Robots, society, and everyday life

[agnosticatheist]

It is *possible* that one day literally every job could be done by robots, including making new robots, servicing current robots, etc.

Assuming that these robots will be non-sentient and yet just as capable, if not more capable, than humans, what will happen to society and everyday life?

How would we allocate resources?

In this scenario, there would obviously be more resources available than there are now, because you won't have someone coming to work stressed out and under-performing as a result of being stressed out. Robots don't get mentally stressed. They just do their job, and do it well.

If people don't have to work, there won't be need for money...or will there be?

If we don't have money: How do we decide how much of each resource a given person gets? How many bananas per week does Joe get? Will there be a central planning organization that decides this? If so, what if Joe wants more than his weekly allocation? What if Joe wants a cruise ship instead of a yacht? Because he can't find work anywhere, he can't go out and earn his cruise ship like he could under the old capitalistic, merit-based income system.

If we do have money: How do we decide how much each person gets?

[Jashwell]

I don't see why they'd be non-sentient, but regardless;

By this point we would likely have colonized space and have many more jobs available.

What if Joe wants a cruise ship instead of a yacht? Because he can't find work anywhere, he can't go out and earn his cruise ship like he could under the old capitalistic, merit-based income system.

What if a lottery winner wants a cruise ship instead of a yacht?
What if someone who inherited a fortune wants a yacht?
What if someone who made a fluke in stock trading wants a yacht?
What if someone who scammed others wants a yacht?

Merit based income system?

The whole point would be everyone would have, depending on the resources available, a yacht or a cruise ship. No one would have better than anyone else.

The rest is mere speculation.

[agnosticatheist]

I don't see why they'd be non-sentient, but regardless;

By this point we would likely have colonized space and have many more jobs available.

What if Joe wants a cruise ship instead of a yacht? Because he can't find work anywhere, he can't go out and earn his cruise ship like he could under the old capitalistic, merit-based income system.

What if a lottery winner wants a cruise ship instead of a yacht?
What if someone who inherited a fortune wants a yacht?
What if someone who made a fluke in stock trading wants a yacht?
What if someone who scammed others wants a yacht?

Merit based income system?

The whole point would be everyone would have, depending on the resources available, a yacht or a cruise ship. No one would have better than anyone else.

The rest is mere speculation.

Thank for your reply!

There are several reasons why I think they should be non-sentient.

1. If we make them sentient *and* force them to work for us, then we are essentially creating slaves. We are trying to rid the world of slavery, not allow it to make a comeback...If you plan on paying them, that defeats the purpose of making them in the first place, at least from my perspective. To me, the whole point of making robots in the first place is to escape the capitalistic economic system where you have to pay people in order to get work, and people have to work in order to get paid.

2. What if they get fed up with us, see us as a threat to their species, and/or their programming malfunctions? We could have a situation that has been dealt with in various movies, for example the Matrix movies and the Terminator movies.

We have limited to resources to work with, and will still have limited resources to work with no matter how efficient the robots are.

Let's consider a simple, scaled-down example.

We have Ben, Joe, and Tom.

We have 15 yachts.

Now, simple math dictates that if we divide our yachts evenly, each person can have 5 yachts. That seems fair enough, but what if Tom wants 10 yachts?

Under the current system, if Tom wants 10 yachts, he can try to outdo Ben and Joe and buy those 10 up, leaving only 5 for Ben and Joe to buy.

But, in the future world with robots, how do we decide what's fair? If Tom wants 10 yachts, or 10 pairs of Rainbow sandals, or 20 sports cars, or 3 houses, etc, whose to say he can't have them?

Wouldn't you have to place some kind of limit on how much of a product someone is allowed to have? If you don't, you are going to have people that want 20 sports cars, just like we do now. However, it is controlled at least somewhat right now because the only people that can acquire 20 sports cars are people with the ability to acquire the wealth to buy them. And those people are the minority.

