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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ig who wrote (438546)	8/2/2011 1:24:55 PM
From: grusum	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

Is human labor on the way out? if it is, it will be because it's no longer needed. that would mean that everything will be done for us by the robots. then everyone could go mountain climbing or scuba diving or horseback riding as much as they wanted to, and have a robot serve lunch prepared from food grown by robots. you shouldn't be fearing that day, you should welcome it. but you can still labor if you wish. you can go out and dig a ditch and fill it again. or have a robot fill it back in if you wish. but why work if your labor has no value? why dig a ditch if a robot will happily do it for you for free? and as always, if your work has value, you will be paid to do it. but let's face it, even if robots did all physical work and amplified our intelligence, there would always be areas where human effort would be valued. the study of physics, medicine and subjects like philosophy and art would always be in demand and have some value. there will always be a problem to be solved. and there will be value in the attempt to solve it. our path from the very beginning has been one of solving problems. at first we could only solve the simple ones, like lighting a fire or inventing a wheel. but as we advanced we found more problems to be solved, with more value in solving them. embrace technology and freedom, because they are the only things that can save us, and make our lives better. How do we make that transition as painless as possible? by not trying to oppose it. What can we do now to lay down the foundation for future generations where the majority of work is automated? keep government and anyone else from trying to 'save' us from it. Where should we invest our capital to ensure the best returns when robots finally rule the world? i disagree that robots will ever rule the world. there will be many fail-safes employed to prevent that. as for where we should invest our capital?? in the most profitable companies..

To: ig who wrote (438546)	8/2/2011 2:28:15 PM
From: LindyBill	5 Recommendations Respond to of 793964

"What is seen and what is not seen." What is seen is automation replacing workers. What is not seen is incredibly cheap products that people are able to buy. The more automation, the more production, the more jobs. What gets in the middle of all this and causes unemployment is the Government who thinks it knows better than Mr Market. This argument will never end. I am on the "Mr Market" side of it.

To: ig who wrote (438546)	8/2/2011 6:52:22 PM
From: skinowski	2 Recommendations Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793964

It's also possible (perhaps likely) that citizens may struggle during the transition from human to robot labor even as economies thrive, leading us to more “jobless recoveries”. Interesting article. That company makes maybe half of cell phones and other such things in the world, and I've never heard about them. If Maurice is right, and intelligence does not necessarily need to be attached to a biological substrate, then it will be a matter of time until the rapidly progressing artificial intelligence will leave us far behind. Robots may get bored with feeding lunches to the fat lazy humans, and watch them climb their hills and play their silly computer games. They, the robots, may decide to outsource the baby sitting duties to some simpler, cheaper robots, and find something better to do. Like, maybe, design better and smarter robots.... :)