# Robotics will lead to mass unemployment in a world where many are elderly. Howso **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048 "2013-09-30T22:22:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/41 "2013-10-01T19:55:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Does the name “Rand Paul” ring a bell? I really, really wish you were right, but these morons just shut down the government and can do worse. You seriously underestimate the idiocy of the American right. Rand Paul and his dad are loudmouths who have extremely vocal followers but they’re also quite small. You’ll notice how his dad got slaughtered every time he ran for President. No, libertarians are not a force to be reckoned with. In fact, I doubt most Americans even know what that word means. They’re only influential among people who spend too much time on the Internet. No, that’s not meant to be a knock at anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/42 "2013-10-01T20:29:15Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Right, because when economic conditions change, social attitudes never change. That’s why we still have a feudal aristocracy that runs everything. The people who run factories and businesses are regarded as vulgarians, everyone knows that true wealth only comes from landowning, and any other source of income is lower class. The social pyramid goes: Aristocrats \> Soldiers \> Farmers \> Artisans \> Merchants. > > Or maybe when the industrialists became more powerful than the aristocrats they replaced the aristocrats at the top of the social heap. We now have mass democracy, remember? Women can vote? And stuff? Social attitudes change, sure. But they don’t change nearly as fast as technology changes nowadays. And that’s the problem we will be dealing with in the next decade or two, the lag between changing social attitudes and technological change. I hope it changes fast enough to avoid a lot of human suffering, but I don’t think it will. I mean, I suspect that the very last king on Earth will buy into “The Divine Right of Kings” and the legitimacy of that notion among almost everyone disappeared a long time ago. Libertarianism and social conservatism are also likely to last a VERY long time among the wealthy because they are so very flattering and useful to them. If you can’t see that, you have no grasp of human nature. > [@](#): > > As I say again and again in these threads, an automated factory that can churn out an endless stream of goods and services for free is worthless. “Owning” such a factory won’t make you rich, because you can’t exchange those goods and services for money, because the cost of those goods will be zero. Factory owners of the future won’t rule the world any more than farmers rule the world of today. But farmers DO own the world of today, at least, the big agribusiness firms own our government, along with other big corporations. You can tell that because whenever any ECONOMIC conflict occurs between the One Percent and the middle class and the poor, the One Percent win. Every. Fucking. Time. For example. [Most Americans are STILL mad](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/15/us-wallstreet-crisis-idUSBRE98E06Q20130915) at the investment bankers who caused the 2007 crash and would like to see some bankers in jail. But of course, that never happened, and never will happen so long as the One Percent owns the government. Even in the white-hot fury that followed the crash, no criminal prosecutions were even attempted. [Iceland was able to prosecute their bankers](http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/320-80/13778-icelands-economy-growing-after-arresting-corrupt-bankers), why not us? Most Americans were against the bank bailouts, and felt that the homeowners who were victimized by the mortgage crisis should have received the bulk of the bailout money. Instead, regular folks … voters … who were victimized got little or no relief, it all went to the banks. Once again, a popular move to bail out the middle class is not made, because the bankers run the government on economic issues. Most Americans would like to see higher taxes on the wealthy to get them at least on parity with the middle class. Ain’t gonna happen. We all know why. The US is not a democracy any more where economics are concerned, it’s an oligarchy. > [@](#): > > As for the rich sitting behind walled gates topped with automated machine guns and watching the masses riot and starve to death, well, is that going to happen in Canada too? Because if, say, Canada has a program where a couple of factories provide enough food for Canada’s poor to not starve to death, why can’t the Canadians make a couple of extra factories to ship food to starving Americans? Canadians shipped food to Ethiopia when people were starving there, right? When they see pictures of Americans walking around like skeletons covered with flies and kids dying in the dirt, you’d think they’d try to help out as much as possible. Canada may very well help us out. Is that a desirable outcome? > [@](#): > > And since food and clothing and shelter and every good and service that can be produced by a human being pours out of automated production centers for essentially free–it has to be essentially free otherwise a human could do it cheaper–then it will cost the taxpayers of Canada a mere pittance to feed hundreds of millions of starving Americans. Heck, maybe in socialist Mexico they’ll be even more generous. Could happen. Moving goods isn’t free, neither is making them. But if they are all produced by machine labor, and transported by them (driverless cars and trucks are definitely on the way) then WHY would the wealthy send it to the masses of unemployed? What’s their motivation? I’ll grant you it’s the right thing, the moral thing to do, but I just don’t think it will strike the rich that way. > [@](#): > > Or heck, maybe a couple of American state governments could set up their own welfare