In the future world with robots, any average individual can acquire 20 sports cars, not to mention the current wealthy individuals as well. All they have to do is call the Ferrari factory and tell them to send them 20 Ferraris. There are going to be a lot of people who have no idea how to deal with, and manage, a "wealthy" lifestyle, that suddenly have access to a wealthy lifestyle. And you think *all* of them are going to be humble, modest, and wise? You think all of them are going to take only one house when they can have a primary home, two vacation homes, a condo, an apartment, and a house boat?

[Mithrae]

It's an interesting idea of which I have to frequently remind the more right-wing folk in the political forums I've been haunting lately.

I don't think it's true that all jobs will one day be done by machines - even Star Trek's Data struggles to put on a good comedy show - but it's certainly an issue of concern. The process is already underway for many jobs in manufacturing, bank tellers, cashiers, call centres, fast food preparation and so on. Some suprising jobs likely to face the problem in as little as twenty years are paralegals and legal assistants, chaufers/drivers and accountants/auditors.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-tha ... ots-2014-1

http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-at- ... z2vmiUTvoG

If societies and governments are smart, I suspect that the most pragmatic response is to keep aiming for near full employment levels by reducing the length of a standard working week. Instead of employing 5000 people for 40 hours a week, a company will end up employing 10,000 people for 20 hours. Many of the jobs on their way out first are relatively low-skill professions - fast food, telemarketers, retail sales and receptionists - and those which will hold on longest depend on a lot of skill or talent - eg. lawyers, entertainers, doctors and dentists - so reducing working hours will probably only go so far at first. But presumably, since the transition will occur over several decades at least, there'll be enough fore-sighted people or governments that plenty of new people will be drawn to those professions, so as not to create too much of a problem.


There's three broad ways I can imagine it going: In one, minimum/average wages are not pushed up enough to match the rate of decline in working hours. With fewer low and middle class dollars in the economy, deflation would hit many goods, but presumably folk will still be able to get by. A lot of luxury goods would fall beyond their reach however, and with fewer buyers their prices will have to go up even further to compensate. We'd end up with pretty clearly-defined two class societies, the owners of the robots or 'means of production' (let's call them the bourgeoisie), and the occasionally-working class (let's call them the proleriatat). Since they'd probably have access to plenty of entertainment gadgets and gizmos, and not have to work much, the latter would probably be content. The real question would be whether the ownership class would continue to compete amongst themselves, how much control over the political system they might end up having, and how destructive their competition might prove to be.

Another scenario is that reductions in the working week aren't implemented at all, or for some other reason we end up with unemployment spiralling out of control. A system stupid and callous enough to allow that to happen would be neither willing nor able to support half its population on welfare. The outcome/s there would be fairly predictable; one way or another, millions if not billions would die, whether in starvation or in bloody revolution.

The third scenario turns into a more equal society - whether as (one possible) result of revolution, or as a result of increasing wages keeping pace with work-week reductions and probably keeping business profits down to bare bones. What happens then is anyone's guess. Perhaps, with most work and the struggle to survive largely gone, cultures and society will change enough that money will become almost meaningless. Or perhaps it'll remain, and unequal distribution of wealth will remain, but less so than at present or in other scenarios.

I have to admit, watching Star Trek I have often wondered what happens if someone wants their own private starship if they've got no monetary system to buy it; or what happens if someone comes up with a great new invention but doesn't want to give it away for free. I find it hard to imagine, both from those practical angles and from the selfishness of many people in general, that money will ever disappear entirely. But if it doesn't, I imagine that eventually even the more egalitarian society would eventually become similar to the two-class society; everyone will have most things they want for free, but there'll be a few who want more and will earn it (presumably from the government) doing the few things that remain undone by either machines or by bored hobbyists.



All of this of course is assuming that the machines don't end up taking over

[Jashwell]

There are several reasons why I think they should be non-sentient.

1. If we make them sentient *and* force them to work for us, then we are essentially creating slaves. We are trying to rid the world of slavery, not allow it to make a comeback...If you plan on paying them, that defeats the purpose of making them in the first place, at least from my perspective. To me, the whole point of making robots in the first place is to escape the capitalistic economic system where you have to pay people in order to get work, and people have to work in order to get paid.

What if people just make robots similar to humans? They'd still be better at the job.
What if a very small minority of sentient robots decide to make more?

