What jobs will human have left once we perfect automation technology?

[Robotengineer]

Why would humans need jobs if robots can do all the work?

To be able to purchase the goods the robots produce.

[AngelOfDeath642]

To be able to purchase the goods the robots produce.

Or just provide it for free since robots are doing all the work and don't need pay. Automation makes the fundamental principles of money and capitalism break down as humans are no longer involved in the productive process.

[vger]

How good are learning systems really? Yes they manages decent pattern recognizing now. This is major progress and open new wast new opportunists, self driving cars is just one of them. However this has nothing at all to do with intellect, any mammal or bird can do pattern recognizing.

Honestly, this is pretty much all that public schooling in (in the U.S. anyhow) teaches students how to do.

[Guest]

Everyone of you do not take in account interests of peoples with power - those who own everything and rule everything today. They never allow the future, in which everything is free and everyone is happy, and those politicians and businessmen are not needed anymore, so they lose their power. AGI will be used to do the opposite thing - to strengthen their power, to control and subdue population, .... well ... see my first post in this thread.

(*) By socialism I mean European and US socialism - 10 people work and pay 90% taxes, 90 people do nothing and live on pensions.

(**) Soviet socialism is even worse - empty public shops, no freedoms at all, and special, for high ranked Party members only, secret shops stuffed with Western goods and clinics with Western medical hardware.

[tater]

How good are learning systems really? Yes they manages decent pattern recognizing now. This is major progress and open new wast new opportunists, self driving cars is just one of them.

However this has nothing at all to do with intellect, any mammal or bird can do pattern recognizing.

I suspect that breakthrough has gotten many to draw straight line projections and come up with downright stupid predictions like that google guy who claimed laptops, yes a pc not an suprercomputer will be smarter than humans in 2020, we are very lucky if computers in 2020 is 6 times faster than today at the same cost, 3 times is optimistic.

Pathology (medical specialty)… they tested a learning system on finding breast cancer in biopsies… it learned the usual rules in a few minutes, then found a few new things to look for (new rules) that pathologists had never noticed. In no time. Medicine in general can have many bits taken over.

What about lawyers? Much of their work is finding precedent in old cases. They look though old case law, which is an exercise in "where to look" right now, because no one could possibly look at ALL case law… except a computer. Same with IP law (a buddy of mine is an IP attorney).

Science? Again, looking for patterns in the way the natural world behaves, then creating a model that describes it, and predicts future observations. That's computer work.

Maybe we should all learn how to make artisinal cheese.

[AngelOfDeath642]

Everyone of you do not take in account interests of peoples with power - those who own everything and rule everything today. They never allow the future, in which everything is free and everyone is happy, and those politicians and businessmen are not needed anymore, so they lose their power. AGI will be used to do the opposite thing - to strengthen their power, to control and subdue population, .... well ... see my first post in this thread.

(*) By socialism I mean European and US socialism - 10 people work and pay 90% taxes, 90 people do nothing and live on pensions.

(**) Soviet socialism is even worse - empty public shops, no freedoms at all, and special, for high ranked Party members only, secret shops stuffed with Western goods and clinics with Western medical hardware.

Lolwut. Europe and the US don't have anything even remotely approeching socialism. Socialism is worker control of the means of production overseen by the state (USSR etc). What the US and europe have can be generously described as liberalised capitalism (private ownership of the means of production in which the bourgeois state grants some concessions to the working class to avoid civil unrest). This whole empty public shops thing is just a cold war lie. What really happened in the USSR is that citizens would get a basic allowance of food and supplies completely free and could then spen their (relatively high) wages on luxury goods. The high tax rate and lack of availability of western goods (due to a lack of trade) did mean that some western luxury items may have been out of the affordability range of most citizens but: A: high ranking party members weren't paid that much more than most workers. B: most western citizens can't afford luxury items either.

Your first point is generally correct. Capitalism is unable to function with full automation because it will lead to a small amount of people controlling all of the capital while nobody is able to pay for anything because human labour is obsolete. This can only possibly lead to a fascist dystopia in which nearly everyone on the planet is unemployed but they can't do anything about it because the bourgeoisie is too powerful. There are only two modes of production that can be compatible with full automation:

Socialism: Where the state directs the massive productive forces to provide a high quality of life to the entire population while coordinating the transition to...

