Robots Will Kill Us All

[blasto]

There are already nanobots on the loose... actually nanobots should be called nano-cyborgs since so far they have all been genectically engineered single celled organisms.

Probably the most used nanobots today are these little bacteria that have been developed to eat away oil spills off the surface of the ocean.. scientists just hope that none of the bazzilions of them will mutate into something sinister and just all die away like they are supposed to once the oil has been consumed.

What if just one of those cells of bacteria made its way into the earth's crust through a vent or something? There would be an underground explosion of bacteria eating away the last of our resource. Hmm, actually that might be a good thing, who knows?

Others though are designed to actually move or destroy a molecule out of an structure, to turn that particular substance into something different or change its properties. But they are messing with living organisms, stuff that can easily mutate once turned loose.

Murphy's law says that eventually there will be a catastophy...

[Vercingetorix]

I was halfway through the second page before my impatience got to me...better than usual, but...

Remember robots can be programmed--ever read Isaac Asimov stories, or even heard of the Three Laws of Robotics?

If we develop sentient robots, however, creativity follows. I don't see how a being could be sentient and not be at least a little creative.

[castille]

Contrary to teen thought, robots replacing humans do not destroy our way of life.


Lets imagine a country has 100 workers, producing 100 loaves of bread.

Now what if the country replaced all workers with robots?

We'd still have 100 loaves of bread being produced.


Machines are replacing workers, but workers are simply finding new things to do. Anyone ever heard of information industries? IT is an excellent example. Also, what about the service and events planning industry? Events alone make $800 billion of the US economy.


Machines replacing workers is in fact what we want, because it reduces the need for workers to become involved in menial factory work. Why work at an assembly line when a robot could be doing it?



In future, if we allow robots to take care of all menial activity (while ensuring some form of control by us!), we wouldnt need to work at all! Just sit back and relax on the Loire....



(Some could argue, robots should have rights too! We should not allow them to become slaves. Others could argue, we are preventing robots from working and getting an education, thus we are all evil!)

[G. Adams]

Ahh man you missed it. You came so close and you missed.

A 100 people create a 100 loaves, which they eat in order produce another 100 tommorow. A 100 robots replace the humans, and now the bread goes to the owner of the robots. 100 hungry people.

Now that is one area, and it is much simplified but I am taking it from Castille afterall, but if we place it in all areas of life. No jobs, just owners of robots living well. Hey, you might even get a middle class of mechanics if your lucky. But everyone else just has to starve. I mean, those owners could give up some of there property to the lower classes, hell that'd be almost socialism! No, no. it is the natural order of things to let them starve.

[Pooeypants]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (blasto,)
There are already nanobots on the loose... actually nanobots should be called nano-cyborgs since so far they have all been genectically engineered single celled organisms.

Probably the most used nanobots today are these little bacteria that have been developed to eat away oil spills off the surface of the ocean.. scientists just hope that none of the bazzilions of them will mutate into something sinister and just all die away like they are supposed to once the oil has been consumed.

What if just one of those cells of bacteria made its way into the earth's crust through a vent or something? There would be an underground explosion of bacteria eating away the last of our resource. Hmm, actually that might be a good thing, who knows?

Others though are designed to actually move or destroy a molecule out of an structure, to turn that particular substance into something different or change its properties. But they are messing with living organisms, stuff that can easily mutate once turned loose.

Murphy's law says that eventually there will be a catastophy...<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
There is always a good and bad side to things, depends which side outweighs the other. If there was a massive oil spill, which could potentially (and usually do) damage the wildlife of hundreds of miles worth of coastline...I think using such GM bacterium is worth the risk.

[castille]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (G. Adams,)
Ahh man you missed it. You came so close and you missed.

A 100 people create a 100 loaves, which they eat in order produce another 100 tommorow. A 100 robots replace the humans, and now the bread goes to the owner of the robots. 100 hungry people.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>


According to "caveman logic", yes all those 100 people will starve.

However, you've missed out on a simple little equation. The owner of those robots will still need to sell the bread, right? If hes not going to eat it, he'll sell it.

So those 100 workers will find new jobs that don't require robots. They'll work as mechanics, designers, performers, artists, research, etc. Then they'll use that money they earn to buy bread from the robot owners.


Now, the problem is, because there are several robot owners, who will the people buy bread from? The cheapest and best bread producer, of course!

So those robot owners, in their goal to sell bread, will make their bread cheaper and better. Those 100 workers will have access to cheap bread of high quality, and if they don't get it, then they'll buy bread from another robot owner.



However, some countries might have a person called Saddam who controls all those robots and has them kill his people.

[G. Adams]

eesh. I may not agree with your post, but at least you were doing well in writing it until you threw that piece of crap in at the end.

