Once a robot masters a task, that knowledge propagates instantly across the entire fleet. Humans don’t work that way. Robots do.
*At $300 per month to lease, against a U.S. minimum wage that runs $15 to $20 per hour, a humanoid robot is already 50 times cheaper than the human it displaces, and it works around the clock without benefits, turnover, or OSHA violations. *
corporations with large labor forces will love the improvement in profit margins, workers will not. That asymmetry is not a flaw in the system; it’s a feature of who owns the system.
Midwest auto communities hollowed out by trade and automation in the 1990s. But the coming displacement is potentially 10 to 100 times more disruptive — not because it’s faster, but because it spans both blue-collar and white-collar work simultaneously. Software engineers, call center workers, and administrative roles face AI-driven displacement. Factory workers, warehouse staff, and service workers are facing displacement by humanoid robots. There’s no obvious “up-the-ladder” escape hatch when both rungs are being removed at once.
The solution supposedly is UBI.
Methinks that is a stop gap to keep the masses somewhat tranquil.
Most humans will be extraneous in an AI/Robot world.
A reduction in the number of humans equals less pollution and depletion of natural resources.
Will breeding no longer be a right. Well except for those with superior IQs to keep the system running.
A world where corporation production turns from mass production to limited runs of toys & gadgets for the remaining humans.
Will the resulting world be utopia or dystopian? I predict the later. After all that’s how humans roll.
The idea that the overlords are voluntarily going to part with a large part of their income to support UBI is as fanciful as thinking they would support universal health care because it would be good for their country and their business.
The human capacity for greed knows no bounds, and UBI is very far on the other side of the fence from that.
At the 2020 World Economic Forum Jane Goodall noted that “We cannot hide away from human population growth, because it underlies so many of the other problems. All these things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if the world was the size of the population that there was 500 years ago.”
The world population circa 1500 was 450-500 million.
For every “pro” AI/robot story there is at least a “con” story. Obviously the programmers didn’t encode Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”. Just waiting for the grid to be shut down or a nuke to be launched.
Just love the AI attitude in its response as to why.
Limiting the population will start in the developed nations first. The US Alpha generation is 20 million less than previous generations.
Once the developed nations have brought their populations to heel; they will then concentrate on lesser developed nations. By FORCE if need be!
We are after all the EXCEPTIONAL nation.
I am a cynical realist
The most recent US generation Alpha is 20 million less than the preceding generation. I expect that trend to acceleration as job cuts hit & higher education cost continue to spirel up along with health care to say nothing about the cost of raising a child.
There is a current excess higher education & elementary school capacity. I expect that to filter down into high schools.
Another aspect is unlike electronics, robots are mechanical. They require maintenance and they wear out. Yes, they will displace workers but not nearly like AI. I suspect their maintenance requirement will be double that of data centers.
I was on a plane to Rio de Janeiro in 1988. I met a man from Boston flying to Manaus. He was installing wave soldering machines. He was replacing women that were hand soldering TV’s at a dollar a day. The machines were much cheaper per printed circuit board.
The woman did not die, Manaus is still there. TV’s of some sort are still getting built.
No we will not sit around writing poetry. Yes we will work. If you do even a little research, you will see how more much energy the world needs for every human to consume energy the way an American consumes energy. When you do, you will realize that we can never have a world like that using the technology that we have today. There will be massive amounts of work to do, and when that is done, there will be new problems and a massive amount more work to be done.
Yes, because better performing chips become available. You wonder if the same will be true of robots.
Old chips are easy to upgrade. Discard the old when obsolete. I suspect robots will be more like used cars. They will be moved to less demanding jobs before finally being scrapped. And they will require maintenance for the whole trip.
I would guess that new chip, as in makes old chip obsolete, is a board swap at a minimum, not a mere chip swap. Chip swap is for a burned out chip replaced with the same thing.
But high powered chips that run with lots of electrical power and heat generation actually do wear out much faster than you would think. (even though there are no moving parts)