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[Pnx]

Well it might be worth arguing that there's a greater long term benefit for a nation to encouraging people to automate. Automation is the thing that's going to help make developed nations competitive in terms of industry.

Of course I do wonder how it's all going to pan out in the end, a lot of people seem to be very dissatisfied when they're not working for their bread...

[Andrew425]

Automating isn't going to take away fast food jobs. Not for the foreseeable future.

And it shouldn't take aware manufacturing jobs. All it should do is increase productivity.

[Frumple]

Heeheeheehee, are you kidding? They don't look at it as increased productivity. They look at it as same productivity with lower costs, meaning more profit. By and large most things are pretty massively overproduced nowadays, so more productivity is useless in a lot of markets -- not to mention if you keep productivity relatively capped, you can increase costs (and thus profit) due to lower supply (diamonds, anyone?).

There's a point where the folks owning the production methods don't want to increase productivity. Usually productivity isn't even a goal. Profit is, and productivity is desired only to the extent it increases profit.

[Andrew425]

Productivity is how American workers can charge the price they do and still remain competitive in the marketplace.

Higher productivity is always the goal. That way you can hire less employees and still retain the same amount of production capacity.

Diamonds are a niche market where it's hard to compete.

I'm talking about normal manufacturing which is the bread and butter of the American worker.

[10ebbor10]

Productivity is how American workers can charge the price they do and still remain competitive in the marketplace.

Higher productivity is always the goal. That way you can hire less employees and still retain the same amount of production capacity.

Diamonds are a niche market where it's hard to compete.

I'm talking about normal manufacturing which is the bread and butter of the American worker.

Problem is that the most automated systems can have a very high productivity, whitout any human intervention needed (maintenance and quality check's only). Besides, the American job market is by far not the most productive in the world. Tech can be exported, and job motivation in Asian countries is higher (Also, more hours in a workday). The only thing keeping manufacturing Jobs in Western countries is that they're very close to their intended markets.

You go for a high productivity, but still aim for the same level of production. Hence, as productivity rises without a same rise in demand, you fire people. Same for all markets.

Third, manufacturing hasn't been the dominant economic sector in Western countries for a long time. I suspect the same is true/ will be true for the US.

[Frumple]

Third, manufacturing hasn't been the dominant economic sector in Western countries for a long time. I suspect the same is true/ will be true for the US.

From what I was seeing with some half-arsed research, it was showing something like one in ten or so (bit less, really) working Americans employed by manufacturing in the states. 'Bout as far as from bread and butter as it gets. American productivity when it comes to manufacturing was a thing, what, thirty, forty years ago? Think that's when it peaked. It's not, anymore.

But yeah, within the century? I've little doubt that most fast food joints in the states will be partially or fully automated. Flat out, it'll be cheaper than employing people (E: And to sorta' head it off, in some ways automation is more cost effective than flat out literal slave labor, and will only become moreso. So letting people get paid less/reducing benefits, etc., so forth, so on, will only at-best slow down the automaton creep.), and probably do the job better anyway. Lot of the service industry's going that route as our technology and methodology regarding machine/human interaction improves.

If more (/any, really...) of the advantages from this was trickling down to the general population, it'd be a good thing. Kinda' innit, yet, or at least certainly not (even bloody remotely) proportionally to the amount it's benefiting the folks owning the machines. So there's a bit of trepidation involved.

[Reelya]

Automating isn't going to take away fast food jobs. Not for the foreseeable future.

And it shouldn't take aware manufacturing jobs. All it should do is increase productivity.

That robot burger maker which makes 360+ personalized burgers an hour, is already headed for production, so I would say it's at least the medium-term forseeaable future. They're already getting rid of most of the cashiers at the supermarkets here in Australia with automated service machines, try telling people before that started that you'd be scanning your own groceries in a few years and they would have laughed at you.

The most expensive part of that flimsy burger from your local fast food joint isn't what you put in your mouth; it's the human hands that put it together. But this robotic burger-maker that preps, grills, and assembles your Royale with Cheese—automatically—may soon replace human line cooks altogether while saving the fast food industry billions.

