A question about the future and automation

[Ivyleaguestoner]

If AI and automation continues to replace jobs then what will happen to the economy?
Machines don't spend money.
If most jobs are replaced then what will happen to capitalism?
My job will, in time, be replaced by a computer. My partners already has in many parts of the world. There will not be enough jobs for us all to move into new roles.
Unemployment benefits will not stretch to us all spending money in the same way we do whilst employed. And so will the economy just slump, and will it matter?

Presumably the major tech companies, who make all of the money from automation, will be taxed to pay for us all to be on UBI - therefore generating the means for us to buy their products? It doesn't sound great does it? 🤔

I recently moved from a Big 4 firm to a MUCH smaller, regional employer where it sometimes feels like I've stepped back in time by 15 years. I mentioned to DH the other day that a major positive is that my new employer will be SO much slower to automate me out of a job!

@PandasAreUseless are they presently? Our current system certainly sees bigger employers pay their taxes fairly and allows all citizens to truly benefit from their economic success. Just like Reagan said would happen.

Well quite @Ivyleaguestoner.

I just don't understand where big tech companies' consumers will come from without giving them money via taxation. Without it, I can't see a way forward.

Our current system certainly sees bigger employers pay their taxes fairly and allows all citizens to truly benefit from their economic success.

Hum... I take it you're an American. The big tech companies which are incorporated in the US but have global domination don't always 'pay their taxes fairly' from a non-US perspective. Afaik the same doesn't so much apply to companies with more tangible products... except obviously many of those are now Chinese.

The U.K. is good at tech, but unfortunately our companies get bought up by Americans and others.

The point where widespread redundancies happen because AI and automation takes over most jobs feels far off, but the rate of change is getting faster.

There will become a point where society has to make a decision - either a universal basic income so that people can live comfortably without working, or a formalised two-level system where the majority live in poverty and a few live in luxury. (A bit like now, but on steroids.)

We will soon reach the point where AI can design better AI. Once that happens the rate of automation will drastically speed up.

There may be positive, for example jobs that are poorly paid could be automated. Carers for instance - once there are robots that look and feel human, and act like humans but without the flaws, everyone will be able to have their own care robot.

• cut down to a four day working week for all (employees paid for five days)
• redistribution of profits from industry areas who are replacing the majority or even minority if their workforce with machines. This must go into community or environmental budgets.
• all barriers to accessing and working in other countries to be removed.
• social housing reform
• free lifelong education for all
• communal shared spaces to reduce the need to all heat and use power in individual houses. More leisure time will mean more time spent at home and the planet cannot afford the amount of energy this would take.
• ban on private car ownership apart from in mitigating circumstances.
• Strict ethical guidelines of AI

This sounds like hell!

The terminator is coming.

What people forget is that the AI revolution is coming at the same time as the peak of human population.
The global fertility rate is falling to such an extent that we will peak around 2060 then go into a terminal decline towards extinction.

We won't have the hoards of cheap Labour anymore so will need robots to care for all the old people.

The global population pyramid will become a rectangle. The working age population will be small with a high dependency ratio.

There's already developments in 'telecare' which will monitor the elderly and infants of the future.

A future where humans engage in leisure and the arts is much more exciting than more centuries of dangerous drudge work.

Taxes can be raised by focussing on land and capital values.

They also need to learn to mine rare minerals and transport them across the globe. That is a very long way off.

"They " will do away with money, we will own nothing but will be happy ..........
Seriously though, humans must be pretty good at adapting and evolving through whatever comes our way because we are still here aren't we?

Maybe we need a simpler life anyway, consuming less so that we can better protect our planet.

Good question. I just hope the fallout is managed in a sensitive way👀

Strongly encourage your children to go for a career in doing the automation (computing or similar) or in something that cannot be automated (plumber, hairdresser, dog walker, nursery teacher).

Everything is going online and via an app. Look at most adverts now.
Many of them require you to go online to have a look.
How many people are booking their own holiday instead of going to a travel agent.

Nothing stands still.

Human evolution happens over millenia. We can't "evolve" to meet this challenge as it will take place over decades.

Without more analysis, I presume we would be more of a service economy, and have a universal basic income, then when humans reach to the star's, we begin colonising other planets

I really don’t know how you can make that presumption, or who “we” will be. It has been made very clear since the 1980s that an awful lot of people who have worked and put their lives into supporting this society are simply going to be exploited and abandoned whenever the richest see fit. Even the smug middle classes are beginning to see that.

As for ‘humans have always adapted’ and other such tropes, no actually they haven’t. There have been a number of social collapses before and in general humans die en masse in them. They often happen at times of changing technology that societies’ hierarchies are too rigid to adapt to. It was noted before Covid that some of the very richest were using the wealth they have extracted from us to buy themselves boltholes, in New Zealand and elsewhere.

And robots will not be able to advise on cuts and colours either!

I completely agree AI will change the world of work dramatically in our lifetime. And it will be jobs like coders. AI can already code in a much faster time than a human. Lots of repetitive jobs will be replaced, factory workers, truck drivers, data input etc

There are loads of jobs that won't be replaced by AI but could be improved. Hairdresser, vets, carers, social workers even jobs like train drivers because although they could the infrastructure needed will take hundred years to replace.

Job and work will be different. People need to stick to their guns on the value of these people centred jobs so that future us has a chance of making a decent living.

New jobs will be created, jobs that don't even exist at present.

People will adapt and move into different sectors and industries.

I suppose people said the same in the Industrial Revolution.

*do you want to know one of the most future-proof jobs out there?

Hairdresser*

Definitely.

People often say 'plumber', but I've seen a proposal for untrained inspection staff to wear an AR headset and, say, inspect a broken boiler. The AR overlays the name of each part and relays information back to an advice centre where commands are given to the inspection staff to enable them to fix the issue.

@NocturnalClocks
@RosaGallica Not very optimistic are you !
Right I’m off to re train as a hairdresser.

There have been a number of social collapses before and in general humans die en masse in them. They often happen at times of changing technology that societies’ hierarchies are too rigid to adapt to.

Exactly @RosaGallica . Some people seem to think societal development has been linear when it's anything but. Yes, technologocial changes and climate shifts have been the largest causes of collapses, and we're about to have by far the largest of both ever experienced, at the same time.

And robots will not be able to advise on cuts and colours either!

🤣🤣🤣 Do you really believe this?! This kind of technology exists already... matching people's bodies or faces to suggestions on colours/ clothes/ glasses etc that would suit them.

@NocturnalClocks
@RosaGallica Not very optimistic are you !

Ha! I'm more of a pragmatist.

I think technology is the only chance of long-term survival of the human race. But could easily also be its downfall, very quickly. My pessimism comes from the fact that the type of people in power around the world - who will determine which way it goes - are exactly the wrong kind of people to result in a positive outcome.

Miners and ship builders used to ask the same questions

Now they work in AI and new tech.

The world changes and evolves. Our children will have careers that haven't been invented yet.

I'm not sure there's proportionately less people employed today than there were in the 1950s. Work then was more labour intensive, and we've automated processes drastically since then.

The type of work will shift.

Love to know how many ex-miners are working in AI. 🤣