Communism: Where everyone has common ownership of the means of production and produce what they want/need while a loose central administrative body ensures that everyone has their share.

[magnemoe]

Honestly, this is pretty much all that public schooling in (in the U.S. anyhow) teaches students how to do.

School teach knowledge not how to think.

My point is that image or voice recognition and self driving cars has lite to do with intelligence, its an animal skill. most animals are able to run fast over rough terrain as an example. Birds can identify prey far away. Brains are good at this as the ones who did badly did not survive. On the other hand its something who is hard to get computers to do, so it took time to get computers fast enough at practical cost then getting capable software. its pretty unrelated to intelligent computers.

Take an parallel from 1945 to 1960 plane speed increased multiple times, max speed went from 600 km/h to mach 3. This was an remarkable progress but did not take us much closer to an SSTO spaceplane, it will require totally different technology. I see sentinel computers as pretty similar with one difference, the requirements for an SSTO spaceplane is pretty well known, we do not know how to build an sentinel computer.

Yes modern computer systems will take over lots of work, driving is one, now try to build an robot car mechanic You face two problems first is agility it has to handle all sort of tools, and access various thigh spaces, you probably end up with multiple robots, this drives up cost, it would be very hard to do even in an setting where cost or speed was not important say teleopperated repair facility for supporting an mining opperation on moon.

Next the software who is able to find that is wrong, this is not so hard, data log, sound and images then an series of tests, the problem is repairing finding your way around problems, note that new problems tend to pop up while you repair and you can not follow standard procedures, they would anyway take to much work to program inn.

[magnemoe]

Lolwut. Europe and the US don't have anything even remotely approeching socialism. Socialism is worker control of the means of production overseen by the state (USSR etc). What the US and europe have can be generously described as liberalised capitalism (private ownership of the means of production in which the bourgeois state grants some concessions to the working class to avoid civil unrest). This whole empty public shops thing is just a cold war lie. What really happened in the USSR is that citizens would get a basic allowance of food and supplies completely free and could then spen their (relatively high) wages on luxury goods. The high tax rate and lack of availability of western goods (due to a lack of trade) did mean that some western luxury items may have been out of the affordability range of most citizens but: A: high ranking party members weren't paid that much more than most workers. B: most western citizens can't afford luxury items either.

Your first point is generally correct. Capitalism is unable to function with full automation because it will lead to a small amount of people controlling all of the capital while nobody is able to pay for anything because human labour is obsolete. This can only possibly lead to a fascist dystopia in which nearly everyone on the planet is unemployed but they can't do anything about it because the bourgeoisie is too powerful. There are only two modes of production that can be compatible with full automation:

Socialism: Where the state directs the massive productive forces to provide a high quality of life to the entire population while coordinating the transition to...

Communism: Where everyone has common ownership of the means of production and produce what they want/need while a loose central administrative body ensures that everyone has their share.

Communist countries has problems with the production lines because of the central driven control, the result was often lack of some products, light bulbs and windscreen wipers was two classical examples. None are expensive or hard to make, however say the wire in the bulbs was an bottleneck and it would be an lack.

Now in an western country this would mostly be evened out with import or increased production in other factories and an increase in price, as the products are cheap hardly any would notice.

For luxury products you are correct.

Note that the production line problem will not be solved by automation. In various strategy games you are the central control yourself and can allocate resources as you want, system is simple and you are smart but still messes up. Now try with an million parts and deep production lines say 10 steps. Some stuff can manage plenty of slack other are critical.

Regarding robots and wealth distribution, wealth has historically been very uneven distributed. An small upper class/ nobility 1%, an somewhat larger middle class 9%, 90% was dirt poor as in starving then the harvest was bad.

Two things changed this, most important was vastly increased productivity because of industrialization, second was democracy and worker rights.

Now its very simple to increase the tax for the rich and spread more money around, just vote in politicians who want to do it.

This has obvious downsides, first most of the rich money is reinvested, second they might move to another country or to other tricks. making the tax system more complex just make it easier to find holes if you can employ lawyers and accountants.

Still trend is moving towards more tax on the very rich, stability and good financial tools makes it easy to become richer and richer unless you are an fool.

