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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-questions-with-stephen-hawking-technology-is-driving-ever-increasing-inequality-2015-10-08

Question: Have you thought about the possibility of technological unemployment, where we develop automated processes that ultimately cause large unemployment by performing jobs faster and/or cheaper than people can perform them?

Hawking: If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality

TPTB read his archives

What would be the definition of a fair distribution? No human is equal and all their needs are different.

Just regarding food: A 50 kg woman would need much less than a 100 kg man.

Also, what will people do? I guess luxurious leisure gets boring very fast and people will start doing stuff (crime, etc.)

I presume he meant a basic standard of living a human beings should expect of course if AI get to the standard where an AI sees our intelligence like that of snails then I'm sure these issues would have been resolved.

You know regular equality no slavery besides debt slavery and food on the table, with a fairly secure knowledge you will be safe in the night and not hunted down in the wilderness.
With a target to work harder to get perks.

So what's new? Technology and knowledge, or having specific skills have always created inequality. Doctors have always been more successful than peasants. The good thing is that you can't master technology in all fields. A guy can be a champion in computer science, but will he be able to fix his toilet without a plumber if there's something wrong with it?

Well if I was able to enjoy 100% of free time why the hell would I involve myself in crime? Most crime is due lack of money anyway, so in a society where you don't need to work to have a good standard of life, crime would be reduced by like 99% and the people that still commit crime would be the severly fucked up at dna level.

This issue should not be taken in any way to the light and I'm glad that there are people concerned about this issue, The worst scenary can be that Someday the IA can enslave to humanity for a kind of vanity or stupidity  to think that we are on the right track when it may be just the opposite, The question could also be if:  are the natural evolution part the machines  of ?
Think on it:  God did to humans not did IA, God could have his rules If we let us against them as we are  finished, I'm not against technological advancement because many lives have been saved thanks to this,
We life is easy more than our ancestors. Etc.
But  as all must put certain limits, Pretending not always go further and further because at one point we will find something we will can not control how humanity, So maybe  some things are not the product of mere chance as someone might think, The time to participate in this thread on this topic can be a example.
So Stephen Hawking one of the most brilliant minds of all times say that technology is driving ever-increasing inequality and personally I think that is right, If oneself  wonders wich that causes all this?
We back to the same words: Vanity, Stupidity and we can add others like to ambition and so on.  

What's new is the speed of growth of the inequality. He makes a great point (and obviously he's brilliantly smart). More automation in manufacturing results in fewer jobs, therefore more poor. Technology also allows those with access to it to benefit from its wealth building opportunities. Take the signature campaigns on this forum, someone without access to the internet or without a computer would have a much harder time gathering bitcoin as many of us do.

What's really driving inequality is the state-bank alliance (anchored by the central bank) of the modern system, that's designed to take wealth from the rest of society.  Technology or any other pro-growth (or more correctly pro-hyper-growth) mechanism is only a middleman in this process.

A system of debt-money must have real economic growth, or the system will implode (like it's threatening to, right now.)  When lenders and investors decide there won't be enough profits from the economy to repay loans, they will liquidate, demand will collapse, and most people will lose their jobs.  So, under the leadership of the elites, everyone and everything is nudged to seek profit and growth at all cost.  If the environment, community, or happiness suffers, so be it.

A collapse might also be painful enough to make most people eventually realize the nature of our (not really market-based) system, which would erode the elites' power.

This system is happy to reward anyone handsomely who might have a chance of generating demand in the real economy.  Super concentration of capital naturally creates super-concentrated talent and progress.  If safety can be ignored (as with Uber,) what is a little bit of inequality and long-term unemployment?

A healthy system of money and finance would see much slower real ecoonomic growth (as savers would be allowed to be careful with their investments.)  But the entire society would gradually adjust to new technologies in a more even and sustainable fashion.  Technology would truly be the labor saving device for everyone that it's supposed to be.

How the elites would prefer to "fix" this problem (and what Hawking is hinting at) is, of course, not to dismantle the core system, but to throw crumbs to the masses to keep them more or less content.  This would be somewhat analogous to Rome's bread and circus.  Rather than dismantle slavery, they much preferred to give charities to citizens who had lost their jobs to slavery.

Exactly, the reason that technology improvement drives inequality is mainly because fiat money based economy, where you must pay some fiat money in exchange of something else, so the one who creates the fiat money will control all the productivity in the entire country

But even under a gold standard, the market based exchange would still give power to those who can mass produce useful things, eventually those producers will become the super power. Today, those producers are limited by the central bank and government regulators

This outcome suits the purposes of the people steering the ship. I wonder whether they have to foresight to realise that there's a seething mass of people growing ever more resentful at the direction the world is taking. You can't really enjoy your wealth if the world beyond your walled garden has turned into Mad Maxville.