factories. After all, the point of the factory is that it don’t cost nothing to keep running, otherwise how could “the rich” own factory that don’t require any workers? Oh, of course Americans could never accept socialism! They’d rather starve to death! They’d never vote for that! Of COURSE Americans will vote for that when unemployment goes skyward. But the government will not listen, because the oligarchy owns it. > [@](#): > > Or have we abolished democracy before then? How’s that going to work? I understand that in today’s world the rich can shape public opinion through the media, and can buy votes and so on. Is that going to work when people are literally starving to death? Things are going to stay exactly the same, even though everything has changed? Even when other countries nearby us are managing to muddle through this transition? And a cornucopia of nearly-free goods and services are available for a pittance? EVENTUALLY we will get to a place where everyone enjoys the cornucopia. But the question is, how eventually, and how much suffering will entail. Worst case, it will be the SURVIVORS who enjoy the cornucopia. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/43 "2013-10-01T20:41:24Z")
One could conceivable get rich manufacturing killer robots to hunt down and kill poor people. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/44 "2013-10-01T21:03:54Z")
I would think that selling food to the poor starving masses would also be a money maker. Much more productive than setting them on fire to light ones fine Cuba cigar while tipping the top hat and twirling the black mustache while saying MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! and laughing manically. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/45 "2013-10-01T21:05:00Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I would think that selling food to the poor starving masses would also be a money maker. Much more productive than setting them on fire to light ones fine Cuba cigar while tipping the top hat and twirling the black mustache while saying MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! and laughing manically. What will the poor have to give the rich in return for all that food, being largely unemployed and unemployable? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/46 "2013-10-01T21:06:17Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > One could conceivable get rich manufacturing killer robots to hunt down and kill poor people. Very likely, if worst comes to worst. I sincerely hope it will not. But I kinda think it will. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/47 "2013-10-01T21:11:08Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > What will the poor have to give the rich in return for all that food, being largely unemployed and unemployable? Well, I don’t know…this dystopia is all a fantasy in your head, so it’s a bit difficult for me to answer that. My WAG, trying to get into your fantasy, would be that they would give the rich the same things they have throughout human history in order to eat, namely their labor or service or, well, that money stuff recently seems to have caught on (could just be a fad, I admit). But since it’s your fantasy, maybe you could tell me how it would work that a largely unemployed and unemployable would function, and what ‘rich’ would mean in such a society…and how that would all fit into some sort of context with reality. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/48 "2013-10-01T21:11:15Z")
HOW can you get rich manufacturing robots? If you’ve got an automated system that can produce any good and service much cheaper than any human could, what can people give you that would make you “rich”? You’ve already got everything you need coming out of your magic box. And what can you give them? Killer robots? Why can’t they use their magic box to make their own killer robots? It seems very difficult for people to imagine what exactly it would mean if automated production advances to the point where a large majority of people have no hope of doing valuable work. This isn’t just peasants thrown off their land. This is doctors and lawyers and CPAs and software developers losing their jobs. This isn’t just factory workers losing their jobs, this is CEOs and stockbrokers and physicists losing their jobs. Meaning, every method of making money, of amassing wealth becomes meaningless when everything comes out of a magic box. If people can still make a living as a schoolteacher, or day care provider, or hospice nurse, or minister, or poet, or author, or used car salesman, or actor, or musician, or physicist, or artisanal lightbulb crafter, then we haven’t reached the point of universal unemployment. Note also that it can’t be worthwhile for people to head out into the wilderness and live as hunter-gatherers, or to plant vegetables and live as subsistence farmers. It has to be cheaper to get your food out of a magic box than it is to try to grow wheat Little House on the Prairie style out in North Dakota, otherwise people will become subsistence farmers rather than starve to death. Look, even today it is cheaper for subsistence farmers in Africa to buy second-hand surplus clothing shipped in bulk from America than it is for them to handcraft their clothing the traditional way. People used to grow cotton and set up looms and weave cloth and dye it and sew it into clothing by hand. But factory made clothing is so cheap to produce that even the poorest peasants in Africa will be wearing western factory-made clothes. Of course this stuff is literally thrown away, given to charity and shipped in bulk to Africa. But that’s the point–a shirt that no one in America would buy even if it cost only a dollar is still valuable in Africa. And an African might pay a few cents for it, because it would take more hours of work to make homespun clothing than it does to earn those few cents. