Automation is how humans prove they are smart.
Machines should work. Humans should think.
Over time, the boundary between working and thinking will shift in the direction of thinking. Thinkers will accelerate the shift.
Posted on 08/21/2014 1:28:02 AM PDT by lee martell
We get closer having the ability to implement a fully automated, robotized, dehumanized society every day. Google has been testing self driving cars in select areas of the country for the last six or seven years. Only now, has the driverless car become something more than an engineers fantasy. McDonald's Restaurants and other fast food retailers are preparing themselves to be forced to offer a minimum wage that usually comes only after several skill sets have been mastered by a seasoned employee. The restaurants prepare for this change by wheeling in a few automated order taking machines. Drones may soak up many delivery jobs in the future. Even the world of medical treatment has been effected. Robotic surgery is said to specialize in minimally invasive procedures performed by using very small incisions. One of the most popular Robotic Surgery tool is named the Da Vinci. All of these inventions increase bottom line efficiency and production, two aspects at the core of every well functioning business or public concern. That the machines are more accurate, efficient, dependable, and exponentially cheaper than using people is often accepted as obvious fact. But if the momentum of change continues, how is society to prepare for the tidal waves of unemployed people who will very soon outnumber those still actively working? What will all these people do with there time? The easy, short term answer for some may be to treat every day as though it were Saturday. That approach to every day will quickly become tiresome. Most of us need to work, and not just for the money.
Working on a regular basis, even working part time, adds structure to one's life. Many people are not very social, unless artificially put into tense, complex situations that must be dealt with. Working helps the average person reach a feeling of achievement. One is told to 'do your best' on your job, whatever that job involves. Working helps some people to incorporate their survival instinct with their ambition, and take calculated risks. Many people meet their best friends while on the job. Some people would never have been happily married had they not been working or involved in the demands of their job. This may be stronger in the American culture than in many other parts of the world, but many people find their greatest personal satisfaction while on the job. The right job takes you outside of yourself, and provides you with an opportunity to serve others. This is one reason why volunteer work is so popular with those who can afford to do so. The right job offers temporary solace to that inner need to be needed. We all want to be needed sometimes for somethings.
We have established the importance and intrinsic value of working. We must coordinate this personal need of the soul and of the ego to work along with the ominous March of The Robots. They are coming closer, and closer still. It is my opinion that eventually, there will be a system agreed to that will preserve a portion of most jobs for human workers. This may be a percentage. Not long from now, many companies will make a point of telling you; "Not only do we have websites, twitter, and facebook, we also have 'team members' waiting to meet with you at our office. Yes, we hire people, not just delivery systems. We support the goal of working to achieve personal growth!". Personal Growth through employment may become as in vogue as the 'New Green', something most everyone will say they support and comprehend, even when they don't. The Unions may find a way to promote the hiring and retention of fixed numbers of people. The Unions will be one answer to this approaching dilemma, but their clout is far smaller today that it was thirty years ago, when many workers were forced to pay dues.
Automation is how humans prove they are smart.
Machines should work. Humans should think.
Over time, the boundary between working and thinking will shift in the direction of thinking. Thinkers will accelerate the shift.
Have you ever read R.U.R..the 1920 sci-fi play by Karel Capek?
Will there be affirmative action in Heaven?
Interesting. Even back then, there was trepidation about the March of The Robots. RuR, shows clone like robots created from organic matter.”They seem happy to work for humans at first, but that changes, and a hostile robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race”.
Heaven will sort itself out. First, we have to solve earth’s problems.
There might be ‘Pet Sinners” kept in glowing glass cages, Made to act out their sins, for the entertainment of the morally pure, force fed meals, like a fine fatted goose, then placed on a hamster wheel to burn off the fat. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Just a hair split but a local Mcds near me closed due to the Obama minimum wage hikes on gov’t contractors. Was on military leased property with civilian access and had good service and quality as far as a McDs can go. They warned the employees that if Obama signed the bill that they couldn’t afford to pay $10.10 an hour. He signed it so they closed.
The employees were able to get jobs at other area stores but all are now several miles away. Most of their people were military dependents and able to walk of bike to work before it closed.
Then you will have a room full of people who only live in their heads and not have the experience of “doing”. “Doers” understand how things work in the real world. What happens when the machine breaks down? Computers or machines go down and everything comes to a stop.
I can just imagine the chaos when the machines asks, “Do you want pickles, mustard or katsup with that” after you have already hit the order button and changed your mind.
At least the machine may be able to speak English. (Oh, I imagine any language could be programmed for you to select so the machine could speak to you.)
Fun times a coming.
hen you will have a room full of people who only live in their heads and not have the experience of “doing”. “Doers” understand how things work in the real world.
It will be (Affirmative Action)**squared. A certain number of humans, and within that subcategory, racial sub-quotas. /S
Companies do not exist to give people jobs. They exist to make a profit, and jobs are a side effect.
Sheetz is a deli/sub/convenience chain that uses touch screens for ordering. Very nice to just pick stuff off a menu when all you want to do is pick stuff off a menu (like, say, every fast-food place).
The simple answer is to deport the current illegals and only allowed killed immigrants to join us in the future.
We have more than enough low-skill and low-ability folk already.
Here’s another view on the jobs that robots either cannot take or won’t be allowed to take.
The Great Shift Toward Automation and the Future of Employment
http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/The-Great-Shift-and-the-Future-of-Employment
There are over a billion people without regular electricity, two billion without sewer.
There is serious demand for infrastructure for them, whether pee powered fuel cells, solar, biomass or natural gas power is TBD. Clean water sources and waste disposal is another matter.
To say we need to create more unemployed people and use electricity to run the robots while you don’t get power is a recipe for disaster. Same is true to say the wafer fab gets clean water but the barrio doesn’t.
If unemployment is high enough, we could see a rise of servants again. It becomes a type of charitable act to provide paid employment as well as a status symbol.
True, but unless you don’t declare the employees and with-hold, they’d be employed, in the US gov’ts statistical sense of the word.
Good article. The author made similar points but developed them fully. She has good insight.
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