will always be a market for "hand crafted" goods, and for those with the patience & willingness to learn, many traditional crafts do not require high levels of academic aptitude.

[@LoLaSn]

I'm a perfectionist so I over analyze everything constantly to do what I do to the best of my ability, which actually ends up making it worse than it could've been

[@user-cw5nv6eq1v]

The fetishization of efficiency was always weird to me. Automation may produce “unemployment” in the abstract but it doesn’t have to produce unemployed people. If one in five people are made unemployed by automation, surely it makes more sense instead for everyone to keep their jobs but just work 20% less. This is only a negative if the amount you’re paid depends on how many hours you work, and if you’re already barely scraping by. The increased productivity brought about by automation should lead to a general abundance. Now we’re just left to decide if the best way to distribute these abundant resources is according to need, or the more “efficient” method of ability to pay i.e. how much money you have.

[@cosmictreason2242]

What really happens is we can do 5x as much

[@user-cw5nv6eq1v]

@@cosmictreason2242 or more than twice as much with less than half the effort

[@bannerpunk]

Excellent, been waiting for an SFIA video on the effects of automation on unemployment for a long time.

[@fatetestarossa2774]

ME TOO

[@PaulZyCZ]

13:50 - That reminds me people are often oblivious of the fact you cannot put power plant control on the Internet and expect access by IP and a factory-default password is enough to protect it. Bored kid with 20 bucks and old laptop can cause a blackout, in the better case. Same thing with other things like webcam in kids room.

[@Cythil]

Or maybe Peterson hears a lot of stuff that is not well-founded and regurgitate is as gospels. I have a very dim view of people who look down those that may not be the most productive. Most people can contribute to society, and the very few that can not are generally people who have grave disabilities. And thanks to our wealth, not only can those people who may not be the most productive become productive, we can also help out those that can not. If Stephen Hawking was born two or just one century earlier, his genius would have never been realized. How many brilliant people have we lost just because they were born in the at the wrong place at the wrong time? Yes. These people are the exception. And Stephen is like an even exceptional in this group in many ways. But I still think we should value all humans minds. The greater the pool is, the more exceptional people will emerge. So even if we take the rather harsh and dim view that there are people who do not contribute and people who both contra productive, and even dangerous, to try to get rid of these people. Even if getting rid of means just hiding them away and giving them minium resources, so they have the least drain on society, and not some worse barbaric practices. Sorry. I may get a bit carried away. But I really do believe the best we can do is to strive to give everyone a fulfilling life. So I get a bit annoy as some regressive idea I hear from some about some people not being a value to society. Who are they to say what society should value?

[@SenorGato237]

1st rule of warfare: take some Ibuprophen and walk it off.

[@mikldude9376]

Regarding the diminishing employment due to robots and other factors , I see this as a huge problem , if we look back in the old days when life was simpler , manufacturing was booming , factory’s had plenty of labour jobs whether you where a rocket scientist or a ditch digger , and you could pay the bills and generally felt good about yourself and that you where slowly making a better life for yourself and your family. These days , if you are not well endowed with some skills or education, for many people life is very very tuff. The thing about humans is , everyone has different capability’s, some people will just never be suited to higher skill jobs , hence schools turn out labourers, ditch diggers , clerical workers , tradies , and the more educated types , but many of the industries that once catered to the lower skilled workers are getting smaller , and this has a direct effect on the social fabric , with more people out of work , depression, crime , and a snowball effect that continues to make this problem worse year after year. And to make matters worse , in some cases the lower skilled people are seen by politicians as a less valuable commodity and left to rot . I don’t know what the answer is , somehow more robots would seem to be good for some and bad for many others.

[@holowise3663]

The only thing that will work is charity. Unfortunately humans seem mostly rotten given the choice.

[@PragmaticAntithesis]

I feel the solution is some form of Georgism. Essentially, everyone gets an equal share of the world's natural resources, and the robot owners will need to pay the public for the right to use those resources. As productivity increases, the value of the resources needed for that productivity also increases, which means the value of everyone's fair share goes up. This will result in people not needing to work for survival (though the people running the robots will get very rich indeed for their work!) and can focus on volunteering and creative pursuits.

[@Gerbsbrother10]

I think Isaac's mention of a "UBI tax" handled as a cryptocurrency direct deposit is the best method I've heard as a way to make UBI feasible. Making it something that is codified by law using the government, but not actually managed or handled through the government. In fact we could take existing sales tax which is around 8% where I live and shrinking it to 6% and having a 2% UBI tax. Government would lose that 2% in tac revenue, but people would be receiving that 2% evenly and directly meaning the government should have less need of tax money.

[@scottthomas6202]

Dangerous jobs like coal mining would be best automated. At my last job, there was a guy who wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but was very reliable and good with people. In addition to being janitor, he was the unofficial ambassador... He enjoyed the part.

[@Szpareq]

We won't be doing any coal mining in 50 years if not less haha. Maybe coal will be used to produce hydrogen, but mining it won't be necessary.

[@scottthomas6202]

@@Szpareq Maybe not for fuel, but for other uses, like plastics. I think it will be mined for quite awhile, though maybe not in the quantity it is now...

