Political science fiction: The robots are able to do intellectual and phisical job

Let's imagine that we have been able to advance so much in AI and we are able to create robots that are able to do intellectual jobs like teaching, designing buildings, diagnosis of illness and cure them... and also all kind of phisical jobs like serving food, build buildings from zero.

What would pass with the workers? What would you do with all the people that cannot work, because have been substituted by machines? What solutions do you propose to this problem? The capitalism would continue being mantainable? Would we have to change of economical and organizative system?

 

If it came to that point I would hope that we would live in Star Trek, where everyone is taken care of and those that work do so because they wish to do so. If the machines could repair themselves then there would be no reason for anyone to do anything. The machines would simply pump out all wants and needs, allowing us to do whatever we wish with our lives. Unfortunately with humanity being what it is, it's more likely we would all live under some sort of dictatorship where only the elites have what they want/need and the rest of us live in squalor.

 

I've thought about this before and I really haven't come up with a good solution. I think the scenario is completely inevitable, though the when is impossible to nail down. It's definitely already begun in some areas. Right now the main problem seems to be mobility. I think software wise they could easily program robots to perform tasks and possibly even teach. I'm not sure where we are on organic creativity in AI but I bet algorithms could easily be made that would allow AI to design buildings.

 

It depends of the system. In capitalism would lead to some kind of situation that the previous poster to you has mentioned(in the not ideal situation). I think that the best system that solves this problem are the communist ones, and the best one is the anarchocommunism.

 

It would have to switch. Capitalism is a great system when people have to work, however if no one has to work then a socialist system where the machines take care of our wants and needs is clearly the way to go. I'd assume that in a world where the is no want or need there would be no reason for humans to produce stuff other than for their own pleasure. Want a fried chicken, tell the robot. Want a TV, tell the robot. Still I'd bet there would be those who want to live elsewhere. Not everyone would want to live the life the robots provide, especially if they started dictating law. The whole 'laws for our safety' is bad enough today, I couldn't imagine how insanely secure life would be under benevolent robot rule.

 

What would the human workers do?

Robot programmers
Robot maintentance ppl
Robot designers
Root factory workers
etc.

Unless robots did all that too. In that case, they'd be us and we'd be like female rabbits. Fukt

 

That is not enough work for all. Not everybody have the abilities to work as a designer, a programmer...

 

Iain M Banks has it covered. It's a hedonistic existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

 

It will be massive war once we get smart robots.

 

Assuming that the inevitable take over by the machines is somehow avoided it isn't that much different than today as far as the teaching aspect is concerned. I used the ALEKS system for my Algebra courses in college this last year and that is all online with a computer. The instructor only gave the tests and addressed any problems that a majority of the class might have had issues with.

 

TurboTax does most people's taxes quite nicely.
AutoCad made the draftman obsolete.
Word Processors and e-mail made the secretary obsolete.
Spreadsheets made double-entry bookkeeping child's play.
Database management systems made stock keeper redundant.
Rail car bar code readers made conductors redundant.
Airliners routinely fly with a two-man flight crew. I can remember four-man flight crews.
Coal mines operate with underground crews that are 10% of what they were in the 70s and 1% of what they were in the 1940s.
Telephone operators are very, very rare.

 

Well, according to one Soviet-era study it was suggested that the imperialists would use taxes from the peasents to finance robot research until good-enough models were designed for the imperialist capitalists to buy the results of the research for pennies on the dollar of what it would have cost to invent had the capitalists invested their own money, whereupon the new owners use the robots to be a massive, uncorruptable defense force, leaving said imperialists free to nerve-gas the rest of the overpopulated planet in order to restore ecolocical sustainability so their kids will have a nice place to live.

 

I know... it's a problem. The same one the US and several others are still having in switching from a predominately manufacturing to information and services oriented society.

 

I agree. Not everyone is prepared for the post-industrial service economy that is the United States. I not only attribute this to personal faltering. There is a tremendous human capital development gap in this country, and it is very much correlated to disparities/differences in standard of living, familial stability, coherence, and cohesion, and the character of values, norms, philosophies, cultures, etc.

For example, I grew up in an upper middle class, suburban New York neighborhood. My parents did not always have enough to make ends meet, yet with the assistance of my wealthy grandmother, we did. Either way, my parents instilled a strong belief in overcoming adversity, personal responsibility, hard work, dedication, education, knowledge immersion and acquisition, and effective knowledge application. This includes an ability to be creative and innovative, an cognitive facet I use to compensate for my learning disability that hinders spatial reasoning and number processing.

Throughout my primary and secondary education, I showed that I had a keen ability to use multiple ways of cognition to solve a problem, accomplish a task, or develop an idea. This most often manifested itself, at least in my early years in the arts. I had a somewhat natural ability to write poetry. I was really into abstract drawing. Later on in high school, I developed advanced graphic design skills. Even to this very day, when I am majoring in international relations, I retain this these attributes.

Of course, the creative arts are not the only interests I formed while in primary and secondary school. I always had interest and skillfulness in the social sciences, humanities, and related disciplines. My first loves in these areas were probably geography, anthropology, history, and demography. In high school, I came to love and excel in political science, international relations, and economics. When the time came to decide what I intended to study in college, I initially decided upon graphic design and advertising. However, I realize that the career prospects in the field are abysmal, with low starting salaries, a mentally wrenching competitive spirit, and very little prospects for a decent standard of living. Recognizing my love of the social sciences, but in particular international relations, I chose to major in this field instead.

As a seasoned freshman in college, I can say that I made the right decision. The field of international relations, combined with my creative and innovative spirit opens up so many opportunities for me. I am currently trying to reconcile the two as I take world politics, Arabic language, economics, statistics, international communications, and other courses, all the while holding down an internship as a major developer of a start-up think-tank/NGO/non-profit/transnational civil society group specializing in public diplomacy. The future is bright for me in this post-industrial service economy.

Unfortunately, as I indicate earlier, not everyone is bestowed with my circumstance. There are people throughout the United States and indeed the world who lack even a semblance of opportunity to pick themselves up by the bootstraps. Focusing on just the United States, if this country is to return to its former greatness, the government and civil society must open the floodgates for people who cannot help themselves. Yes, this is not solely an issue that the government/state can solve. The people as a collective whole will need to do all that they intelligently and reasonably can to level the playing field. Only then will the United States reclaim its status as the city upon a shining hill.

Kilgram, I hope this long-winded and seemingly unrelated post helped address any of your inquiries. Using my personal narrative, I would say that in a world where AI is capable of doing all jobs, there are two viable scenarios. Understanding the vast division of well-being between humans, our species would decline into a state of complete consumerism and hedonism, much like the movie Wall-E. The other alternate reality would be a unification of the human species, despite all the division and disparity between them, as I indicate above, against AI. This would either lead to increased pressure on the programmers, managers, etc. of the AI beings, or large-scale revolt against them. This is, of course, assuming that there is a significant amount of people willing to uphold the desire of the human species to produce, to act, to build, and the like.