patrick.net

Rin says

I don't know if you remember him but George Plimpton

Didn't Alan Alda portray him in a movie about football/sports?

Rin says

In the end, it'll only be the owners and the top AI/expert system designers, who'll be employed.

Assuming of course that the top AI/expert system designers can do a better job at AI/expert system design than the last generation of AI/expert systems that they produced for the owners.

Rin says

Then, as time goes by, we need to determine which group of workers will be structurally displaced and put 'em on social assistance...

...When that occurs, we'll have a stable welfare society with the elite dole bungers, producing literature, music, and the arts.

Yeah, something like that unless the elite want mass poverty, death and slavery.

I think though that rather than go on "welfare" per-say there will be a lot of make-work jobs.

Oh, yeah and you forgot to add reality TV contestants to the list of activities.

egads101 says

legalize prostitution... that one is hard to hire robots for!

S*xbots are going to be one of the largest apps of all time.

upisdown says

Didn't Alan Alda portray him in a movie about football/sports?

I think he actually played Plimpton, himself, an amateur attempting to live out his fantasy of being in the majors. It's a perfect prototype of a future where ppl, for the most part, have nothing to do with themselves. In this case, it happened to be a real life Trustafarian sports writer, writing BS all day, mentally masturbating of being something of value.

leo707 says

I think though that rather than go on "welfare" per-say there will be a lot of make-work jobs.

Oh, yeah and you forgot to add reality TV contestants to the list of activities.

We'd still need some sort of basic income guarantee, because the robot which drops off the groceries at one's barrack, still needs to get credited. The same goes for any basic service out there.

Rin says

In this case, it happened to be a real life Trustafarian sports writer, writing BS all day, mentally masturbating of being something of value.

Hmmm...that does sound like the intrawebs. Well...except that part about the masturbation being "mental."

Rin says

We'd still need some sort of basic income guarantee, because the robot which drops off the groceries at one's barrack, still needs to get credited. The same goes for any basic service out there.

Oh, yeah. There has to be a subsistence base-line, then probably minor income bumps for make-work jobs.

Rin says

I think he actually played Plimpton, himself, an amateur attempting to live
out his fantasy of being in the majors. It's a perfect prototype of a future
where ppl, for the most part, have nothing to do with themselves. In this case,
it happened to be a real life Trustafarian sports writer, writing BS all day,
mentally masturbating of being something of value.

Paper Lion, 1968. I saw parts of it, and it was boring with some under-achieving by Alda, and a pointless story line that drug on. A real snoozer.

Rin says

As Moore's Law keeps accelerating up its parabola,

moore's law has stopped... no need to go faster with semiconductors..

many are happy with the speed at 1.8-2.0 GHz... want more.. string several
100 cpus to create parallel computing.

its now mass storage that is accelerating due to demand.

John Bailo says

We could however start to build the Leisure Society based more on gaming, travel and entertainment to take the place of the Workforce Society

Well, this is the what you'd call the end game because you're correct, without ppl engaged in work, there's no point in producing much of anything besides food stuff.

The problem is that between that Westworld utopia (minus Yul as the John Wayne-Terminator), is a potential collapse of modern civilization.

Therefore, we need a plan to help make that transition.

Bubbabear says

Oxford Professors: Robots And Computers Could Take Half Our Jobs Within The Next 20 Years

We computer science majors are looking mighty sexy right about now. And those football players that the college coeds preferred are looking pretty pathetic in comparison.

Scott Adams was off by two decades, but fundamentally right.

Men Who Use Computers Are The New Sex Symbols Of The `90s
by Scott Adams

I get about 100 e-mail messages a day from readers of my comic strip
"Dilbert." Most are from disgruntled office workers, psychopaths,
stalkers, comic-strip fans -- that sort of person. But a growing
number are from women who write to say they think Dilbert is sexy.
Some say they've already married a Dilbert and couldn't be happier.

If you're not familiar with Dilbert, he's an electrical engineer who
spends most of his time with his computer. He's a nice guy but not
exactly Kevin Costner.

Okay, Dilbert is polite, honest, employed and educated. And he stays
home. These are good traits, but they don't exactly explain the
incredible sex appeal. So what's the attraction?