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/49 "2013-10-01T21:27:53Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] It seems very difficult for people to imagine what exactly it would mean if automated production advances to the point where a large majority of people have no hope of doing valuable work. This isn’t just peasants thrown off their land. This is doctors and lawyers and CPAs and software developers losing their jobs. This isn’t just factory workers losing their jobs, this is CEOs and stockbrokers and physicists losing their jobs. [/QUOTE] It’s difficult to imagine because it’s so disconnected from reality. When we figured out how to harness animal power it didn’t put everyone out of work. Same with when we figured out how to harness the wheel, or pulleys, or hydraulic power, or any number of other things that have decreased labor. Magical factories that produce everything one needs is so far beyond what we can do it’s incomprehensible, but even if they happened it wouldn’t mean we wouldn’t need teachers, doctors or physicists, etc etc…what it means is that SOME jobs need far fewer workers or maybe none at all. Sort of like agriculture in the US. At the turn of the 19th century, nearly every person in the US that worked did so in the agricultural sector. Today it’s less than 3% of the labor force. Did the 97% starve in the streets, destitute because they had no work? No, of course not. Just like all the workers that were switch board operators, telegraph operators or numerous jobs that don’t exist today but existed in the past weren’t out, en masse, on the streets starving and scrounging for snacks. No matter what technological developments happen, there will ALWAYS be the need for humans in the loop somewhere, and always be a need for humans to do something like ‘work’. It’s the nature of the work that will change, not the fact that it will need to be done. Maybe when we have magic factories we’ll need lots more resources, which will have to be logistically managed and gathered. Maybe we will be able to start serious space exploration when we have all our needs magically supplied. Or, maybe we’ll need lots more entertainment, and that such entertainment will be the main work in this future. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/50 "2013-10-01T21:31:58Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Rand Paul and his dad are loudmouths who have extremely vocal followers but they’re also quite small. > > You’ll notice how his dad got slaughtered every time he ran for President. > > No, libertarians are not a force to be reckoned with. In fact, I doubt most Americans even know what that word means. > > They’re only influential among people who spend too much time on the Internet. > > No, that’s not meant to be a knock at anyone. People don’t know the subtleties of the libertarian agenda, but they do “know” that government is the problem, government is too big, regulation is bad, and that all our problems will be solved if government just gets out of the way of business. Ron Paul, who is really a crackpot, got significant support. Rand Paul, who is a lot smoother and less obviously a crackpot will no doubt run for the Republican nomination. Paul Ryan who did run for VP loved Rand except for those annoying atheist and support for abortion rights parts. Not to mention that Alan Greenspan was a disciple. I’m not saying he ran the Fed on Randian principles, but his refusal to support regulation of the out of control mortgage market had somewhat major consequences. You kind of sound like the liberal Christians who are convinced that there are very few creationists because none of the people in their churches are. I commend your rosy view of human nature - but today almost everyone spends too much time on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/51 "2013-10-01T21:48:01Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Or, maybe we’ll need lots more entertainment, and that such entertainment will be the main work in this future. That is definitely a part of it. We went from primarily farming jobs to primarily labor/manufacturing jobs to primarily knowledge type jobs. There are always going to be some farmers, there are always going to be some people working in factories or in construction, but they will be far more productive than in the old days, so there will be fewer of them. Knowledge based jobs are already shrinking. How many data entry clerks are there these days? Secretaries? People doing manual bookkeeping like my mother used to do? Even teaching - if we got to on-line classes, we’ll have a few master teachers who can reach thousands, and lots of peons to grade the papers and answer individual questions. Sweet for the very best, not so good for the rest. The top will always have jobs. The masses are the problem. The two exceptions are entertainment, as you said, and service jobs, which can’t be replaced by robots. We’ve already seen the increase in service jobs. As for entertainment, the channel is getting more open, not less, so people who would get rejected by the gatekeepers before can publish on the Web and get money if they are any good. And with this there will be more jobs for gatekeepers who can filter the gold from the crap. When I started working we had one secretary for every 20 people or so. Now we have one admin for over 100, and she is usually bored, and not out of laziness. As time goes on we get more efficient and can implement most of the routine tasks - and throughout history, most people have done nothing but routine tasks. