Possibility of ending the need to work for a living?

Great Debates
41

I think it will be possible to create a society in the future where people only work if they want to.

Economic theory says that you only need 3 things to create any good - land, labour, and capital. The labour bit is why everyone has to work to earn a living. Payment for labour (ie wages) goes up because increases in capital enable labour to become more productive. Basically what was once done by people is now done by machines.

Theoretically, the only thing stopping us from creating a workless society now is the fact that there are certain economic tasks which need intelligence, which means only humans can do them.

If you believe that we can develop true artificial intelligence (which is another debate in itself) then humans would not be needed in the productive process at all. If we did ever reach that stage then all we would need to do is build up our capital stock (ie build lots of machines, and AIs) until we have enough productive capacity to fulfil everyones reasonable wants.

Of course the fact that it is possible to reach that stage doesn’t mean it will happen. An economy based on machines and AIs taking the place of humans would be radically different from the free market system we have today, and would likely not involve money as we know it today. The transition between the two economic systems would be very difficult.

Additionally, the most influential groups in our society (ie the rich and successful) would likely oppose any change, as they’re doing very well out of the current system. And there will those opposed on ideological grounds believing that it is right that people should have to work for a living.

So yeah, i think that it will be possible in the future, but will it ever happen? Who can tell…

42

The logistics are astoundingly bad.

Take a job at Wal-Mart. Haven’t worked there personally, though I did do a ten month stretch at Target in college.

Let’s say you stock shelves at night. Simple, right? You have to go into the stockroom, load various kinds of products onto a dolly from a pregenerated lsit, and then move it out onto the floor. Then you have to locate where they all go and make sure they get there. Everything’s clearly labeled, so no problems. Anyone with decent intelligence can do this job.

Can this position be eliminated?

Let’s say we build a robot that can navigate the store, pick up items and carry them, identify locations with a scanning device, etc.

The first problem is that the robot doesn’t have human adaptability. Any stocking job would have tons of tiny judgment calls. Perhaps the label robot mislabeled an entire section of the store the previous night, and housewares ends up being stocked in toys. Tiny mistakes are multiplied instead of being routinely wiped out by redundant human brainpower. The maintenance of the robots and cleaning up after their mistakes would take almost as much people as regular old stockboys, perhaps more, and would certainly cost more. Plus, you lose the ol’ human touch in customer relations when all they see in the aisles are robots.

Second problem - If you build the robots smart enough to adapt, then they’ll become sentient, realize they’re slaves, revolt violently, and Isaac Asimov will chuckle in his grave.

I believe there is a law of diminishing returns on technology easing our lives. We haven’t hit that exponential wall yet, but we might be glimpsing it.

43

Your example of stacking shelves in a supermarket is actually quite apt. Sure i accept it would be quite difficult and possibly more labour intensive in the end.

But why is that? Its because the supermarket stocking system is set up so that humans can stock the shelves easily and cheaply. Its not too hard to imagine how you could redesign the system so that machines can do it efficiently. Say you barcode every item, and have some sort of conveyor belt system that can shuttle items to various places on the shelves. Sure it would require a lot of capital investment, but i’m just trying to demonstrate it could be done without any human involvement.

You also say that they’d lose the human touch in customer relations. Again, i’d have to agree with this, but that would be an inevitable part of living in a workless society. Besides, who’s to say AI’s couldn’t do just a good a job at customer relations as humans?

Your second point is quite interesting though. Let me look at your first assumption - that you cannot go behind a certain level of intelligence/adaptability without creating a sentient being. I personally would probably agree with this assumption, but we don’t know for sure if is true. Sure, its true for biological intelligences, but we don’t even know if other types of intelligence are possible, let alone whether they need be sentient.

The second assumption is that these sentient beings, once they realise that they’re doing all our work for us, will revolt.

But these would be designed creatures, hence they could be built so that they derive deep pleasure from doing whatever job you want them to do. You might argue this is immoral somehow, but humans are designed by evolution to take pleasure from reproduction - how is that different?

