# 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:** 31
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/601 "2017-01-14T18:01:44Z")
Relevant to the discussion, a report from McKinsey: [http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works](http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works) The headline I keep seeing is that “half the work people do can be automated”. So far I’ve only read the summary on the landing page. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/602 "2017-01-15T16:31:45Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Relevant to the discussion, a report from McKinsey: [http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works](http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/harnessing-automation-for-a-future-that-works) > > The headline I keep seeing is that “half the work people do can be automated”. > > So far I’ve only read the summary on the landing page. It’s a very interesting read so far–thanks. I think they get it right in ways we’ve been talking about (that automation often tends to enable fewer and fewer people to get the same amount accomplished, rather than replacing jobs entirely): > [@](#): > > The right level of detail at which to analyze the potential impact of automation is that of individual activities rather than entire occupations. Every occupation includes multiple types of activity, each of which has different requirements for automation. Given currently demonstrated technologies, very few occupations—less than 5 percent—are candidates for full automation. However, almost every occupation has partial automation potential, as a proportion of its activities could be automated. We estimate that about half of all the activities people are paid to do in the world’s workforce could potentially be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/603 "2017-02-02T15:58:56Z")
Here’s (arguably) our first “robot lawyer”: ['Robot Lawyer' Makes The Case Against Parking Tickets : NPR](http://www.npr.org/2017/01/16/510096767/robot-lawyer-makes-the-case-against-parking-tickets) ---
**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:** [February 18, 2017, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/604 "2017-02-18T08:00:11Z")
[Bill Gates says we should just tax robots as though they are workers](https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/?utm_source=qzfb), and use the proceeds to fund job programs to take care of the elderly, disabled, and “kids in school”. He also sees the tax as a way to slow down automation so that it can be better integrated into society. Good ideas! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/605 "2017-02-18T17:00:17Z")
Why just robots? Tax all motors: they do things that honest working men (or horses and oxen) used to do, taking away desperately-wanted jobs. Tax harvesters; tax road-graders; tax jet aircraft. Base the rate upon energy consumption. Or, hey, just tax gasoline and electricity. (Which we already do!) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/606 "2017-02-18T20:15:46Z")
Taxing robots is a moronic idea. Robots are just a way of improving a process. Taxing robots is like taxing someone for coming up with a way to re-organize an assembly line to save on labor. Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to tax things that improve economic efficiency is not thinking clearly. ---
**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:** [February 19, 2017, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/607 "2017-02-19T11:04:12Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Why just robots? Tax all motors: they do things that honest working men (or horses and oxen) used to do, taking away desperately-wanted jobs. > > Tax harvesters; tax road-graders; tax jet aircraft. Base the rate upon energy consumption. It’s a good point. I wouldn’t be against doing it that way. It would also encourage conservation. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Taxing robots is a moronic idea. Robots are just a way of improving a process. Taxing robots is like taxing someone for coming up with a way to re-organize an assembly line to save on labor. > > Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to tax things that improve economic efficiency is not thinking clearly. Except that beyond a certain stage, which we may already have passed into, “improving economic efficiency” means extreme economic inequality and a desperate circumstance for the unemployed who don’t have anything to offer that can’t be automated. And if you believe in Keynesian demand-side economics rather than supply-side, you need a lot of consumers with spending money to keep the economy fueled, rather than tying up most of the wealth in a few people’s hands. That’s where something like a mincome comes in, but you need tax money to pay for it. ---
**Author:** ![Jefferson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@Jefferson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jefferson)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/608 "2017-02-20T17:52:23Z")
I put up a thread warning about “the new machine age” on another forum over two years ago, to see how many people were aware of it yet - many in the media even now, prefer to remain quiet about it. People tended to come out with the line about having seen it before and referring to the luddites. Not realising this will be different, and change will come remarkably quickly. It won’t just affect the lower skilled “working classes” of course but will hollow out middle class jobs. Politicians in Britain, however, are still talking about the need for half a million migrants a year, with no change in sight. ---
