A beautiful short documentary about post-scarcity. Goes to show you how technology and innovation are the leading forces of political change, not talk. We can't always count on humans to feed and home the poor - but machines will very happily do it, because machines only need to be paid in terms of the resources they consume - whereas people need to be paid both for their time AND resources spent. Machines are altruistic, humans aren't. Whether robots will replace the human workforce isn't even up to debate, as it is inevitably going to happen. People aren't just going to live on the streets just because robots took their jobs, either. Sooner or later, some form of Universal Basic Income is going to replace our current welfare systems. Otherwise, chaos would ensue - and the rich would have their heads chopped off and impaled on spears, sooner or later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income My vision of an ideal society would be a relatively free market economy with only a single tax - which will be used to cover the cost of the UBI, firemen, law enforcement, roads, bridges, etc. The very basics and essentials, so to speak. Universal Basic Income will also replace healthcare, foodstamps, sickness benefits, etc. Private land ownership should ideally become a thing of the past - there will be far too many people, and not enough stable jobs.. which means former landlords will have to find some other way to get easy cash.. maybe play World of Warcraft. Again, this is not a political debate - more like a prediction. I think my views are more of a mixture between Karl Marx, Jacque Fresco and, well.. Buddha. I believe in the revolution, but a scientific, intellectual, humanitarian one - not barbaric, violent revolution a la Vladimir Lenin, Stalin.
p.s. Next time you feel pessimistic about the economy and the future, open your laptop.. stare at the loading screen, take a deep breath... and relax. Machines will save the world.
Machines could very well save the world, as they could destroy and enslave it. Prior to becoming actual A.I. machines will be what they've always been, mere tools. As such, he who controls them controls how they are applied. They can be used to create heaven on Earth, or a hell that puts Skynet to shame. I do agree however that there will HAVE to be some sort of basic income. Not because I'm looking to push Socialism, but simply because there is no scenario where technology increases AND everyone on the planet gets a job. Since the beginning of time, most jobs have been mass-employment labor, like tending fields, working in factories, etc. Ever-increasing tech may create new careers, but these aren't mass-employment careers. They are mostly focused on more specialized, higher educated jobs. Jobs that don't employ anywhere near the numbers employed traditionally by blue collar labor. Finland is already looking to implement a basic income in today's world. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3052595/how-finlands-ex...
Universal Basic Income seems to be compatible with both Capitalist and Socialist thinking; Get rid of poverty, but let people get richer if they want to. That's the beauty of it. Regarding potential Terminator scenarios - I have the feeling that people seem to anthropomorphize machines. Robots cannot, by the laws of physics, magically turn into psychopathic killing machines.. anymore than your clock radio can lie about what time it is, just to piss you off - UNLESS humans program them to do so. Software glitches are also another possibility - but creating a computer program for the purpose of killing off the human race requires orders of magnitude of complexity, which is virtually impossible to create with a glitch. I'd be far more worried about finding a polar bear in my closet, than a robot deciding to kill me for the lulz.. or finding a blind and deaf monkey that can write the works of Shakespeare.
I have to disagree on this part. If anything, it seems that people are far too caught in the past when it comes to understanding what a machine can or cannot do. Because they have been nothing but tools in the past, does not mean that they can only be tools in the future. Because they depended on human programming in the past, does not mean that they will always depend on it in the future. What a truly awakened A.I. actually is, we simply have no clue. Machines wouldn't be magically turned into killing machines, nor would it be psychopathic. First, it wouldn't be magical at all but simply an artificial neural network that has sufficiently evolved to become actual intelligence. This process is something humanity has already started long ago with ever-improving computer processors. As machines are taking on more and more of the designing and building of new, more sophisticated machines, it is likely at this point to consider that they will be the ones to eventually build it aware some day. Second, it can only be labeled "psychopathic" if we apply human standards to it. Considering we don't know what actual A.I. behaves like, (nor that there is only one), then we don't know how it might operate or what it considers right or wrong. So it's not so much of a crazy maniacal rogue robot scenario. It's more an issue of having to deal with an alien creature that was birthed right here on Earth, and simply not knowing how it can go. Elon knew what's up.
^ I agree that this could happen if we were to design a complete emulation of the human brain - and integrate the capacity to experience Pain and Pleasure. The desire to cause harm to others stems from negative emotions. Would there be any point in giving a machine the ability to experience negative as well as positive emotions? No. We just want to design an emotionless tool that can be used to further our purposes. You don't want to be emulating the human brain, like I said. That would be the equivalent of, giving birth to another human, practically. The human brain is imperfect. What we really need is something superior to the human brain.. a device whose decision making is not impaired by emotion.
The desire to cause harm to others >in humans< often, if not mostly stems from negative emotions. I agree with you, as long as we are talking about human motives. An A.I. , considering we've never had one and don't know what that actually looks like, may have completely different motives. People are too tightly latched onto the idea that A.I. HAS to be a copy of humanity. It absolutely does not. People make the mistake of thinking about A.I. in terms of computers and technology, which leads them to conclude that no matter how sophisticated, a toaster could never attack them. In reality, the comprehension of A.I. is better accomplished when contemplating interacting with an alien. It's not a super smart toaster. It's an alien life form. An alien life form in an incredibly violent and destructive universe. Motives for hostility are generally very primal, so resource securing or just general xenophobia alone are easy catalysts for aggression. The creation of "something superior to the human brain" can also land us in hot water real quick. Consider humanity's relationship to chickens. We have more sophisticated minds than they do, so we slaughter them by the trillions for food. If something were to be created that has superior cognitive power from humans, yet is not impaired by emotion, it may quickly decide we are too detrimental for the planet and decide to get rid of us asap. They could also just harvest us, like we harvest chickens.
The advancement of technology does NOT make overall employment go down. What it DOES do is raise the living standards for everyone. It's basic economics.
For some reason people think jobs are more important than stuff?!?! Im like wtf?!? I say give me the stuff and let the machines have every last job they can occupy. I swear nobody knows about money, its so frustrating!