Technological unemployment is (almost) here

[Peter Lambert]

There are also private companies with the intention of exploring Mars, and lots of people willing to go there and be pioneers in a new land. Travelling out of the Solar System is again a step by step process, which may work in a free society. Why can't you go to Jupiter or Saturn after Mars has been colonized?

Mainly because they are gas giants, with thousands of atmospheres of pressure above any hypothetical surface.

That is just an engineering problem to be addressed at the time of settlement. If you decide you want to colonize Jupiter (maybe you are mining the hydrogen and fusing it for cheap energy?), you could make floating platforms which are at an altitude with an acceptable pressure and gravity for human occupancy. I imagine you could make a sort of giant frisbee, a big round platform with giant wings around the outside which rotates in one place.

[giantdragon]

Eventually you would be able to pop onto an online job board, and do something for someone for a couple of hours from home.

There will also be people who work doing art or entertainment, look at how much we already pay professional athletes and pop stars!

These are only dreams - in reality, only small percent of the population can be creative (generate ideas, program, compose music, show achievements in sport etc). For the other part a "kick in the ass" need that they be able to work (by a boss/manager or some state authority like it was in the USSR), otherwise they will either idle (in counties that will implement unconditional income), work on state-owned enterprises few hours a day (in the countries that will switch to state-controlled planned economy) or generate riots and violence, transforming prosperous countries into Somalia (if the elite will ignore tech unemployment problem).

Average woorker used to till the soil, then pound on things in factories, then serve fries and clean hotels, and soon may be sitting at home, tagging photos with keywords or something.

You really believe that these jobs are jobs of the future - relocating items in factory, working in fastfood restaurant, cleaning?!

Imagine instead people own shares of productive companies and live off the dividends payed out by their investments.

People will just sell these shares to buy useless stuff or entertainment. Privatization after USSR collapse is good example how it will be.

There are many ways this could work out, and the poll gives a very limited number of choices.

These 2 options are most probable variants and are well-described. Of course you can suggest own options.

P.S. Bitcointalk users are much more creative and initiative than average population, so you much think about median worker at first and not about yourself.

[justusranvier]

These are only dreams - in reality, only small percent of the population can be creative (generate ideas, program, compose music, show achievements in sport etc). For the other part a "kick in the ass" need that they be able to work (by a boss/manager or some state authority like it was in the USSR), otherwise they will either idle (in counties that will implement unconditional income), work on state-owned enterprises few hours a day (in the countries that will switch to state-controlled planned economy) or generate riots and violence, transforming prosperous countries into Somalia (if the elite will ignore tech unemployment problem).

Giantdragon has been kind enough to show us the root of much of the evil in the world: the lie used to justify the crime against humanity known as schooling, with all its associated horrors.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue6.htm

The New Dumbness

Ordinary people send their children to school to get smart, but what modern schooling teaches is dumbness. It’s a religious idea gone out of control. You don’t have to accept that, though, to realize this kind of economy would be jeopardized by too many smart people who understand too much. I won’t ask you to take that on faith. Be patient. I’ll let a famous American publisher explain to you the secret of our global financial success in just a little while. Be patient.

Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance; now it is transformed from ignorance into permanent mathematical categories of relative stupidity like "gifted and talented," "mainstream," "special ed." Categories in which learning is rationed for the good of a system of order. Dumb people are no longer merely ignorant. Now they are indoctrinated, their minds conditioned with substantial doses of commercially prepared disinformation dispensed for tranquilizing purposes.

Jacques Ellul, whose book Propaganda is a reflection on the phenomenon, warned us that prosperous children are more susceptible than others to the effects of schooling because they are promised more lifelong comfort and security for yielding wholly:

Critical judgment disappears altogether, for in no way can there ever be collective critical judgment....The individual can no longer judge for himself because he inescapably relates his thoughts to the entire complex of values and prejudices established by propaganda. With regard to political situations, he is given ready-made value judgments invested with the power of the truth by...the word of experts.

The new dumbness is particularly deadly to middle- and upper-middle-class kids already made shallow by multiple pressures to conform imposed by the outside world on their usually lightly rooted parents. When they come of age, they are certain they must know something because their degrees and licenses say they do. They remain so convinced until an unexpectedly brutal divorce, a corporate downsizing in midlife, or panic attacks of meaninglessness upset the precarious balance of their incomplete humanity, their stillborn adult lives. Alan Bullock, the English historian, said Evil was a state of incompetence. If true, our school adventure has filled the twentieth century with evil.

Ellul puts it this way:

The individual has no chance to exercise his judgment either on principal questions or on their implication; this leads to the atrophy of a faculty not comfortably exercised under [the best of] conditions...Once personal judgment and critical faculties have disappeared or have atrophied, they will not simply reappear when propaganda is suppressed...years of intellectual and spiritual education would be needed to restore such faculties. The propagandee, if deprived of one propaganda, will immediately adopt another, this will spare him the agony of finding himself vis a vis some event without a ready-made opinion.