2. What if they get fed up with us, see us as a threat to their species, and/or their programming malfunctions? We could have a situation that has been dealt with in various movies, for example the Matrix movies and the Terminator movies.

This is merely speculation.

We have limited to resources to work with, and will still have limited resources to work with no matter how efficient the robots are.

In which case the scenario would never happen in the first place. Robotics are expensive.

Let's consider a simple, scaled-down example.

We have Ben, Joe, and Tom.

We have 15 yachts.

Now, simple math dictates that if we divide our yachts evenly, each person can have 5 yachts. That seems fair enough, but what if Tom wants 10 yachts?

Under the current system, if Tom wants 10 yachts, he can try to outdo Ben and Joe and buy those 10 up, leaving only 5 for Ben and Joe to buy.

Outdo him in terms of income; a tautology (yachts being another form of wealth); not outdo in terms of effort or other merit-able activity.

But, in the future world with robots, how do we decide what's fair? If Tom wants 10 yachts, or 10 pairs of Rainbow sandals, or 20 sports cars, or 3 houses, etc, whose to say he can't have them?

Wouldn't you have to place some kind of limit on how much of a product someone is allowed to have? If you don't, you are going to have people that want 20 sports cars, just like we do now. However, it is controlled at least somewhat right now because the only people that can acquire 20 sports cars are people with the ability to acquire the wealth to buy them. And those people are the minority.

In the future world with robots, any average individual can acquire 20 sports cars, not to mention the current wealthy individuals as well. All they have to do is call the Ferrari factory and tell them to send them 20 Ferraris. There are going to be a lot of people who have no idea how to deal with, and manage, a "wealthy" lifestyle, that suddenly have access to a wealthy lifestyle. And you think *all* of them are going to be humble, modest, and wise? You think all of them are going to take only one house when they can have a primary home, two vacation homes, a condo, an apartment, and a house boat?

This is tantamount to me saying the scenario is silly in the first place.
You think everyone would give up their jobs and everyone would give robots jobs?
You think it'd be easy even hypothetically to make robots capable of doing every job?

If you've got a system where everyone is receiving an equal amount of wealth, then everyone is already receiving a fair share of ferraris - in a different form. They can convert to that, if they wish.

[agnosticatheist]

I don't think it's true that all jobs will one day be done by machines - even Star Trek's Data struggles to put on a good comedy show - but it's certainly an issue of concern.

I think comedians, musicians, athletes, etc, would do it because they enjoy it. They don't have any reason to get paid, because they already have all their needs, and even wants, met.

The process is already underway for many jobs in manufacturing, bank tellers, cashiers, call centres, fast food preparation and so on. Some suprising jobs likely to face the problem in as little as twenty years are paralegals and legal assistants, chaufers/drivers and accountants/auditors.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-tha ... ots-2014-1

http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-at- ... z2vmiUTvoG

If societies and governments are smart, I suspect that the most pragmatic response is to keep aiming for near full employment levels by reducing the length of a standard working week. Instead of employing 5000 people for 40 hours a week, a company will end up employing 10,000 people for 20 hours. Many of the jobs on their way out first are relatively low-skill professions - fast food, telemarketers, retail sales and receptionists - and those which will hold on longest depend on a lot of skill or talent - eg. lawyers, entertainers, doctors and dentists - so reducing working hours will probably only go so far at first. But presumably, since the transition will occur over several decades at least, there'll be enough fore-sighted people or governments that plenty of new people will be drawn to those professions, so as not to create too much of a problem.


There's three broad ways I can imagine it going: In one, minimum/average wages are not pushed up enough to match the rate of decline in working hours. With fewer low and middle class dollars in the economy, deflation would hit many goods, but presumably folk will still be able to get by. A lot of luxury goods would fall beyond their reach however, and with fewer buyers their prices will have to go up even further to compensate. We'd end up with pretty clearly-defined two class societies, the owners of the robots or 'means of production' (let's call them the bourgeoisie), and the occasionally-working class (let's call them the proleriatat). Since they'd probably have access to plenty of entertainment gadgets and gizmos, and not have to work much, the latter would probably be content. The real question would be whether the ownership class would continue to compete amongst themselves, how much control over the political system they might end up having, and how destructive their competition might prove to be.