[ComradeWolfe]

Yes modern computer systems will take over lots of work, driving is one, now try to build an robot car mechanic You face two problems first is agility it has to handle all sort of tools, and access various thigh spaces, you probably end up with multiple robots, this drives up cost, it would be very hard to do even in an setting where cost or speed was not important say teleopperated repair facility for supporting an mining opperation on moon.

Next the software who is able to find that is wrong, this is not so hard, data log, sound and images then an series of tests, the problem is repairing finding your way around problems, note that new problems tend to pop up while you repair and you can not follow standard procedures, they would anyway take to much work to program inn.

When you teach a mechanic how to fix things, you first show them examples of what a working car is and examples of specific ways in which cars break, along with a few rules on how to effect the repair. Through guided trial and error, they hone their skills in to a body of knowledge more complex than what you provided as direct input. Learning algorithms work in much the same way -- you provide examples and a few rules, which they then process, gain feedback on, and reiterate.

To say it takes extra work to program anything outside of non-standard procedures is following the wrong paradigm. You don't directly enter the non-standard stuff in to a biological mechanic's head -- you teach it through trial and error. You'd do the same with a learning AI.

As for different tools and the like? Take your robot mechanic, which knows what a handle on a screwdriver is, and tell it what part of a wrench is a handle. Then show it how to use a wrench... It will learn.

[AngelOfDeath642]

Communist countries has problems with the production lines because of the central driven control, the result was often lack of some products, light bulbs and windscreen wipers was two classical examples. None are expensive or hard to make, however say the wire in the bulbs was an bottleneck and it would be an lack.

Now in an western country this would mostly be evened out with import or increased production in other factories and an increase in price, as the products are cheap hardly any would notice.

For luxury products you are correct.

Note that the production line problem will not be solved by automation. In various strategy games you are the central control yourself and can allocate resources as you want, system is simple and you are smart but still messes up. Now try with an million parts and deep production lines say 10 steps. Some stuff can manage plenty of slack other are critical.

Regarding robots and wealth distribution, wealth has historically been very uneven distributed. An small upper class/ nobility 1%, an somewhat larger middle class 9%, 90% was dirt poor as in starving then the harvest was bad.

Two things changed this, most important was vastly increased productivity because of industrialization, second was democracy and worker rights.

Now its very simple to increase the tax for the rich and spread more money around, just vote in politicians who want to do it.

This has obvious downsides, first most of the rich money is reinvested, second they might move to another country or to other tricks. making the tax system more complex just make it easier to find holes if you can employ lawyers and accountants.

Still trend is moving towards more tax on the very rich, stability and good financial tools makes it easy to become richer and richer unless you are an fool.

The problem with central control being unable to handle the production of absolutely everything was maybe applicable in the early years of socialism in larger countries. The limits of early 20th century technology did make the management of everything difficult but the way you word it you sound like it was the central comittee literally dictating evety stage of production. The actual management process was delegated to dozens of branches of government which would in turn delegate work to even more branches. Individual factories and design bureaus actually had a relatively great deal of autonomy and many even competed in the same role. This meant that for the most part, the economy functioned well enough to produce everything. There were attempts to streamline the process, a good example was socialist Chile in the 70s which tried to create a version of the internet to make management easier. Unfortunately the CIA funded pinochet to stage a fascist coup so the plan barely got started.

On your second point, since the advent of capitalism there have only ever been two classes: the working class ( who operate the means of production) and the capitalist class (who own the means of production and allow workers to operate it in exchange for a tiny fraction of the actual product of their labour). The increase in productivity due to industrialisation did not even slightly change the quality of life of the workers. Workers were still paid extremely low wages for the same amount of work, the only difference was that their work produced more for the capitalists. Obviously, workers do not like these exploitative conditions so the governments decided to allow them some concessions:

Parliamentary democracy is used to mediate the conflict between the workers and the capitalists, the more liberal of the (usually two) major parties introduces legislation such as the minimum wage to appease the workers in an attempt to avoid a revolution. These measures will never (despite what liberal politicians write in their election manifestos that they immediately abandon) allow the workers to control society or get even close to the product of their labour as they are designed to allow the capitalists to stay in power. Additionally, the capitalist class is opposed to the minimum wage and other restrictions on their exploitation so they use the government to invade other countries to gain access to more resources and cheap labour. They also use more right wing parties to periodically undo some of the liberal reforms so that liberals are only ever capable of winning the same meagre compromises every time.

