Computers That Can Learn---What Happens When A Majority Of Humans Don't Contribute Value
Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 1 month ago to Philosophy
Is this where we're heading? How does our philosophy deal with this eventuality?
From the Article:
A: If we remove the idea of the soul, at some point in history [there's nothing that] computers and machines won't be able to do at least as well as us. We can argue about when that will happen. I think it will be in the next few decades.
Q: No one will have to work anymore?
A: Some very large percentage of the world. The vast majority of things that are necessary will have been automated.
The question that is actually much more interesting is: What happens when we're halfway there? What happens when the amount of things that can't be automated is much smaller than the amount of people that exist to do them? That's this point where half the world can't add economic value. That means half the world is destitute and unable to feed themselves. So we have to start to allocate some wealth on a basis other than the basis of labor or capital inputs. The alternative would be to say, "Most of humanity can't add any economic value, so we'll just let them die."
From the Article:
A: If we remove the idea of the soul, at some point in history [there's nothing that] computers and machines won't be able to do at least as well as us. We can argue about when that will happen. I think it will be in the next few decades.
Q: No one will have to work anymore?
A: Some very large percentage of the world. The vast majority of things that are necessary will have been automated.
The question that is actually much more interesting is: What happens when we're halfway there? What happens when the amount of things that can't be automated is much smaller than the amount of people that exist to do them? That's this point where half the world can't add economic value. That means half the world is destitute and unable to feed themselves. So we have to start to allocate some wealth on a basis other than the basis of labor or capital inputs. The alternative would be to say, "Most of humanity can't add any economic value, so we'll just let them die."
In early times humans lived placidly like monkeys, with no labor required beyond plucking fruit from the trees and replicating as nature allowed. Mortality and infant mortality were high enough to keep the population fairly stable. When population came to exceed its food supply, the more enterprising groups spread to more supportive territories until those, too, became exhausted. Like locusts that devour and devastate a region and then move on, early people followed their food supply.
Necessity gave the more intelligent ones the idea of storing food supplies, especially once they moved into regions with changing seasons. The labor required for that life style and survival was still minimal. The energy output required was far less than when agriculture and home building and sanitation imposed greater demands and specialization.
The amount of labor required--10, 12 or more hours a day--to just keep even with survival needs when cities and states formed and trades grew, was far greater than in those idyllic pastoral times. The notion that "you don't work, you don't eat", became established as the way to live in settled communities.
When labor-saving devices were invented, more productivity became possible in less time, so labor diversified into arts and leisure, no more sweat all day in hard toil. Of course, the more aggressive members of the tribe took positions of getting the lion's share of the values produced through others' labors, probably first as soldiers protecting the tribe against outside marauders.
Why were there marauders instead of civilized traders? Because scarcity impelled them. The whole concept of property rights is a fragile and transient one in their culture. So more of the ruled did the heavy physical labor and their rulers led an opulent life. The time of virtually effortless subsistence was remembered only in myths of Paradise. The idea of NOT working went out of existence. Even in the poorest, most overpopulated and primitive living conditions, people still manage to raise food, carry water, dig latrines (if any), bury their dead, sing songs, tell stories, and put out a modicum of effort for life to go on.
Humans must ingest a certain amount of material to convert into the energy that maintains their life. All else is window dressing, and it is in the "all else" that modern societies have created work for all those who are not in the direct food supply network. An entire infrastructure has grown up around elaborate living conditions that they today take for granted: houses, furniture, plumbing, electronics of every kind, sports, entertainments... lightyears beyond squatting in the wild with a few minutes a day required to obtain the day's food.
Now they are at a crossroads between labor needed and labor not needed. If machines can run everthing, what should humans be doing? Always in the past, when there was a need, some leading minds found a means to fill it. If the old ethic, that only workers are entitled to eat, while the destitute, the homeless and helpless have no way to earn their upkeep except through what is thrown to them from pity, should societies reinstate paupers' prisons, or make being homeless or a beggar a crime, or dispossess the productive to use the surplus for the maintenance of the derelicts?