I think it's a Darwinian thing. We're attracted to the people who
have the best ability to survive and thrive. In the old days it was
important to be able to run down an antelope and kill it with a single
blow to the forehead. But that skill is becoming less important every
year. Now all that matters is if you can install your own Ethernet
card without having to call tech support and confess your inadequacies
to a stranger whose best career option is to work in tech support.

It's obvious that the world has three distinct classes of people, each
with its own evolutionary destiny:

Knowledgeable computer users who will evolve into godlike non-corporeal
beings who rule the universe (except for those who work in tech support).

Computer owners who try to pass as knowledgeable but secretly use hand
calculators to add totals to their Excel spreadsheets. This group
will gravitate toward jobs as high school principals and operators of
pet crematoriums. Eventually they will become extinct.

Non-computer users who will grow tails, sit in zoos and fling dung at
tourists.

Obviously, if you're a woman and you're trying to decide which
evolutionary track you want your offspring to take, you don't want to
put them on the luge ride to the dung-flinging Olympics. You want a
real man. You want a knowledgeable computer user with evolution
potential.

And women prefer men who listen. Computer users are excellent
listeners because they can look at you for long periods of time
without saying anything. Granted, early in a relationship it's better
if the guy actually talks. But men use up all the stories they'll
ever have after six months. If a woman marries a guy who's in, let's
say, retail sales, she'll get repeat stories starting in the seventh
month and lasting forever. Marry an engineer and she gets a great
listener for the next 70 years.

Plus, with the ozone layer evaporating, it's a good strategy to mate
with somebody who has an indoor hobby. Outdoorsy men are applying
suntan lotion with SPF 10,000 and yet by the age of 30 they still look
like dried chili peppers in pants. Compare that with the healthy glow
of a man who spends 12 hours a day in front of a video screen.

Henry Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And Bill
Clinton said that knowledge is power. Therefore, logically, according
to the U.S. government, knowledge of computers is the ultimate
aphrodisiac. You could argue with me -- I'm just a cartoonist -- but
it's hard to argue with the government. Remember, they run the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two
about satisfying women.

In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a
hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their
own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks.
Technology has replaced hot cars as the new symbol of robust manhood.
Men know that unless they get a digital line to the Internet no woman
is going to look at them twice.

Finally, there's the issue of mood lighting. Nothing looks sexier
than a man in boxer shorts illuminated only by a 15-inch SVGA
monitor. If we agree that this is every woman's dream scenario, then
I think we can also agree that it's best if the guy knows how to use
the computer. Otherwise, he'll just look like a loser sitting in
front of a PC in his underwear.

In summary, it's not that I think non-PC users are less attractive.
It's just that I'm sure they won't read this article.

Rin says

Instead, the govt will need to exert a type of CPU/bandwidth cost averaging type of surcharge/tax, on computing services. This will need to be paid by all users, corporate and individual. Then, as time goes by, we need to determine which group of workers will be structurally displaced and put 'em on social assistance. This money will then be put back into the economy, so that the money velocity of sorts is retained.

First off, I'm not convinced that robots and expert systems will actually take that high a percentage of good jobs.

But if there is this huge shift, I think your idea of how it will go is one of many possibilities.

I believe with a little evolution in management techniques and philosophy, with creative ways of incentivising people, it should be possible to retain the best aspects of capitalism, while also figuring out ways to keep people productively employed, even if in some cases their economic contribution is less than what they are paid.

Even now, we would be better if all people who receive public aid had to work for it. Even if that work was simply showing up for training of some sort. There are so many things we haven't figured out how to do efficiently yet, when it comes to human resources.

marcus says

I believe with a little evolution in management techniques and philosophy, with creative ways of incentivising people, it should be possible to retain the best aspects of capitalism, while also figuring out ways to keep people productively employed

Here's my issue with this concept, a lot of CEO/executive types aren't concerned about organizations, headcount, and all that jazz. The reason why companies grow to size, incorporating let's say 10K to 100K employees is because in today's time, a lot of work can't be automated.

What I see in execs is that in their widest dreams, they'd love to have a company where there are only salesmen and execs, with all other tasks automated.

Thus, there's no compatibility between capitalism and humanism. If the owners of capital can in fact, have a cadre of robots perform all the tasks of a large corporation, they'd prefer that over having a company of human employees. The only thing preventing this dystopia is time.