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/52 "2013-10-01T22:05:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > That is definitely a part of it. We went from primarily farming jobs to primarily labor/manufacturing jobs to primarily knowledge type jobs. There are always going to be some farmers, there are always going to be some people working in factories or in construction, but they will be far more productive than in the old days, so there will be fewer of them. Knowledge based jobs are already shrinking. How many data entry clerks are there these days? Secretaries? People doing manual bookkeeping like my mother used to do? > Even teaching - if we got to on-line classes, we’ll have a few master teachers who can reach thousands, and lots of peons to grade the papers and answer individual questions. Sweet for the very best, not so good for the rest. > The top will always have jobs. The masses are the problem. > The two exceptions are entertainment, as you said, and service jobs, which can’t be replaced by robots. We’ve already seen the increase in service jobs. As for entertainment, the channel is getting more open, not less, so people who would get rejected by the gatekeepers before can publish on the Web and get money if they are any good. And with this there will be more jobs for gatekeepers who can filter the gold from the crap. > When I started working we had one secretary for every 20 people or so. Now we have one admin for over 100, and she is usually bored, and not out of laziness. > As time goes on we get more efficient and can implement most of the routine tasks - and throughout history, most people have done nothing but routine tasks. If you were asked, 100 years ago, what people would be doing if we only needed 3% of the work force for agriculture and a large percentage of the manufacturing jobs would be automated and need but a tithe of the workforce at that time, what would you have answered? Would you have thought of any of the things that people have transitioned through from that time to today to maintain the current levels of employment/unemployment which have basically remained unchanged, percentage of the workforce wise? I’m guessing ‘no’. And my own answer is the same…I would have had no idea, and all my guesses would have been wrong. What I do think is that, basically, human labor or production will always be needed, and folks who dream up these dystopian fantasies about everyone starving on the streets while the rich get richer using factories that magically produce everything (why would they?) should just take a look at the history of those arguments and how they have panned out in the real world. This isn’t to say that individuals won’t be negatively affected, because they will be…those buggy whip guys certainly took a hit and some non-zero number of them were never able to do anything productive again when the buggy whip market nose dived…but overall the population will do what we’ve done during the other sea changes in labor. They will adapt and orient their skills and abilities to something that is needed and productive. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/53 "2013-10-01T22:11:15Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > That is definitely a part of it. We went from primarily farming jobs to primarily labor/manufacturing jobs to primarily knowledge type jobs. There are always going to be some farmers, there are always going to be some people working in factories or in construction, but they will be far more productive than in the old days, so there will be fewer of them. Knowledge based jobs are already shrinking. How many data entry clerks are there these days? Secretaries? People doing manual bookkeeping like my mother used to do? > Even teaching - if we got to on-line classes, we’ll have a few master teachers who can reach thousands, and lots of peons to grade the papers and answer individual questions. Sweet for the very best, not so good for the rest. > The top will always have jobs. The masses are the problem. > The two exceptions are entertainment, as you said, and service jobs, which can’t be replaced by robots. We’ve already seen the increase in service jobs. As for entertainment, the channel is getting more open, not less, so people who would get rejected by the gatekeepers before can publish on the Web and get money if they are any good. And with this there will be more jobs for gatekeepers who can filter the gold from the crap. > When I started working we had one secretary for every 20 people or so. Now we have one admin for over 100, and she is usually bored, and not out of laziness. > As time goes on we get more efficient and can implement most of the routine tasks - and throughout history, most people have done nothing but routine tasks. The problem is that even the service sector is slowly moving towards automation, too. Supermarkets can cut cashiers, now. My nearest grocery has three full time checkers and 10 automated lanes run by a single person, plus one on an express lane and another one on a full lane. People are fully willing to just check themselves out in automated check stands One of the new testing units at a local grocery uses a camera to identify what you are purchasing _without a barcode_. It’ll go “These are Granny Smith Apples! Weight 2 pounds.” and then add it to my bill. No number punching, no looking through a list to match your apple to the right fruit. (Although the voice is…incredibly annoying.) Beyond that, what’s even easier for everything except food? WalMart and the crowds, lines, and such…or hitting Amazon on your phone while in the shitter on break at work? There are going to be a very few people who actually need to hold a job in the future. We are approaching force multipliers that are incredibly effective, plus people don’t mind doing things themselves most of the time. In entertainment: A few games I know are modular and let the players build what they want within the game. How long until a fully modular world that can be used for anything gets created? Then you have people doing FarmVille on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy in the same game world you play Alien Hunter 2098 in while in the Milky Way. (What? They should send FarmVille players far, far away.) In other sectors…like construction: Two years ago, I saw a prototype asphalt paver that paved by itself. What used to take