**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:** [February 20, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/609 "2017-02-20T21:58:14Z")
> [@Jefferson](#): > > I put up a thread warning about “the new machine age” on another forum over two years ago, to see how many people were aware of it yet - many in the media even now, prefer to remain quiet about it. People tended to come out with the line about having seen it before and referring to the luddites. Not realising this will be different, and change will come remarkably quickly. It won’t just affect the lower skilled “working classes” of course but will hollow out middle class jobs. Yes, well said. It’s ironic that those working in the news media are so slow to realize this process has already taken a toll on their field. As I’ve said upthread, at this stage it tends to happen not so much in a clunky, obvious way of having a robot reporter sit down at the desk where a human used to sit, but in magnifying the power of the fewer humans still needed to work there, while reducing (and soon, eliminating) the role of people like copy editors. In the not too distant future, though, AI and robotics will be so advanced as to make it pointless to hire anyone of average or below-average intelligence for most jobs. The capacity of AI to improve itself could theoretically take it up the IQ ladder pretty quickly, but I think humans will want to stay in charge and kind of direct efforts or at least goals, so it could be much more gradual before we get all the way to [“The Machine Stops”](http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html) level automation. You mentioned the Luddites. Planet Money did a good report on them a couple years ago that highlighted how unfair it is for people to just roll their eyes at them (the historical group, or anyone who emulates them). Emphases mine: > [@](#): > > GOLDSTEIN: The industrial revolution the Luddites were fighting was one of the great events in human history. It gave us the modern world. It gave us new kinds of jobs no one could have imagined. **It’s tempting to shout back across history to the Luddites, trust me, things are going to get better.** > > KESTENBAUM: **But the truth is, for the Luddites, things did not get better. Things didn’t even get better for their kids.** For 50 years, as England built the first high-tech economy on the planet, average wages for workers barely budged. > > GOLDSTEIN: A few people made a lot more, but Bob Allen, an economic historian, says lots of people made less. > > BOB ALLEN: The winners won and the losers lost, and that was all there was to it. > > KESTENBAUM: Were the Luddites right then? > > ALLEN: **Well, it was certainly, I think, in their interest to wreck machines. They were acting rationally, and I think to say that they were irrational and opponents of progress is a big mistake.** > > KESTENBAUM: **We’re living now in a second machine age. It’s computers and software this time** , not weaving machines, but some of the same things are happening. People talk about the rise of the 1 percent, about how income for ordinary people is stagnant. That is partly due to technology. > > GOLDSTEIN: The traditional economic response is these problems are temporary. **Technology makes everybody better off in the long run. But one of the things the Luddites have to teach us is the long run can be really, really long.** Which neatly dovetails with my OP: > [@](#): > > At what point then, and in what way, does it cross a rubicon from creating mass unemployment (which is bad) to obviating the need for employment at drudgery (which is good)? Will the robot-making companies find themselves increasingly with fewer and fewer customers because no one will have a job? Will governments just take over, Tea Partiers be damned? Or will it somehow happen organically without great turmoil? I can see the end result, but that transition is a muddle. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/610 "2017-02-20T22:40:16Z")
Maybe future societies can own these wondrous engines of wealth creation in common and share the outputs so that everyone can benefit instead of a privileged few. Oh wait, duh. Human nature. Silly me! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/611 "2017-02-20T22:50:29Z")
Do the companies that use machines to replace workers really want mass unemployment? Who’s gonna buy the products their machines turn out? A giant class of people in grinding poverty is not in the manufacturers’ interest. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/612 "2017-02-20T23:35:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > In the not too distant future, though, AI and robotics will be so advanced as to make it pointless to hire anyone of average or below-average intelligence for most jobs. The capacity of AI to improve itself could theoretically take it up the IQ ladder pretty quickly … AI, Artificial Intelligence, is still pretty limited to whatever code the developers write. Despite numerous stories and movies and a lot of recent hype about “machine learning”, it’s mostly a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, for now at least. There is no SkyNet or HAL 9000 or Ultron out there, learning, growing, biding its time. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/613 "2017-02-21T00:44:45Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > AI, Artificial Intelligence, is still pretty limited to whatever code the developers write. . . . Well, no, not exactly. Individual cases aren’t coded any longer; AI is able to learn. The coding is for general cases. The programmers are often (joyously) surprised by what their AI can accomplish. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/614 "2017-02-21T00:57:08Z")
