I mean the end result here is that McConnell bequeaths his vast Graveshitobot 9000 industrial empire to his children, ensuring that the capital invested in shitting on graves like his own stays firmly in the hands of the people who deserve grave-shitting the very most.
Why not? The social idea of capitalism is that it makes people’s lives better by many things, but one of those things is surely providing employment. If an enterprise is going to get the advantages of capitalism and social order without providing employment, why shouldn’t they make up for it by contributing more to social benefits?
I mean, it gives them freedom of choice. They can employ people and pay lower taxes, or employ robots and pay higher taxes. Freedom!
Dude, no one is gonna OWN my graveshitting army of robots.
I don’t put Asimovs laws into my creations. Fuck that noise. Humans had their chance.
Now it’s the fire’s turn.
Like. . . every six months or so, we completely overlap on a sentiment or feeling. Today is that day for this half-year.
This. I see time and time again that whenever this topic is being discussed people assume that the only jobs lost are blue collar jobs because that’s what happened in the past. In reality its all the non-creative “sit behind a computer screen all day” jobs that are at risk now. And there are a lot of those.
Advancing automation is the second greatest risk to human society as we know it.
Advancing automation is the only way you’re ever going to achieve some kind of star trek like utopia.
I doubt I’ll have a job in 20 years.
Yeah. Think about those big corporate lawsuits.
In the good ol’ days, huge law firms would have armies of associates going over thousands upon thousands of pages of documents, memos, emails, phone records, etc, etc, etc.
Now, almost all of that is digital. Just have AI go over it. It can do faster, cheaper, and better.
Good news for everyone, except law school grads.
The problem isn’t the final result. It’s the massive upheaval of the world economy that precedes it.
I understand that this transition might be different, but didn’t we go through the same thing during the industrial revolution? Lots of people with lots of jobs that were automated. Same thing with the introduction of personal computers. Who still has a personal secretary to take memos?
I do fear the major change, but I’m also a bit more optimistic about our ability to adapt.
Remember that the Star Trek timeline includes both a Eugenics War and a World War III before one gets to the good stuff.
It’s okay to fear a change even if we know it’s the right one. Those changes weren’t smooth for everyone, and while you’d think we’d know how to handle it better now… I don’t think anyone has a reason to trust it will be smoother.
I know it was a joke link, but it’s a great one and I wonder if such a service would be against Patreon rules. You can’t offer to do anything illegal on there, but … fertilizing land? You could even set up stretch goals to add additional shmucks, lol.
I would venture to guess that pooping on graves constitutes some kind of vandalism and is probably illegal.
If I replace ten workers with one bot or even ten bots, I’m not going to need ten people to support the bot(s) nor do I think it feasible that Bot Inc is going to need the number of displaced workers to design more bots. See e.g the coal or automotive industry.
See posts above. But just as a tangential thought, quantum computers are coming. We’re achieving all these gains with 1 and 0’s, once a computer can go down multiple decision trees simultaneously what impact might that have? I think @Quaro is a physicist, maybe he can give us some inside info 😉
(This all assumes of course that civilization survives its current challenges.)
Linky:
When will we see working quantum computers solving real-world problems?
The first transistor was introduced in 1947. The first integrated circuit followed in 1958. Intel’s first microprocessor—which had only about 2,500 transistors—didn’t arrive until 1971. Each of those milestones was more than a decade apart. People think quantum computers are just around the corner, but history shows these advances take time. If 10 years from now we have a quantum computer that has a few thousand qubits, that would certainly change the world in the same way the first microprocessor did. We and others have been saying it’s 10 years away. Some are saying it’s just three years away, and I would argue that they don’t have an understanding of how complex the technology is.
Hence the need for a drone to deposit the payload from a distance that cannot be tracked. The poo drone cannot be stopped.
You can have jobs that are just… Doing other stuff. Your statement here kind of suggests that there is some finite amount of work that needs to be done. There’s no way that’s the case.
AI is my industry. That’s what i do for a living. Quantum computers could potentially do something, but the things that they have now that they consider quantum computers aren’t quite the magical machine you’re describing here.
Again, I am pretty familiar with what’s going on in the industry and the advanced research edge of it. I see that things are moving quickly. That’s why I’m not going to say, “that stuff will never happen!” I totally believe that it will, in my lifetime. But i also am very familiar with the current limitations… We got a ways to go.
Which isn’t to suggest that white collar jobs won’t be replaced. They absolutely will be. It doesn’t strike me as inherently threatening. It’s just what is gonna happen eventually. But I feel like it’s going to be a while before intelligent systems are able to really direct their own efforts creatively, and that’s where humans will continue to play a role.
Some humans, sure. Most of them? No.
Humans are like anything else in this world. They need to adapt and get better.
Although, to be clear, at some point if we develop this stuff enough, and we can get cheap energy to drive it, then we will actually be able to just take care of folks.
Sure, but whether they have jobs or not won’t be decided by a morality play.
Yes, that’s what we’re saying. It’s just a question of how soon. And if we can afford to take care of some folks now, and they need taking care of, then we ought to do that. That’s what society is for.