> robots coming for your jobs is not a valid argument against robots.
Taking work away from people is practically the definition of technology. We invent things to reduce the effort needed to do things. Eliminating work is a good thing, that’s why inventing things is so popular!
What ends up happening is the amount of work remains relatively constant, meaning we get more done for the same amount of effort performed by the same amount of people doing the same amount of jobs. That’s why standards of living have been rising for the past few millennia instead of everybody being out of work. We took work away from humans with technology, we then used that effort saved to get more done.
I agree with most everything you said. The problem has always been the short-term job loss, particularly today where society as a whole has resources for safety nets, but hasnt implemented them.
Anger at companies who hold power in multiple places to prevent and worsen this situation for people is valid anger.
> The problem has always been the short-term job loss
Does anyone have any idea of the new jobs that will be created to replace the ones that are being lost? If it's not possible to at least foresee it, then it's not likely to happen. In which case the job loss will be long-term not short-term.
Past performance is not indicative of future results.
There is zero indication that there will be new jobs, new work. Just because there was lots of low hanging fruit historically does not mean we will stumble into some new job creators now. Waiving away concerns with 'jobs always have magically appeared when needed' is nonsense and a non-response to their concerns.
> What ends up happening is the amount of work remains relatively constant
That's a pretty hard bet against AGI becoming general. If the promises of many technologists come to pass, humans remaining in charge of any work (including which work should be done) would be a waste of resources.
Hopefully the AGI will remember to leave food in the cat bowls.
If everything that a human can do, a robot can do better and cheaper, then humans are completely shut out of the production function. Humans have a minimum level of consumption that they need to stay alive whether or not they earn a wage; robots do not.
Since most humans live off wages which they get from work, they are then shut out of life. The only humans left alive are those who fund their consumption from capital rents.
If humans who don't own robots are not producing and therefore not earning, then they're also not buying. Who are the robot owners selling their products to?
See: "build me a bigger yacht", building moon bases, researching immortality medicine, and building higher walls and better killbots to manage any peasant attacks
Why would other robot owners need to buy anything? They can just get their AIs to figure out how to make the things they're buying so they can not buy them anymore.
I think it's likely that there'll still be specialization - some robots/AI will be better at some tasks than others. On top of that, physical/natural resources may be owned by different people. So maybe you need tungsten and I need someone to build a space elevator, so we trade.
We've replaced human jobs in the past not just made them more efficient. Horses (and all the jobs to do with them) were completely displaced by cars. Those jobs aren't more efficient, they're gone. Similar with many other jobs during the industrial revolution.
This is not a zero sum game. For an economy to exist we need consumers. For consumers to exist we need people to have jobs and be paid. So the equilibrium is that there will be some new jobs somewhere, not done by robots, that will pay people enough to consume the (better and cheaper) goods made by those robots. Or we'll just have a lot of leisure time and get paid by the government. Or (like some other discussion thread) we'll all be wiped out or slaves in the salt mines if the elites can just sustain/improve without us and are able to enforce it. Either way, it's not the scenario where we're out of jobs sitting at home.
> This is not a zero sum game. For an economy to exist we need consumers.
I think that's really unimaginative and not thinking about it right. If you control the basic resources and own the tools needed to convert those into whatever you want, why does the "economy" even matter? If you can get anything you want without needing anything from the other 95% of people, having "consumers" in the sense you're thinking doesn't matter any more.
There have always been some people powerful or rich enough to control the resources and tools needed for whatever they want yet the equilibrium has never been what you describe.
I think your percentage might be off by a decimal, make it 0.5% and broligarchs. Maybe that's why they've gone crazy with spending trillions in the AI bubble, trying to position themselves as far up the chain as possible. 99.5% of humans will be wasted resource sinks to them and seen as "unnecessary"
Taking work away from people is practically the definition of technology. We invent things to reduce the effort needed to do things. Eliminating work is a good thing, that’s why inventing things is so popular!
What ends up happening is the amount of work remains relatively constant, meaning we get more done for the same amount of effort performed by the same amount of people doing the same amount of jobs. That’s why standards of living have been rising for the past few millennia instead of everybody being out of work. We took work away from humans with technology, we then used that effort saved to get more done.