Forum Post: Robots and Automation
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 12, 2011, 3:02 a.m. EST by robertlidy
(15)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Doesn't anyone see that THIS is the problem? The reason for there being no jobs at all? It's only going to get worse as more and more jobs are replaced. Its not Wall Street and it's not the Government. It's Technology..
Technology isn't a bad thing either it might lead to us seeing the world entirely differently VERY SOON. Discuss this or debunk me lol.
Cars put horseshoers out of business; many of them suffered, for sure.
It takes a lot more than 3 people to engineer, build, program, install, maintain, refuel, repair, improve, and replace a machine.
Those people are just in a different industry than the ones being displaced by the automation.
Machines do the work cheaper (which is why they are used) which yes, lowers pay. But it also lowers cost, and, therefore (without monopolies), lowers prices.
Lower prices means your dollar stretches further and your pay need not be so high. Win-win. In a "utopian" automated society (shudder), I suppose, things would cost next-to-nothing, and we would need almost no money!
-- The key though is that, when your industry is displaced, you need to update your skills for a new one to remain competitive.
Hegemony, however, corrupts this process.
What you pay for land, you want positive return on, so you hold until a higher offer. This is a pressure holding costs up. Machines can't currently replace land.
Inflation causes buying power to decrease, in contravention to what should be the norm in a lowering-cost environment, which is that buying power should increase. Inflation is an ultimate result of the hegemony of massive banks.
Hegemony is the problem, for many other reasons too. However, that cannot be solved through legal means since the legal system is constructed for (almost) the sole purpose of protecting hegemony.
what is the ratio of workers needed/ workers replaced, that each machine has
build,program,install,maintain,refuel,repair,improve and replacing - 3 per shift maybe 5
replaced 10-20 workers this is MY opinion :) yours? also this isnt just one specific industry its SOON to be all industries
I'm not talking 5 per machine. I'm talking 10-20 or more working for the robot manufacturing factories, design firms, and repair shops. Humans are mostly self-healing and self-training, but robots are not. Designing and maintaining them is actually a big job.
(I'm in this industry, btw)
Not to mention, a machine is made for a purpose. When that purpose is no longer profitable, the machine is no longer usable.
When a person cannot profit with their skill-set, they just develop a new one.
2 things: if it takes 10-20 people then the machine must be replacing more then 20 people.. way more lol.. the company wouldnt invest in it then. And my 2nd point. what happens to engineers jobs when robots can take over YOUR job? robots fixing robots etc. Your in this field you must know its happening already lol. Also are you saying humanity can only be engineers and a few more specific jobs robots cannot handle for a long time?
they cannot develop a skill-set that a robot can do better and cheaper.. which will be everything lol.. there's robots doing brain operations in experimental hospitals lol. Soon to be used in legit hospitals. If robots can do such complex operations such as that im sure they can do ANY task on the planet
but they cannot dream...
Who's going to fix the robots that fix robots?
"Robots fixing robots", by the way, is infeasible. In mathematics, there's something called "The Halting Problem" which means essentially, that it is impossible to know if a program will crash without running it and seeing it crash.
If a robot could be made to anticipate and reason through all the possible problems that another robot may experience, and then fix them, then it would be cheaper to improve the design of the original robot. Then it would be to build the second robot to repair it.
In reality though, it's NOT possible to make a robot that can fix other robots. Maintain..? Sure, maybe, but the potential problems a machine can experience is an infinite unknowable set which requires puzzling, creativity -- and, dreaming -- to determine.
With our trillions of neurons, cheap reproduction, flexible respiration and metabolism, and self-healing mechanisms, us mere monkeys have a corner on that market for the foreseeable future.
We are, in essence, the best robots thus far devised.
To clarify "10-20 workers":
Yes, the factory which uses robots might have layoffs, but those workers will just go work for the robot building factories (if they're smart monkeys)
so we have a world of 7 billion engineers that work in robot building factories or fix robots for a living and thats basically that lol, do you think it takes 7 billion people to make/replace/fix enough robots to have abundance of resources (enough for every single man woman and child?)
No, I think a lot of people are going to die of starvation and war. :.(
well war wont decline the population by amazing amounts, starvation shouldnt happen even NOW we have enough food for every man woman and child.. simple food should be free payed for by our taxes of the jobs we hopefully have at the robot factory
I agree in principle, but hegemony has us by the balls and we will not fight.
