4 replies to this topic

[cats_lover]

When robots becomes the mainly responsible for the production of food and things, and humans have nothing to work on; the concept of money disappear? It will be a good time to stop worrying about work and make money and enjoy life.

 

This is a possible scenario for the distant future?

[niner]

Maybe for the very distant future, but not in this century, I suspect.  There's a lot of fundamental human nature that wants to have things of value, to compete with others, and to rank ourselves against others.  That's a lot of stuff to change- it will take a long time.  It will also require an extreme post-scarcity world.  If everyone can have whatever they desire and there's still more where that came from, then money becomes superfluous.  That will be a pretty difficult situation to engineer, although we'll probably get something like that eventually if we don't kill ourselves first.

[PWAIN]

Depends if you believe in a Kurzweilian or Drexlerian future and what timeline you put on it. Realistically, robots look like they will take over 50% of jobs in the next 10 to 20 years and things like "Basic Income" will need to be put into place. It could be much more tan that and much sooner. Foxconn (The company that makes.assembles iPnones) announced a while back that they intend to replace all their workers with robots and from memory, it was a very aggressive timetable. Not sure if they will achieve it but it is possible.

 

Robots will really start to make an impact as they get more intelligent. Smart self drive cars/truckes etc are not far off and that means millions of jobs lost. Smart call centre systems and online call handling is killing off the phone operator. Office functions are steadily being replaced by smart systems. Fast food soon to be done by self service and robotic cooks. Smarter jobs will go when we have more intelligent software. New jobs are created but they are higher up the food chain and not everyone is up to that. Worse still is that these get eaten into over time. Unless you are super creative or a genius, there won't be any jobs for you.

 

It is not a bad thing per se but the transition is likely to be difficult and risky. I think Basic income should start to be introduced with a slow but steady timetable of increase. Perhaps start with everyone getting $10 per week and increase it by $10 per week every year. That means that in 10 years, we will be on $100 per week basic income and in 20 years it will be $200 per week. By the time the robots are making a real impact, the basic income will help people cope. Social security payments could also be used but they tend to cause discriminatory behaviour and act as a disincentive to earn more.

 

Essentially we are potentially entering a golden age, a Utopia of sorts but it is up to us to make sure that we get there.

[cats_lover]

Thanks for the replies, I think when the AI develops to some extent, technological development will be exponential and this will be a serious blow to the wold economy.

Honestly, no matter what happens with the economy; I hope I live to see the most advanced robots doing their job  

[TheFountain]

Make no mistake. The economy of Star Trek is coming!