Once the best children are broken to such a system, they disintegrate morally, becoming dependent on group approval. A National Merit Scholar in my own family once wrote that her dream was to be "a small part in a great machine." It broke my heart. What kids dumbed down by schooling can’t do is to think for themselves or ever be at rest for very long without feeling crazy; stupefied boys and girls reveal dependence in many ways easily exploitable by their knowledgeable elders.

According to all official analysis, dumbness isn’t taught (as I claim), but is innate in a great percentage of what has come to be called "the workforce." Workforce itself is a term that should tell you much about the mind that governs modern society. According to official reports, only a small fraction of the population is capable of what you and I call mental life: creative thought, analytical thought, judgmental thought, a trio occupying the three highest positions on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Just how small a fraction would shock you. According to experts, the bulk of the mob is hopelessly dumb, even dangerously so. Perhaps you’re a willing accomplice to this social coup which revived the English class system. Certainly you are if your own child has been rewarded with a "gifted and talented" label by your local school. This is what Dewey means by "proper" social order.

If you believe nothing can be done for the dumb except kindness, because it’s biology (the bell-curve model); if you believe capitalist oppressors have ruined the dumb because they are bad people (the neo-Marxist model); if you believe dumbness reflects depraved moral fiber (the Calvinist model); or that it’s nature’s way of disqualifying boobies from the reproduction sweepstakes (the Darwinian model); or nature’s way of providing someone to clean your toilet (the pragmatic elitist model); or that it’s evidence of bad karma (the Buddhist model); if you believe any of the various explanations given for the position of the dumb in the social order we have, then you will be forced to concur that a vast bureaucracy is indeed necessary to address the dumb. Otherwise they would murder us in our beds.

The shocking possibility that dumb people don’t exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the careers devoted to tending to them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my proposition: Mass dumbness first had to be imagined; it isn’t real.

Once the dumb are wished into existence, they serve valuable functions: as a danger to themselves and others they have to be watched, classified, disciplined, trained, medicated, sterilized, ghettoized, cajoled, coerced, jailed. To idealists they represent a challenge, reprobates to be made socially useful. Either way you want it, hundreds of millions of perpetual children require paid attention from millions of adult custodians. An ignorant horde to be schooled one way or another.

[Rassah]

For the other part a "kick in the ass" need that they be able to work

Running low on food is a pretty good "kick in the ass"

otherwise they will either idle, work on state-owned enterprises few hours a day, or generate riots and violence, transforming prosperous countries into Somalia.

More likely, people will separate themselves into communities, with those who want to work living in secured areas, with security keeping out those who don't want to work, feel it's unfair that they don't have other's money, and do nothing but sit around or riot. Which is fine, as long as the choice to start contributing in some way is always open, which it should be.

You really believe that these jobs are jobs of the future - relocating items in factory, working in fastfood restaurant, cleaning?!

No, these are the jobs of the present. No one knows what kind of jobs we will have in the future. Only that if we continue to progress economically and technologically, that there will always be something new to do. To believe otherwise is to assume that what we have now is it, and we won't have any more inventions or new things.

Imagine instead people own shares of productive companies and live off the dividends payed out by their investments.

People will just sell these shares to buy useless stuff or entertainment. Privatization after USSR collapse is good example how it will be.

Not if they need things like food, safety and security, or long-term retirement plans.

[giantdragon]

Running low on foof is a pretty good "kick in the ass"

If you mean "food", it will more likely force them to riot and destroy "lucky working elite" property rather than be creative. Recent attacks on Google shuttle buses is good example what will happen.

More likely, people will separate themselves into communities, with those who want to work living in secured areas, with security keeping out those who don't want to work, feel it's unfair that they don't have other's money, and do nothing but sit around or riot. Which is fine, as long as the choice to start contributing in some way is always open, which it should be.

I don't think these communities will be able to sustain for any considerable time - army and police will also understand what is happening and probably support 90% of "useless" population, not the working elite (because they also could be replaced with the drones).

> Imagine instead people own shares of productive companies and live off the dividends payed out by their investments.
>> People will just sell these shares to buy useless stuff or entertainment. Privatization after USSR collapse is good example how it will be.
Not if they need things like food, safety and security, or long-term retirement plans.

In 90's Russia people needed the same, but nevertheless sold free privatization shares (vouchers) to the oligarchs.

[Peter Lambert]

There will also be people who work doing art or entertainment, look at how much we already pay professional athletes and pop stars!

