# Will robots transform our lives in the next 30 years? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 2, 2010, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867 "2010-08-02T08:18:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/61 "2010-08-04T22:32:50Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Exactly. A lot of people seem to be fixated on the idea that human shaped robots are the only “real” robots. But if we use Douglas Adam’s definition “a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man”, it’s clear that we interact with robotic systems on a daily basis. An ATM is a robotic bank teller - it does the job a teller did. iTunes does the job a record store employee did. iTunes isn’t a robot though - it is not mechanical. Just as many other automated processes are not mechanical or robotic in nature - let’s not overgeneralize too far, here. ---
**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:** [August 4, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/62 "2010-08-04T22:42:42Z")
Why do you say you’d really like to see a religious person explaining his views to a computer? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/63 "2010-08-04T23:41:58Z")
Yeah, it was funny once, Lemur. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/64 "2010-08-05T00:06:08Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > > [@gaffa](#): > > > > Exactly. A lot of people seem to be fixated on the idea that human shaped robots are the only “real” robots. But if we use Douglas Adam’s definition “a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man”, it’s clear that we interact with robotic systems on a daily basis. An ATM is a robotic bank teller - it does the job a teller did. iTunes does the job a record store employee did. > > iTunes isn’t a robot though - it is not mechanical. Just as many other automated processes are not mechanical or robotic in nature - let’s not overgeneralize too far, here. iTunes is an automated process that replaces a huge number of human beings to perform a task. To attempt to disqualify it by claiming it is not “mechanical” is like claiming the Nissan Leaf is not a car because it doesn’t have an internal combustion engine. A record sold via iTunes eliminates jobs: [ul] [li]Making the raw materials of a CD.[/li][li]Pressing the CD.[/li][li]Shipping the CD to a wholesaler.[/li][li]Shipping to the record store.[/li][li]Stocking the CD.[/li][li]Selling the CD.[/li][li]Returning unsold CDs to the record company.[/li][/ul] Earlier in this thread **Agnostic Pagan** said: > [@](#): > > I firmly believe that technology creates far more jobs than it destroys. The auto industry created more jobs than ever dreamed of by the carriage and buggy whip makers. Construction trades blossomed with the use of heavy machinery as well. Taking his example, the Econ 101 “buggy whip” one, we have to consider the the horse and carriage as part of an entire economic system. A system that was far larger than buggy whip makers. Every carriage required one or more horses. Every horse required someone to feed it and muck out it’s stall. Veterinarians, blacksmiths, grooms, etc. The daily needs of the animals associated with a carriage are plainly greater than the daily needs of an automobile. You don’t have to employ a mechanic and gas station attendant to have a car in your driveway. The claim that “construction trades blossomed” is far more ridiculous, and I wonder if **Agnostic Pagan** has ever dug anything by hand. I dug a set of basement stairs by hand with two other men. It was not possible to bring a backhoe into this location, so the three of us dug all day long to make a hole that would have been dug in less than an hour by one backhoe operator. As far as I can tell, virtually all innovation has one goal - minimizing human labor. The fact that cars are cheaper to own than a horse and carriage may mean that a greater percentage of the population has affordable personal transportation, but the percentage of the population and the amount of hours of human labor involved in making that transportation possible is actually smaller. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/65 "2010-08-05T02:36:56Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > As far as I can tell, virtually all innovation has one goal - minimizing human labor. The fact that cars are cheaper to own than a horse and carriage may mean that a greater percentage of the population has affordable personal transportation, but the percentage of the population and the amount of hours of human labor involved in making that transportation possible is actually smaller. Tht is correct. The point of innovation is to free up human labor to work on other things. A hundred years ago, most people (or at least a greater percentage of them) were farmers. Today a fraction of those people work in agriculture. I would disagree with you about fewer people being involved in modern transportation. When you talk about people who work for carmakers, petroleum companies, road construction companies, mechanics and all their vendors and subcontractors, it’s a lot of people. But cars afford many advantages over horses. They don’t need to be fed and housed constantly, even if not in use. They require less skill to operate. A car can carry more and further. They don’t wander off or die and if they break down, they can be repaired. Cars can be mass produced cheaply and custom designed. IOW, if I have a car, I don’t need to spend a significant amount of time and energy feeding and caring for it. That frees me up to do other, more eonomically important things. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/66 "2010-08-05T03:23:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > > [@gaffa](#): > > > > As far as I can tell, virtually all innovation has one goal - minimizing human labor. The fact that cars are cheaper to own than a horse and carriage may mean that a greater percentage of the population has affordable personal transportation, but the percentage of the population and the amount of hours of human labor involved in making that transportation possible is actually smaller. > > Tht is correct. The point of innovation is to free up human labor to work on other things. What things? As I recall, [the last time we discussed this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=497542) back in 2008, I asked you to: > [@](#): > > Name some new product categories invented in the last five years that are not created with automation or outsourcing. Name some that are employing significant amounts of labor. Not prognostication, just find some new, sizable industry that is