It is not easy to become a capitalist. While in theory, anyone who (somehow) obtains a large sum of money can start a business and make profit, they then have to compete with not only people on their level, but capitalists that hold monopolies on the market, outcompeting anything approaching a competitor.

Tax on the rich will do nothing. The only solution is to expropiate the means of production that they own but do not use, creating socialism which (for all its percieved and actual flaws) is actually capable of providing for everyone.

[magnemoe]

When you teach a mechanic how to fix things, you first show them examples of what a working car is and examples of specific ways in which cars break, along with a few rules on how to effect the repair. Through guided trial and error, they hone their skills in to a body of knowledge more complex than what you provided as direct input. Learning algorithms work in much the same way -- you provide examples and a few rules, which they then process, gain feedback on, and reiterate.

To say it takes extra work to program anything outside of non-standard procedures is following the wrong paradigm. You don't directly enter the non-standard stuff in to a biological mechanic's head -- you teach it through trial and error. You'd do the same with a learning AI.

As for different tools and the like? Take your robot mechanic, which knows what a handle on a screwdriver is, and tell it what part of a wrench is a handle. Then show it how to use a wrench... It will learn.

Yes, learning systems works by trial and errors, this let the system build up an database by itself, it then uses the database to help it solving new problem. Shorting down the trial and error time. Stil its less iintelligent than a dog who you train the same way. Computer benefit is that you can run an simulation doing lots of trial and errors fast, this does not work well in multi step processes who is hard to simulate

Remember its no intelligence behind

[vger]

My point is that image or voice recognition and self driving cars has lite to do with intelligence, its an animal skill.

Unfortunately, intelligence isn't necessary for most jobs. They're all about repetition. Intelligence and problem-solving are only needed when a problem arises that you've never encountered before. In the workforce, that is extremely rare.

In the case of AI, I would say the SSTO is cloud-computing. The magic moment when suddenly the 'brain' of the robot doesn't even need to be in the robot. A huge "skynet" can hundreds or thousands of units remotely. Size is now a non-issue when it comes to AI. Just think about what Watson could be doing a few decades from now.

[ComradeWolfe]

Yes, learning systems works by trial and errors, this let the system build up an database by itself, it then uses the database to help it solving new problem. Shorting down the trial and error time. Stil its less iintelligent than a dog who you train the same way. Computer benefit is that you can run an simulation doing lots of trial and errors fast, this does not work well in multi step processes who is hard to simulate

Remember its no intelligence behind

Isn't intelligence largely a measure of the capacity to recognize, associate, and react to patterns? For instance, a dog may take a couple of days to train to sit. An adult human can be shown once and forever repeat it. A robot can be shown once, forever repeat it, and upload its data to the cloud instantly enabling all robots with the appropriate hardware to sit.

Invoke a decent learning algorithm and the robot might determine how to sit with optimal efficiency as well, much akin to a human deciding how to sit comfortably...

[magnemoe]

The problem with central control being unable to handle the production of absolutely everything was maybe applicable in the early years of socialism in larger countries. The limits of early 20th century technology did make the management of everything difficult but the way you word it you sound like it was the central comittee literally dictating evety stage of production. The actual management process was delegated to dozens of branches of government which would in turn delegate work to even more branches. Individual factories and design bureaus actually had a relatively great deal of autonomy and many even competed in the same role. This meant that for the most part, the economy functioned well enough to produce everything.

Naturally it was delegation, everybody uses that, still Soviet Union looked like worked better in the beginning than at the end then the production lines started getting more and more complicated and competition was stronger. Yes this was relative Soviet in 1980 was an paradice compared to the 1930 :9

Still central planning works well for short term all out efforts like industrialist an country or winning WW2, not over half an century.

On your second point, since the advent of capitalism there have only ever been two classes: the working class ( who operate the means of production) and the capitalist class (who own the means of production and allow workers to operate it in exchange for a tiny fraction of the actual product of their labour). The increase in productivity due to industrialisation did not even slightly change the quality of life of the workers. Workers were still paid extremely low wages for the same amount of work, the only difference was that their work produced more for the capitalists. Obviously, workers do not like these exploitative conditions so the governments decided to allow them some concessions:

However without the industrial revolution it would not be an large cake to divide, its an reason why every revolt or reform up to industrial age failed hard, you would still starve during the next bad harvest.

