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I predicted 30-40 years before a majority of the population becomes unemployable, and consumer capitalism is completely broken. But the process will begin much sooner than that. When will it be time to do something about it, and realistically what would be done?
Hello OP. I think you are correct in that most of the jobs currently here will be gone by then. It's not possible to know how things will turn out or even if it will be negative. If vehicles go driverless and solar electric, we could lose many jobs. If those vehicles could also go underwater or fly, our entire transport industry could become basically capital based. (Just go with it)
Once all labor cost is eliminated, pricing can be very competitive, yet that would make it easier for you to create something and ship it around the world. You'll still need to design or at least select packaging. You'll still need to spur demand....and just as you do, 3D printers will be able to print whatever it is that you want to produce anyway, making transportation of goods obsolete. So now it's merely selling a design, except computers figure out how to do that better and faster anyway, so now human design is obsolete.
Once we've taken labor out of the cost equation...Karl Marx starts to make more sense...and frankly meets Adam Smith. If Supply is infinite and demand is not, what is the price? It's free. Just like the internet games of today or Wikipedia. Then we may be truly free to do what we want. Then we will be as free as a school of dolphins.
Between now and then will be the Reckoning. Perhaps Judgement will not be made by God, but by machines created by man to determine who is worthy of entering this paradise and how they will work together. Perhaps it will be humans accepting other humans for designed cities built to hold a certain population range. Perhaps the small labor items remaining will be performed by prisoners who merely must do civic service for a day and are fine otherwise.
If money is a current store of value, but the tools become available to record actions as a store of value, then perhaps the future is very bright indeed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by artillery77
3D printers will be able to print whatever it is that you want to produce anyway, making transportation of goods obsolete
Sorry, I've been meaning to object to this for a while (others have said something similar, not just you): 3D printing shouldn't be that much of a game changer. It's basically like there's a fancy new power tool out on the market. That's great... but there's still the cost of wood/metal/etc, cost of your time spent making something, and everything else.
And if everyone wants to 3D print, say, something that requires glass, then demand for glass will spike, and so will the price. I think there would be little effect on transportation of goods, since whatever you want to make requires raw materials. Lumber, metals, etc would be moved around as usual, and you'd buy them at a store or order them online. Actually, it would be less efficient for everyone to order wood and 3D print their own end table, than to use economies of scale and rely on furniture manufacturers or craftspeople.
Not that 3D printing will be a flop; as I said, it's like a fancy new power tool - there is some demand for that, but the tool is only one piece of the puzzle. Some people could even turn it into a profitable crafting career. Maybe some have already; 3D printing isn't that new anymore.
Well, 3D printing processes can more readily facilitate some geometries and assemblies that were difficult to pull off previously. This aspect could be a game changer. Much of that would be on the margins (e.g. maybe hinges would be a little cheaper to make), but it could facilitate new medical devices or something.
-also, labor cost won't exactly be removed from the equation, it's just that human labor cost will be replaced with machine labor costs. The machine costs will likely be far from 0 - there's acquisition cost, energy usage, maintenance, etc. Even so, they'll go with the machine if it's better for the bottom line after all things considered. Also, supply won't be infinite in this world. Earth and all its air and all its land is finite, and last time I checked, the universe is supposed to die a cold lonely death.
I know some people involved in 3D printing. One of the jobs they have, is to print the rotters for a turbo charger for a high priced foreign car. It requires one person to set up and watch the machine. Then when it is completed, it still requires a machinist to finish the item, and to polish it. They also redo the huge turbines for electrical power plants. They wear at the bearing ends of the shafts, and have to be replaced under normal use. They can now print metal to replace that which has worn away, and then machine them to perfection and polish those areas where metal was printed on it. The unit is now as good as new, and costs less than half of making a new one. 3D printing has it's place, but will not be a big factor in manufacturing as it would cost considerably more than mass production for most items. They are not high speed production type machines and never will be. However they will have their place in the future.
The good news is, that experts now predict that over half of the jobs people will be working at in just 10 years, have not even been invented yet.
