To think at some point none of us will work

[BrightonCalling]

Do you think that because of automation at some point it just wont be possible for the majority of people to be employed?

If that happens, how will we need to restructure society/the way we live?

These technologies start slow but progress very quickly, I personally don't think it's that far off and can't come soon enough, we need a new system from the ground up and these advancements will push that to happen hopefully.

Unfortunately, I think it will be from the top down, with the rich getting richer, and the poor left to fend for themselves.

What gives you the optimism that any reforms would be the other way around? That would require the rich turkeys to vote for Christmas.

History tells us that any major social reforms are orchestrated by the rich, and those that aren't result in a great amount of bloodshed.

The government will introduce mandatory time wasting courses to keep us busy. Annual driving tests, healthy eating, parenting etc.

Worldwide population growth is a problem
Or more to the point the total lack of it in all continents except Africa
populations are ageing and shrinking everywhere
more old people to be supported by fewer young people

and I'm still waiting for the techno fan who thinks that robots will be wiping old ladies' bottoms in decades to come

I found these books quite helpful

timjackson.org.uk/ecological-economics/pwg/

www.penguin.co.uk/books/304706/basic-income/

Also loved the Johan Hari one

@TalkinPeece - a lot of the older population growth is due to this current generation of older people having had access to clean water, enough food and decent health care. They could be a blip if such stop being widely available.

Today 19:32 CoffeeOrSleep

- a lot of the older population growth is due to this current generation of older people having had access to clean water, enough food and decent health care. They could be a blip if such stop being widely available.

...or antibiotics stop working

Worldwide population growth is a problem
Or more to the point the total lack of it in all continents except Africa
populations are ageing and shrinking everywhere
more old people to be supported by fewer young people

This is simply not true though. It is true that the rate of growth has peaked, and is now slowing, but the world population is still predicted to increase by 1 billion every 12 years and hit a peak of 11 billion by 2088 ( if my memory serves me correctly).

That is an awful lot of extra mouths to feed over the next 70 years, and compare the world now to how it was in 1948 and the size of the problem is huge.

With regards to robots wiping old ladies bums, I feel many people are taking the word "robot" to mean an actual machine, whereas presently the current major advances in AI are in the software design, where machines can adapt and evolve their own software. The next generation will be actually able to write software for other machines, and that will be a quantum leap with unimaginable consequences. Ally that with the sci-fi esque current advances in artificial DNA memory, and biological (bacteria) based computers, and therefore "nano-bots" become a distinct possibility.

world population is still predicted to increase by 1 billion every 12 years and hit a peak of 11 billion by 2088 ( if my memory serves me correctly)
It does not ... update your midset

the lack of youth is the biggest problem facing the world in the next 30 years

badbilly
how will an "AI" wipe an old lady's bum
in the real world of getting the shit off
not the theoretical world ....

It does not ... update your mindset

I suggest you update yours- you are confusing "rate of change", which is falling, but the actual world population is still increasing.

ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth.

The above was updated in April 2017, so is pretty current- unless you can direct me to another more recent source.

The problem is that the youth don't stay young. they get older, then need new youth to look after them. We need a smaller 'youth' so that eventually we will have a smaller ageing population, who will need a smaller working population to take care of them. To keep increasing the birthrate to look after the old spells environmental catastrophe for us all. Especially if there is no work for them all.

I think it's going to be such phased development that societies will adapt. I do fear pushing our young people into ciding/software engineering who are then having to compete with low cost/well educated people in india/china/Philippines etc is a mistake, but I can't imagine robots building houses plumbing & putting in electrics any time soon, vs autonomous driving lorries (over short distances) or taxis being in the next 10 years or so.

Data & profiling is the key - we shouldn't be giving corporations our data for free with smart meters etc which they will then use against us inbpricing models with supply & demand. They should be paying us for it!

The problem is that the youth don't stay young. they get older, then need new youth to look after them. We need a smaller 'youth' so that eventually we will have a smaller ageing population, who will need a smaller working population to take care of them. To keep increasing the birthrate to look after the old spells environmental catastrophe for us all. Especially if there is no work for them all.

The Birth Rate has already peaked in about 1962, but the world population is set to peak at about 11 billion by 2100.

It will then start to fall.

badbilly
how will an "AI" wipe an old
lady's bum
in the real world of getting the shit
off
not the theoretical world ....

phys.org/news/2018-02-cancer-fighting-nanorobots-tumors.html

Nanobots are already being used to fight cancer, so maybe they could be programmed to just stop ladies shitting themselves in the first place.

but I can't imagine robots building houses plumbing & putting in electrics any time soon, vs autonomous driving lorries (over short distances) or taxis being in the next 10 years or so.

But can you imagine homes of the future being designed by computers so robots can build them?

^I would love to see mass automation and then the profits shared equally among a population all working far less hours and enjoying far more leisure time!*

Yeah it’s called communism.

I'm afraid house-building robots already exist. Take a look at this video:

It can put down the bricks for an entire house in just 2 days. It's fairly crude at the moment, but just give it a few years...

Leafty
bricks do not make house
first and second fix electrics and plumbing do that

bricks do not make house
first and second fix electrics and plumbing do that

You're putting the cart before the horse, and comparing everything to a modern house.

Maybe, as I alluded to in a previous post, if a computer designed the house, they could design it in a way that a robot could assemble it. Maybe prefabricated with electric/plumbing included and just assembled on site. In the future houses might look quite different to today, with different materials, different concepts, different methods.

However, no one is saying they will be no jobs in the future, but computers/robots could cut down the work force to a great degree.

It all comes down to cost.

Huf Houses have been prefabricated for many years
BUT
you cannot adjust the walls once they are built
and with the current labour supply, they cost many times what a traditional house costs.

Builders will only automate when it makes money to do so.
That is a long way off.

But who would be buying these houses? People on the citizens wage? It would be a pittance, because the only way to raise money to pay it would be to tax the rich. The rich would be the ones building and designing robots, so they wouldn't want to be taxed half their earnings to pay the citizens wage. The biggest argument against robots is that they would end up making things that nobody would be able to buy if nobody could get jobs. The whole economy would collapse. Rich people cant get rich from robots without people at the middle and bottom using their robots, or they are just selling to each other. There wont be enough of them to keep doing that. Even the bankers who get rich by playing with imaginary money are playing with poorer peoples imaginary money in the form of pension funds etc. The economy always needs people at the bottom to buy their stuff. That's why China keeps lending us money, because if we don't have any money to buy their goods, their economy is stuffed. They would have no one to sell it to.

I was reading an article about recycling in India .....

there is no (like none at all) sorting of rubbish in India
because there are so many poor people that its cheaper to get them to pick through the heaps
than to have multiple bins ....

how will automation compete with people willing to under cut it ?

Cleaners, warehouse people, delivery drivers, mechanics and order pickers will need to be employed.

Service, health and banking industries will always need people.

Ijusthadto the trouble is that there will be millions competing for those jobs. In the 1960s the docks were full of men employed to load and unload ships. Nowadays in Rotterdam, etc it is nearly all fully automated.