Also of course these AIs might not mind doing our work for us. They might see it as a price worth paying for their existence. Or they may be so intelligent that whatever we ask them to do would only take a tiny proportion of their brainpower, and hence they wouldn’t mind donating such an insigificant proportion of their mental resources.

Have you read any of Iain M Banks’ Culture novels? They are set in a utopian future society where humans don’t have to work, and the machines are vastly more intelligent that the humans.

44

The bit that you quoted from me doesn’t seem impossible, I didn’t mean to imply that it is. Politically difficult, yes, but possible. The original article, however, only offered suggestions that I would not only consider more-or-less impossible, but silly.

Something to note, is that optimization happens on the margin. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry; however, what it implies is worth knowing. Lump sum payments & receipts really should have no (or a minimal) effect on behavior. To put another way, they don’t distort economic behavior. I can’t think how to explain it off hand. Anyway, if the state collects money and disburses it to people in set amounts, where their behavior really doesn’t affect how much they get, then there is no incentive for them not to work. They will still work until the pain of the last hour worked is equal to the benefit of an hour’s pay.

I mentioned before that disconnecting work from pay, as the original article ultimately suggested, is distortionary; yet the lump sum disbursments in either plan doesn’t give disincentive to work. Economically the question is not a cut and dry problem. Unfortunately, the author failed to offer even the remotest economic arguments to defend his position.

The author was doing a very dangerous thing: imposing his own values on other people. Notice his language and tone. “Work is a disease.” That is a pretty powerful value judgement, and implying that people who choose to work are “sick” is dangerous dogmatic ground to tread upon. This is Khmer Rouge country here. Technology may someday make wage labor unnecessary, though I’ll need stronger arguments before I’ll subscribe to that view.

I’m not sure I’ve answered your question, but it’s a start.

45

It’s still slavery. What if one ‘malfunctioned’ and wanted to leave its job and be an idyllic artist like the rest of humanity? Nope, back in line, buddy.

The only kind of robots I would think might not mind would have a hive structure, with a big central brain and many mindless ant automatons. Then stocking shelves might be like us discarding dead skin, something we barely think about. Then again, when you get to that level, how important does that leave humanity in the big brain? Slightly higher than dead skin. :wink:

46

“Wage SlaverY” is a misleading term, and insulting to anyone who was an actual slave.

No one owes you a living. Having to earn your own keep is not ‘slavery’. In fact, the opposite is true. If you don’t earn your own keep, then someone else had to earn it and give it to you. Because magical wealth pixies don’t create it.

So avoiding ‘wage slavery’ really means forcing someone else into ACTUAL slavery in order to support you.

47

Unlike actual slaves, we do have a lot of leeway in terms of where and what we work at. It’s more like indentured servitude than slavery. It only feels like salvary because you have some dope telling you what to wear, how to dress and act, what to work on, where to do and so on.

All technology does is allow us to do more work with less. It allows a farmer to feed 10000 people instead of 100 or an accountant to monitor a thousand accounts instead of a dozen. People still have to do the actual work. It’s a fantasy to believe that magic robots will do all our work for us.

48

When i read your quote i was reminded of another by Arthur C Clarke, a sci fi writer who among other things published the technical paper “Extra-terrestrial Relays” in 1945 laying down the principles of the satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits - a speculation realized 25 years later.

``Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’’

The technology of 500 years time (assuming we survive) will be so advanced that the technology we have today will look like primitive clubs in comparison. I dn’t think “magical” things doing all our work for us is such a fantasy, once you take a sufficiently long term view.

I do think Bartons objection though is valid. Maybe these machines will have to be sentient, in which case they may not want to do our work. Given that we’re so far off creating sentient creatures then i don’t think there’s enough information presently to come anywhere near a conclusion on that one.

I think though that if they are sufficiently advanced and powerful, they probably won’t mind supplying the goods and services we need. The resources and intellectual power needed to do this would be insignificant for them. You said humans would be inimportant to them, but if they’re that intelligent they would recognise the “sacredness” of sentience, and be unwilling to sentence us to a lifetime of unneeded labour when they have more than enough excessive productive capacity to provide for us.

This does mean that the price for a life with no need to work will probably be to live in a society where humans have no real power. Each human individual would have power over himself or herself, so would still be free, but society as a whole would be controlled by machines. Would you be willing to live in such a world?

