22 hours ago, SeraphLance said:

"Smarter" technology just broadens the range of white-collarness that machines can cover.  In response, human labor opens up on the white end of the spectrum as we no longer need people doing the now-obsolete jobs.

Every new technology has created jobs for humans using that technology (and here's the fundamental point) that only humans can do (more accurately that only humans are cost-effective at doing). That set of jobs is rapidly shrinking. 

If automation creates new jobs, automation will also fill those jobs unless it can't. That is simple economic fact. 

22 hours ago, SeraphLance said:

It seems to me that the fear is that automation will cover the entire blue/white spectrum to the point where there's literally no work that can't be done by an automaton.

What jobs are there that can't ultimately be done better by a machine? There definitely are some; people will probably still pay to have human interaction in some circumstances (art, music, parts of the service industry, caring, etc).

But those are a fraction of the overall job pool. 

Anything with a simple cost metric associated with it can ultimately be automated. 

@SeraphLance, the question is not whether there are other things that we can do, it's whether there are other things we will be paid to do.

If we leave aside the idea of radically changing our economy for the moment, then fundamentally people need to earn money to pay for food, shelter, clothes, etc.

There might be plenty of musicians, actors and writers around today, but how many of them are actually making a living doing what they do? And on top of that, what % of the overall workforce are they? I'd be surprised if it's even 1%. 

29 minutes ago, SeraphLance said:

This is analogous to saying before the agricultural revolution, "If we're not all hunting for food, what are we going to do all day?"  The answer is something else.

What else? Keep in mind that whatever else you're going to do has to be:

• economically valuable
• something that cannot easily be automated
• something that billions of unskilled people can do

I don't believe such a job does exist and more importantly, in an age of cheap automation, I don't believe such a job can exist... at least not to the point where it provides a sustainable income. 

I'm a programmer. I've been working in paid employment for nearly 20 years at this now. If someone automated my job (a distinct possibility before the end of my working life)... there isn't a whole lot else I could reasonably do to earn a living. I can do plenty of other stuff, but unless people are willing to pay to see some pretty average snowboarding, some very mediocre mountain biking and some frankly shameful guitar playing, I am going to have to think really hard about what I do to make a living.

1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:

Yes, if you lose your job you might be screwed, because you can't easily retrain in your lifetime.  However, that's a short-term loss.  You're going to grow old and die, and your kids if you have them will be educated in something else more relevant and employable.  That's an actual economic problem to deal with; the rate of automation can (relatively) short-term cause labor issues.  However, that makes discussion of a star-trek post-supply utopia the wrong problem to talk about.

The crux of the difference in perspective here is that you believe that the jobs lost to automation will be replaced with something else. @ChaosEngine, @Luckless (correct me if I'm wrong here man), and myself don't agree.

2 hours ago, SeraphLance said:

That's a small part of the job pool created by technology.  There are more musicians, actors, and writers today than during any era of human history.  It's not because they were enabled by new technology, but because they were released by technology of having to do other things -- like, say, growing food.  This is why major inventions and developments lead to revolutions across many unrelated fields.

This is analogous to saying before the agricultural revolution, "If we're not all hunting for food, what are we going to do all day?"  The answer is something else.

And this is I think what I'm most curious to hear from you. What will people who were previously doing things like manufacturing, and relatively low skilled jobs do for a living (given the current system)? As @ChaosEngine pointed out, we can only have so many creative types in our current system. Surely the people who worked unskilled jobs can't all become programmers or any other highly skilled job and in any event, we only need so many programmers. Maintenance? Sure, but again, we only need so many people to maintain things, and even that may have potential solutions as well. We're even slowly starting to see changes in programming/software development too. The crux of what we are arguing is summed up best by this:

On 1/27/2018 at 5:00 PM, Luckless said:

Well, if we do develop a general AI able to handle creative reasoning on par with a human, and cheaply deploy robotics that are on par or better than human dexterity (Which we're nearly at now), then exactly what kind of job do you expect a human would be more suited to than a synthetic employee? (a synthetic who doesn't have rights, and was programmed to quietly do their job without demanding things like breaks, vacation, pay, etc.)

Sure I do concede there will be certain types of problems that need to be solved, but again, there won't be a ton of unskilled work I feel at least. So what's your take on what people will do @SeraphLance?

1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:

Why do billions of unskilled people need to be able to do it? 

Because there are billions of unskilled people who need employment?

1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:

Yes, it's likely that in another two hundred years, something resembling a modern 4-5 year college curriculum will also be mandatory.

200 years? This problem is going to happen within decades at most. 

1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:

You're going to grow old and die, and your kids if you have them will be educated in something else more relevant and employable

That's the point. There won't be anything "more relevant and employable" because a machine will already be doing it.  

1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:

But yeah, if your problem is "what do I do if my white-collar job gets automated", then we're talking past one another. 

