# What happens when the robots (peacefully) take over? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914 "2012-01-09T11:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/521 "2016-03-21T04:07:43Z")
> [@iLemming](#): > > That is, unless governments institute pre-emptive legislation to protecting the jobs under threat. Maybe as a temporary measure to ease the transition. But ultimately, paying people to do “busywork” benefits nobody. > [@](#): > > For we know corporations will always find the path of most “productivity” (read: **cost-cutting** ) - due to the universal human foible dubbed “greed”, cosseted by capitalism - and so cannot be relid upon to transition any such potential seismic shift smoothly. Increasing productivity is of course a good thing, and directly affects how many goods and services you and I can afford. > [@](#): > > Especially when it comes to computing – it’s progress can and generally is exponential, almost always outstripping conservative estimations of what is achievable (see: governments playing catch-up with hackers and cyber warfare). If, for example, [quantum computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing) emerged, it would be a whole new ball game – what seems impossible measured against today’s tech and relative progress, can be completely blown out of the water with computing power / speed the likes of which said advancement will yield. Quantum computers are inferior to ordinary semiconductor-based computers for most operations. They are useful for a relatively narrow set of operations, so they will augment, not supercede. Most pundits think Moore’s law is coming to the end of its life now. But we’re experiencing something of a revolution in software…though this will be more disruptive than just increases in processor speed have been / could be. > [@](#): > > Not so much that we’ll be meeting them at our respective ‘Conord Bridges’ (…though, that may happen centuries down the track), but rather that we’ll likely be fighting **each other**. For we all know what people without anything to do (_i.e._, purpose) are like and susceptible to… and I’m quite certain the Donald Drumpfs of the world won’t be rushing to offer $100K handouts to the proletariat to keep them happy, contented and in decent living standards. If I read right I think you’re saying _humans vs humans_ and I would agree with you. They’ll be a lot of pissed off people and nothing really to vent that anger at. Of all the developed countries, American society is arguably one of the worst placed. There is a deep cultural shame in accepting “handouts”, and contempt for “freeloaders”. Plus jobs are seen as an end in themselves, maybe even a moral imperative. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/522 "2016-03-21T06:53:14Z")
Yes, that “Protestant work ethic” runs deep here, and makes it difficult for people to be sensible about the changes coming to society. But when they really have to, they will. They may not be happy about it, and it may lead to a lot of social dysfunction, but they are not going to stubbornly let half the country or more be destitute. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/523 "2016-03-21T17:11:49Z")
90% of jobs globally in 14 years? That’s not happening. And as I keep pointing out, if all the jobs are being done by robots/automation, then it doesn’t cost the mega-wealthy anything to give all the useless masses $100,000 a year guaranteed income. It would be one thing if Bill Gates had to pay 90% taxes to fund welfare for everyone. Except the reason the masses won’t have jobs is because everything is produced by automation, which means the factories are running themselves, which means nobody needs to work, which means free goods and services for everyone. Again, if the goods and services aren’t free, that means unemployed humans will be scratching in the dirt trying to provide those goods and services for themselves, which means they’ll have jobs as scavengers and subsistence farmers, which means no robot jobs holocaust. If the masses are starving in the gutter because they don’t have jobs they’ll be building themselves shantytowns and stitching up ragged clothing and scavenging for food, which means jobs for humans as builders and tailors and farmers. If you’re dressed in rags you get your Mom to sew up the rips in your shirt. That’s economic activity. If your Mom doesn’t bother to sew up your ragged clothes it’s because a robot can do it cheaper than your Mom. Of course that doesn’t mean a robot comes to your house with a needle and thread, it more likely means that new clothes are rolling out of the factories at such a low price that it’s easier to throw out your old shirt than repair it. And if you’re starving in the gutter, that low price has to be essentially free, or it wouldn’t make sense. