Robots to save the global economy?

mwpt

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/02/robots-wont-kill-the-workforce-theyll-save-the-global-economy/?utm_term=.b9e5e172adad

The United Nations forecasts that the global population will rise from 7.3 billion to nearly 10 billion by 2050, a big number that often prompts warnings about overpopulation. Some have come from neo-Malthusians, who fear that population growth will outstrip the food supply, leaving a hungry planet. Others appear in the tirades of anti-immigrant populists, invoking the specter of a rising tide of humanity as cause to slam borders shut. Still others inspire a chorus of neo-Luddites, who fear that the “rise of the robots” is rapidly making human workers obsolete, a threat all the more alarming if the human population is exploding.

spadoosh

The problem with automation is the switch over.

How does a business that uses robots for its workforce get money to what was there labour market?

Say 10 farm workers are replaced by a robot that needs an engineer. What are the farm workers going to do until the day that the utopian communist society is achieved?

If i was a business person i would employ robots for the cost benefit. What is the suggestion everyone should go out and buy their own little worker robot that brings home the bacon? A business person would take advantage and buy everyone's fair share, if i could afford 2, i would buy two (2 x wages).

It all sounds good that we wil have robots working for us, AI might be 20 years away but everyone living with their feet up while the robots earn our $ is a long way off. Any dream of a utopian society in harmony with robots just dosnt fit in with society today and i cant see how you would get there.



Then theres the unfairness of having say a farmworker whose job might be easily swapped with a robot compared to say a psychiatrist whose job might not be quite as simple for a robot to do. Does the psychiatrist just carry on working while the ex farm worker lives a life where they dont have to work?

GreatApe

Well we will see how this pans out very soon as the first of the mega software AI changes is about to hit the real world in just 2-3 years. The self drive tech. Moving things around is perhaps the largest single employer of people and a google search seems to suggest roughly 750,000 people in the UK are Taxi or HGV or bus drivers. As a guess by 2030 none of those jobs will still exist, instead maybe 10-20 thousand people will manage and service these fleets

prosaver

i can see it now robot migrants coming over here to work..what next ..ha ha

CLAPTON

yes is quite clear that the mechanisation and automation of the last 300 years has bought massive unemployment, starvation and poverty:

this is why the UK needs to have unlimited immigration to delay the massive shortage of labour

prosaver

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes is quite clear that the mechanisation and automation of the last 300 years has bought massive unemployment, starvation and poverty:

this is why the UK needs to have unlimited immigration to delay the massive shortage of labour

how can it be when the Uk got 1.5 million on the dole.

anyway..
easy robot .. calm down:

lisyloo

how can it be when the Uk got 1.5 million on the dole.

Not many of those 1.5 million want to get up early on a Sunday to wash my car for a fiver.
To be fair some of them aren't able and some have caring obligations, but there are also some who just don't want to do it (and I don't blame them).

It's not a level playing field with fit young childless immigrant who are prepared to make sacrifices.

Also despite the overall number not many of those 1.5 million have the required skills e.g. Nursing, so we still need to import where we have skills shortages.

lisyloo

GreatApe wrote: »

Well we will see how this pans out very soon as the first of the mega software AI changes is about to hit the real world in just 2-3 years. The self drive tech. Moving things around is perhaps the largest single employer of people and a google search seems to suggest roughly 750,000 people in the UK are Taxi or HGV or bus drivers. As a guess by 2030 none of those jobs will still exist, instead maybe 10-20 thousand people will manage and service these fleets

How will one of these sell drive cars get parcels delivered to the reception desk. I don't think it will happen in 2–3 years because there are quite a lot of issues not thought through to do with health and safety and care of good/people.

CLAPTON

lisyloo wrote: »

Not many of those 1.5 million want to get up early on a Sunday to wash my car for a fiver.

you are too generous

To be fair some of them aren't able and some have caring obligations, but there are also some who just don't want to do it (and I don't blame them).

free money is too generous

It's not a level playing field with fit young childless immigrant who are prepared to make sacrifices.

unfair system that encourages people to take benefits

Also despite the overall number not many of those 1.5 million have the required skills e.g. Nursing, so we still need to import where we have skills shortages.

I am reluctant to believe we really can't train enough nurses and doctors although I accept that it's cheaper for employers to import the finished product.

lisyloo

i agree with you about benefits, but you haven't taken on board the issues I mentioned. Someone with children cannot just leave them, so unless there are some kind of facilities for them then they can't work. I also mentioned that some can't do that kind of work I.e. Physically disabled. I don't think it's too generous to say that people can't just abandon their children - it's illegal. Perhaps if we offered state facilities we could then demand parents go to work, however it won't be economic for those on low incomes. Sometimes it might be better to just give people benefits?

We cannot immediately get trained nurses/doctors.
It takes years.
Yes agree it's cheaper to import them from elsewhere than train them.
This is morally wrong for not just our own young people but also the countries that lose their nurses.

lisyloo

Back on topic I would point out that we've had automatic car washes for some time, but since the arrival of much cheap labour and entrepeunerial people, many of us prefer to have the personal service, so an example,of where people are preferred to robots.