a crew of four to properly handle was done by one guy being all sorts of bored at the control station. While it’s true that some of the advanced stuff is in testing for 5-10 years, it’s still stuff that’s coming. There will always be a need for humans, but that number is decreasing while the amount they can produce is increasing. That’s why people fret about the future economy. We will probably see, in the next 200 years or so, an economy that can’t possibly be based on wealth because 18 guys can run the entire set of infrastructure for 18 billion others. We aren’t seeing near the geometric population growth we saw the last 5 centuries, and we are still out pacing their productive technology advances by an order of magnitude or two. So the question becomes…What on earth will all of those people that have no real purpose do? It’s a question we are currently asking on a smaller scale: People who can’t find work because others are crazy more effective at their jobs due to technology…what will THEY do, right now? The answer of “just find a job!” doesn’t work because most jobs don’t pay a living wage, anymore, and even those shitty cheap jobs are completely full of applicants. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/54 "2013-10-02T00:04:42Z")
> [@XT](#): > > If you were asked, 100 years ago, what people would be doing if we only needed 3% of the work force for agriculture and a large percentage of the manufacturing jobs would be automated and need but a tithe of the workforce at that time, what would you have answered? Would you have thought of any of the things that people have transitioned through from that time to today to maintain the current levels of employment/unemployment which have basically remained unchanged, percentage of the workforce wise? I’m guessing ‘no’. And my own answer is the same…I would have had no idea, and all my guesses would have been wrong. > > What I do think is that, basically, human labor or production will always be needed, and folks who dream up these dystopian fantasies about everyone starving on the streets while the rich get richer using factories that magically produce everything (why would they?) should just take a look at the history of those arguments and how they have panned out in the real world. This isn’t to say that individuals won’t be negatively affected, because they will be…those buggy whip guys certainly took a hit and some non-zero number of them were never able to do anything productive again when the buggy whip market nose dived…but overall the population will do what we’ve done during the other sea changes in labor. They will adapt and orient their skills and abilities to something that is needed and productive. I am not expecting chaos, since the rich will eventually figure out that unless they provide some way for the rest to live they are going to get cooked alive in their mansions. What do you propose comes next? It would be great if everyone were smart enough to create things other people want to buy. Not likely, Actually the solution is quite simple - a living wage. If people in the service sector get a living wage - and give value added over machines - then we can have a reasonably sustainable economy. 200 years ago seemingly anyone near the middle class in England had a servant at least. Then with manufacturing they were priced out of the market, and with automation of household tasks they were no longer necessary. When I lived in Africa we had a servant who cleaned and cooked the noonday meal - all reasonably high level UN people had them. We are a long way from AIs who can do this kind of job. The effective IQs of our mechanical servants has increased a lot in the past 30 years. That means there are fewer people who can do what they do. So we have service and we have creativity. What else? TV watching and game playing mostly. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/55 "2013-10-02T00:23:30Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > The problem is that even the service sector is slowly moving towards automation, too. > > Supermarkets can cut cashiers, now. My nearest grocery has three full time checkers and 10 automated lanes run by a single person, plus one on an express lane and another one on a full lane. > > People are fully willing to just check themselves out in automated check stands One of the new testing units at a local grocery uses a camera to identify what you are purchasing _without a barcode_. It’ll go “These are Granny Smith Apples! Weight 2 pounds.” and then add it to my bill. No number punching, no looking through a list to match your apple to the right fruit. (Although the voice is…incredibly annoying.) So far for big purchases an expert checker beats an inexpert customer. My supermarket has some self checkout stands, but it mostly is competing by having professional checkers who are friendly and empowered to handle little problems without making you wait ten minutes. People who are less friendly and efficient than robots are going to have a hard time, for sure. I bet you didn’t even think of the first example of this happening - gas stations. If you don’t live in Oregon or NJ, when is the last time you actually spoke to a gas station attendant? When I was a kid they cleaned your windshield and checked your oil. > [@](#): > > Beyond that, what’s even easier for everything except food? WalMart and the crowds, lines, and such…or hitting Amazon on your phone while in the shitter on break at work? Again, it is value add. When I bought a suit for a cruise, I was served by an experienced woman at Macy’s who upsold me shirts and even a tie. And I was happy she did - I needed them. There is always going to be room for bookstores with people who can recommend books. That is a more skilled job than just a checker, though. > [@](#): > > In entertainment: A few games I know are modular and let the players build what they want within the game. How long until a fully modular world that