I wonder whether it'll ever reach a point where humans are capable of putting the brakes on 'progress' for the greater good. I seriously doubt it.

So, this time it is different?  Tech is gonna make much of the world poorer and more unequal despite the fact of, well, history.  You can find an individual who is worse off because they lost a job due to technology but you can't say that people of the industrialised West today aren't much better off because the buggy whip maker dies poor and broke.  The development and use of technology to better mankind is one of the hallmarks of modern civilization.  Technology wasn't always viewed this way and people like hawking should know better.

Technology drives inequality because technological progress is on super-charge.  Because too much money is being issued, there are never enough good investments, so all that money is looking for anything that half-resembles a good future business.

The gold standard was only another (earlier) method by the bank-state alliance to prop up the value of paper money and debt with state power.

Only total disengagement of the state from money would represent truly free money.

Technological progress driven by the market would be beneficial as you mentioned.  However, we don't live in a free market, not really.  All markets are ultimately and strongly driven by money and finance, which are centrally planned.

The system strongly and unnaturally favors super-charged technological change (because the system must find real growth somewhere to justify the value of the financial assets issued, and propped up by the state, to benefit the elites.)  Resentment due to inequality, more than is natural for technological change, is only one of the many symptoms of social and economic sickness.

I agree.

The notion that all people should be provided with equal resources regardless of their productive contribution is simply socialist ideology that has nothing to do with the law of nature. Using technology to attain such an ill-founded goal will slow down societal progress as a whole, because it wrongly rewards maladaptive behavior and non-performance. As a result there will be no incentive to attain higher goals and evolve, ultimately leading to the decline of the whole society.

The only thing that needs to be guaranteed is that there is no power abuse by those who control certain parts of the industry. So free competition without cartels is essential, so everyone has the chance for achievement.

ya.ya.yo!

Conquer by violence or Conquer by technology or Conquer by intelligence, they are all the same, technology is just one of the tools

Hawking means that instead of everyone can have a luxurious leisure life, now 99% is working to death to serve the 1%, and when the day robot arrives, they will just become unemployed, maintain their living by social security check

Imagine that a group of multi-nation corporation that can produce almost everything that human needs, the question is that why do they need rest of the human?

Not a surprise at all! Human greed is a champion of all the bad! This doesn't mean that we need to stop innovating. Innovation is deep in us humans as well, and until us humans are on this planet, we will have a need of innovation.

This means that we will have to keep looking for a balance and other solution on how to fight this greed. But this is definitely not by choking down on the innovation and technology.

that's right,developing machines or robot to produce something will make worker poor, but if you developing thing that can make job or something easier (helping human) it'll be very usefull  ;D

The only way around this is a universal welfare plan for those that are condemned to perpetual unemployment due technological development. Im still waiting to see a realistic alternative to this that isn't some fairy tale about how people will be all entrepreneurs, become robot technicians or how there will be "new jobs for everyone" and other delusions. Im sorry but 20 century capitalism is over.

The most astonishing thing about technology is that it was to be expected that indeed it would end the need for people to work so much. By ending the need for some human labour, it would create opportunities to decrease working time. Most people in the 20th century that wrote about the future imagined a world like that, with less working time.

However, because of globalization, what we see is the decrease of the price of goods, not the increase of the wages or even a significant decrease of working time. On the contrary, since 2008, we are seeing a stabilization or even a small increase on the working time (and limitation of the rights of workers), also in many countries of the developed world (see about OECD counties: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS; moreover, some of the small decrease of working time might be unwanted by the workers, but forced on them as part-time jobs with half wages).

The increase of productivity is going straight to the pockets of the capital owners and managers or to decrease the price of goods. Now, some CEOs say that their working force only cost them 10% of all their costs. They pay more in energy, raw materials, machines, renting places, etc.

Forget about technologic unemployment. Employers will put uneducated workers to work, for pennies, if necessary on small services, just to increase employers' happiness. They love to have an army of (sub paid) servants. Why have a robot as butler, it will give much more status to have an (almost) slave human.

We have seen this in the mining and agriculture section. A perfect example would be the Gold Rush series on TV. Those guys run a 1000 ounce season with a crew of 5 to 6 people.

In other 3rd world countries where things are not automated with huge bulldozers... 1000's of people are needed to do the same amount of ounces in the same year.

In first world countries automation has totally taken over from human labor... most tasks in agriculture are done by fancy electronic and satellite guided vehicles with

air-conditioning.

We have brought this on ourselves... Machine's does not need unions and labor has become too expensive and unreliable and lazy.  ??? Bitcoin will also replace the need for some

financial services, because they became too expensive and not trustworthy.  