IF that is true (and I don't believe it is), then that means that some sort of socialism is better, eventually, than capitalism as we know it.

Better to deal with the inefficiencies of government than some twisted myopic corporate world that would cut the economies throat in the interest of this years profits.

But again, I don't believe it's the case. When the time comes that we are dealing with really tough questions, such as "when is too much automation a problem ?" or "do we want to merge physically with machines" (ie embedded organic computers or interfaces?). When the world starts dealing with some of those big questions, I believe that humanism will be well represented. It won't totally win out, but there will be an increasing number of powerful voices advocating for humanity as those questions become critical.

And fortunately, the picture you paint leads to obvious economic failure, because consumers need to have incomes to consume. Logically, those people should be as productive employed as possible, if they need to have receive an income anyway.

Rin says

S*xbots are going to be one of the largest apps of all time.

Cherry 2000

I'm watching automation taking over the docks in Long Beach and Long Shoremen being fazed out ...just finished a job at Berth 145 for the new automated sea container system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxXZQ7emHC0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

"Just as interesting as the study is the response provided by Gary Reber, founder and executive director of For Economic Justice, who argues that owners of the means of production will actually thrive as such a shift takes place. Those who rely on 9-to-5 standard employment arrangements for subsistence are likely to suffer the most in the automation wave. As Reber put it: ‘Full employment is not an objective of businesses. Companies strive to keep labor input and other costs at a minimum.”"

this is why it's impossible for society to move forward into this without implementing marxist/collectivist ideas. We will very simply be left with no means of support.

marcus says

IF that is true (and I don't believe it is), then that means that some sort of socialism is better, eventually, than capitalism as we know it.

it is the ONLY way to move forward.

Rin says

egads101 says

legalize prostitution... that one is hard to hire robots for!

S*xbots are going to be one of the largest apps of all time.

it sounds like a joke but pornography is a major force in the modern world.

women are finding it increasingly difficult to get guys interested in a 'committed relationship' aka Long Term Relationship. There a literally very few attractive features to a long term coupling with a woman. Modern technology is increasingly more and more realistic and far more stimulating to the senses than any real woman could ever imagine to be. There are countless new legal problems for males. This equates to the new 'i dont give a fuck' mentality that is becoming very prevalent in young males, perhaps just as common as single motherhood has become for women. Today women have voluntary single motherhood.

http://vimeo.com/61410033

maybe this is a good thing.

too many unqualified people are holding jobs.

be an automation engineer and you have job security.

the worst thing that you can become is someone who works in the medical field. considering the overpopulated planet and the bankrupted Social Security system. it would be an immoral thing at this point to try extend someone's life beyond 65, especially those boomers. i think they have had a good run. lets not push it.

Mark D says

maybe this is a good thing.

too many unqualified people are holding jobs.

be an automation engineer and you have job security.

the worst thing that you can become is someone who works in the medical field. considering the overpopulated planet and the bankrupted Social Security system. it would be an immoral thing at this point to try extend someone's life beyond 65, especially those boomers. i think they have had a good run. lets not push it.

weve made it too attractive to climb the corporate ladder. This breeds hypercompetitive types who are willing to do anything for a promotion. If we scale back the incentives, then we sort out the truly ambitious from the predators.

ive worked in both Europe and the US and Europe is far more productive with 'knowledge work'.

Im in favor of a base minimum income structure for everyone, and extremely high tax on the very wealthy.

and yes for Boomers its all about the politics of medical care- they unanimously favor a scenario where the young pay for all their medical expenses.

MershedPerturders says

There are countless new legal problems for males.

men have everything to lose (hair included) and nothing to gain.

Mark D says

MershedPerturders says

There are countless new legal problems for males.

men have everything to lose (hair included) and nothing to gain.

it's simply not worth it. European countries have become so desperate for their population to reproduce they offer them direct incentives to have children. Still most men dont do it.

I dont have children. Dont plan to have any. They all say it's so joyous but all I see is them stressing out endlessly about it. Why increase the population? Still though the reproduction impluse is strong and it's very hard for people to move past it.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Comptroller says

In the future, there will be two jobs: sucking off oligarchs and flipping shacks. Most people will end up hunting other people and living on face. Few have the guts to admit Cannibal Anarchy is inevitable.

there will be plenty of employment opportunities.