Think about Castille. Why would the class who own robots need to sell to the none owning class? The robots produce everything they could possibly need. The owning class can trade the goods between themselves.

Mechanics? If were talking about highly developed robotics here, other robots can fix the damaged ones. And at best, you would only have a small amount of none owning people as mechanics.

With all that leisure time this owning class has I'm sure they will be able to move into acting and music etc, just as they did in Greco-Roman times, while slaves were doing the work for them.

Damn you capitalist supporters really are a little blind sometimes. They'll just get other jobs... Theres not enough jobs in the world right now, never mind when all the primary and secondary industries are taken over by machinary.

[castille]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (G. Adams,)
Theres not enough jobs in the world right now, never mind when all the primary and secondary industries are taken over by machinary.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>


Not enough jobs in the world?

In 1000AD, 30% unemployment was considered excellent.

In 2000AD, 10% unemployement is considered shocking.



Want a job list that robots can't do? Here is a few:

• Financial planning
• Teaching (only teachers can teach creativity and writing)
• Science (research - robots have limits you know)
• Mainteinance (what happens when the robots dont know how to repair themself?)
• Politics
• Enforcement (to protect US from the robots!)
• Architecture (robots cant develop creativity)
• Psychologist
• Social workers
• Marketing
• Management
• Human resources
• At-home business (currently 7% of the population is employed here)
• Business (over 10% of the population is employed in some form of business; Australia has 1.2 million out of 8 million in business!)
• Acting
• Music performance
• Historical studies
• Sports

The majority of those jobs are relatively new - marketing is less than 120 years old, human resources less than 10 years!


Without robots....well, you wouldn't be watching TV, playing on your computer, using a microwave, etc. If you want to imagine life without these....try living in Ethiopia.

[G. Adams]

You have robots doing all the dirty jobs, the primary and secondary industries.

Now you have say, and i'm being generous here, about 1 million robot owners. They're gonna want to do something, they're gonna be bored at some point.

Which means they can do all the jobs you specified. As 99.9% of the planet will be dying off, we won't need so many teachers, politicians and social workers.

At best, you'd only need to save 5% of the world population to cover those jobs.

30% unemployment is considered good?

Well lets look at some facts then

Some one billion workers - one third of the world's labour force - remain unemployed or underemployed, a figure that is largely unchanged from ILO estimates contained in its World Employment Report 1996-97;

Of the one billion total, some 150 million workers are actually unemployed, or seeking or available for work. Of these 150 million, 10 million unemployed have been generated this year due to the financial crisis in Asia alone;

In addition, 25 to 30% of the world's workers - or between 750 million and 900 million people - are underemployed, ie., either working substantially less than full-time, but wanting to work longer or earning less than a living wage;

The ILO estimates some 60 million young people, between the ages of 15 and 24, are in search of work but cannot find it;

The global unemployment and underemployment picture contained in the 1998-99 report contrasts sharply with developments expected since the last World Employment Report was issued in 1996, when the ILO said that a number of encouraging signs heralded a global economic revival and would cut unemployment and underemployment worldwide


This was taken from the ILO World Employment Report 1998-99, the full article can be found here ILO Report 1998/9

So you see there are a lot of people without jobs already castille. If we turn the primary and secondary industries, there are going to be a lot more unemployed people.

[Black Fox]

G. Adams, I think that you are probably right that a robotised world will mean less people are necessary for the jobs we do today. But let's be honest -
we don't really know what new demands and desires human beings will have in the robotised society of the future, and the extent for these demands will be. What if people want services performed specifically by people as opposed to robots?

And even if you are right, robots are not going to be introduced overnight - there will be enough time for society to adjust by people having less children, for example.

[RebelWithanAK]

"...having less children." Who are we doing this for, the people or the robots?

[node]

I think this is the same as "Humans Replaced The Dinosaur" and "Robots May Replace Human Beings"

[G. Adams]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Black Fox,)
G. Adams, I think that you are probably right that a robotised world will mean less people are necessary for the jobs we do today. But let's be honest -
we don't really know what new demands and desires human beings will have in the robotised society of the future, and the extent for these demands will be. What if people want services performed specifically by people as opposed to robots?

And even if you are right, robots are not going to be introduced overnight - there will be enough time for society to adjust by people having less children, for example.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

If we are to agree with Weber's spirit of capitalism, that is the earning of profit as an end in itself, then yes people will use robots instead of humans just because they will have more money.

And secondly, I will not bend my knee to the robot owning class as a servant because its preferable to a robot for them. If I have to work for them as I do now (the capitalist, not the robot owning class, they are the future capitalists in this theory) I will at least do it with some dignity. It may be a false perception of dignity, I'm still getting screwed by them regardless of the job, but its an important one for my sanity.

