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The usual retort is that the other 4 people will be out of work. But you're forgetting that the 1 person will have 5 times the income of the old person. As a result of this increased income they will be able to consume more. Due to this increased consumption, they will create more demand for goods and services that will necessitate need for more labor. That is what the other 4 people will be doing.
What labor? Why do you think that robotics won't displace the need for those four people in other areas?
You didn't explain how or why these other jobs won't be done by automation. This is not like the horse-and-buggy; this is a totally different animal. Robots are becoming ever more sophisticated and their use will eventually become widespread, so displaced workers may have very limited places to go for employment. Maybe your scenario will work for a while, but eventually, with robots become better and cheaper, their use will be widespread.
Workers will be displaced by robots and machines, sure. That has been going on since they invented the cotton gin and put a bunch of cotton separators out of work. There is always a more efficient way to do a job. Maybe not "better", but more efficient, which are not always the same thing.
The stuff about general AI becoming self-aware and killing everybody is IMO just as science fiction as the movies that spawned this doomsday scenario. I don't believe it is physically possible for humans to re-create autonomous consciousness from a computer program, or even to create a computer program capable of creating it. That is akin to the search for the missing link that proves humans evolved from ape-like hominids. Nice theory but they are still trying to prove it.
Robotics, AI and mechanization will make people vastly more productive. More productivity = greater incomes and wealth (yes, that is basically a fact of economics).
Greater income & wealth will give people more time to enjoy life and do things we want to do, rather than things we have to do. In general this is good for humanity.
What do you think happens when 5 employees doing the same job become 25% more productive...?
A machine lets 1 person do what, say, 5 people used to do.
This lets 1 person produce the output that 5 people used to do. That is why the wealth of the worker will go up.
The usual retort is that the other 4 people will be out of work. But you're forgetting that the 1 person will have 5 times the income of the old person. As a result of this increased income they will be able to consume more. Due to this increased consumption, they will create more demand for goods and services that will necessitate need for more labor. That is what the other 4 people will be doing.
Now, what holds true for that first, one person will in turn be true of the other 4 people. Thanks to machines, robotics, etc., they will be able to do what 5 people used to do, and the cycle created by the first person will also be true for these other four.
Furthermore, since this machinery, robotics and AI will decrease the need to do harder, menial tasks in addition to creating greater wealth and productivity, the jobs created for the other 4 people will be increasingly geared toward serving the wants of people, not the needs of people. This is part of what I meant when I said, "Greater income & wealth will give people more time to enjoy life and do things we want to do, rather than things we have to do."
I might be exaggerating a bit here, but imagine a future society in which people can earn enough money to buy a nice house, a nice car, and have 4 weeks' vacation by working just 30 hours a week. They will produce all this wealth for themselves by "hiring" machines, robots, AI and all kinds of other technologies to do much of their work for them.
All this wealth, and all that extra free time, will give them the resources to travel a lot, have lots of time for hobbies, engage in spirituality, or whatever else makes them happy. They might even have time to have more kids (I can actually back that up with a recent trend, but it's another topic). This will create demand for people engaged in serving people who like to travel, do hobbies, teach children, etc etc. Each of those people engaged in those occupations, in turn, will have a bevy of technologies at their disposal to make them much more productive and wealthy as well. That is, you will get people building cruise ships who are 5 times more productive than cruise ship builders of yore used to be. You will get restaurant workers who are 5 times more productive than restaurant workers of yore used to be. And so on.
In other words, ultimately it won't just be the 1 person who becomes vastly more productive and wealthy due to technology while the other 4 are out of luck, it will eventually be the other 4 people as well.
So AI is the seed that will once again give rise to a cast system in the near future.................way to go !
The hands which pull the puppet strings in society want to create a permanent underclass of plebs completely dependent on THEM for their well-being. The ultimate form of control. Don't think for a second they won't use AI to their advantage in their constant quest for more power and control.
Automation has replaced workers for more than 30 years now, but I haven't seen a big change in workers lives where I have lived (obviously not true for the rustbelt, etc., but those are exceptions).
Cash machines have replaced tellers. Online purchasing has replaced retail stores. Cable TV and Netflix has replaced video shops and movie theaters. EZPass has replaced toll booth agents. Robots have replaced assembly line workers. The internet has replaced stationery and newspapers. Digital cameras have replaced film. Telephone operators and cutomer service people have been replace by automated phone systems and automated response programs. But everyone I know who was replaced is doing something else.
Some things that haven't been replaced for the most part by automation are teachers, cops, firemen, construction workers, craftsmen, artists, cooks, health care workers, baby sitters, dog walkers, veterinarians, nail salons, sales people, writers, IT workers. When I was working a big multi year program I was involved in was automating the drafting department from pen and ink to computerized drafting. What was automated was the method of creating and distributing the drawings, but the knowledge required to do the drawings wasn't. Despite many fears at the time, no one was replaced.
A machine lets 1 person do what, say, 5 people used to do.
This lets 1 person produce the output that 5 people used to do. That is why the wealth of the worker will go up.
The usual retort is that the other 4 people will be out of work. But you're forgetting that the 1 person will have 5 times the income of the old person. As a result of this increased income they will be able to consume more. Due to this increased consumption, they will create more demand for goods and services that will necessitate need for more labor. That is what the other 4 people will be doing.
Now, what holds true for that first, one person will in turn be true of the other 4 people. Thanks to machines, robotics, etc., they will be able to do what 5 people used to do, and the cycle created by the first person will also be true for these other four.
Furthermore, since this machinery, robotics and AI will decrease the need to do harder, menial tasks in addition to creating greater wealth and productivity, the jobs created for the other 4 people will be increasingly geared toward serving the wants of people, not the needs of people. This is part of what I meant when I said, "Greater income & wealth will give people more time to enjoy life and do things we want to do, rather than things we have to do."
I might be exaggerating a bit here, but imagine a future society in which people can earn enough money to buy a nice house, a nice car, and have 4 weeks' vacation by working just 30 hours a week. They will produce all this wealth for themselves by "hiring" machines, robots, AI and all kinds of other technologies to do much of their work for them.
All this wealth, and all that extra free time, will give them the resources to travel a lot, have lots of time for hobbies, engage in spirituality, or whatever else makes them happy. They might even have time to have more kids (I can actually back that up with a recent trend, but it's another topic). This will create demand for people engaged in serving people who like to travel, do hobbies, teach children, etc etc. Each of those people engaged in those occupations, in turn, will have a bevy of technologies at their disposal to make them much more productive and wealthy as well. That is, you will get people building cruise ships who are 5 times more productive than cruise ship builders of yore used to be. You will get restaurant workers who are 5 times more productive than restaurant workers of yore used to be. And so on.
In other words, ultimately it won't just be the 1 person who becomes vastly more productive and wealthy due to technology while the other 4 are out of luck, it will eventually be the other 4 people as well.
Do you understand that has never happened in the history of employment? 1 guy does as much as much 5 other guys, so his employer pays him those extra wages instead of keeping them for himself?
Robotics, AI and mechanization will make people vastly more productive. More productivity = greater incomes and wealth (yes, that is basically a fact of economics).
Greater income & wealth will give people more time to enjoy life and do things we want to do, rather than things we have to do. In general this is good for humanity.
Perhaps the future will look something like everyday people leasing or buying highly advanced robots that could do our work for us. The robot does the work while you do whatever. Naturally, you would have to pay to train the robot in a particular line of work, pay to maintain the robot, and pay for the robot itself, but it would bring in the income for you.
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