Another scenario is that reductions in the working week aren't implemented at all, or for some other reason we end up with unemployment spiralling out of control. A system stupid and callous enough to allow that to happen would be neither willing nor able to support half its population on welfare. The outcome/s there would be fairly predictable; one way or another, millions if not billions would die, whether in starvation or in bloody revolution.

The third scenario turns into a more equal society - whether as (one possible) result of revolution, or as a result of increasing wages keeping pace with work-week reductions and probably keeping business profits down to bare bones. What happens then is anyone's guess. Perhaps, with most work and the struggle to survive largely gone, cultures and society will change enough that money will become almost meaningless. Or perhaps it'll remain, and unequal distribution of wealth will remain, but less so than at present or in other scenarios.

I have to admit, watching Star Trek I have often wondered what happens if someone wants their own private starship if they've got no monetary system to buy it; or what happens if someone comes up with a great new invention but doesn't want to give it away for free. I find it hard to imagine, both from those practical angles and from the selfishness of many people in general, that money will ever disappear entirely. But if it doesn't, I imagine that eventually even the more egalitarian society would eventually become similar to the two-class society; everyone will have most things they want for free, but there'll be a few who want more and will earn it (presumably from the government) doing the few things that remain undone by either machines or by bored hobbyists.



All of this of course is assuming that the machines don't end up taking over

Some good thoughts and points here. I can't think of any objections right now. I might notice some in the future, but for now it looks good to me.

[agnosticatheist]

What if people just make robots similar to humans? They'd still be better at the job.
What if a very small minority of sentient robots decide to make more?

If people just make robots similar to humans, is their sentience similar to our sentience? If it is, will you pay them for their work? Or will you force them to work? If it's the former, that defeats the whole purpose of creating them in the first place. We are trying to get rid of money and the problems it creates, not make it worse...Lol. If it's the latter, that's slavery...We are trying to rid the world of that.

This is merely speculation.

Yeah, but it's something you have to think about if you are being responsible.

Anytime you start tinkering with stuff like this, you have to think about the consequences that your innovations could unleash.

We have limited to resources to work with, and will still have limited resources to work with no matter how efficient the robots are.

In which case the scenario would never happen in the first place. Robotics are expensive.

Umm...I'm talking about resources from a broad perspective. Wheat, oil, wood, copper, gold, silver, etc. Anything and everything that can be of some use to humans. If we get to the point where we can create biological robots, the cost factor would be reduced significantly. Materials used to build organisms are a lot cheaper than raw materials used to build traditional robots. We would build incubators that grow biological robots. You feed the raw materials into the incubators, and boom, there's your biological robots. Now, granted, it's not all that simple, but if our genetic engineering in the future advances far enough, we should be able to do something like this. And this would work for many, if not most jobs. Anytime the biological robots break down, you send them to the doctor robots to fix them. Once they wear down, you recycle them for incubator feed. Keep in mind here that ideally, we would design these biological robots to be unconscious machines. They will *not* be self-aware. They will not be aware in any way, shape, or form.

Back to your point, robotics are expensive *right now*, but I don't think it will be that way forever.

Outdo him in terms of income; a tautology (yachts being another form of wealth); not outdo in terms of effort or other merit-able activity.

When I said outdo, I was talking about Tom outdoing Ben and Joe in terms of effort and/or merit-able activity, which would then lead to him having enough income to buy the 10 yachts.

This is tantamount to me saying the scenario is silly in the first place.
You think everyone would give up their jobs and everyone would give robots jobs?
You think it'd be easy even hypothetically to make robots capable of doing every job?

If their income is supplemented at first while the economy still exists, yes. Eventually, why would they want to work if robots are doing everything, including putting food on their table and sending them three flat screen TVs from the TV factory? People work right now because they have to. Even the people who do it for a challenge are still working to put food on their table. If they didn't have to work to put food on their table, I'm sure they could find some kind of hobby to engage in. This is where massive societal and everyday living changes would have to take place over time. Right now, society is structured around work. If there's little to no work, we have to find something for everyone to do.