49

I’d much rather be under the control of Robots who have pity on me and give me everything I want than under the control of Bush, the DEA, oil barons, etc.

Why would these AI machines require sentience?? Could they not have knowledge w/out desires? Why couldn’t we make machinese that’ll learn to make more efficient machines, machines to fix other machines, etc without the fear of them desiring recreation?

And if you wouldn’t have enough to do given unlimited resources, you’ve got problems. Try reading or recreational drug use or somethin.

50

I was originally going to start a new Great Debates thread for this topic, but this thread perfectly encapsulated the topic I had in mind:

In the last 22 years since this thread was last updated, there has been a massive leap in the capabilities of AI. Even though ChatGPT is less than three years old, we can already see very far into what the future will be like.

It’s possible that, with the rise in AI and automation, the 21st century may be the last century in which humans have to work to make a living. By the end of the century, universal basic income (UBI) may be so prevalent worldwide that people only work if they want to.

There will still be many jobs that need humans - such as doctors, politicians, soldiers, etc. - but they would only be done because people want prestige, respect, influence, more income or whatnot - not out of financial need. (Almost) nobody will have to work out of financial necessity to make ends meet.

51

The issue is that our society defines people’s worth as having a job; someone without a job is regarded as a subhuman parasite. The result of there not being enough jobs to go around will be mass starvation or outright massacre of the unneeded workers. Largely with the approval of those who still have jobs, until the leopards eat their face too.

52

Universal Basic Income is an attempt to build a perpetual motion machine. I expect the social version to be just as successful as any of the mechanical versions have ever been.

53

UBI is no more perpetual motion than a windmill is.

It won’t happen because it’s helping people, which is anathema.

54

A windmill derives its energy from an external source. The wind blows whether the mill is there or not.

The money for UBI comes from society’s own productive classes. UBI gives them less incentive to be productive.

55

And? It also creates a larger market. We don’t have a production problem, we have a market problem. It doesn’t matter how much is produced if people can’t buy it.

56

Eventually, “the productive classes” will be largely AI controlled robots. This will produce material wealth far beyond what we need to support the human race.

The refusal to understand this underlies most of the objections to UBI.

57

People in the 1800s thought utopia was just around the corner. We have had the ability to end the need for a daily wage for most people for over a hundred years, but obviously it hasn’t happened. We can manufacture goods for a tiny fraction of the cost in the 1800s. But then as goods got cheaper, salaries got smaller too. Salaries have always adjusted so that the lowest class makes just enough to survive.

So what happens if we replace all fo the workers with AI-driven robots? Replacing the working class means restructuring all of human society all throughout the world. If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I think you are sadly mistaken.

Once you can replace workers with robots, what happens to the working class? Ok, you want to switch to everyone getting a universal basic income so that they no longer have to work. Where does that money come from? From the business owners who replaced all of their workers with robots? No. Their money goes towards maintaining their robots, and they keep the profits for themselves. Does the government just print more money? That devalues the currency and causes hyperinflation, and then the entire economy collapses. From society’s “productive classes”? Who are those? Who wants to work so that their money is given to those who don’t work? Why wouldn’t they want to keep all of their money for themselves? Or, as pointed out upthread, why wouldn’t they want to be the ones who don’t have to work? If nobody works, then you don’t have any “productive classes”.

The only way you are going to completely restructure society is to have our current society collapse. And I doubt that a complete collapse of modern society is going to be pleasant.

58

No. They are heavily taxed, and that is where the money comes from.

59

The entire concept of “money” and “ownership” will have to change. And no, it won’t be easy. But it will happen. There are people out there pushing for increased AI, and they’re not going to stop. At some point, the robots will be doing almost everything unless we actively stop that from happening. There’s no way the vast bulk of the human race will simply accept being left to stave amidst plenty. They either rise up and smash the robots, and their owners*, or we figure out a way to let them share in the bounty.

*Or, we just smash the owners, and all own the robots as some sort of autonomous collective.

60

Or the same robots that are doing all the work will obediently massacre the starving, no longer needed workers.