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/524 "2016-03-22T10:55:15Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > 90% of jobs globally in 14 years? That’s not happening. > > And as I keep pointing out, if all the jobs are being done by robots/automation, then it doesn’t cost the mega-wealthy anything to give all the useless masses $100,000 a year guaranteed income. It would be one thing if Bill Gates had to pay 90% taxes to fund welfare for everyone. Except the reason the masses won’t have jobs is because everything is produced by automation, which means the factories are running themselves, which means nobody needs to work, which means free goods and services for everyone. > > Again, if the goods and services aren’t free, that means unemployed humans will be scratching in the dirt trying to provide those goods and services for themselves, which means they’ll have jobs as scavengers and subsistence farmers, which means no robot jobs holocaust. If the masses are starving in the gutter because they don’t have jobs they’ll be building themselves shantytowns and stitching up ragged clothing and scavenging for food, which means jobs for humans as builders and tailors and farmers. > > If you’re dressed in rags you get your Mom to sew up the rips in your shirt. That’s economic activity. If your Mom doesn’t bother to sew up your ragged clothes it’s because a robot can do it cheaper than your Mom. Of course that doesn’t mean a robot comes to your house with a needle and thread, it more likely means that new clothes are rolling out of the factories at such a low price that it’s easier to throw out your old shirt than repair it. And if you’re starving in the gutter, that low price has to be essentially free, or it wouldn’t make sense. I think you are being too picky here by being too expansive in your definition of “job”. If we use your definition, doesn’t everyone have a job, all the time? Then words like “jobless” or “unemployed” get defined out of existence. I doubt the people who lived in Hoovervilles would have agreed that they were employed. In an automated, or mostly automated, future, I definitely don’t believe the one percent are going to let people, in Drumpf’s verbiage, “die in the streets”, nor do I think the people in charge of the police and military (or their future automated equivalents) would let the one percent get away with that even if they did want to. In that respect I think \*\*Captor \*\*and some others have far too dour a view. (Hell, some people have even painted a picture of the elites killing the poor _en masse_, Third Reich style, which seems even more wildly pessimistic.) But I do think the range of more realistic possibilities includes a relatively pessimistic scenario, particularly in a transitional phase, in which the masses of people without jobs (in the sense most people would agree on: getting significant monetary compensation for work on a regular schedule) would only be grudgingly granted the barest of safety nets, while being chided and shamed for not “pulling their own weight”. Whereas the same technological and economic conditions could also support a much more generous universal income without jeopardizing the lifestyles of the rich. And we may well see some bouncing back and forth between those ends of the spectrum from election to election before it all sorts itself out. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/525 "2016-03-22T16:25:45Z")
I guess I agree with you. I’m just saying that with the productivity gains via automation the “barest of safety nets” becomes a lot more survivable. I don’t think this will mostly be provided by giving jobless people stacks of money. Rather most will be done because services that used to be expensive to provide will be given away for free or nearly free. Craigslist is the model I’m thinking of. 30 years ago classified ads were expensive. Today they are free. Today if you want to get your cancer diagnosed it’s expensive. 30 years from now it might be free. Not because the government taxed rich people at confiscatory rates and handed stacks of money to the poors, but because having an already built expert system process one more image has a marginal cost of zero. So the poors might have a small guaranteed income or something, but increasingly the goods and services they’ll need won’t have a price tag attached. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/526 "2016-03-22T16:42:06Z")
Right, good points. You’re reminding me why I hated that movie _Elysium_ so much. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/527 "2016-03-22T19:46:26Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I guess I agree with you. I’m just saying that with the productivity gains via automation the “barest of safety nets” becomes a lot more survivable. > > I don’t think this will mostly be provided by giving jobless people stacks of money. Rather most will be done because services that used to be expensive to provide will be given away for free or nearly free. Craigslist is the model I’m thinking of. 30 years ago classified ads were expensive. Today they are free. Today if you want to get your cancer diagnosed it’s expensive. 30 years from now it might be free. Not because the government taxed rich people at confiscatory rates and handed stacks of money to the poors, but because having an already built expert system process one more image has a marginal cost of zero. > > So the poors might have a small guaranteed income or something, but increasingly the goods and services they’ll need won’t have a price tag attached. “I’m living in a cardboard box and living on rice and beans the government gives me, but man, cancer screenings are insanely cheap! Hoorah!” OK, an unfair characterization of your argument, I’ll admit. But the basic needs of human beings do not change: enough food to keep them going, shelter from the elements, water to drink and, well … that’s about it. Now imagine middle class Americans reduced to the point where they have only that and a whatever technology has rendered cheap. Are they gonna be happy? I’ll answer that one for you. No they will not. They will be looking to lynch people, and will riot, shoot people and vote for candidates that make Donald Trump look like a choirboy if they promise change. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/528 "2016-03-22T23:43:27Z")