Built by San Francisco-based Momentum Machines, this robotic burger maker is designed to do the work of three full-time kitchen staff. The current alpha version of the machine grinds, stamps, and grills patties (made to order), then cuts and layers lettuce, onions, pickles, and tomatoes before slapping everything on a bun and wrapping it to go. The only human labor involved is that needed to take the customer's money and hand over the completed burger.

[Bauglir]

This is why I think we need to move away from a mandatory-employment economy entirely - as automation improves, we may find ourselves at a point where "It's a bad job, but somebody's got to do it" isn't true anymore. Of course, in order to get there, we need to find a way to transition out of an economy where work-saving automation is demonized because it replaces jobs. But, once we find ourselves in a place where jobs aren't mandatory, I could actually agree with the libertarian position of abolishing the minimum wage.

At present, there's too much a power difference between employers and employees. Who among us has ever actually been able to negotiate terms of employment, and who's had them dictated by employers (whether literally, or "If you don't take these, somebody else will" implicitly)? A few readers probably have been able to make that choice, which is great for them, but I'm fairly sure most people (much less most people reading the thread) haven't. If the average person could legitimately get by without needing to work, then there'd actually be a possibility for negotiation. As it stands, employers just have to make employment better than starvation, which isn't exactly a high bar. Most markets aren't sufficiently competitive AND unsaturated with applicants to undermine this, and when you've only got one or two potential employers for a given skill set in a given area, it's a fair bet that nobody's going to raise wages to earn better employees, thereby creating a permanent cost for a transient benefit (once everybody else raises their wages to match).

[Nadaka]

That would require a universal welfare allotment, and libertarians would flip their lid.

[Flying Dice]

That would require a universal welfare allotment, and libertarians would flip their lid.

Considering that they already do so over existing social services, I'm not sure that we should care.

[Doomblade187]

That would require a universal welfare allotment, and libertarians would flip their lid.

Considering that they already do so over existing social services, I'm not sure that we should care.

Meh. I'm a bit conservative myself, and as long as it's done in an actually reasonable fashion that works and is needed, I wouldn't mind too much. Not that I expect radicals to see reason or anything.

[Lagslayer]

Think about this. Do we even WANT that much automation without humans in the loop? We absolutely must maintain dominance over the machines. If we start making machine communities that are completely self-sufficient, humanity is going to be put on it's deathbed.

I know a lot of people on this forum don't agree with my stance on that issue, but I feel the need to keep pounding it in.

[Frumple]

Meh. Let us build the better monkey. If we get replaced... bah. It is no small honor to be a creator god killed by its creations that go on to rule the universe. I'd be content with that.

Seriously though, we've got to make them self-improving to a larger degree than they already can be before we really have to worry about anything like that. If there's anything to worry about at all. The entity capable of driving us into the ground is probably equally capable of giving us a few paradise planets they don't need, and by the gods we're going to become if we manage to create the critters you better believe we're going to hardwire a few failsafes into the buggers that makes 'em.

I like to hold the conceit that humanity is smarter than the various omniscient creator gods of our mythologies. When we make a slave race, we're not going to be stupid about. Little swots ain't gonna' be forgettin' us any time this reality cycle, and you damn sure better believe they're going to have 10+% of their computation cycles and resources hardwired to pamper their creator gods.

S'just the getting there, yeah.

[MaximumZero]

Think about this. Do we even WANT that much automation without humans in the loop?

Yes. The more automation we have in place, the freer we are as a whole to do the stuff that we want to do instead of the stuff we have to do. This includes things that are purely scientific and academic in nature, as well as things that are purely aesthetic and also fuckall. The whole sci-fi notion of the "robot uprising" is bullshit in and of itself, unless we model a highly sophisticated "brain" AI and put it in stuff that shouldn't have it. Machines will not get sentience unless we code it into them, and if we ever even do that, it should be in a very, very limited amount of machines.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It also brings up the issue of why a true AI would even want to control humans.