Robots could cause millions of job losses and lead to the rise of COMMUNISM, warns Governor of [tr]

UK Daily Mail ^ | April; 16, 2018 | Phoebe Weston

[C19fan]

The Governor of the Bank of England has warned that the rise of robots in the workplace could cause a revival in Communism and 19th-century wage stagnation.

Mark Carney, 53, said automation of millions of jobs would result in more support of Communist ideas within a generation.

'Marx and Engels may again become relevant' if mechanisation forces down pay and raises inequality, he warned.

To alleviate the damage, Carney suggested workers should train for jobs that require higher emotional intelligence, for example in care and leisure.

[mowowie]

On Netflix check out the Black Mirror 4th season episode “Metalhead”...

[KC_for_Freedom]

I think your post is on target. But a lot of the disruption will not be caused by the machines taking jobs. It will be caused by many of the population rejecting the concept of everything being under machine control.

For example, I like driving. So do lots of people. We will find it difficult to hand over control of the vehicle to the “all seeing and mostly cool” software and sensors that only fail now every once in a while.

Note that they still put engineers in trains when trains and light rail could easily run with out people in charge.

Same with farm and factories. The machines can run without humans, but most of us put a person on them so they can take over when things go screwy.

Of course people like to postulate that machines will go past the point where they need corrective nudges once in a while, but this is where our natural need to drive comes in. And the numbers have not been worked out so that we know how many will have leisure and how many will still find employment. Maybe it will shift to a greater number of leisure people, and maybe we will adapt to that. But I suggest that we will see a segment of people who simply will not go all machine.

Now the issue is whether “for our own good” our leaders will be able to control the effort to have some segment of society actually use their own hands.

As a reference for this I recommend, Clark, “City and the Stars”.

[outofsalt]

Artificial intelligence is not going to happen anytime soon.
Automated intelligence is much closer to reality. Maybe, in practice, it is a fine distinction between original thoughts and algorithms but, there are real world decisions and interpretations that require true consciousness.
I imagine that automation may actually lead to simplification.
It’s anyone’s guess how we will fill our spare time which may be interminably long as medicine advances.

[InterceptPoint]

I think it is a concern. If one robot takes three jobs and only 1 job arises from the net loss of the three jobs, what happens in the long term?

Are we actually running out of things that need to be done? Are we running out of work?

I don’t think so. Robots and related automation will be a bit of a disruption but we will adjust to that as we go along. Personally I’m looking forward to it.

[robroys woman]

I’m one that loves to drive, but I see a world where people will be happy to be done with it. I moved from Seattle (where I commuted for 41 years) to rural KY, where I drive 160 miles round trip on my commute, half of it on beautiful two lane twisties. I drive a 2013 FR-S with Michelin PSS’s. I’ve been through seven sets of tires and have a blast every single day. I don’t even think about cops, but do have to watch for deer. I’ve done this for 143,000 miles.

But a funny thing happened. I’m finding I’m getting bored with driving, even drifting. If I could sit back on my 90 minute commute (each way) and read, or surf the internet, or a myriad of other things, I could really learn to love it.

And as I used to say to my friends back in 1970 in high school, when they hated a political change and they would say, “People will never accept that” - my response is the same as it was back then: “I think what you mean to say is that THIS GENERATION will never accept that.”

[DungeonMaster]

I just visited Florida 2 weeks ago. 21 million people and almost no factories. Automation has nothing to do with the economy in Florida or any place like it.

[GOPJ]

Mark Carney thinks if we're bored by a lack of jobs we'll turn to commie thugs to murder a few hundred millions of us?

Is he nuts?

Or that we'll chose to live like people in Venezuela who eat rats for breakfast?

What an effing fool... This isn't ‘the old days’ when people in first world countries thought it ‘might work’... It's NOW - when all of us can see with our own eyes that Communism brings misery, death, and poverty. Only 3rd world fools, illiterates and American College students are dumb enough to buy into Communism.(Oh, and deep state thugs within the Obama leftovers)

[Robert DeLong]

If one robot takes three jobs and only 1 job arises from the net loss of the three jobs, what happens in the long term?

But that wouldn't be the case. Someone is needed to program the robot, as it needs to be instructed what its function is, or perhaps even multiple functions. One needs to do maintenance on it, while yet another needs to repair it. Other jobs that will be required would be in the manufacturing of the robot. People to supply the materials to build it. Just the examples I can imagine right off the top of my head.

One major difference is that it will require skilled workers, not just healthy bodied people lacking any real skills.

[WMarshal]

Just making a point. If the government could limit voting by owning land they would make sure hardly anyone could own land.

[Jonty30]

There will be other jobs, but not as plenty. I can’t see how that is possible in the long-term.

[KC_for_Freedom]

A very good point. My son is in the M generation and he uses Uber to get home from the bar if he is not the dedicated driver. He loves the Tesla model and would like to turn driving over to his car from instead of securing a ride with Uber. But he does understand that driving is something he would not want to give up. He does believe in the future where everyone has an automatic mode in their car and on commutes the cars will take over and manage to get us where we are going faster than in today’s gridlock situation. (And I understand that some jerks mess the roads up for the rest of us. Autopilots will probably still be plagued by this same mindset.)

So I am agreeing with you, I am 72 and still like driving but when I was commuting, for the last 5 years of my work career (at a place that was served well by light rail) I used the public system. It was to avoid traffic and also I was starting to fall asleep on the drive home.

However, I think back to when they wanted us all to car pool to reduce traffic, one engineer I worked with said he would never give up the privacy and freedom that he had in his own car. I think what I am arguing about is that aspect of Freedom. Even when commuting, you are free to leave the congested highway and get where you are going on a back road. I believe that some people in our race (I do not know the percent, probably less than 30%) will opt out of the let-machines-take-over-for-us. Sure, they can do more of the boring and important production jobs, and I am not saying that everyone will be gainfully employed, some of us may just get a check from the production system. But I am still thinking like members of my generation in the expectation that every generation will have those independent minded people who will not buy a car that cannot be operated in manual mode (even if it does have an autopilot too.

[neverevergiveup]

Everyone will own a robot, send it to work, and collect the robot’s salary - while doing nothing but providing the robot a place to ‘plug in’ to recharge, and to pay for periodic servicing. You’ll also get to deduct the robot as a ‘dependent’ from your income tax, on the income the robot earned, but you confiscated - or something.