I know some people involved in 3D printing. One of the jobs they have, is to print the rotters for a turbo charger for a high priced foreign car. It requires one person to set up and watch the machine. Then when it is completed, it still requires a machinist to finish the item, and to polish it. They also redo the huge turbines for electrical power plants. They wear at the bearing ends of the shafts, and have to be replaced under normal use. They can now print metal to replace that which has worn away, and then machine them to perfection and polish those areas where metal was printed on it. The unit is now as good as new, and costs less than half of making a new one. 3D printing has it's place, but will not be a big factor in manufacturing as it would cost considerably more than mass production for most items. They are not high speed production type machines and never will be. However they will have their place in the future.
Hmmm...they do not have to be high speed production however. Peoples usage and purchasing of items isn't that fast. Not really. And even today theres some nifty recycler systems that turn 3D printed items back into print stock. On a related note theres now a machine that also recycles used paper back into paper.
And the machine and polish them to perfection? Thats going away as the precision is going up.
Really though the biggest discussion should be robotics, and AI. 3D printing is big as well, but its not the massive game changer.
Quote:
The good news is, that experts now predict that over half of the jobs people will be working at in just 10 years, have not even been invented yet.
The "experts" that predict that are basing it on historical data. Which normally is a great idea. However AI, and robotics will quite simply make us obsolete. Those same scientists should look at horses. There was always new jobs for them despite increases in technology....until suddenly there wasn't. other experts have realized this, and recognize the underlying issue with that assumption.
In the past we got replaced with very specific machinery, and we still had abilities outside of the capability of automation. IE we have a amazing brain. The automation thats coming does that better. Whats left that we will do better at?
Of course, 3D printing today is just a tool. 3D printing or its replacement 30-40 years from now will be amazing. Take Amazon's Echo of right now, and attach that to a 3D printer....Alexa, I'd like you to make me a car. Use this design. Alexa can automatically order the materials and start fabricating it and putting it together. If your base supplies are commodities, and if by then we have regular space flight, we could mine Mars or the Moon for materials. If solar/hydro/wind power are established, the energy costs for these things will be nil. Automating the resin creation for materials will not be difficult by then and the transportation of said materials will be also nil. Assuming people CAN fabricate their own finished products, then there's little left for costs. The only thing that will be scarce is land and thus food. But if energy is cheap/free, we could desalinate ocean water and farm the deserts. If labor is robotic, we could expand living areas by going underground or building into the oceans.
The labor requirement of our existence, which is so big for us all right now, would be gone. God's punishment, that we will need to toil on the Earth, will be lifted, and as long as we can live in peace, we can have....paradise regained.
I'm not saying people won't try and monopolize or influence with their capital along the way, and there's plenty of reason to think that people won't give up their want to control others unfairly, but it's a possibility that this could work out very well if enough people want it to.
Sorry this is so long, but I couldn’t think of a good way to pare it down. This is something I’ve been researching and contemplating for a long time (years), and I’m having a tough time imagining a realistic yet happy outcome in light of recent trends. I'd like to know your thoughts.
If you like videos, this is one I found that does a pretty good job of covering key aspects of how robotics will make human labor obsolete. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. The main thing I'm concerned with is what will happen then?
Computers are getting more sophisticated all the time. Before long they will be "smart" enough to make some human workers obsolete... meaning that the person has *no* viable task that they can perform better or at a lower cost than a machine. These people will be unemployable, and as the machines continue to become more sophisticated, the number of persons in this category will grow.
Every developed country in the world runs on a consumer capitalist economic model. That's because it has been proven the most successful since the industrial revolution began. The consumer/worker is vital part of this system, because the prosperity of the capitalist depends on the prosperity of the consumer. The capitalist makes profit from making and selling stuff to consumers. If consumer income and wealth doesn't increase, then the capitalist's wealth can't either for long. It's a symbiotic relationship that never before existed in human history. Previously serfs, peasants, and slaves provided valuable labor, but there was no incentive for the wealthy to allow them to keep more than a bare minimum of their production.
Consumer capitalism also favors a democratic government, human rights, and freedom. Why? The general population will work harder and be more efficient and more willing to fight wars if they are free, which ultimately increases the power and wealth of the capitalists.