I think even wealthy people and convinced libertarians will come to the conclusion that some sort of wealth redistribution is simply essential for economy to function in the highly-automated world. Without a strong middle class who will buy goods and services which the corporations, owned by these wealthy men, produce?!

is easy to predict that, evebody can reach that conclusion, the question here is if we are ready to evolve at the same time that the technology is doing, i mean that technology is not here to cause large unemployment by performing jobs faster, technology is here to help us to evolve faster without having to cause that.

the thing is, that we are not ready for that, if we don't evolve our humanity at same time that technology is doing, we are lost.

It will be just like the industrial revolution

Jobs will be destroyed in certain areas but also, jobs that do not currently exist will be created in others

Value is can never be lost, it can only be transferred

So i think "technological unemployment" is a myth, or at least being blown out of proportion

Technology is driving income redistribution.
If you look at the tech billionaires of today, they are not from established, wealthy families.
Technology has created a new class of wealthy individuals.

I don't it's the advancement of technology that we should put the blame everything on. Although I could be wrong but for me the biggest contributor are the flaws of the economic and monetary system that we adopt and accepted here that leads to all the inequality.

I think that technological unemployment is a wrong conception of development itself. During all the story of their existence the human being has invented in continuation. Invention in itself is development of technology. Originally the technological development was the invention of the wheel. There are no data about unemployment that caused this big invention but I think that the human kind has survived to this big development (it is really big) and has continue with others. Slowly but with determined steps this development has build our actual civilization. The last century was full of big technological inventions. No data about unemployment caused by such development.

Where is the point of my comment? The technology doesn't cause unemployment but development. Development mean more workplaces. But these workplaces need learning and adaptation. So is up to the people to learn an adapt to the new reality create by the development of the technology. The more hardworkers do this thing and have more. The others (who wait that something become from the sky) remain behind and without work. But must not be forgot that this kind of people will be in the same situation even without the development of technology. It is in their nature to wait and not to adapt. The life is entirely a continuous adaption. With or without the development of the technology. Who go forward is able to survive and to live better. Who remain and wait is always in risk to be "punished" by the life itself.

To be fair and to give my personal experience not everything depends only from the capacity of adaption of the people. A good percentage in the success of everyone play even the luck. Someone which is rich have the possibility to go in good schools and Universities, create a good social network in which everyone help each other in life. A poor person have much more difficulties to achieve something good even if can be more able and smarter than the first. The first had the fate to be rich. The second have the bad luck to be born poor and without having the resources of the first. Are to many the aspects and the form in which the luck appears. May have the luck to help someone in difficulty and this last have to many chances of work to give to him's savior. May give all your money to someone in which you have faith and he abuse with those leaving you without the resources with which you wanted to create your personal business. Without wanted to tell more, the point of all this paragraph is that don't is enough the hardwork but needed even some luck to have or even create an work.

But one thing is sure. Without the technological development there is not never increase of wealth for everyone and nor development of humanity. Those two things don't create never unemployment but new workplaces and new possibilities for work. In other words create employment.

I agree with Mr. Hawking. Technology overall is good thing for humanity.
But I know one day this lobby thing will happen and owners of technology will carry power.

No technology will not cause unemployment,Machines already has replaced humans and still humans are needed,i dont believe in robotic world,Robots will serve humans no replace them,technology will provide change,new kind of skills will be needed
question is what kind of technology,technology for humans better life,technology for money,technology for war
It is always in humans hands what will be our future

 Looks like some policmans will loose his job
Artificial intelligence experts point to looming danger amid unpredictable technology and fears that technology could ‘seduce us into warfare’
scary a little or even a lot

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/20/campaign-to-stop-killer-robots-warning-united-nations (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/20/campaign-to-stop-killer-robots-warning-united-nations)

Recently, Hawking also warned against artificial intelligence, as a real threat to us all, not just science fiction.

Elon Musk said the same thing.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/28/technology/ai-weapons-robots-musk-hawking/

Don't worry. Technology will be never able to compete with the human being. All the secrets of any kind of technology are known by the human kind who invented/created it. So he is and will be always able to manage it in every moment. This thing cannot be true in the inverse direction. Technology, even will arrive one day in which will be able to be self developed, would have always the key of "off" put on it by the human kind. Even if the technology can go out of control this situation can be only temporary. Human kind will have always under control any kind of technology.

Stephen Hawking said is true. But this topic same as all skills in this world. Like designing, cooking, drawing, "people skill", developing business and many more professional careers.

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared,"

Lets change machines to "smart people"

"If smart people produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if smart people produced weatlh is shared."

We (human) will always need human resources. If someday machine will dominate in this world, and many un-employment family cannot make any profit to make living, the answer is same as Stephen Hawking said. "Wealth Shared"

Keep helping others, although it's just a small help.
Teach other to how make good profit both online or in real life.

The real problem is not all rich people want to share their 'real' ideas. Especially their wealth.