Robot workers

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I must apologize. I missed your post directly preceeding my first. I'm constantly trapped looking too far forward and I find it difficult to keep focused on the present. Orwell and fuzzy both have good points about wealth and how we currently view how much of it we each have. I see the correlation that is drawn between sewing machines and the technology that automated much of the auto industry but I also see that the economic impact of the automation of the automotive industry has still not been fully felt.

The fearmongering over anything remotely socialist is worrisome, in America. How do we stand up for the poor and disenfranchised when those are the people that oppose their own advocacy?

I still can't see a human solution. I still believe our place is not at the apex of life, but as an important cornerstone in the history of earth's intelligence. We need to avoid destruction and promote progress. The misery may be unavoidable.

You are obviously ignoring the hugely profound changes in the offing and the comparison with the early industrial revolution and its consequences indicates a propensity for generalization from the past that is totally inappropriate.

This is ironic considering how much older you are than I. But I am going to tell you that you are not old enough to know something.

I have read a pamphlet from just prior to the turn of the century.. 20 years or more before you were born. In it, A employer has outlined conditions under which his employers were to work. Things such as being present 1/2 hour before the owner came to unlock the shop at 6am (time which they would not be paid), until after dark, monday through saturday. It said they were to wear such and such things, that they now had to privilege of not needing permission to visit the toilet. They were to be given a overly generous 1/2 hour to eat lunch(with no pay), and that they should "be grateful for the government interference which necessitated such overly liberal privileges". It further went on to outline the safety equipment which said government forced the employer to purchase, and how they should appreciate their undeserved fortune.

It was a very sour and angry man that wrote that up.

Lets count those hours up, shall we? Assuming they were there at 5:30 as ordered, and the sun went down at 6pm, thats 75 hours per week. They only got paid for 66. Do you get the gist of it? He was angry because of limitations to his previous demands.

Your 1940s cohort which dreamed of a shortened work week were already living in munificent working hours. What we experience now is not anything new; it is pretty much the standard western working day since the dawn of the iron age. Maybe you should reacquaint yourself with the experiences of victorian era factory workers and servants?

As with you, I did not have to live through the era to recognize its brutality. You are telling black people to be overjoyed they are not still slaves and be content with the huge lack of sustainable employment and obvious legal and other discriminations. Things can be much, much better or, as they seem to be evolving, much, much worse. Cell phones and current TV does not put me in paradise. I wonder what motivations you have in being so deliriously happy with the current situation.

I think my point in general that has not been acknowledged is that civilization is in the process of being forced to accept a major paradigm change in its attitude towards work and money and the sustenance of a balanced economic system. The break is still perhaps a decade or two away but it is approaching and seems to be generally unrecognized.

Last edited by Sand on 14 Mar 2010, 3:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not ignoring anything, I'm taking it in its historical context. I don't see how generalization from the past is at all inappropriate. The past is the best predictor of the future. The introduction of new technologies that increase production (or lower costs) has always made our lives better, not worse. This has been true since we invented the first spear, and it will almost certainly continue to be true.

No. the past is rapidly becoming obsolete in forecasting the future. The communication and intelligence manipulation is already indicative of major changes but that is nothing compared to the advance of automatic manufacturing and maintenance of the civilized world. If the changes are permitted to proceed as they have the world will be totally unrecognizable in its social and industrial and economic relationships in the relatively near future. and it evidently will not be accomplished peacefully.

Only an aspie could interpret my post as joy. My simple point was that right now is closer to the status quo than when you were a young man. Its not so much stepping into new mire as falling back after briefly climbing out.

The other point is that robotics/mechanization hasnt undone the average person. It is the voluminous trade and cultivated hunger for luxury appurtenances that has forced workers back into supposedly bygone working conditions. School, too, teach nothing about frugality and money sense, and it hadnt for my parents generation, nor I suspect yours. That small portion of people that learn money skills(and I am sure that includes you) dont do it with the benefit of elders, but by feeling their own way.

Unfettered greed chains a person to the workplace. Even people of modest needs are leveraged employers that are scrambling to maximise their profits. I've had too many employers who were close to financial ruin themselves. One in particular I watched manipulate several of his employees into tight financial situations. The benefit to him was they would find it difficult to leave his employ. He "helped" one lease a vehicle beyond his means and then gave him just enough of a raise to cover the difference.

He tried something similar with me, but I was doubly employed and had a small sole proprietorship as well. He then reneged on a promise from when I was hired(of no work on friday afternoons), endangering my other income, and I left, unfortunately not soon enough to save most of my business. Leaving was easy of course. I was not dependent on him. Ironically, I dont think he ever understood that I was a happy employee until that point. I came to work because I enjoyed it. Need was not a factor.

Nowadays I'm dirt poor. Haha.

