Posted on 03/02/2015 4:49:50 AM PST by expat_panama
As robots increasingly adopt human qualities, including those that allow them to replace actual human labor, economists are starting to worry. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, some “wonder if automation technology is near a tipping point, when machines finally master traits that have kept human workers irreplaceable.”
The fears of economists, politicians and workers themselves are way overdone. They should embrace the rise of robots precisely because they love job creation. As my upcoming book Popular Economics points out with regularity, abundant job creation is always and everywhere the happy result of technological advances that tautologically lead to job destruction.
Robots will ultimately be the biggest job creators simply because aggressive automation will free us up to do new work by virtue of it erasing toil that was once essential. Lest we forget, there was a time in American history when just about everyone worked whether they wanted to or not — on farms — just to survive. Thank goodness technology destroyed lots of agricultural work that freed Americans up to pursue a wide range of vocations off the farm.
With their evolution as labor inputs, robots bring the promise of new forms of work that will have us marveling at labor we wasted in the past, and that will make past job destroyers like wind, water, the cotton gin, the car, the internet and the computer seem small by comparison. All the previously mentioned advances made lots of work redundant, but far from forcing us into breadlines, the destruction of certain forms of work occurred alongside the creation of totally new ways to earn a living. Robots promise a beautiful multiple of the same.
To understand why, we need to first remember that what is saved on labor redounds to increased capital availability for new ideas...
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I think I understand what you are saying. We can tax our way to prosperity?
I believe that the founders had the concept of a Westphalian peace in their minds when they crafted the commerce clause. They additionally limited tax and spend powers based upon their experience with the limitations with Royal patents. This basically left tariffs as the most effective way to secure federal revenue by default. I don't think the founders had tariffs creating a secret garden in mind.
I agree with you that the demise of federalism with the misinterpretation of the tax an spend powers in US v. Butler and the income tax granted the federal government the police power tools to assault the middle class and in fact the entire economy.
If we continue to devolve into a liberal, fascist police state the government will use robots to control the population.
Really disappointed there is no Cyberdyne Systems...
Well, yes. The issue now isn’t a lack of unskilled labor, but of skilled labor. How will this help...if one proposes to replace low skill positions with high skill positions?
“Hi! Welcome to Jonny Cab!”
“We hope you enjoyed the ride.”
I wonder, when 90% of the people worked on farms did people have the same angst you’re having when they saw the coming of autos, tractors, combines, trucks etc.?
We’re a very long way from producing a competitor to humans with all our intricacies. Humans are extremely creative and adaptable. It is difficult for us to foresee how we will cope, nut I’m confident that not only will we cope but we will thrive.
Enlightened1 is a retread troll using a sleeper account, that has at least two vanity threads that he will not return to to face his provacations.
He is one of the Paul nuts who signed up for a dormant account, and then activated it about a year later.
Enlightened1 why won’t you return to these vanity threads of yours where you were accusing long time freepers of being sleeper accounts?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3262821/posts?page=249#249
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3262591/posts?page=34#34
I grew up on a family farm that in the 1910-1930 period, had an entire generation of eight kids involved in the farm process. Today, my brother runs it entirely by himself. With automation, he does the work of five individuals.
The issue I see....all of these lower-education type positions will be eliminated within thirty years...truck-drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, etc. There’s virtually nothing that will exist for these individuals or that marginal background.
It’s like the logging field. With three guys, I can run what used to take twenty-five people in the 1920s. I can see an entire grocery store operating with just one shift boss and one IT-guy to repair hardware. Even pizza delivery could be pushed down to one guy as the boss, and the rest dependent on automation and a driver-less vehicle. We wouldn’t even have some dimwit screwing up the pizza order anymore.
The reason they're not here today is because they already did today a long time ago.
I think.
Belies the notion that we need millions of unskilled workers added to the workforce.
Awe give this snot nosed noobie troll a break Ansel! He is just a kid with no clue yet. He comes here and runs off his young yap but won’t respond when banged on his idiotic ‘hijacked’ thread crap. Let’s hope that the Viking Kittehs are warming up in the bullpen for this kid’s toasting. FR does not need to waste bandwidth on this punk.
He is obviously a troll.
He already had a vanity thread where he launched into his nutty claims that posters were sleeper accounts that had not posted in years, until they got on his thread about Paul.
He quit responding on that thread when people started mocking him, but instead of dropping it, he started a vanity thread making the bizarre accusations.
As the ridicule grew on this thread (link below) approaching 300 posts, he abandoned it (early on) as well and will not respond to anyone.
The guy is a nooby who activated a sleeper account.
“It Appears There Are Hijacked Freeper Accounts”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3262821/posts?q=1&;page=1#1
Fascist police states never needed robots, the way they controlled their populations was that each subjugated populous chose to be controlled. The Gestapo never had very many officials watching and listening, they didn't need them. All they did was just answer the phone calls from all the people calling up to tattle on anyone they didn't like.
That has been the fear ever since the Industrial Revolution. It never happened. It likely won't again.
If new jobs aren't created for humans, it will be the result of government policies that make hiring too expensive; not new forms of automation.
Bull. Crap. Produce the evidence. How did they handle the collapse of the wavefunction? Does it require (nonexistent) room-temperature superconductors? Is D-Wave involved? Is their computer really a quantum computer, or just a simulated annealing model?
You don't know what you don't know.
Ping the mods on it; the kitties might be getting hungry...
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