can be used for anything gets created? Then you have people doing FarmVille on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy in the same game world you play Alien Hunter 2098 in while in the Milky Way. (What? They should send FarmVille players far, far away.) However there was an article in the Times yesterday about how the trend is to fewer more expensive to create games. Sure you can change the skin - the way there are 5,000 monopoly games today - but it is going to be of limited appeal. Games demonstrate a trend I mentioned - just like everyone and his grandma think they can self publish a book and make a fortune, everyone and her grandpa think they can publish an app and make a fortune. What on the average makes more money - a Hollywood movie or a YouTube video of a cat? I know quite a few people who self publish with high hopes - and end up with no readers and ignored. And garages full of books before e-publishing. > [@](#): > > That’s why people fret about the future economy. We will probably see, in the next 200 years or so, an economy that can’t possibly be based on wealth because 18 guys can run the entire set of infrastructure for 18 billion others. We aren’t seeing near the geometric population growth we saw the last 5 centuries, and we are still out pacing their productive technology advances by an order of magnitude or two. > > So the question becomes…What on earth will all of those people that have no real purpose do? It’s a question we are currently asking on a smaller scale: People who can’t find work because others are crazy more effective at their jobs due to technology…what will THEY do, right now? The answer of “just find a job!” doesn’t work because most jobs don’t pay a living wage, anymore, and even those shitty cheap jobs are completely full of applicants. The answer is that we had better shrink our population. The Black Death did wonders for peasants - we can do that without a plague by birth control and better living standards. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/56 "2013-10-02T00:24:17Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > One could conceivable get rich manufacturing killer robots to hunt down and kill poor people. I hope they at least let me have sex with the robot before it kills me. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048/57 "2013-10-02T00:27:13Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I am not expecting chaos, since the rich will eventually figure out that unless they provide some way for the rest to live they are going to get cooked alive in their mansions. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I don’t see that as a probable scenario, mainly because of what you say here but also because, despite what seems to be common wisdom on this board the pool of ‘rich’ continues to go up. In the US, Europe, Canada, Japan, etc etc the level of pure wealth in society is staggering, and would be unimaginable to anyone living even 100 years ago. And it continues to go up, globally. Ask the average Chinese who is my age how things are different between today for the majority of his people and how it was when that person was a kid. > [@](#): > > What do you propose comes next? It would be great if everyone were smart enough to create things other people want to buy. Not likely, > Actually the solution is quite simple - a living wage. If people in the service sector get a living wage - and give value added over machines - then we can have a reasonably sustainable economy. 200 years ago seemingly anyone near the middle class in England had a servant at least. Then with manufacturing they were priced out of the market, and with automation of household tasks they were no longer necessary. When I lived in Africa we had a servant who cleaned and cooked the noonday meal - all reasonably high level UN people had them. We are a long way from AIs who can do this kind of job. As I said, there is simply no way you, I or anyone in this thread can rationally predict what comes next. To blue sky, I’d guess it will be about information, content and entertainment. Take this message board, for instance. You, I and the rest of the board basically provide content that is obviously enjoyable enough to warrant having a web site dedicated to it. We do it for free of course, in our spare time…spare time we all have because the wealth of our society and the various labor saving devices at our disposal and at the disposal of the folks who produce all the goodies we use to have that spare time. Perhaps in the future where we have magic factories making everything we need and only needing a few percentage points of the population to maintain and service we will get paid to provide content and entertainment. Perhaps thumbs up will be a form of currency. Or, maybe we will as a species will turn towards space exploration in a big way. Or, perhaps gathering the resources needed to feed the magic factories will require large pools of labor. Or, maybe there will be jobs for things we haven’t even thought of yet that will use the labor that today is used for the things we do, and the things we do will be as obsolete as buggy whip makers, sperm oil salesmen or telephone operators. > [@](#): > > The effective IQs of our mechanical servants has increased a lot in the past 30 years. That means there are fewer people who can do what they do. So we have service and we have creativity. What else? TV watching and game playing mostly. That’s because you are basing everything in terms of what you know and today’s society and work. Like I said, if this were 100 years ago and we were having this same conversation you’d be no more likely to think of things like IT engineers or programmers than you are able to envision potential futures for our current labor in a magical factory scenario. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robotics-will-lead-to-mass-unemployment-in-a-world-where-many-are-elderly-howso/670048.md?page=2)