Parliamentary democracy is used to mediate the conflict between the workers and the capitalists, the more liberal of the (usually two) major parties introduces legislation such as the minimum wage to appease the workers in an attempt to avoid a revolution. These measures will never (despite what liberal politicians write in their election manifestos that they immediately abandon) allow the workers to control society or get even close to the product of their labour as they are designed to allow the capitalists to stay in power.

More important you get an rapid increase in wealth all over, secondary you got an feedback cycle, the workers got more money who returned to the economy making it larger, this effect can bee seen for full in China now.

Now wealth make an revolution impractical, if you are starving you have nothing to lose, if you have a nice house you could lose it.

Chinese government bet on this.

Additionally, the capitalist class is opposed to the minimum wage and other restrictions on their exploitation so they use the government to invade other countries to gain access to more resources and cheap labour. They also use more right wing parties to periodically undo some of the liberal reforms so that liberals are only ever capable of winning the same meagre compromises every time.

The colonization was done partial to secure raw materials and marked, however the last part was to stop hostile countries to gain access. After WW2 during the cold war this was the only reason, not raw materials, at that time all countries was advanced enough to harvest and sell raw materials themselves and the raw material marked is global.

Politic is blocks who get swapped usually every 8 year. If not swapped but sit an long time it tend to build up lots of special interest legislation. This however also tend to shift the parties so they end up in an 50/50 setting, trend is strongly liberal if you look on the last 100 year, yes one party can sit for an long time if they adjust, labor party in Norway sat from before WW2 to 1980.

It is not easy to become a capitalist. While in theory, anyone who (somehow) obtains a large sum of money can start a business and make profit, they then have to compete with not only people on their level, but capitalists that hold monopolies on the market, outcompeting anything approaching a competitor.

Tax on the rich will do nothing. The only solution is to expropiate the means of production that they own but do not use, creating socialism which (for all its percieved and actual flaws) is actually capable of providing for everyone.

its easy to become an business owner, harder to become an successful one, no this does not make you rich.

If you want to compete directly with the chains they, might lower prices to push you out, this will happen if you try an new chain but in that case you also have money too.

Note that also governmental owned companies play this game.

Expropriation worked so well in Zimbabwe and Venezuela? For my model look at northern Europe, where would you like to live

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Unfortunately, intelligence isn't necessary for most jobs. They're all about repetition. Intelligence and problem-solving are only needed when a problem arises that you've never encountered before. In the workforce, that is extremely rare.

In the case of AI, I would say the SSTO is cloud-computing. The magic moment when suddenly the 'brain' of the robot doesn't even need to be in the robot. A huge "skynet" can hundreds or thousands of units remotely. Size is now a non-issue when it comes to AI. Just think about what Watson could be doing a few decades from now.

True, for lots of work the most complicated you run into is other humans, other work require long experience, not that the problem is totally new however its different from the previous one in an degree you can not simply use an previous example and require enough accuracy that you can not use an average of two previous tasks.

Cloud computing are not any more intelligent, benefit is that you get access to an supercomputer the few times you need it by pooling resources. No you can not run an AI over internet, one thing who is pretty obvious is that it need to be tightly connected, looking at an modern data center I always think its a bit back to the future with the huge hall full full with electronic

I say cloud computing is more like an A380 plane than an SSTO, economic of scale, computers in data centers are not tightly coupled either, you solve tasks by spreading transaction out so you don't need massive interconnect.

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Isn't intelligence largely a measure of the capacity to recognize, associate, and react to patterns? For instance, a dog may take a couple of days to train to sit. An adult human can be shown once and forever repeat it. A robot can be shown once, forever repeat it, and upload its data to the cloud instantly enabling all robots with the appropriate hardware to sit.

Invoke a decent learning algorithm and the robot might determine how to sit with optimal efficiency as well, much akin to a human deciding how to sit comfortably...

Its how its measured yes. However the patterns are not solvable by an learning algorithm, unless you do loads of them as learning algorithms do, imagine cram IQ tests, its an limited number and they tend to repeat themselves so it should work.