When the machines take over I’ll have to start dating the new ruling class. That will bring them down to our level quick enough. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/615 "2017-02-21T01:06:33Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, no, not exactly. Individual cases aren’t coded any longer; AI is able to learn. The coding is for general cases. The programmers are often (joyously) surprised by what their AI can accomplish. What are some of the more accomplished AIs? What have they “learned”? ---
**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:** [February 21, 2017, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/616 "2017-02-21T01:10:12Z")
Yeah, I read about an AI that was being used by research scientists to analyze data and come up with equations to make predictions for future cases. The predictions are accurate, but the scientists can’t understand why, can’t make heads nor tails of the equations, no matter how long they look at them. Kind of like how chess AIs have changed chess theory for human grandmasters (a greater willingness to retreat and retrench, for instance). > [@Trinopus](#): > > Do the companies that use machines to replace workers really want mass unemployment? Who’s gonna buy the products their machines turn out? > > A giant class of people in grinding poverty is not in the manufacturers’ interest. Same idea as the long term interest of fisherman not to fish a valuable species into extinction. Many people don’t think that way, unfortunately. ETA: This is why more forward thinking capitalists may support a “mincome”, not just socialist types. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/617 "2017-02-21T04:38:04Z")
> [@Jefferson](#): > > Politicians in Britain, however, are still talking about the need for half a million migrants a year, with no change in sight. Immigrants are more docile: voting democracy has practically silenced the lower classes ( since there’s nowhere to go once defeated at the polls [and a/ most bourgeois parties are in agreement anyway and b/ the conservatives have a practical lock on parliament thanks to British demographics] ) while immigrants generally want to keep their heads down, and replacing the awkward indigenes is something the wealthy/upper-class/media/CEO-class complex has all long aspired to. ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/618 "2017-02-21T05:10:54Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > AI, Artificial Intelligence, is still pretty limited to whatever code the developers write. Despite numerous stories and movies and a lot of recent hype about “machine learning”, it’s mostly a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, for now at least. There is no SkyNet or HAL 9000 or Ultron out there, learning, growing, biding its time. [Relevant](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai-awakening.html?_r=1). ---
**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:** [February 21, 2017, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/619 "2017-02-21T05:24:47Z")
> [@dofe](#): > > [Relevant](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai-awakening.html?_r=1). Very! > [@](#): > > The new incarnation, to the pleasant surprise of Google’s own engineers, had been completed in only nine months. The A.I. system had demonstrated overnight improvements roughly equal to the total gains the old one had accrued over its entire lifetime. That kind of surprising exponential growth will continue in other sectors–just watch. In five years from now, even (the same time this thread has existed so far), I may come back and quote this prediction and point to examples. ---
**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:** [February 21, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914/620 "2017-02-21T06:01:03Z")
And: > [@](#): > > Once you’ve built a robust pattern-matching apparatus for one purpose, it can be tweaked in the service of others. One Translate engineer took a network he put together to judge artwork and used it to drive an autonomous radio-controlled car. A network built to recognize a cat can be turned around and trained on CT scans — and on infinitely more examples than even the best doctor could ever review. A neural network built to translate could work through millions of pages of documents of legal discovery in the tiniest fraction of the time it would take the most expensively credentialed lawyer. The kinds of jobs taken by automatons will no longer be just repetitive tasks that were once — unfairly, it ought to be emphasized — associated with the supposed lower intelligence of the uneducated classes. We’re not only talking about three and a half million truck drivers who may soon lack careers. We’re talking about inventory managers, economists, financial advisers, real estate agents. What Brain did over nine months is just one example of how quickly a small group at a large company can automate a task nobody ever would have associated with machines. Great article, **dofe**. Thanks! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-when-the-robots-peacefully-take-over/608914.md?page=32)