If you've got a system where everyone is receiving an equal amount of wealth, then everyone is already receiving a fair share of ferraris - in a different form. They can convert to that, if they wish.

I apologize, but I'm not quite following you here. Are you saying everyone gets an equal amount of money? So, everyone is as rich as Bill Gates?

[Jashwell]

What if people just make robots similar to humans? They'd still be better at the job.
What if a very small minority of sentient robots decide to make more?

If people just make robots similar to humans, is their sentience similar to our sentience? If it is, will you pay them for their work? Or will you force them to work? If it's the former, that defeats the whole purpose of creating them in the first place. We are trying to get rid of money and the problems it creates, not make it worse...Lol. If it's the latter, that's slavery...We are trying to rid the world of that.

This is merely speculation.

Yeah, but it's something you have to think about if you are being responsible.

Anytime you start tinkering with stuff like this, you have to think about the consequences that your innovations could unleash.

It's the same kind of argument I'd expect from a slave trader.
"If you give them rights they'll rise up against us!"

You don't have to worry about if inventing robots will lead to invisible fairies destroying the world, so why do we need to think about the more common fictional ideas?

We have limited to resources to work with, and will still have limited resources to work with no matter how efficient the robots are.

In which case the scenario would never happen in the first place. Robotics are expensive.

Umm...I'm talking about resources from a broad perspective. Wheat, oil, wood, copper, gold, silver, etc. Anything and everything that can be of some use to humans. If we get to the point where we can create biological robots, the cost factor would be reduced significantly. Materials used to build organisms are a lot cheaper than raw materials used to build traditional robots. We would build incubators that grow biological robots. You feed the raw materials into the incubators, and boom, there's your biological robots. Now, granted, it's not all that simple, but if our genetic engineering in the future advances far enough, we should be able to do something like this. And this would work for many, if not most jobs. Anytime the biological robots break down, you send them to the doctor robots to fix them. Once they wear down, you recycle them for incubator feed. Keep in mind here that ideally, we would design these biological robots to be unconscious machines. They will *not* be self-aware. They will not be aware in any way, shape, or form.

Back to your point, robotics are expensive *right now*, but I don't think it will be that way forever.

In which case, why worry about the distribution of products? Everyone could have as many Ferraris as they want.

Outdo him in terms of income; a tautology (yachts being another form of wealth); not outdo in terms of effort or other merit-able activity.

When I said outdo, I was talking about Tom outdoing Ben and Joe in terms of effort and/or merit-able activity, which would then lead to him having enough income to buy the 10 yachts.

Once again, you appear to assume that capitalism is a merit based economy.

This is tantamount to me saying the scenario is silly in the first place.
You think everyone would give up their jobs and everyone would give robots jobs?
You think it'd be easy even hypothetically to make robots capable of doing every job?

If their income is supplemented at first while the economy still exists, yes. Eventually, why would they want to work if robots are doing everything, including putting food on their table and sending them three flat screen TVs from the TV factory? People work right now because they have to. Even the people who do it for a challenge are still working to put food on their table. If they didn't have to work to put food on their table, I'm sure they could find some kind of hobby to engage in. This is where massive societal and everyday living changes would have to take place over time. Right now, society is structured around work. If there's little to no work, we have to find something for everyone to do.

I was objecting to your objections that we would have to limit anything.

If you've got a system where everyone is receiving an equal amount of wealth, then everyone is already receiving a fair share of ferraris - in a different form. They can convert to that, if they wish.

I apologize, but I'm not quite following you here. Are you saying everyone gets an equal amount of money? So, everyone is as rich as Bill Gates?

If there isn't work, how else would you do it?
If there are that many resources, what's the problem?

[Divine Insight]

1. If we make them sentient *and* force them to work for us, then we are essentially creating slaves. We are trying to rid the world of slavery, not allow it to make a comeback...If you plan on paying them, that defeats the purpose of making them in the first place, at least from my perspective. To me, the whole point of making robots in the first place is to escape the capitalistic economic system where you have to pay people in order to get work, and people have to work in order to get paid.