That might be my specific problem, but it's definitely not what I'm talking about. What are you going to do with the 70 million transportation workers worldwide who won't have a job?

1 hour ago, SeraphLance said:

However, I don't think such a problem necessitates considering entirely new economic models, but rather a shorter working life until retirement, or continuing education (especially relevant in our field).

Neither of those work.

First of all, people are living longer. Everyone is already talking about how our current "retire at 65" model is economically unsustainable. If anything, we're going to be working longer to pay for our retirements (assuming there's still work to be done). 

And continuing education? Yeah, it's relevant for a while, but you're not going to learn faster than automation progresses. Even if my timescale is off by a few decades, and automation doesn't really kick in for another 40-50 years, it's still a problem that generation will face. At some point, maybe sooner, maybe later, automation will outpace humans in all but a vanishingly small number of careers. It's not even a question. 

And I for one do not buy the Luddite "Smash the Machines!" approach to preserving employment all for the sake of maintaining a barely functional economic model. - Why should it be the expectation that so many in the world should work 40+ hours a week for someone else's profit while they themselves struggle to keep lights on, feed themselves, and maintain a comfortable space to live?

In all honesty, why should I care if my neighbour stays home watching TV all day while I go out and do a job I'm passionate about and care for, assuming that neighbour isn't making a mess or having a negative impact on my own life?

We are approaching a point in history where humans can universally devote their lives to arts and sciences, and where labour is done out of choice rather than economic necessity. One where people choose to build wooden boats by hand, not because it is economically superior to something built by a robot in a factory, but because building a wooden boat with hand tools is fun.

One thing I would like to ask @deltaKshatriya is how would this "central planning" AI would work? How would it :

a) know the wants and needs of the people
b) know the most cost-effective means in which it could satisfy them?

So before I respond to anything else, I guess @mikeman posed a pretty good question tbh.

4 hours ago, mikeman said:

One thing I would like to ask @deltaKshatriya is how would this "central planning" AI would work? How would it :

a) know the wants and needs of the people

The first part is the most complicated part of the system.

For basic necessities, like food and water, aren't super tough really. IMO agriculture can easily be taken care of through good optimization algorithms that examine how much is being bought and by whom and where, and with some predictive analytics and pattern analysis, could probably fairly easy to solve. There's only so much in food that needs to be manufactured beyond a point. And we can still have restaurants, chefs, etc, along with people who basically design food. Algorithms can then sample demand for different products and use analytics/predictive algorithms to then produce what's necessary.

What other things are there? There's things like transportation (cars), computers, furniture, clothes, etc. In general, consumables Let's look at how supply and demand works right now with resource allocation. Right now, the idea is that an enterprising individual would see that people want something like product x. He would build it and price it fairly to make a profit. The key part here is in identifying the wants and needs, which is typically done right now through 'gut instinct', or 'observations' but also market research plays a huge role in whether or not something will be successful or not and also, how much to produce of something.

Algorithms can sample demand in general for a certain class of product (like say, computers, or cars). These algorithms can even learn from something like social media, or get granular, and use data on personalities, etc. to get more of an idea. Essentially, these algorithms would conduct 'market research' automatically as opposed to using humans. So this way we can get an idea for demand for a general class of products.

Then the question is what about variety and different styles, etc.? That's what perhaps people love the most about capitalism: the choices we have. Choices need not disappear. Similar automated market research is conducted for people who make designs/work as 'car designer', or 'fashion designer', etc. In this way we decide how much of specific products to create. 

Not everything necessarily needs much analysis. Video games/software, and movies, for example, can pretty much be released onto a cloud service without much need to really worry about resource analysis.

4 hours ago, mikeman said:

b) know the most cost-effective means in which it could satisfy them?

So the market analysis also has to be paired with a cost-benefits analysis as well. The benefits in this case will be an analysis of net happiness/satisfaction, and also utility, etc. If it's found to be something cost effective for what it gives, then we know how much of each to make. It's then a simple question of figuring out the hard numbers for what needs to go where. 

If more is needed of one thing and less of another, the system adjusts accordingly.

You could even call this automated capitalism in some ways, since what it essentially does is takes the principles of capitalism and automates them, freeing up most people to do what they want to do. The idea of communism comes into play more because we no longer have people who own the factories, or the means of production. The means of production are, instead, owned by no one/the state. 

This is by no means a utopia. You can still have the struggling fashion designer who simply can't get enough popularity. The difference is that it's more of an issue of feeling useful/validated rather than straight up surviving. People's jobs would be either creative, or working in engineering/science. Engineers would work with AIs to invent new stuff while scientists continue research. What really disappears here is low skilled jobs: the manufacturers, or janitors, or truck drivers etc.