Its nothing to do with replacement like the dinosaurs. This is about socio-economic developments in a robotised world (is robotised a new word?). There were no capitalists whipping the dinosaurs into doing there bidding, only to be replaced by humans. But now we have workers doing as capitalists ask, only to be replaced by robots.

On the other hand, a robotised world may be what is needed to spark a revolution. All that anger and misery caused by the capitalists will be turned back at them.

[Black Fox]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (G. Adams,)
If we are to agree with Weber's spirit of capitalism, that is the earning of profit as an end in itself, then yes people will use robots instead of humans just because they will have more money.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
I'm not saying that businessmen won't use robots where they can reduce costs - but the point I'm making is that not everyone will want services provided by by robots. Even now, you have people who prefer custom made goods to mass produced ones. And as I've said, we don't know whether the introduction of a robotised economy will lead to new demands that no-one can anticipate now.

Anyhow, as long as there is a demand for cheaper goods by the consumers that businessmen sell their goods/services to, there will always be the incentive to use whatever means (including robots) to reduce costs. Perhaps the mass introduction of robots will lead to mass unemployment (I honestly don't know about this). If this is so, then perhaps when consumers realise that buying cheap, robot-produced goods is in effect giving approval to the use of robots to produce these goods, they will insist on buying human-produced goods. So the contest between the desire for cheap goods and the desire for employment will be won and lost in the marketplace.

[G. Adams]

The pre-requisite to the complaint I made was that what would happen if all industries became robotised.

[castille]

If robots take over one industry....people will find another.

For example....1000 years ago, the "arrow making" industry was booming, but today, robots are making guns for us. What are we doing? Well, we invented new industries like entertainment (ie. acting, singing, music performance), psychology, and even history.


In most capitalist democratic countries, the services and information industries are bigger than primary and secondary industries.


By the way, I read the ILO Report. It gave me NO real statistics ("AROUND 1 billion people are unemployed"), no evidence (I could say "1 gazillion people are unemployed" and put it on a website), and uses estimates.

Also, most unemployement occurs in Third World Dictatorships. You'll find capitalist economies have very low unemployment rates. China, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc have unemployment around 3-6%. South America lies around 7%.


So where is that 30% figure coming from?

[G. Adams]

Go to the bullet pointed section of my link. Oddly its hard to be specific about unemployment when many countries can't conduct proper cencusses, so its always going to be an estimate. But thats the most reliable report you are going to obtain.

Being a third world dictatorship doesn't mean anything, they can still be capitalist. They will still be part of a robotised world. And the workers of these countries will die in even greater numbers.

[castille]

Er....a dictatorship CAN'T be capitalist. The fact that they have a command economy means capitalism can't thrive to any extent.

Are you suggesting the Soviet Union was capitalist? Sheesh....these days Marxists will do anything to justify their cause.


You should realise getting the "definition" of capitalism from some ultra-Marxist or extremist source is not very accurate. No doubt your Marxist source says "capitalizm is evil capitalistic dictatorial nazi loser way and you must be communist or die!".

[G. Adams]

wow, you really are sliding into ever more childish ways castille.

A dictatorship is not neccesarily a command economy. Indonesia is officially semi-democratic, but as anyone knows their elections are shams. Yet they can have a thriving capitalist system working alongside.

I think your mixing up your terms. A dictatorship is simply a system in which the executive is given powers to do whatever s/he feels neccesary for whatever cause.
If they want to allow capitalism to continue, or introduce it, they can. Now a totalitarian system is different, and because they are trying to recreate society, they are more likely to have a command economy, but it still isn't definate, just likely.

It is not theoretically impossible for a dictatorship to cancel out capitalism, as long as the dictator does not interfere with with the economy too much. In practice this may not happen often, but it does not mean it can't.

The Soviet Union was not capitalist. I could argue it was state capitalist, in that instead of private individuals running a company for their own profit, it was government officials doing that. Its a weak argument, because there is little trade for profit involved, it is just someone elses labouring for profit purely.

I don't see capitalism as how you want me too just so your arguments would then have value. I in fact support capitalism. I want to see more of it around the world, and I want current capitalist states to purify their capitalism somewhat. But I don't think capitalism is the final economic stage for humanity. As we moved from feudalism to capitalism, I think we will eventually move to communism.

My opinion of capitalism is best summed up by marx, 'capitalism is the best and worst thing to happen to humanity'.

[Black Fox]

G Adams,

At this point, I think it would help me (and possibly others) to appreciate your arguments betterif you could state your definition of capitalism. Thanks.