I grew up during the 1930's and am well aware of managing my resources. But I realized early that I was uninterested in devoting myself to becoming totally involved in money and of course never made much but enjoyed those activities that rewarded me in other ways. I am not sorry for that. My only "luxury" is an old second hand cell phone and my internet connection. These days I have to debate myself over paying for another supply of vitamin B. But this has little to do with the essence of my discussion. I am merely pointing out that the work ethic is about to become obsolete and that will shake the foundations of modern society to the core. Automatic machinery has been extremely crude up to this point although marvelously efficient. That will change and that will change everything. Luxury has nothing to do with it.

Nonsense. Every year the past is a richer and deeper resource for understanding the present and the future.


So what if the world is unrecognizable? It's hardly recognizable to the world you grew up in. Perhaps greater automation will lead to a social or economic restructuring, but I am confident we will be better off at the end of it. After all, we had dramatic social changes following the introduction of agriculture, the advent of commercial farming (ie yields above subsistence levels), and the initial dawn of manufacturing. Every step of the way has been an improvement. I don't know how you can imagine that freeing ourselves from drudgery will be catastrophic.

I still fail to see how you are distinct from the Luddites who preceded you.

You misunderstand my point. I am not in any way a Luddite. I heartily approve of the coming technological advances. I am merely pointing out that our social accommodation to them is archaic and there are powerful socio-economic elements that will try to maintain the crumbling old relationships for their own exclusive benefits and the resulting disasters will be catastrophic.

I don't see any real cause for alarm, this is no different than the mechanizing of farm work or traditional manufacturing plants. What will happen is that a class of worker will effectively become obsolete and experience economic dislocation, and the next generation will do something else to make money. What do you think happened to the farriers after the automobile overtook the horse? It sucked for the them, but their children became auto-mechanics or went off to work in the cities, and ultimately had it better than their fore bearers did. Same thing with other traditional labor jobs, one generation gets left behind but the next one that may have followed in it's footsteps becomes the next workforce for the newer industries instead, it's just the labor cycle of life, and destruction is part of it.

If you can suggest some possible work activities that cannot be taken over by sophisticated automation I would be much interested.

Would you say that the work ethic of a portrait painter is the same as that of a cabinet maker?

These are very individual occupations. Both can include fine artists and hacks. And the motivations differ widely between individuals. I frankly see both occupations possible to finely conceived robots but neither comprise anything near to the kind of industry where robots will make their major impact.There are software programs today that can compose music in the style of many distinguished composers and robots can do that. But this is far from the area I was looking into. It is a matter of the relationship between workers, monetary compensation for work and markets that will be the problem in the basic matter of supplying value for work done in society. Innovative work will probably be done by both humans and robots in the foreseeable future but innovation is not a mass employment area and somehow money will have to be passed from producers to consumers in order for a market to exist. This is the problem.

There is another factor between robot workers and human workers. Robots don't have to be persuaded to work by rewards. Humans are not designed to perform designated work. They are animals and must be trained. You don't have to persuade a machine to function. It functions because it was designed to. Money is the persuasive force with people. If there is no money involved the whole economic system breaks down.

Therein lies your conceptual problem. Why is it necessary for mass employment, cloned jobs so to speak? Make work programs in other words.

Mankind went through this before. With the advent of agriculture, our society was permitted to specialise and we gained dedicated craftsmen, specialised leadership roles(of dubious merit, I admit), as well as the thinkers; musicians, philosophers and scientists. Prior to that even the specialists flint nappers and cave painters likely did double duty as hunters.

We went through it a second time with the advent of iron, cities and fortifications. This time more people shifted away from menial pursuits and mankind began to have the wherewithal to create transcendent and lasting projects. Prior to that, pushing big boulders around wasnt considered a beneficial use of time, nor 'productive'. But you'd be hard pressed to say that the creation of canals, cathedrals and palaces is not a viable boost to an economy.

Thats why I asked you if you think artists and cabinet makers both have work ethic. Those important works required a population free to study engineering and art. The follow up question was to be: "does a painter who uses photoshop have the same ethic as the oil painter?"

The Work force shifted again in the early days of the machine age. And in the silicon age. We are soon to pass that.

As humanity progresses, the thinking gets more complicated. You need more people using their brains and less swinging a hammer. We are past the point where hammers and shovels much of the work. We need cranes, earth-movers and explosives, and larger ones all the time.

Gone is the time where the tool user fixes his own tools. Now the operator relies on a mechanic. Often that mechanic needs engineers (and some of their trade) to make sense of the complicated devices.

We produce so much garbage that even that is specializing into recycling, reuse and disposal fields. Each field needs its thinkers and it cannot leach them from other fields. More people need to be shifted from mundane labour intellectual pursuits.

It is foreseen that in 20 years robots will have all the capabilities of human thinkers. They will be far advanced from hammer swingers and will function more efficiently than humans. Do you really think that the bulk of humanity is either capable of or interested in intellectual work? Higher education is increasingly harder to come by and frighteningly expensive. Intellectuals are, in the USA today, not particularly celebrated. Academics are routinely mocked and basics like evolution, even here in this site where the group is a bit above the ordinary, has its fierce opponents. By definition the average IQ is 100 and that is not particularly spectacular. Robots should be able to surpass it without too much trouble. This change is extraordinary so expect extraordinary problems.