Automation and the future

[kekaru]

What do you think the outcome of this situation will be? How are workers going to react when McDonalds decides to start replacing them with a machine.

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They already do, to an extent. Large city MCDs began rolling out Self service checkouts to reduce Till staff.

The response will be the same as the response to supermarkets Self-service checkouts, resistance at first, then acceptance.

 

[veichleproblem]

I am not worried, the ste(ngineering)m field has a extremely high drop out rate

 

[Clinton4Jail]

I had this talk with my brother. We both are graduating with our Bachelors in CS at the same time and this exact topic came up.

We felt that it may become a big problem. Cars fix themselves or automatically get fixed. Food is auto-prepared. Every job we have gets automated, except the people that automate them(lucky us).

So where do people get their income? I don't know. We thought maybe at that point the "perfect society" comes in to play? Everything is automated, no need to work. Why should anyone have to work. I personally hate that idea. But I don't know what happens when we have abundance, with no income to pay for any of it. we discussed that maybe everyone becomes an artist and follows some kind of artistic passion, and our trade becomes paying for eachothers art. lol

Communism & Control is what will follow.

 

[Shredderbeam]

I had this talk with my brother. We both are graduating with our Bachelors in CS at the same time and this exact topic came up.

We felt that it may become a big problem. Cars fix themselves or automatically get fixed. Food is auto-prepared. Every job we have gets automated, except the people that automate them(lucky us).

So where do people get their income? I don't know. We thought maybe at that point the "perfect society" comes in to play? Everything is automated, no need to work. Why should anyone have to work. I personally hate that idea. But I don't know what happens when we have abundance, with no income to pay for any of it. we discussed that maybe everyone becomes an artist and follows some kind of artistic passion, and our trade becomes paying for eachothers art. lol

Why is nobody needing to work in order to survive such a bad thing?

In a post-scarcity society, I doubt that everybody would become artists. I would actually imagine some sort of "communist" society where everybody mostly works to their ability.

Communism & Control is what will follow.

Your username makes me think you're a troll, but just in case, why is that what'll follow?

 

[Vlad]

We're currently in a system of values where you are rewarded for what you are able to contribute (in board concepts, generally.) Like discussed, AI is increasing at a fantastic rate to the point where the majority of jobs will be taken. What we can do about this? Generally, nothing. There will eventually be a point where people will have to be sustained by the government, and resort to a universal basic become. What else can we do? There's not many other options.

The example of self-driving trucks as mentioned in the OP is great. Elon Musk highlighted that while we won't need the same level of truck drivers - certain drivers (I assume the more experienced or skilled ones) will be moved to fleet operators, who are responsible for multiple trucks which are controlled by AI and the driver is able to fix any problems remotely. One driver, multiple trucks. From an organisational standpoint, fantastic. For the 3 drivers that were replaced, not so great. However, I'm sure we can mostly agree from a societal standpoint that it's beneficial, on the whole it's safer for society and more efficient. The only negatives we can see to this is those people who lost their jobs. So we go back to what they can do, and we realise that not everyone can work in AI, not everyone can learn computer science.

We can look to the arts, to painters, writers, actors, creative solutions which can't easily be imitated by AI. But they can be imitated. Neural networks can imitate creative processes. Back in 1989 a neural network was able to compose music. This is all assuming that people are good enough for their works anyway.

We eventually get to the point where we appreciate that a universal basic income is necessary, and perhaps that's not such a bad thing. At the moment we look at people who don't work and receive money from their governments as lazy or educated. Freeloaders or moochers. But it seems that in the future the tide will shift and the majority of people are not going to be able to work. Many I assume will take creative roles and attempt to make money that way, others may invest with their state-provided income and attempt to make money that way. While we are losing the majority of primary and secondary sector jobs already, the future will mean these sectors are soon lost entirely and we will delve into multiple variations of the tertiary sector. And to be fair, I'm actually quite happy about it - at the very least, provided the state isn't an absolute cunt about things - it means the future is going to be one with the option for plenty of leisure.

 

If automation becomes the norm in the workplace, expect for everyone to receive a base income. But on a common sense front, no machine is 100% fail-proof. You're better off having humans to work simply because machines cannot improv for various situations. It's also better if humans are working to keep a certain standard of living.

 

[ExVision]

many things will go automated in the future, that's for sure. I've seen a prototype of a flying car basically already.

 

[Shredderbeam]

I don't see where I said working to survive was bad.

Works on what to their ability? Everything is automated in this fictional future.

You said it could be a big problem.

I don't know what work the future holds, just as I'm sure a 17th century farmer couldn't tell us what work there would be after farm automation.