The fact that all of the gains from automation will go to a handful of people is a political choice we continue to make every day.
When I was in highschool a job was to build character and get you ready to survive in the world. Maybe this is why more kids are living with their parents longer. I don't agree with basic income, because I believe like welfare people will find ways to exploit it. The people who have a drive to work will seem like they are getting less.
I am not opposed to this type of automation. It is just worrisome what impacts it will have that us little guys cannot control..
The whole point of UBI is to avoid means testing, so there's no reason to game it. Of course, if anything, we won't have actual UBI because it's most likely politically untenable because of the exact perspective you have, but some form of extended welfare, which requires some kind of means testing, which is then gameable.
The people who have a drive to work will seem like they are getting less.
If it's truly UBI, then these people can avoid the feeling like they are getting less by not working, or taking a job closer, or starting their own company, that doesn't require driving to work. "I don't want to drive to your office" becomes an acceptable and usable reason to quit your job because you don't actually need a job under UBI.
That's because it's impossible to know what new jobs will exist in the future. Consider the invention of the digital computer. It would have been impossible to know in the 50s that the thousands of typist jobs would be replaced by web designers, programmers, systems administrators, etc.
Whilst it is true that robots != slaves, at least from an ethical standpoint, the fact that an increasing portion of our economic production is done by unpaid (nonhuman) labour might land us in similarly dismal economic straits.
For the record, I don't think the answer is to pay the robots a salary! :-)
More seriously, I'm also equivocal about the benefits of universal income. A job is about more than money, it's also about identity and self-actualisation. Perhaps a mixture of universal income and indirect public subsidies for academic, heritage-craft, public service and other charitable / vocational work might be the answer?
There's no "also" if job losses are offset by new jobs.
Robots in warehouses (AGV's) need to be sold, designed, welded, eclectically wired, programmed, transported, installed, integrated into an existing system, maintained. All of those are done manually, by sales people, welders, electricians, CAD designers, electronica engineers, software engineers, site engineers, ... . I worked in the Automated Guided Vehicle industry, and custom projects are all made by men, not automated yet (because projects are custom).
The politicians are not going to have a solution as fast as the job losses mount. They're going to want to force-fit the solution into their existing way of thinking, into existing frameworks, what they've always known politically and that means taxation + redistribution through existing channels.
If you replace a fastfood worker with a robot, as an owner you're going to pay a fee or tax for that. Politicians will justify it by saying it will go to unemployment benefits or similar.
They're also going to pass laws restricting productivity gains by robots and AI. A fastfood worker can't work 24 hours per day but a robot can. Laws will start to be passed in the near future, stipulating that if you want to use autonomous systems to replace human labor, then your autonomous system can only function near the capability of a person in terms of hours worked or total output potential.
It'll be called the Fairness in Autonomous Labor Act (of 2032).
Sales of socially harmful goods (such as alcohol, tobacco and petroleum) are already taxed punitively to restrict their use and implement harm reduction. It's easy to imagine politicians implementing similar laws to restrict the sale of robots.
I suspect that such laws would not be very successful at addressing the problem but then I can't easily think of any laws work entirely as intended. If robots are to be taxed, it is their use which should incur the penalty, not their sale.
Much like the legislation around not letting commercials be louder than the main content was subverted, I'd expect companies to weasel around any attempt to keep automatable jobs in human hands.
It was nice to cross that bridge with cash, and not have another bill to look forward to. I don't go to San Francisco like I used to either. Now, I only go if I have to.
I really wonder if certain "useless jobs" are as useless as they claim.
Interesting comment, passing the blame to people. A better comment would have been, "we don't want people to do these type of jobs because we're building a better utopia of the future ..."
Translation: We don't pay enough.
If there was a economic shortage then they can simply increase the salary. This will result in a higher supply of workers.
The more uncomfortable the job is the more comfortable I am with automating it away.
This is cutting unskilled and low-skilled labor at the knee. The only bastion left is one that domestic workers are loath to do and that is harvesting and meatpacking --but those will likely fall to automation as well.
This time the giant sucking sound wont be coming from south of the border but rather from the army of robotic workers.
Automated fruit picking for delicate fruits is still a research project. There are lots of slow demo systems with robot arms. 1 apple per second is the state of the art.
In practice, most fruit is picked using mechanical systems such as a tree-shaker that makes all the fruit fall off.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za2dsB0qrMg [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBcWZcjXr-I
Likewise, items that are heavily processed or created via automation have values diminishing to zero (for me). I can't eat at Taco Bell anymore so it has a value of zero for me even though I used to love the taste of their food. Taco Bell is so full of chemicals and the quality of their components have dropped below a level my GI can tolerate so I had to swear them off.
If a robot can harvest, pack, pick, transport, cook, clean, and construct tirelessly and safely, I think we should give those jobs to the robot. People will come to know that the craft has gone from those work products, and I would expect that those non-crafted items should diminish in value as we'd only be paying for components/consumables and the design. Everyone's buying power will increase.
I say let it happen, it's inhumane to have work be dangerous or drudgerous anyways.
And it seems to me we shouldn't be looking to Trump for answers to big existential questions like "what will all the workers do with themselves?" That's the makings of comedy gold!
Just let people plan out their own lives and organize collectively where they must in order to take care of themselves. Pleading with government to save us only leads to more wasteful power grabs and taxes and spending which just exacerbates our problems.
So when Uber drivers complain about self driving cars I just cackle maniacally.
This is a wholesale warehouse; pallets go in and pallets with different mixes of boxes go out. It's not a fulfillment center where small customer orders are picked. Amazon is working on that, but so far they're only semi-automated. Kiva robots bring the racks to a human picker, who takes an object out of one bin and puts it in another. Amazon has a competition for robots to do that.
Especially jobs where the data is easily machine readable, processes can be online, and the work doesn't require human negotiation.
1. Automate all low skilled jobs.
2. Create technocratic city-states. Maybe seasteading, maybe something else.
3. Robots won't be able to vote on things like Trump or Brexit.