[@harbl99]

@@Szpareq An energy dense fuel and chemical feedstock you can literally pick up and carry in a sack. Why would we ever want to dig that out of the ground to move it where it's needed?

[@Szpareq]

@@harbl99 because in 50 years all of the energy on earth will be gathered from the sun, wind, gravity and nuclear power. MAYBE (and still find this unlikely) some of it will be generated by gas. Other energy sources with our technology and climate needs are pointless. Prices of coal mining also skyrocket and with further taxes on fossil fuels, it won't survive next couple of decades.

[@Szpareq]

@@scottthomas6202 why use coal when oil does a better job though?

[@altha-rf1et]

I work just part time now as a security guard on weekends.. I can see how my job can be done without people, I watch moniters, I do 4 rounds every night and unlocked the doors in the morning, They can make the doors unlocked them selves, even hire someone cheap to watch the monitors at night time lot cheaper then what I get paid

[@OllamhDrab]

Well, I certainly agree about people not actually *liking* to be idle, ...people *dream* of it when *exhausted all the time,* of course, but I think some assumptions about capitalism being a rational actor with everyone's best interests eventually coming to the fore isn't something I see operative even with the automation we *have* in a lot of industries: industries get smarter and need more educated workers, ....then some banks make education a finance plan against future earnings and demand to milk more profit out of *less* that way, too.... That's for the people out of that labor pool the corporations actually *pick,* and all. Gotta keep those labor prices down, too. So treat jobs like a scarce commodity instead of labor someone buys. I expect AIs would be more likely used more to ..sell more stuff more people don't need, manipulate public opinion, all that. (And use lots more energy crunching AI scans and searches, like crypto tailchasing) But if the goal were really to get the most good, some robotic *assistance* might help a lot of people get a lot more productive stuff done. (I know I'd get a lot farther at what I do with, oh, some kind of exoskeleton, maybe one of those Boston Dynamics dogbots that could follow me around with tools and stuff. :) So much comes down to profit, though, when what they tend to want is warm bodies for cheapest possible, not to maximize the talent in the world.

[@TheVoiceOfReason93]

If you are the super-rich and robots are now affordable en-masse, would you be willing to contribute to a Universal Basic Income for the rest of society now that the robots made them economically unnecessary but also allowed plenty of resources to be available, or are you going to use that contribution to instead build a robot army to seize total power so you can have all that extra resources to yourself without anyone trying to demand a share?

[@sfkeepay]

Why would less work “…poison our character by making life too easy.”? Isn’t the ultimate judge of our character how we treat one another? An easier life, by itself, does not, in any way, mean we’ll treat each other poorly. Likewise, there’s nothing inherently moral or ethical about hard work. That’s oligarchs’ brainwashing talking. The emphasis should be on education and the cultivation of talents and interests. And as for Jordan Peterson’s claims about minimum IQ and military service and all that…it’s bullshit. Hs claim that there is always a segment of the population too dumb to be productively employed is largely a product of his constant overreach into areas about which he has little understanding and even less expertise. Nevertheless, I strongly agree that the future should include a reaffirmation of the value of being a contributing member of society. Not because of how it current,y affects self-worth and social status, both of which are corrosive, unnecessary constructs, but because progress itself depends on all of us challenging ourselves, and learning to cooperate.

[@HiroNguy]

That "1% automatically redistributing cryptocurrency" is not actual cryptocurrency by definition. Rather, it is a feature fo Central Bank Digital Currency. IOW fascism.

[@shayperkins9630]

hopefully our understanding of mental health improves alongside automation. Including learning disabilities

[@dansmith1661]

Entire groups of people would have to be taken away from society for that to happen.

[@shayperkins9630]

@@dansmith1661 Why would that be the case? Scientists might discover some medicine or neural implant to help existing people nobody has to be removed.

[@spencervance8484]

@@shayperkins9630 so give everyone Neurolink?

[@shayperkins9630]

@@spencervance8484 Maybe or maybe something similar. But solutions will likely be specific, something that solves one learning disability doesn't have to solve all nor does everyone have to take it for it to be effective.

[@corbynite2004]

@@shayperkins9630 I agree, a whole range of approaches are needed for each type of learner. This might require a rethinking of disabilities altogether - in fact an entire new ontology of mind would be needed to truly revolutionize pedagogy. The ideal future state would involve highly trained educators, with a deep knowledge of the subject matter so they could explore different approaches to the structuring of that knowledge, and an intensive psychological training so they could determine the best way to approach each student. The teacher:student ratio would need to be quite high, but there could still be more students than teachers for the sake of those who benefit from group learning, which would be most people. The division of student groups would not resemble modern hierarchical streaming but personality/mind-type grouping to achieve the optimal learning environment for each student. Teacher-student matching could be optimized. The matching processes could be be AI or at least algorithmically assisted, as could the students and teachers themselves. Teachers would have AI assisted syllabus customization and students would have AI assisted exercise-design. A good AI could do things to retain and build focus, too. Endless possibilities if we embrace the right paradigm shifts! We should definitely not eliminate teaching jobs though, especially not for dumb reasons like 'American teachers in American classrooms under American capitalism are awful'

[@LordZordid]

The solution to unemployment is bureaucracy. We always "need" more bureaucracy and red tape to cut through. Just ask any bureaucrat.