These are only dreams - in reality, only small percent of the population can be creative (generate ideas, program, compose music, show achievements in sport etc). For the other part a "kick in the ass" need that they be able to work (by a boss/manager or some state authority like it was in the USSR), otherwise they will either idle (in counties that will implement unconditional income), work on state-owned enterprises few hours a day (in the countries that will switch to state-controlled planned economy) or generate riots and violence, transforming prosperous countries into Somalia (if the elite will ignore tech unemployment problem).

You have to remember that sporting events employ not just the athletes but also all the refs and coaches and commentators and analysts and the journalists who write the recaps. People will come up with more stuff to do.

Imagine instead people own shares of productive companies and live off the dividends payed out by their investments.

People will just sell these shares to buy useless stuff or entertainment. Privatization after USSR collapse is good example how it will be.

There are many ways this could work out, and the poll gives a very limited number of choices.

These 2 options are most probable variants [citation needed] and are well-described. Of course you can suggest own options.

That is why I said there would have to be a culturally ingrained desire to save and invest, people need to be smart enough to see that 1 credit every year for the rest of your life is better than two credits now.

[giantdragon]

You have to remember that sporting events employ not just the athletes but also all the refs and coaches and commentators and analysts and the journalists who write the recaps.

Internet already dramatically reduce demand for journalism because many amateur reporters write for free. May be you have heard how fast newspaper circulations falling now, the same do advertising rates.

These 2 options are most probable variants [citation needed] and are well-described. Of course you can suggest own options.

I mentioned "Lights in the tunnel" book which have read. Author describes unconditional income as preferable option (and describes its implementation ways in many chapters of the book). He also reasonably points that without consumer demand market economy cannot sustain, but planned can:

However, if  something  other  than  consumer  demand  drives  production, then  we  no  longer  have  a  market  economy;  we  will  then  have  a planned economy. The Soviet Union, of course, didn’t have intelligent machines - but  they did have  lots of very  intelligent mathematicians staffing an agency called Gosplan, which attempted to figure things out.

[Mike Christ]

I found something interesting; a decentralized planned economy.

Apparently, it's advocated by anarchists and social democrats alike; what a spread.

[xavier]

Nice idea - but we're not going to be at technological unemployment for a long time yet - unfortunately.

It's the economic policies of governments that having created feelings of 'peak employment'.

I like the Genesis project, but that stuff is hundreds of years into the future.

The mistake with the dot com boom was not that people were wrong about their ideas - many of the business models of those dot com darlings that burst in 2000/2001 were valid and survive today under new companies. The timing just wasn't right. I would say the same about the genesis project.

EDIT: sorry, i meant the Venus project

[giantdragon]

Nice idea - but we're not going to be at technological unemployment for a long time yet - unfortunately.

It's the economic policies of governments that having created feelings of 'peak employment'.

You are thinking linearly while technology advances by exponential curve (BTW, the same fallacy caused many Bitcoin miners to buy ASICs not counting exponential rise of the difficulty which resulted in negative ROI for them). If Moore's law will not suddenly stop, massive technological unemployment will hit developed countries just after 10-20 years (or even earlier if consumer spending will be low) IMHO.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Nice idea - but we're not going to be at technological unemployment for a long time yet - unfortunately.

It's the economic policies of governments that having created feelings of 'peak employment'.

You are thinking linearly while technology advances by exponential curve (BTW, the same fallacy caused many Bitcoin miners to buy ASICs not counting exponential rise of the difficulty which resulted in negative ROI for them). If Moore's law will not suddenly stop, massive technological unemployment will hit developed countries just after 10-20 years (or even earlier if consumer spending will be low) IMHO.

Moore's law is probably the worst argument you can use to support your claim. It has been going on strong for over 4 decades now so if Moore's law was going to cause this technological unemployment shouldn't we have seen it already.  Ironically going forward we probably will hit the limit within the next 10 to 20 years and fall below the transistor growth rate predicted by Moore's law.   That isn't to say we won't find novel ways to get more performance but the days of "die shrink and double performance" are coming to a close.  Even before 3.5nm (Intel's economical limit) the process node upgrade trend is already slipping so one of these upgrades will be later than expected and cause a miss.   

[giantdragon]

Moore's law is probably the worst argument you can use to support your claim. It has been going on strong for almost 50 years now so if Moore's law was going to cause this technological unemployment shouldn't we have seen it already.

It is like any other exponential process - in the beginning changes have little impact on the system, but after some threshold they have dramatic effect. Nuclear fission is good analogy.

Ironically going forward we probably will hit the limit within the next 10 to 20 years and fall below the transistor density required to maintain Moore's law.   That isn't to say we won't find novel ways to get more performance but the days of "die shrink and double performance" are coming to a close.

Die shrink is not only way to increase performance. If you look in the past (before 1958 when the first IC was invented) you can notice that Moore's law existed since mechanical computation machines and probably will continue even after die shrinking become not achievable.