currently employing large numbers of employees. Made any progress on that? > [@](#): > > A hundred years ago, most people (or at least a greater percentage of them) were farmers. Today a fraction of those people work in agriculture. One estimate of the pre-industrial US put the percentage of the population involved in food at 70%. Now it is 2-3 percent. And, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, there is a drive to reduce that amount even more. > [@](#): > > I would disagree with you about fewer people being involved in modern transportation. When you talk about people who work for carmakers, petroleum companies, road construction companies, mechanics and all their vendors and subcontractors, it’s a lot of people. But as a percentage of the population? We have available to us a representative sample population of pre-Industrial America with the Old Order Amish. Every Amish community has carriage builders, blacksmiths and other people involved in caring for horses - these are the people who form their “transportation infrastructure”. Old Order Amish, Mennonite and other “plain folk” travel via train during the winter and I’ve spoken to some of them. Everyone I’ve spoken to knows or is closely related to someone involved in caring for horses for transportation or cares for horses and mules themselves. How many people do you know “who work for carmakers, petroleum companies, road construction companies, mechanics and all their vendors and subcontractors”? > [@](#): > > But cars afford many advantages over horses. They don’t need to be fed and housed constantly, even if not in use. They require less skill to operate. A car can carry more and further. They don’t wander off or die and if they break down, they can be repaired. Cars can be mass produced cheaply and custom designed. > > IOW, if I have a car, I don’t need to spend a significant amount of time and energy feeding and caring for it. That frees me up to do other, more eonomically important things. Here’s the problem. At some point, we run out of “more economically important things”. Every single area of human endeavor that can be automated _is_ being automated (or outsourced - but even that is a stopgap). There is no service to be performed or good to made that will not be automated. The last two recoveries have been described as “jobless”, and the one happening at the moment is also “jobless”. [The GDP is growing](http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2010/pdf/gdp2q10_adv.pdf) without a matching growth in jobs. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/67 "2010-08-05T03:47:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, it was funny once, Lemur. So…some jokes are funny once, and some are funny always? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/68 "2010-08-05T17:27:45Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > > [@begbert2](#): > > > > iTunes isn’t a robot though - it is not mechanical. Just as many other automated processes are not mechanical or robotic in nature - let’s not overgeneralize too far, here. > > iTunes is an automated process that replaces a huge number of human beings to perform a task. To attempt to disqualify it by claiming it is not “mechanical” is like claiming the Nissan Leaf is not a car because it doesn’t have an internal combustion engine. > > A record sold via iTunes eliminates jobs: > > [ul] > [li]Making the raw materials of a CD.[/li][li]Pressing the CD.[/li][li]Shipping the CD to a wholesaler.[/li][li]Shipping to the record store.[/li][li]Stocking the CD.[/li][li]Selling the CD.[/li][li]Returning unsold CDs to the record company.[/li][/ul] So what? The development of the ‘interleaving’ method of shuffling a deck of cards eliminated the following laborious tasks: [ul] [li]Finding a large uncluttered flat surface.[/li][li]Spreading the cards out over the surface.[/li][li]Manually sliding the cards around until randomity seems to be achieved.[/li][li]Avoiding flipping cards over during the sliding process.[/li][li]Gathering the cards back into a stack.[/li][li]Squaring off the stack.[/li][/ul] Yet despite this innovative reduction of labor, the act of shuffling a deck of cards is not a robot. Words have meanings, and just because you want to talk about “labor-saving improvements to processes” in a thread about robots doesn’t mean that “robot” _means_ “labor-saving improvements to a process”. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867/69 "2010-08-05T19:22:48Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > Tht is correct. The point of innovation is to free up human labor to work on other things. > > What things? As I recall, [the last time we discussed this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=497542) back in 2008, I asked you to: > Made any progress on that? No. Mostly I’ve been sort of hopping from one six figure corporate management consulting job to the next. Hopefully my call later today will result in a new one.☹ I can’t predict what will be the “next big thing”. If I could do that, I would be the next billionare. The best I can do is be one of those “thought leadership” types to help companies adapt to whatever the “next big thing” is. One estimate of the pre-industrial US put the percentage of the population involved in food at 70%. Now it is 2-3 percent. And, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, there is a drive to reduce that amount even more. What we have been seeing over the past 15 years or so is a fundamental restructuring of the economy. Not just from the efficiencies created from the internet and networking, but from the identification of new opportunities as more information becomes available. IOW, companies can now figure out that not only can they perform certain processes faster and cheaper through technology, they can relocate those processes to places where they can be performed even more cheaply. > [@gaffa](#): > > But as a percentage of the population? I don’t have the numbers but I would say transportation is a significant percentage of the economy. More if you include energy. I would also say that the transportation CAPACITY per capita is much higher than it was a hundred years ago. > [@gaffa](#): > > Here’s the problem. At some point, we run out of “more economically important things”. Every single area of human endeavor that can be automated _is_ being automated (or outsourced - but even that is a stopgap). There is no service to be performed or good to made that will not be automated. I think we’re a long way off from there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-robots-transform-our-lives-in-the-next-30-years/548867.md?page=3)