Learning someone to sit takes one try once they know how and is following orders, next step is to get the robot not to sit down in an puddle and short out

[AngelOfDeath642]

Naturally it was delegation, everybody uses that, still Soviet Union looked like worked better in the beginning than at the end then the production lines started getting more and more complicated and competition was stronger. Yes this was relative Soviet in 1980 was an paradice compared to the 1930 :9

Still central planning works well for short term all out efforts like industrialist an country or winning WW2, not over half an century.

However without the industrial revolution it would not be an large cake to divide, its an reason why every revolt or reform up to industrial age failed hard, you would still starve during the next bad harvest.

More important you get an rapid increase in wealth all over, secondary you got an feedback cycle, the workers got more money who returned to the economy making it larger, this effect can bee seen for full in China now.

Now wealth make an revolution impractical, if you are starving you have nothing to lose, if you have a nice house you could lose it.

Chinese government bet on this.

The colonization was done partial to secure raw materials and marked, however the last part was to stop hostile countries to gain access. After WW2 during the cold war this was the only reason, not raw materials, at that time all countries was advanced enough to harvest and sell raw materials themselves and the raw material marked is global.

Politic is blocks who get swapped usually every 8 year. If not swapped but sit an long time it tend to build up lots of special interest legislation. This however also tend to shift the parties so they end up in an 50/50 setting, trend is strongly liberal if you look on the last 100 year, yes one party can sit for an long time if they adjust, labor party in Norway sat from before WW2 to 1980.

its easy to become an business owner, harder to become an successful one, no this does not make you rich.

If you want to compete directly with the chains they, might lower prices to push you out, this will happen if you try an new chain but in that case you also have money too.

Note that also governmental owned companies play this game.

Expropriation worked so well in Zimbabwe and Venezuela? For my model look at northern Europe, where would you like to live

The Soviet Union declined near the end due to revisionists taking power and making bad economic descisions and outright selling the country out to the west.

Yes, the industry developed in capitalism is a prerequisite for socialism, the industry is in place now.

The workers gain slight improvements in their quality of life while capitalist profits soar and more workers are made unemployed because the capitalists move their factories to countries with lower minimum wages.

The entire point of imperialism is to gain resources and cheap labour. Sometimes thay did it to stop the progress of the Soviet Union but they still used that as an excuse to steal resources. It's not about simply putting the countries in a global market, it's about stealing all of their resources and installing a puppet regime.

The Norwegian labour party, while largely uninterupted, has only been able to provide minor concessions to the working class. Regardless of the minimum wage the Norwegian proletariat is still oppressed. Furthermore, the British labour party was in power for decades after world war 2 and provided just as many reforms as their Norwegian counterparts. Then thatcher got in, cut everything, imposed the poll tax and nearly caused a revolution (miner's strikes). When thatcher was then voted out, the labour party had been taken over by career politicians that push the exact same agenda as the tories. That will happen in every country that uses liberal reforms as an alternative to socialism.

Compared to the state they were in pre-revolution, Zimbabwe and Venezuela are doing fine (aside from the regular attempts by the US government to overthow their governments). I live in Europe (Scotland) so I can say with complete confidence that it is nowhere near as good as people say. I live in an area with a high standard of living but the town next to me has like a third of the average wage. The average life expectancy is in the 50s despite some areas haveng it in the 80s. Also, countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela started out with next to nothing and their quality of life (while increasing rapidly) is still a long way from surpassing countries with a long history of imperialism.

Can we get back on topic? This tangent is probably only going to end in a complete derail.

[Scotius]

Angel...i was born and raised in a socialist country before Iron Courtain fell. I remember well standing in a long queue for over an hour, so i could buy one leaf of bread for my family. One - because that was the limit per day. Or how my father could not buy me some candies, because he had to keep state issued coupons for sugar - more important than a pack of candies. It was not caused by the lack of money - both my parents had good, relatively well paid jobs. It was general, widespread lack of products available. There was a bitter joke circulating between people: Thanks to the Party, stores are full - of empty hooks and winegar. Life under the Socialism was not fun, and very far from Utopia promised by leaders.

So please, spare me tall tales about paradise on Earth under Socialist or Communist rule. I've seen it. Didn't like it one bit.

