The Laborless Society

Part of the problem is machine maintenence. Or new machines. Someone will want to make the new, better machines. And, you'd be hard pressed to find people who want to make said machines if they see everyone else just sitting on their asses all day. So you'd have to give that person more money to do it. Which means there needs to be a premium on the machine, which means the people who want to use them will have to pay for them, which they can't, because we all make the same thing anyway, so they will have to get jobs to pay for them making new machines (or "becoming" machines, doing machine labor), which means we're right back where we started.

And nothing new would ever come about. A machine can't create something it isn't programmed to. And if someone who can reason, create, dream isn't programming a computer, then everything will stay exactly the same.

I mean, that 4th step in the RICH example, we can't enjoy space and time without being there first, and being there takes work from humans.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Everything you've just listed up there is based on imperical reasoning and scientific method. Sociology, Medicine, Ethnography, and Psychiatry are harmed when people apply emotions to reasoning.

Emotion certainly does not harm medicine. Certainly, maybe we'd be better off if we had machines that eliminated human error and more doctors would be better off prescribing, say, hospice for terminal patients, but quality of care is based on emotion. Most of the people, I know, wouldn't want to walk into a hospital where not only are the tools made of stainless steel, but the "things" taking care of them as well. I doubt that is something a majority of people are willing to sacrifice.

And we're not so stupid to think that a machine pretending to care about something actually does.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

A minimal standard of living has nothing to do with it, because people won't be making the same thing. People who produce items of high value would be receiving a greater reward than those who do "nothing." You're confusing socialism with collective ownership of GNP.

The problem with it, though, is you've removed incentive. With people's buying power grouped so closely together, a high amount of work/extra income will be required for a small amount of reward.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Besideswhich, people can not merely do nothing and sit on their asses all day. Eventually they'll get bored, which is where education comes in. People would want to become scientists or artists, or comedians because that's what they want to do, and they can spend as much time as they like dedicating themselves to their professions due to the laborless society.

What makes you so sure? People sit on their asses all day now. A multitude of people who take advantage of the welfare system prove this. And these people don't sit there complaining about how they wish they could go to college more.

The only thing I can think of to argue against that is that people who have parents who don't have to work so hard will get a better upbringing. However, that requires too much faith in society.

Additionally, you have to look at crime statistics. Crime generally goes up in the summer, and that is generally attributed to students who don't have high school to go to in the summer. That could be as much of an outlet for someone than education or working for more than you're already getting for absolutely nothing.


Another issue is government. I assume we are giving machines the task of running governments? So what about idealistic differences. A robot handles when Iran pops up with nukes? And...we vote for what programming is implemented? Or the robot just decides?



Mechanical and algorithmic tasks can be handled by machines. The rest cannot be. Despite anything we could say about politicians, I doubt a machine could ever pass the Turing test in that field.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I like utopias as much as the next guy. I like this idea, certainly, if I knew that everyone in the world behaved somewhat similarly to me or to the others who have spoken here. But, the fact is, they just don't.

99% of what has been created for free is up to a standard of which could run a society. And we're talking about the best computer scientists and engineers already devoting their time, and we are nowhere near the level of sophistication required, if it is even possible.

What's the most successful open source project to date? Wikipedia, which is riddled with bugs and errors (something I would not want in robots running everything)? Mozilla, which has so many security flaws that it has as many version fixes as Microsoft, seemingly?

Let's keep in mind that people try to bring down computer systems around the world for free, for fun, for the challenge. That would happen in this society.

Quote:

That's something developed as the process goes along. Certainly, though, the beurocratic functions of government could be processed expertly by machines.

But how? Machines do what they are told. So, who gets to tell the machines what to do? You can't just throw out government and say, "We'll figure that out once the ball gets rolling." And what if changes are neccessary? Will machines create laws for us? To govern us?

Many laws right now are made with religion as a basis for reason, which machines can't have (they may be able to interpret the Bible in the near future). I'd like to be able to get rid of that, but 92% of Americans believe in God, I imagine over 50% want law based on religion...so robots can't make them.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

The beginning of the Industrial Revolution also didn't have calculating machines. We're coming closer and closer to the point where an automoton can perform the equal physical functions of a human. It's not as unfeasible as you think.