Will machines that make human jobs unnecessary, thus reducing the labor requirement back down to an hour a day, make humans recalibrate what it means to earn a living? Shall a majority of the population return to the grazing stage of self-support? Will food be provided freely and communally because the cost of producing it goes down to almost nothing? Will machines bring back the idyllic paradise of free food, no effort? Is that the new ethic to come, the bridge to which is the socialist dream of redistribution?
If survival will require minimum effort, what should the human race do with their enormous stockpile of brainpower and energy and free time? Study science, the arts, philosophy? Think seriously about the future of their planet, where even the most efficient of food production and pollution control cannot keep up with an asymptotically expanding population? And even if some means were found peacefully to level off population growth, will the race stagnate in a condition of stasis?
Or will they go to the next phase of evolution as told by their visionary science fiction writers--building spaceships; exploring and populating other planets; genetically modifying their DNA to adapt to alien climates and new ways of obtaining fuel to energize their activities? Can their machines enhance their organic structures to secure their future survival?
It would be a dreadful shame for all those millions of years of progress to be lost at the last minute through this race's unfortunate propensity towards mutual and self-destruction. <end Martian report>
Likewise, I am sure. I may not comment enough, but I read and appreciate many of your contributions as well.
O.A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52wis_sL...
If the liberals had their way, ALL individuals would be sent to room 101 for not thinking the "right way."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3U83QLo...
1984 and the "thought police" is not any different than today when someone expresses an outrage over homosexuality or any difference in beliefs. the Government is censoring thoughts and speech more and more every day.
"Soylent Green" was -- but its writer should have known better, when Julian Simon won his bet with Paul Ehrlich.
"1984" and "I Robot", of course, were warnings against allowing certain dangerous things to happen, but reality may turn out to be so different from the stories that the warning isn't really called for. "1984" is pretty much a specific warning against Communism, since that (and certain Middle East theocracies) are the only governments that have ever claimed a right to make (knowledge of) parts of history disappear.
Like many of the others, I agree with their assessment that natural population control will happen. Japan and the US no longer maintain their current populations without immigration. This seems to be a by-product of an advanced, mechanized society. I have many CNC machines (robots) in my shop. Once I had many more employees. I am still in contact with many of my ex-employees and they found other work, often more personally fulfilling. I can afford groceries at the store, but I still put in a small garden, fish and hunt. What is work for some is play for me.
I do not worry about the half of the world that may become non-productive, because it seems likely their numbers will drop and that the increased productivity of the robots will reduce the cost of feeding those that remain. I believe there will always be some things humans can do even if they work fewer hours to provide for themselves, if they are willing. Robots are excellent at repetitive tasks, but it still seems a long way off before they are as versatile and creative as humans. This question has been proposed long ago/many times with every advent of a new piece of automation/ invention and yet...
Regards,
O.A.
The more mechanized a society is
more jobs that are created as a result of human genius having time to think.
The industrial revolution was actually the parent of our computer age.
100-years-ago who would have dreamed that we would be able to fly around the world, chat online or watch television ON A SMART PHONE!
The more time that is created by machines the greater the wealth of the world in every way.
producers will have to change, or force will be
involved through government. . but my wife and I
get a kick out of listening to the locals at a watering
hold in the old city. . no, not Caruso, but fun! -- j
When I was a child in the early 40’s, I remember the normal work week in NYC included a half day Saturday.
Similarly, if these robots greatly increase production-per-human, I expect to see us all become richer. Unless government prevents it, or allows barbarians to interfere with it.
As for the rest: I expect private charity can sustain those people, but I hope it will at least sterilize them first, so the present vicious cycle of welfare stops.
Human toolmaking, machine building, and the coming wave of robotics and automation simply makes it easier for people to be more productive. But, people must be willing to adapt. People who are involved with robotics and automation - the people in the new "maker" movement, are the ones with a firm grip on the future. Robots will never replace humans for one simple reason... We won't let them. Their designed purpose will always be to serve us. Just like every other tool we've ever invented...
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