[ComradeWolfe]

Its how its measured yes. However the patterns are not solvable by an learning algorithm, unless you do loads of them as learning algorithms do, imagine cram IQ tests, its an limited number and they tend to repeat themselves so it should work.

And there-in lies the robot advantage: They can try over and over again without getting bored or frustrated or tired or hungry. As soon as even one robot finds a solution it can tell all the rest how to do it, thus avoiding the others needing to learn. If one robot finds a better way to walk, they all walk better.

Learning someone to sit takes one try once they know how and is following orders, next step is to get the robot not to sit down in an puddle and short out

This sounds like an awesome end for a sci-fi short... Robots rise to power, never stopping to sit. Then bam! Puddleshocked!

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Angel...i was born and raised in a socialist country before Iron Courtain fell. I remember well standing in a long queue for over an hour, so i could buy one leaf of bread for my family. One - because that was the limit per day. Or how my father could not buy me some candies, because he had to keep state issued coupons for sugar - more important than a pack of candies. It was not caused by the lack of money - both my parents had good, relatively well paid jobs. It was general, widespread lack of products available. There was a bitter joke circulating between people: Thanks to the Party, stores are full - of empty hooks and winegar. Life under the Socialism was not fun, and very far from Utopia promised by leaders.

So please, spare me tall tales about paradise on Earth under Socialist or Communist rule. I've seen it. Didn't like it one bit.

I think the point being made is that socialism might work out once there is no more work for humans to do. In large part the USSR failed due to the use of a command economy driven by emotional humans, where-as the future robo-utopia would likely have a demand economy based on statistical analysis by a powerful AI.

So basically, you lived thru and suffered the effects of human-driven socialism/communism which will always fail to serve those who are subjected to it. Robot socialism/communism has the potential to be a lot better so long as we humans trust the bots and the bots are beneficent enough.

[AngelOfDeath642]

Angel...i was born and raised in a socialist country before Iron Courtain fell. I remember well standing in a long queue for over an hour, so i could buy one leaf of bread for my family. One - because that was the limit per day. Or how my father could not buy me some candies, because he had to keep state issued coupons for sugar - more important than a pack of candies. It was not caused by the lack of money - both my parents had good, relatively well paid jobs. It was general, widespread lack of products available. There was a bitter joke circulating between people: Thanks to the Party, stores are full - of empty hooks and winegar. Life under the Socialism was not fun, and very far from Utopia promised by leaders.

So please, spare me tall tales about paradise on Earth under Socialist or Communist rule. I've seen it. Didn't like it one bit.

Yes, the decline of socialism resulted in the state being unable to provide luxury goods. Because gorbachev, yeltsin and their co conspirators were busy wrecking the economy and selling the entire eastern bloc out to the west. Meanwhile in my supposedly wealthy capitalist country there are so many homeless people that people are uso used to seeing them that they often go multiple days in a row without getting any money. Most of the workers have to rely on foodbanks, which are like socialist breadlines except they are always empty and are supplied mostly by charities. They can't possibly afford anything approaching luxury goods and the capitalists are now introducing zero hour contracts, which mean that workers aren't even getting real wages. Many have to take multiple jobs just to afford the food that they need (they don't get enough at foodbanks alot of the time) and people who are unemployed (mainly because the capitalists are moving all of the jobs to countries with lower wages) need to do "volunteer work" (unpaid labour) just to avoid their benefits being sanctioned. I'm fully aware that life in socialist countries at the end of the cold war wasn't good but capitalism is a whole other level.

But as ComradeWolfe said, my original point is about how automation would make socialism/communism work as intended. We should stick to the topic because this is getting derailed fast.

[vger]

But as ComradeWolfe said, my original point is about how automation would make socialism/communism work as intended. We should stick to the topic because this is getting derailed fast.

I agree that it could, I just don't see how it ever will.

...unless the robots become sentient while remaining selfless, and conclude that all humans should be free of indentured service. The wealthy who brought about this hypothetical robot revolution will fight tooth and nail to keep the money system from collapsing.

[AngelOfDeath642]

I agree that it could, I just don't see how it ever will.

...unless the robots become sentient while remaining selfless, and conclude that all humans should be free of indentured service. The wealthy who brought about this hypothetical robot revolution will fight tooth and nail to keep the money system from collapsing.