But calculation is a simple task, as are most physical functions. Calculation was limited by our ability to run complex systems; physical functions were limited by our ability to construct rigid materials. Reason, imagination, creativity (not artistic, necessarily, but the ability to create something from nothing or to build upon past ideas)...these aren't things that are solved physically.

We understand so little about the brain now that we can't even put really into words how it works. We understand enough about it to know that it will probably never be implementable in robots.

And this isn't something that can be explained away by auto unions and secret government organizations (as you said an author theorizes). People study this stuff in universities on public grants and they find this out. The progress is slowed by universal limitations, not by design.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

So why is it then that no automobile factory has ever been shut down by hackers?

Because you can't easily anonymously shut down an automobile factory. If no people exited in the plant and if the plant was linked into an internet, then it would be much easier.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Uh, Robots do what they're told, buddy. Unless, of course, they think that the laws they're told to make would harm people. In either case, understanding human reasoning is irrelevant. Unless the law violates the robot's ethical programming, he'll make it.

I get that. But who gets to tell the robots what to do? Step 1 of the RICH project says that we first must make robots that replace all people who do jobs. But two people in the same position can do the exact same job in completely different ways and be equally successful. I work in an office with 3 people, I code rather creatively, one of my partners approaches his work through brute force, and another is quite analytical.

So who gets to tell the robots what to do and how to do it? When you get into important positions, like law enforcement, the athiest will be mad if the Christian gets to make the RoboCops and vice versa. Unless you distribute algorithms, in which case you might have robots that aren't as good as others or you have this bizzare society of robots in which writing enough algorithms for them is so complex that it is completely impractical.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

So explain to me how much creativity is involved in flipping burgers, or taking orders, or driving a truck, or working a mine?

But the system doesn't work if you don't replace all jobs. Why would a person in a skilled position say, "Hey, guys, let's start making robots that replace all the low-skill jobs so they don't have to work anymore...even though we have to keep working..."

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Profit. Also, presumably skilled workers would be trying to design machines that replace themselves. Then once they're replaced, they would either do nothing or try and design other machines to replace other jobs for even more profit.

But not everyone loves computer science and robotic engineering which is absolutely required to run this system. It is one thing to make a robot that can adjust itself to properly weld a car door onto a frame. It is something else to amass the manpower it would take to create this army of robotic laborers.

What would happen to Labor Day?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

As the efficiency of extracting more energy from less material increases, the need for the kind of manpower you're thinking of decreases, perhaps exponentially. Don't think of the present as the measuring stick.

Oh, I'm not thinking about the material, I'm thinking about the programming. Sure, things get faster and faster and faster, but the problem isn't only computational speeds, it's algorithms. And there is no way beyond working with 1s and 0s (or simple numbers for when multiple voltage can be used better). That will never change.

People have to make the systems work after they are created.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Of course not, but the level of abstraction cannot get much higher. We're at the object level (which boards like this don't even use outside of AJAX because it is so goddamn slow), which means that things are being modelled as if they were in a real-world state. We've been heavily at this stage now for about 20 years, and the only two major languages to be released since C++, Java and C#, are based on code easier to write and maintain. They're slow as fuck, but assuming Moore's law keeps working for a while, that might not matter. But, anyway, new paradigms are not forthcoming at this point, the research has gone stagnant.

(Not to mention that the something like this message board was missing up until 10 years ago more because of materials and infrastructure, and not the ability to do something like this.)


Consider this: Microsoft, as of late 2005, had already put in somewhere in the ballpark of 30 million man-hours into Vista, and, last I heard, they would be approaching 50 million by release. For something like 8,000 employees. Now, this is the biggest software company in the world employing thousands of the best computer scientists outside of universities and Google taking 4 years to make an operating system of a computer that doesn't have to think. Its two main purposes are to run and be safe, and Vista will likely be riddled with bugs and security issues.

This isn't an industry bogged down by unions or overreaching government oversight. The average Microsoft employee works about 60-70 hours a week, so, if you spread a normal person's work week, you're looking at 10,000 - 12,000 employees needed. So how many man-hours to create a humanish robot? And one with no errors, because you can't go around releasing these things into the public if they don't work?

FELIPE NO