[DeathAndTaxes]

However we are running into a hard barrier in the next 10 to 16 years depending on how persimistic you are.  Even before that transistor density is probably going to under perform Moore's law.  Intel's roadmap for 7nm has been revised backwards three times from 2018 to late 2020.  Even keeping that revised roadmap will fall short of Moore's law (Intel would need mass production of 7nm devices by 2017 to say above Moore's law curve).   The rest of the industry continues to fall further and further behind Intel as well.  At one point the foundries were only 6-8 months behind, then it became 12 months, 18 months now they are almost an entire process node behind.   The cost and complexity continues to increase exponentially and despite that the curve is slipping.


Hardly the technological singularity where growth compounds and the curvre steepens instead we are seeing the curve flatten out.  No doubt something will EVENTUALLY come after the integrated circuit, given enough demand and money but it may be years or decades before it becomes economical and fast enough to continue the upward trend.   BTW Moore's law deals with transistor density not performance directly (although performance has closely followed transistor density).  

[giantdragon]

Moore's law deals with transistor density not performance directly (although performance has closely followed transistor density).  

But the idea and effects are the same. Don't forget that architecture improvements can add extra double-ups in performance even without increasing number of transistors in the chip.

[go1111111]

Eventually all humans will be displaced from all labor (or if any humans choose to work, their wages will likely not be enough to support themselves). I suggest anyone who thinks that when AI comes humans can just find other things to work on, read this: http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/robotics-software/economics-of-the-singularity

[Anon136]

it will be a VERY long time before machines become better at literally everything. Even when machines are making pretty decent artwork, there will still be a VERY long gap before machines become better critics than humans. So like say you have your favorite show and it gets discontinued, so you tell hall 9000 to continue it for you. For someone else who wants to know what media to consume, and has limited time on his hands, your reviews and critiques of hal 9000's productions would be a valuable asset to him.

at the point where there isnt even a market for human artists or human critics. well then things would be so fundamentally different its hard to contemplate. machines may just have their own society and we would assume the role to them that dogs and cats fill for us.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Moore's law deals with transistor density not performance directly (although performance has closely followed transistor density). 

But the idea and effects are the same. Don't forget that architecture improvements can add extra double-ups in performance even without increasing number of transistors in the chip.

A rounding error compared to the power of transistor density.  For the last 70 years the overhwelming majority of computing power increase from the Intel 4004 to Intel Xeon Phi has been the transistor count increasing or more importantly the transistor count at constant cost.  It has increased from 2300 to 5 billion.   That is an almost hard to comprehend 2,300,000x "bonus" to performance.  Yeah along the years there have been marchitecture improvements but if we relied on them alone we would be lucky to Intel 386 level computing power (at current prices).  Of course if you are willing to pay 1000x the price you might get 486 level computing power.

My point is there is no guarantee that computing power will grow exponentially per unit of cost beyond 2020 to 2030 (depends on which timeline you think is most probable).  We may see computing grow significantly slower something more in line with other industries where a 5% to 8% year over year performance gain is considered a solid showing. 

[justusranvier]

My point is there is no guarantee that computing power will grow exponentially per unit of cost beyond 2020 to 2030

No guarantee, but I think it's likely that sometime between 2020 and 2030 computing will move away from silicon semiconductors. Possible alternatives include graphine semiconductors, optical computing, or single-atom transistors:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/nanotechnology/a-singleatom-transistor

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/persuading-light-to-mix-it-up-with-matter-1024.html

[Anon136]

Eventually all humans will be displaced from all labor (or if any humans choose to work, their wages will likely not be enough to support themselves). I suggest anyone who thinks that when AI comes humans can just find other things to work on, read this: http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/robotics-software/economics-of-the-singularity

here is a succinct and well polished video that explains why even if one person is better at literally everything than another person it still makes economic sense for both of them to work and trade with each other (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0H7r_Dl1CQ). This means that as long as people want to work, there will always be work available.

As for the issue of not being payed enough to survive, that will be entirely offset by the fact that the same productivity that has displaced them has also made the products that they consume proportionately cheaper, after all that was the reason why the entrepreneur chose to displace them to begin with.

[rpg]

Automation will just make things cheaper, so people will need less money and just need to work less.
If the automation doesn't make things cheaper then how will all these people without jobs be able to afford the products created by this automation? How will this automation survive economically?

These problems are always resolved automatically and naturally by market forces.

aside:
Unemployment is an artificially created situation used by governments to keep the employment market competitive and wages low.
It's easy to solve n% unemployment if you want to - just make everyone work n% less and thus create n% more work.

the past 2 revolutions created bubbles and ended in recession followed by world wars, why would now be any different? The first 2 steps have already happen and some may say we're living ww3