By the way, I'm talking about war and famine like nothing we've ever seen; the kind that lowers population because families can't give birth.
idk ww1 + ww2 had more deaths then all the wars starting from like greece up to their beginning even if we had more ww's idk if they effect the population THAT much lol same with famines
WW's were just wars. Monkeys arguing over stuff. I'm talking something of horrific proportions, and TBH, when we're up against the wall, we will fight. But I wish we would have handled it sooner...
the only way we will have a fight that makes actual wars look like recess bullying is if this OWS or a similar movement turns from peace to violence and i mean VIOLENCE not rioting.. full on destruction... other then that,.. the population will GROW not DECLINE lol
10-20 workers PER shift
Yep, 10-20 workers per shift at the Robot Manufacturing Plant, Inc.
Automation is part of the problem in regards to the monetary-market system. It isn't the entire problem.
There are plenty of green sector jobs that can be provided by the government if they weren't spending trillions on wars, bailouts, and corporate welfare. They could provide jobs to essentially create abundance and make money useless if they didn't have other... agendas in mind.
The billionaires, corporations, governments, and other powerful entities controlling resources could easily support the creation of abundance and increase the general standard of living for everyone if they wanted to. But there's enough resources to attain abundance even without their help. People just need to wake up.
It isn't the ENTIRE problem, but its the root of the entire tree lol, with these robots we can create enough food for every man and woman on the planet there are enough houses and apartments scattered across the globe to give every man and woman shelter all the "needs" in life should be provided we are in the age of abundance we've been since the 80's
The problem is the general population is still infantile in their desire to accumulate private property and to obtain power over other people. The people in positions of wealth aren't necessarily incompetent nor ignorant.
They consciously choose personal gain over social gain when faced with important decisions. The elite, with all their material/financial wealth, no longer make decisions with profit at the forefront of their minds. They make decisions that harm the population for their own shits and giggles.
Whether it is out of irresponsibility, greed, sociopathic tendencies, or some mix of the three automation alone will not save us if the elite maintain control over 100s of nuclear weapons, armaments, other tools of war, and the minds of sycophant minions controlling these things.
More than technology, we require ethics if any sort of non-violent transition is to occur. The value shift is an ethical shift. Either ethics becomes the norm for the mainstream consciousness or increased levels of violence emerge when different groups vie for power over advanced technologies.
I could get a job in automation. They need someone to design and maintain those machines and that's part of the things I know. Automation does create jobs.
There's machines that could replace maybe 10-20 workers, The same machine only gave you and maybe 3 others jobs. Counting all shifts: day/night/2nd shift
Those machines give a guy the chance to create jobs he wouldnt otherwise be able to create :) If business goes well, he may even expand and create even more jobs he wouldnt have been able to create if he had to hire 10-20 workers
10-20 workers would only be needed if the guy had 5 of these machines replacing NOW, 50-100 workers. That leaves 40-80 people without jobs, they could just go to other places to work except ALL types of businesses are automating everything, so there are less jobs for them :(
You are not considering the job creator and the stress you are putting on him. The biggest expense in any business is payroll.
the job creator would have less stress cause instead of 50-100 workers he know only needs to worry about 20 people operating his machines he invested in. And of course worry about the machines themselves lol
And dont forget the payroll. You need to pay a worker minimum wage, Social Security, vacations, sick time. Also, you need to create schedules, watch for improper conduct, etc.
I'm probably a bit biased in this but I dont think it's a bad thing. I mean, I could even see myself buying a few machines and opening a small operation someday. I dont even dream about a business with 50 workers under my command.
lol im saying instead of worrying about 50-100 workers and doing all you just said, you only need to do that with 10-20 workers lol. You're not biased because IT is a GOOD thing lol im saying we have to realize the machines are the workers of the future not us lol, there will be few jobs in the future that humans will be required for
The way I see it, we just adapt and do things differently.
luckily more and more people will see the way we see it.
well for one thing the internet will replace the post office people don't send letters anymore not when you can do it in a millisecond by hitting send the govt would actually save billions by not having the postal service
From what I understand (I could be entirely wrong) the post office is self-funded (via postage)
im pretty sure when i ship items that i sold on ebay using the post office, im the only one thats been there the whole day lmao
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