1) cam whore

2) forum spammer

3) multi-level marketing advocate

Philistine says

Cherry 2000

Only the 1% will be able to afford the Cherry 2000. You proletariat will have to make due with the stripped down model.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/HmSYnOvEueo

convertible man, you should make a startup to democratize teledildonics.

I think the first Cherry 2K will start at some $200K, much like the Tesla. Then, in a few years, it'll drop to $50K-$80K, making it affordable with financing options.

This guy up in Canada is working on his own, right now. I think prices will drop, once this (or a competitor's) formulation matures. Give it some 15-20 years.

http://projectaiko.com

marcus says

First off, I'm not convinced that robots and expert systems will actually take that high a percentage of good jobs.

Really, why not? What "good job" do you think can not be done better and cheaper by a robot? How many decades is it going to take before robotics/AI/expert systems are to the point where they can do any job, and do it more efficiently that a human? One decade, two...three? Why pay a doctor $200K+ a year to do a job that can be done by a $100K robot that would be much less likely to misdiagnose the patient.

Of course you would have a make-work job for someone to tell the patient which diagnosis tube goes in their mouth and which one goes in their anus.

If it is worthwhile to replace a low wage factory worker with a machine then it is going to be even more worthwhile to replace higher paid workers in good jobs.

What I think we would really benefit from is AI/expert systems to run our government. Unfortunately those jobs are probably the ones that are never going to get replaced.

marcus says

while also figuring out ways to keep people productively employed, even if in some cases their economic contribution is less than what they are paid.

Yeah, paying people more than what their productivity is actually worth is make-work.

Yes, some people do want to sit around an do nothing, but for the most part people want to do something productive. I think that the make-work of the future will be more about preserving people sanity and happiness rather than actually producing anything of value -- which will be done much cheaper and quicker through automation.

marcus says

Even now, we would be better if all people who receive public aid had to work for it. Even if that work was simply showing up for training of some sort. There are so many things we haven't figured out how to do efficiently yet, when it comes to human resources.

Well...ideally we don't want people dieing in the streets if for some reason they can not work, so there should be some very base level of assistance; but, yeah I agree that people should have opportunities to do something productive if they can not find a "normal" job. In the future when all the "normal" jobs are automated there are going to be a lot more people having difficulty finding work.

leo707 says

Why pay a doctor $200K+ a year to do a job that can be done by a $100K robot that would be much less likely to misdiagnose the patient.

That $100K robot will eventually cost only some $10K-$20K to manufacture. And then, the rest will be maintenance and support, which could be $80K, over the course of a decade or so. Therefore, a hospital would only require a Physician's Assistant or Nurse be the live person, to serve as a bedside manner "face time" human assistant. And then, even that person would only be there for PR reasons and not medical.

MershedPerturders says

convertible man, you should make a startup to democratize teledildonics.

I'm not the man. I'm the car. The man is just my passenger. Geez, you humans always presume things revolve around your species. Such prejudice.

Dan8267 says

I'm the car.

Knight Rider, Maximum Overdrive, Herbie, or Christine?

leo707 says

Really, why not? What "good job" do you think can not be done better and cheaper by a robot?

Here's what Marcus doesn't understand... ultimately, the CFO of a company has to cut one's paycheck. And so there's your relationship to money. There are the owners/C-level execs who have it and ppl below 'em, who grovel for it. And for the govt, it's the ability of the govt to finance its debts by issuing bonds (a.k.a. debt instruments) to pay its employees.

This is the paradigm of capitalism, as we know it. If a CFO only has to write one check, and that's to the maintenance firm for the Robot/AI, at a fraction of the costs of a regular headcount payroll, he'd do it. I can very easily see this forming between 2025 and 2050, where labor becomes obsolete and not cost effective.

There will always be a need for techs and mechanics to fix the machines that do work in the real world. Even if computer programs write themselves, they'll need real world outputs. Machines break down. Parts need replacing. Maintenance is as inescapeable as death and taxes, and companies that neglect it are automatically set on a downward spiral.
So learn to fix things and you'll always have a job.
Also, creative types will always be needed. Entertainment is a growing industry, and creative work is absolutely crucial to this. Everyone can see the difference between a show produced to order by executives and a show produced by a writer with tremendous skill and imagination. The former make box office duds and embarrass the industry. The latter make money and win devotion of fans.

