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Even Small Businesses Are Jumping on the Robot Bandwagon
NBC News ^ | Elaine Pofeldt

Posted on 05/03/2015 7:52:03 AM PDT by Enlightened1

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1 posted on 05/03/2015 7:52:04 AM PDT by Enlightened1
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To: Enlightened1

The cost benefit will be short-lived. Widespread adoption will force many more out of the job market and force more massive increases in social spending, leading to taxation that will take the cost benefit of robotics and then some. It’s not going to be pretty, I don’t see how this can occur without major disruption and dislocation. I’m beginning to understand the Luddites, the bad outweighs the good.


2 posted on 05/03/2015 7:57:43 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Enlightened1

“We need consumers out there who will buy what is created by the economy,” he said......

Can someone explain, who will have money to buy anything?
I’ve always heard that ‘money’ is what makes the world go round.


3 posted on 05/03/2015 8:03:34 AM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (0bama's agenda—Divide and conquer seems to be working.)
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To: RegulatorCountry

I don’t understand how business will think they will get ahead if there are no jobs no one can buy their products? Law of supply and demand right?


4 posted on 05/03/2015 8:03:51 AM PDT by Enlightened1
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To: TribalPrincess2U

Well said. See post #4


5 posted on 05/03/2015 8:04:49 AM PDT by Enlightened1
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To: RegulatorCountry
For thousands of years, people have complained that new technology is going to kill jobs and it has always created new jobs (albeit destroying old ones).

And even if we wanted to, holding back technological development is like holding back the tide.

6 posted on 05/03/2015 8:06:00 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (WSC: The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end...)
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To: Enlightened1

Probably because it is all relative, manufacturing/retail costs will go way down and there will always be consumers with some money.


7 posted on 05/03/2015 8:08:18 AM PDT by erlayman
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To: RegulatorCountry

As a robot repairman, the future is bright. Seriously, nothing has changed, those who worked hard in gaining skills can still sell those skills, while those who screw off and do drugs are unemployable. We used to let hunger be a teacher to the slothful, but now welfare is a high paying line of work. One that kills the very soul of a man...


8 posted on 05/03/2015 8:08:30 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
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To: Enlightened1

Those who remember our emergence from the Carter malaise will remember the way the PC was the “big new thing” as the economy ramped up in late 1981 and into ‘82 and ‘83.

As we emerge from the Obama “great recession,” the “big new thing” will be robots. Everywhere. And more and more of them.


9 posted on 05/03/2015 8:09:07 AM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP for A Slower Handbasket)
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To: RoosterRedux

I’m only observing the likely outcome, it won’t be pretty. Don’t see how it can be.


10 posted on 05/03/2015 8:09:27 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry
What if the size of the pie isn't fixed?

What if wealth can be created?

The luddites were famous for a zero-sum game.

They were wrong.

/johnny

11 posted on 05/03/2015 8:12:01 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (gone Galt)
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To: American in Israel

Artificial Intelligence may surpass people 10 to 15 years from now. So the bots will take most of those jobs too.

Check out the Quantum Chip from D-Wave.

http://www.dwavesys.com/


12 posted on 05/03/2015 8:12:50 AM PDT by Enlightened1
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To: RegulatorCountry

What this comes down to is that (most) people will fairly soon be irrelevant to the production of good and services. This is the logical result of the productivity curve, in which more goods and services are constantly being produced with less and less human input.

Pretty obviously at some point a LOT of “stuff” will be produced with very little human effort.

IOW, the market economy, based on the efficient allocation of scarce resources, is in the process of eating itself by eliminating scarcity.

One consequence may very well be the expansion of the state to reallocate resources to those who quite simply have no economic demand for any services they’re incapable of providing.

I’m curious if anybody has alternative libertarian ideas for organizing an economy where a smaller and smaller percentage of the people actually contribute.


13 posted on 05/03/2015 8:13:04 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

It’ll be deflationary because the pool of available buyers shrinks substantially due to the effects of robotics upon availability of gainful employment.


14 posted on 05/03/2015 8:15:07 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RoosterRedux

The difference is that past technology still needed a man’s hand to function. There has never been a time before when man can be removed just about completely from the entire process.

We are also just about getting to the point where the amount of necessary knowledge needed to stay ahead of the robots is impossible to acquire for most people.


15 posted on 05/03/2015 8:15:09 AM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Enlightened1

If governments would quit trying to control the economy and quit trying to social engineer the people, things will work themselves out.

I suspect almost all the problems we face today are the result of the government trying to micro manage people.

Life is not fair, and the government can not change that.


16 posted on 05/03/2015 8:18:24 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN (I do not doubt that our climate changes. I only doubt that anything man does has any effect.)
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To: Jonty30
You make a good point, but jobs don't exist in a vacuum.

If there is no human demand for products, there is no need for robots.

That said, there are millions of humans now who are unemployable in ANY position except drug dealing (think Baltimore and Ferguson).

We are at a really new point in our history, but I think perhaps each successive generation thought the same thing.

17 posted on 05/03/2015 8:21:18 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (WSC: The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end...)
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To: RegulatorCountry

” I’m beginning to understand the Luddites, the bad outweighs the good.”

And the luddites were wrong. Something llike 90% of people used to be employed by farming just over 100 years ago - today it’s about 3-4%. And we eat better, live better and longer, thanks to what they feared.

Modern day Luddites like their predecessors lack the understanding and imagination to see beyond the immediate cause and effects.

If they were running the world we would still be in the stone age.


18 posted on 05/03/2015 8:21:32 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: JRandomFreeper
That is true. Wealth can grow and life can be better for all.

I do worry, however, about our educational system and our social systems. A lot of people -- a lot -- are really not employable. I worry that we might slip into a world where money "goes away" and everything is "free". You know: robot factories make stuff, people sit at home, EBT cards arrive, people go to stores and then they come home with things.

That would be a pretty pointless existence. It doesn't have to be that way -- but I think Liberal policies are taking us in that direction, and I don't see many Republicans creating a better path.

My two cents.
And I hope you are feeling as well as can be today. Praying for you!

19 posted on 05/03/2015 8:21:53 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Democrats. They just ... say stuff.)
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To: RoosterRedux

Past performance does not guarantee future performance. Technology is a force multiplier, allowing us to get more done with less effort. Which gives us an increasing standard of living with less labor. And yes we continued to find new labor, but even then we’re just not working as hard. Eventually that force WILL be multiplied to the point where we just don’t need most people to be doing anything to maintain the standard of living. The big thing is how are we as a society going to adjust to a world where we simply only need 10% of the people to be in the work force.


20 posted on 05/03/2015 8:23:53 AM PDT by discostu (Bobby, I'm sorry you have a head like a potato.)
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