Our socio-ecomomic system will soon be obsolete. As the economically useless humans become a greater % of the population, consumer capitalism will no longer be viable. From the capitalist standpoint the consumer is no longer a vital part of the system, but rather something that merely consumes resources while providing no value to them. We will not descend to our previous level of serfs and peasants. Those positions will be taken by machines. From the standpoint of the wealthy, the unemployable persons will be like vermin. Instead they can use those resources for themselves, and use robotic slaves to build whatever they want directly and much more efficiently than ever before. They will experience a lifestyle and degree of luxury and power that we can't even imagine today, but it will only be for a few.
What do you suppose will happen to our human rights and living standards then? I don’t expect this change to happen swiftly. There is only so much you can do in one generation before people really notice and complain. The necessary computer sophistication will probably take another 30 to 40 years before a majority of the population becomes unemployable. Most likely welfare will be expanded, and propaganda will continue to pit the middle class (who experience higher taxes and declining living standards) against the lower class (who don't work and receive the dole). Divide and conquer. But the population will be mollified and distracted one way or another while the number of unemployable persons grows. I imagine in a short few decades most of us will be "happily" spending nearly all our time in VR pods hooked up to feeding and evacuation tubes... until we die. And that is an optimistic scenario. Useless humans might be eliminated much more swiftly, especially if there is a shooting battle for world domination.
The alternative? That democracy and freedom are actually strong enough for the interests and wishes of the majority to win out over the desires of the powerful few. And so we share in the bounty and all live better and more interesting lives without needing to work.
Trends are not encouraging. The greatly increased spying and surveillance, along with a repeal of some legal protections, is one disturbing aspect. Totalitarian control that is well beyond anything seen before in the world is now possible. Another is the globalization and “free trade” project that the US embarked on several decades ago. This was sold as something that would make us all richer, and that could have been the case. Instead it was structured from the beginning to benefit the wealthy greatly, and result in depressed wages for rest of the population. Even now it is taboo to point this out. Which brings to mind what is probably the most disturbing trend; the apparent success of propaganda to divide the populace 50/50 around issues that are of little importance. This keeps everyone “entertained” and distracted over political theater and indignation over “hot button” issues, and effectively powerless to organize and change anything worthwhile. Democracy may have always been a sham, but this is becoming more obvious at the time when we really need it to work.
This is pretty much what the Hunger Games is all about. It's the direction they're taking us, and it's most definitely deliberate. When convenient, the plans of a small elite are to kill off many with wars and biological agents. Call it the New World Order, the Hunger Games, whatever. It's been planned by a tiny global elite for over 200 years now.
Hello OP. I think you are correct in that most of the jobs currently here will be gone by then. It's not possible to know how things will turn out or even if it will be negative. If vehicles go driverless and solar electric, we could lose many jobs. If those vehicles could also go underwater or fly, our entire transport industry could become basically capital based. (Just go with it)
Once all labor cost is eliminated, pricing can be very competitive, yet that would make it easier for you to create something and ship it around the world. You'll still need to design or at least select packaging. You'll still need to spur demand....and just as you do, 3D printers will be able to print whatever it is that you want to produce anyway, making transportation of goods obsolete. So now it's merely selling a design, except computers figure out how to do that better and faster anyway, so now human design is obsolete.
Once we've taken labor out of the cost equation...Karl Marx starts to make more sense...and frankly meets Adam Smith. If Supply is infinite and demand is not, what is the price? It's free. Just like the internet games of today or Wikipedia. Then we may be truly free to do what we want. Then we will be as free as a school of dolphins.
Between now and then will be the Reckoning. Perhaps Judgement will not be made by God, but by machines created by man to determine who is worthy of entering this paradise and how they will work together. Perhaps it will be humans accepting other humans for designed cities built to hold a certain population range. Perhaps the small labor items remaining will be performed by prisoners who merely must do civic service for a day and are fine otherwise.
If money is a current store of value, but the tools become available to record actions as a store of value, then perhaps the future is very bright indeed.
Once all labor cost is eliminated, whence will demand come?
Once all labor cost is eliminated, whence will demand come?
Basic income. Its one of the reasons I think it is in fact, inevitable.
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