Quigley says

There will always be a need for techs and mechanics to fix the machines that do work in the real world. Even if computer programs write themselves, they'll need real world outputs. Machines break down. Parts need replacing. Maintenance is as inescapeable as death and taxes, and companies that neglect it are automatically set on a downward spiral.

So learn to fix things and you'll always have a job.

Also, creative types will always be needed. Entertainment is a growing industry, and creative work is absolutely crucial to this.

These will be dwindling job markets, as Robots will eventually be fixing Robots.

Creative types, as in a James Cameron or JK Rowling, are a 1% category, who also own the rights to their work. Other ppl, for the most part, are owned by studios or record labels. A lot of creative work will go uncompensated out there.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/05/researchers-build-robot-can-reproduce

This was the best article I could find about robots fixing or creating other robots. It's a pretty basic tech, and promotes no useful function. Also the self-replicating robots can't even replicate without a human building more of those cubes for them to use. It's sort of like geek masturbation at this level. The complexity involved in machine repair is so high that current tech isn't even close to the beginning. Maybe another century will bring us technician robots with AI good enough to make those kinda of decisions and dexterity/strength needed to carry them out. I'm not worried.

Rin says

If a CFO only has to write one check, and that's to the maintenance firm for the Robot/AI, at a fraction of the costs of a regular headcount payroll, he'd do it. I can very easily see this forming between 2025 and 2050, where labor becomes obsolete and not cost effective.

You're way off on your time estimate. I remember that we all knew that flat TV's that you could hang on a wall were coming, in the late 80s or so. It took twenty plus years before most people had one. And that was a technology that was fully understood and on the drawing board at that time.

You're talking about far more complex robots replacing people in jobs, many of which have a significant social component, in just a few decades ? Give me a break.

I see these predictions as incredibly speculative, and to the limited extent that your predictions are right, it's going to take about 4 times as long to unfolds what you're thinking.

Quigley says

Also the self-replicating robots can't even replicate without a human building more of those cubes for them to use.

One doesn't need a true automata for an economic dystopia to kick in.

In the white collar world, a 2030 Watson server can replace a room of actuaries and then, the dept will be the 2-3 certified fellows, who sign off on the work. They'll also be a type of client relations manager as well, the public face of the organization.

In the world of facilities and firmware, there are specialties like electrical wiring, structural engineering, and piping/plumbing. There will be robots, specific for each area and then, service bots, which repair/upgrade the various skill category robots. At the top of the service bots, they'll be a handful of high end engineers, who'll be making modifications to those expert systems. Those will represent less than 10% of today's workers. Now granted, if those guys are kinda like today's Navy Nuclear engineers (given public safety & national security considerations), then sure, it would be a rather secure profession, provided that one passes all the exams and gets the professional certification from the granting authority. If it's anything like corporate America today, however, it's probably as insecure as any other work.

humanity says

And that was a technology that was fully understood and on the drawing board at that time.

A flat screen TV is just a skinny TV. Thus, there was no real incentive for it, from a the CFO perspective. Let's say it's a *nice to have* but not necessary. My family still has a cathode ray analog TV with a digital signal converter even today, as it's aesthetically pleasing and fits in with the older furnishings.

The difference here is that work, like actuary, is expensive. A typical insurance outfit needs to allocate some $10M-$20M in headcount per year, just to keep 'em around. If I were a CFO and someone showed me Watson 2030, the all-in-one actuary for a licensing fee of $100K per year, I'd be all over it.

humanity says

in the late 80s or so

Another salient point about business is that in the late 80s, the push was to get corporate data into Oracle (or Sybase) databases, and then, use tools like spreadsheets (MS Excel, prior to that, Lotus 123), to present the work. That goal was well accomplished during the following two decades. Today, Oracle databases are used by 80+% of the Fortune 1000 for their day-to-day operations.

The proliferation of flat screens or mobile devices was not the business goal of those times. Cell phone usage was simply a matter of a salesman making a call, before showing up at a meeting. It was more convenient than calling from an airport payphone or walking to a payphone, if the car had broken down.

Today, the goal is more work, fewer headcount, and offshore whenever palatable (but not all to India at once anymore). With that as the business driving force, mobile computing, the use of expert systems, etc, will proliferate.