Or that make Bernie Sanders look like Barry Goldwater. ---
**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:** [March 26, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/529 "2016-03-26T17:40:02Z")
[It sounds as if every job that calls for customer support may eventually get automated.](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-jobs-are-getting-automated-2016-3) ---
**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:** [March 26, 2016, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/530 "2016-03-26T19:29:48Z")
[Programming skills won’t save you from technological unemployment.](http://www.fastcompany.com/3058251/the-future-of-work/why-learning-to-code-wont-save-your-job) A lot of thought-provoking quotes in this piece: > [@](#): > > Today, it’s MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee who appear to be leading the conversation about technology’s impact on the future of employment—what they call the “great decoupling.” Their extensive research shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that technological progress eliminates jobs and leaves average workers worse off than they were before. > [@](#): > > “It’s the great paradox of our era,” Brynjolfsson explained to MIT Technology Review in 2013. “Productivity is at record levels, innovation has never been faster, and yet at the same time, we have a falling median income and we have fewer jobs. People are falling behind because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and organizations aren’t keeping up.” > [@](#): > > That’s the big news: The growth of an economy does not mean more jobs or prosperity for the people living in it. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/531 "2016-03-26T21:24:23Z")
I definitely believe the headline, but I don’t see any quotes in there about taking some of those productivity gains and making direct payments to people without giving them a job of any kind. That is the way forward in my view. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/532 "2016-03-27T03:17:45Z")
I think straight away if they are asserting “now we have fewer jobs” I question their objectivity. US unemployment for example fluctuates of course, and we’re just coming out of a recession but there’s no data suggesting a long term climb. Not saying there never will be, but there isn’t yet. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/533 "2016-03-27T03:59:16Z")
We do have more jobs than ever before. ---
**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:** [March 27, 2016, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/534 "2016-03-27T05:00:27Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > We do have more jobs than ever before. Sure, [crappy, low-paying, entry level service jobs](http://www.jsonline.com/business/help-wanted-most-us-job-openings-are-for-low-skill-low-pay-workers-b99460445z1-298692631.html) are going through the ROOF! ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/535 "2016-03-27T13:29:43Z")
But [median household income](http://www.sentierresearch.com/Charts/HouseholdIncomeIndex_UnemploymentRate_12_2015.jpg) has climbed back to where it was before the Great Recession. ---
**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:** [April 8, 2016, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/536 "2016-04-08T00:24:49Z")
A sad day for the robots. [Fired for incompetence.](http://sputniknews.com/art_living/20160407/1037645017/china-robot-waiters-fired.html) Good thing for them they weren’t programmed to have feelings! ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/537 "2016-04-10T18:15:07Z")
Well after the good news about the fired robots, we find that [Google has a new and successful bipedal robot](http://si-news.com/googles-bipedal-robot-reveals-the-future-of-manual-labor) set to hit the market shortly. Goodbye, most manual labor jobs. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/538 "2016-04-10T22:18:19Z")
Why is this bad news and the fired robots good news? The end of manual labor sounds like a boon to mankind if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/539 "2016-04-10T22:43:59Z")
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The problem here is confusion of multiple concepts. Everyone needs a livelihood, of course. And almost everyone wants a vocation. But why do we think that those need to be the same thing? Right now, there are plenty of people who don’t do what they actually love, because they can’t possibly afford to live on whatever that would give them. As automation advances, that changes. In the ideal world, everyone would be able to spend their full time on writing poetry, or painting, or playing chess, or whatever it is they want to do, and they wouldn’t need to worry about how much of a market there was for any of those things, because they’d have all of their needs met anyway. ---
**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:** [April 11, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/540 "2016-04-11T01:59:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Why is this bad news and the fired robots good news? The end of manual labor sounds like a boon to mankind if you ask me. In a social democracy with adequate safety nets for the unemployed, it would be. But that doesnt really describe America, and won’t for a few more years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914.md?page=28)