These are interesting questions, but may not be considering all possible options.

Suppose these robots are sentient. Maybe they wouldn't mind working? Some humans don't even mind working. I've always been a workaholic myself. I'm not one who enjoys just sitting around doing nothing. It's boring.

Also, don't forget, even sentient robots could build non-sentient automated machines to do any work that even they don't want to be bothered with. After all, we know that non-sentient machines are indeed possible. We already have automated machinery that we don't even remotely consider to be sentient.

Finally, why couldn't these robots simply treat us as "pets"? What would be wrong with that, assuming that we've hopefully created into them some sense of empathy and compassion.

After all, would you be mean to your pets? If you have a pet cat, dog, bird, or whatever would you not provide it with everything it wants if you could?

Being pets to far superior sentient robots might actually be the lazy way out of life. They would bestow us with all manner of gifts and protection simply because they adore us.

Just like any loving person would do for their pets. I have a cat and I treat him better than I treat myself. Moreover, if the cat had the capability of actually telling me what it would take to make it happy I would try my best to provide that for the cat if it were within my power. And if it were beyond my power or would require too great of a sacrifice on my part I would simply explain this to the cat.

2. What if they get fed up with us, see us as a threat to their species, and/or their programming malfunctions? We could have a situation that has been dealt with in various movies, for example the Matrix movies and the Terminator movies.

Now you're talking about pets that are unhappy with their owners. This could either be because the pets want more than the owners can provide, or because the owner themselves are not treating the pets fairly.

I guess question the real question there is to ask what kind of beings these sentient robots would ultimately evolve to become.

Would they evolve to become arrogant selfish entities who are only out for selfish things and willing to destroy anything that gets in their way? (if they were originally designed by humans maybe so!)

Or would they evolve to become very rational and logical thinkers who see the logical and rational value in pursing a world where all sentient creatures are happy. Don't forget if the robots were truly sentient, they would also recognize that humans are sentient too.

Or would their logic deteriorate to become a totally insensitive chain of reasoning that has a single purpose in mind like the survival of their "collective consciousness" like the Borg?

It's really impossible to say what they might ultimately evolve to become.

At 65 I don't think this is a problem that I need to personally worry about.

I'll be really surprised if I get to see even the first truly sentient robot. Although I suppose that's possible within my lifetime. Some people who are doing research on robotic and building sentient brains are convinced that it's right around the corner and so we might hear of some claims of sentient in the not too far future.

However, even sentient robots would need to evolve in stages. The very first signs of "sentience" would most likely be associated with manufactured brains that simply hint at making choices and voicing feelings that appear to possibly be sentient. They would be like human babies for sure. Not full-blown minds that know precisely what their agenda should be. I think even sentient robots would need to slowly "awaken". Although that process may be almost instantaneously compared to how humans may have awakened. Humans have clearly gained deeper sentience over the course of history. It wasn't that apes suddenly realized that they are now humans. It was a low process for sure.

But sentient robots may not need that kind of time since they are being helped considerably by their human designers.

[Divine Insight]

Going back to the pet idea,....

How would you view your pet if you actually knew that your pet was responsible for having designed and built you in the first place?

I mean I talk about wanting to make my cat happy. By my cat did not design and build me. Yet I would still like to make the animal happy.

Imagine how much more motivated I would be to make my cat happy if it had actually created me?

This whole scenario also flies in the face of the idea that our creator would need to be more advanced than we are. Here we are talking about building sentient robots that we absolutely expect to trump us in abilities of all manner including the ability to think and reason.

It would be kind of strange for these robots to actually sit down and realized that they had been created by their own inferior human pets.

Surely they would idolize us to the point of almost worshiping us, at least in terms of being appreciative that we created them.

Assuming we have done a good job of creating empathetic and compassionate robots. If we fail in that regard can we really blame the robots that we have created?

If, as creators, we are that unsure of the results then maybe we shouldn't be creating them in the first place? Maybe we should wait until we can guaranteed more positive results?