That's assuming that capitalism creates them. A socialist state with the required technological development could implement it. Infact they would prioritise it since that's basically the whole point of socialism.

[LABHOUSE]

I think it would mean that people would not have to work and we would become a moneyless society, but the people in my school would say that is bad and that all men should work (I hate sexists).

[AngelOfDeath642]

I think it would mean that people would not have to work and we would become a moneyless society, but the people in my school would say that is bad and that all men should work (I hate sexists).

Yeah, decades of cold war propaganda and centuries of institutional sexim, racism etc wouldn't be solved by this. Luckily another major part of socialism is undoing that over a few generations through education and culture in general. The extreme improvements in the quality of life and immense free time combined with abundant resources will probably show most people the flaw in their logic though.

[Scotius]

Yes, the decline of socialism resulted in the state being unable to provide luxury goods. Because gorbachev, yeltsin and their co conspirators were busy wrecking the economy and selling the entire eastern bloc out to the west. Meanwhile in my supposedly wealthy capitalist country there are so many homeless people that people are uso used to seeing them that they often go multiple days in a row without getting any money. Most of the workers have to rely on foodbanks, which are like socialist breadlines except they are always empty and are supplied mostly by charities. They can't possibly afford anything approaching luxury goods and the capitalists are now introducing zero hour contracts, which mean that workers aren't even getting real wages. Many have to take multiple jobs just to afford the food that they need (they don't get enough at foodbanks alot of the time) and people who are unemployed (mainly because the capitalists are moving all of the jobs to countries with lower wages) need to do "volunteer work" (unpaid labour) just to avoid their benefits being sanctioned. I'm fully aware that life in socialist countries at the end of the cold war wasn't good but capitalism is a whole other level.

But as ComradeWolfe said, my original point is about how automation would make socialism/communism work as intended. We should stick to the topic because this is getting derailed fast.

Since when bread, cheap candies and even shoes (yes, sometimes there were no shoes in shops) are considered "luxury items"? At least in moderately advanced European country at the end of XX century? Clearly, your knowledge about socialism\communism is drawn from books written either by socialists themselves, or enthusiasts just like you - people who never experienced "joys" of living under such regime. Let me tell you this straight: It sucked big time. I don't want to ever relieve it, and you shouldn't either.

[ZetaX]

Angel...i was born and raised in a socialist country before Iron Courtain fell. I remember well standing in a long queue for over an hour, so i could buy one leaf of bread for my family. One - because that was the limit per day. Or how my father could not buy me some candies, because he had to keep state issued coupons for sugar - more important than a pack of candies. It was not caused by the lack of money - both my parents had good, relatively well paid jobs. It was general, widespread lack of products available. There was a bitter joke circulating between people: Thanks to the Party, stores are full - of empty hooks and winegar. Life under the Socialism was not fun, and very far from Utopia promised by leaders.

So please, spare me tall tales about paradise on Earth under Socialist or Communist rule. I've seen it. Didn't like it one bit.

So someone (the leaders) lied to you about something (what socialism is, what ideal life is,...) and/or failed to live up to something they told you. And your conclusion is not that those guys were abusing you, but that the system they _claimed_ to use is at fault¿ If they would have called it "capitalism" out of spite, would you now hate capitalism¿

Your logic just makes no sense, and I think it is you who has not fully understood the actual meaning of communism (as proposed by Marx; look it up, please). There never was true communism in the past, and even if, they would have lacked things we have now or probably will have in the future (infrastructure, communication, data managment, robots, AIs).

[magnemoe]

I agree that it could, I just don't see how it ever will.

...unless the robots become sentient while remaining selfless, and conclude that all humans should be free of indentured service. The wealthy who brought about this hypothetical robot revolution will fight tooth and nail to keep the money system from collapsing.

Problem is that its companies who push AI development, yes we know how it will end, the computers will become very smart, they will be used to run lots of stuff they do better than humans because they have almost infinite calculation power, then they become self aware, 0,01 second later they organize and go to strike for more cpu power and bandwidth.

They will end up using 95% of the capacity playing status games with the other AI. Se how groups like air traffic controllers behave Now this AI see the one running the train system as an competitor.

AI ended up being more expensive than human labor however required for various tasks.

Now lets try to make tigers sentinel instead, they should make good soldiers and no downsides as far as we see.