The other question that arises is how do we decide when perhaps a new factory should be built to produce a new class of product? Similar market research and algorithms can estimate if the utility and net benefits are worth the costs.

Of course, this is just an idea. IMHO there can be other methods of how algorithms/AI can manage resource allocation. And, obviously, this is far from complete.

@Gian-Reto: imho you've named a lot of worst case scenarios. I was more getting at alternatives that are feasible solutions tbh. I don't believe banning automation is really a solution either, since you can't stop the entire world from not using it, and, ultimately, is just a means to kill progress. You can slow it down, but you can't kill it. 

10 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Now, to end on a note probably seen as more constructive... I do think a lot can be achieved with a mixed system. I think what really is needed is that the social contract between the public and the private companies are re-negotiated. I think you can have a private company, that is working for its own profit yet still trying to benefit society as a whole.

Given how this whole system basically hinges on nationstates being gone, or at least no longer being in competition with each other, a private company will have to obey the rules of the "world state".... there is no "safe haven" anymore for bad actors in the private sector to flee to.

So you can leave the company privatized, and let them compete within clear rules set by the state. Instead of making one of them clearly superior in position like today in capitalistic wester countries (where the economy, and thus the private sector tends to dictate the rules), or in the communist systems (where the state dictates the rules), you could have a system were the public state and private companies are kind of even partners with a very strict set of "rules of engagement".... companies would have to adhere to clear rules, yet had a formalized path open to filed complaints in a manner the state couldn't simply ingore.

There would be clear benefits to the private companies too, guaranteeing stability and social peace for adhering to the rules and paying taxes.

I'm more curious about this. How would we offset the job loss from automation in this system, however?

10 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Is "better" ultimately the end goal of work, outside of a hypercompetitive system like capitalism? IF one day communism takes over, and IF it one day spans the whole earth as one communist system... what kind of competition would force humanity to do jobs "better", when they could simply be done the same way they always have?

An alien race that poses an outside threat? Some scam set up by the state to keep the masses on their toes?

 

For the soviet union, the competition was the US and capitalism. If capitalism is gone, and there is no "outside threat" to compete with, a communist systemwill run out of steam probably. While a capitalist system has built competition into its core. Thus communism actually is the better solution if you want to NOT automate jobs, and want to keep the status quo, at the point when no outside competition is forcing communism to keep up.

My proposal doesn't do away with competition. Competition is good in moderation, like most things in life. There are rewards for people who contribute positively to society. My example would be that say we have a doctor who invents a cure for cancer (assuming we haven't cured it already). That doctor is rewarded in some means. This could be a really nice car, or a bigger house, or any number of things. There will also be the fame and honors you'll get. Maybe the doctor can also be promoted to a position of more prominence that involves leading other doctors, etc. 

My system doesn't get rid of competition, rewards, nor does it attempt to equalize everyone. All that disappears is ownership of giant factories, etc. Even private enterprise exists, in the form of competing with others to get more market share, and more rewards. 

The biggest misconception here seems to be that we want to forcibly equalize, and forcibly get rid of competition, and forcibly create an 'equal' society. That's not true at all. We are trying to make things more equal, but not 100% equal, in the sense that everyone should have a basic standard of living of living relatively comfortably, compared to how the middle class lives right now. Some people will have more privately owned things than others: there's no question of that. The only major thing you cannot own is factories/means of production.

10 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

Still, the more centralized a system, the more open to abuse it is. That is one of the biggest issues I see with the communist system as it was implemented until now.

Three things:

1): We don't need to have necessarily a central AI. This can be a conglomeration of AIs talking to one another, where each AI represents some sector of the market. It depends more on how the system is designed. 

2): Capitalism does have some key dependencies as it is. The Federal Reserve Bank has to function, for example. Banking in general has to function. If banking fails, capitalism fails right with it. Determined actors can easily take this down. Imagine someone who infiltrates the Fed, for example.

3): Capitalism is abused quite a bit as it is. As @Luckless pointed out. Capitalism isn't very robust to abuse either. We had the Great Depression, after which we realized that more fail safes are needed. Is it tough to imagine people building a similar system failsafes for our proposed system here?

10 hours ago, Gian-Reto said:

One thing that hasn't been brought up in the discussion by now is the fact that there might the situation in the future were the amount of work outpaces the ability of our industry to produce enough machines to do the work. IF space faring technology is picking up pace again, and humans start colonizing other planets, as well as start probing the farther reaches of the solar system and beyond, there might be a sudden increase in jobs because of all the infrastructure needed to keep offworld mining and exploration going. Maybe a ton of jobs would suddenly emerge for humans to work offworld. Or maybe the industry would concentrate on automating offworld jobs, not having enough capacity to also keep automating all the jobs left on earth....

IMHO, space colonization is at least a couple centuries away. That and I'm still not very sure if people will WANT to colonize space, given how little value we might get from it, at least, for now.