When I was growing up any predictions made about the future inevitably centred on the amount of leisure time we would all have once the robots that would wait on us hand and foot were pressed into service.

Instead, of having more leisure time, we (those of us in work, at any rate) are working more and more hours.

Is it possible to design a society that might go some way to fulfil those Utopian dreams? What might underpin it? Is it inevitable that the rich continue to amass impractical fortunes, while the poor are finding it harder to feed themselves and can this be redressed?

Eventually the wealthy will wipe out the poor and live a life of complete luxury

Eh? Loads of lower rung menial jobs have been replaced by technology, or at least we need fewer people in those roles.

These days people go on the dole instead of getting a job down at the docks or in a factory. Time for "leisure" has become time to protest the latest populist topic, to watch a Corrie omnibus, to steal shit and hand around on street corners.

The incorrect assumption wasn't that technology would remove the need for humans in many roles, but in how humans would react with nothing to do.

The CBC did a three part series on 'The Future of Work' last year ... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/less-wor ... -1.4306410


I wonder if some areas work more because they've scaled back the amount of employees they once had but still need people to do at least some of the work that the discarded ones did?

It also seems like some areas genuinely cut jobs/hours, but that other industries need people.

Seems that everyone needs skilled tradesmen now after a generation of kids (mine, for sure) were told to go to university or college (but not to start an apprenticeship, for something more tech-based).

Now that will cause a housing price collapse in Aus.

True, but their replacement hasn't benefited the normal man-in-the-street.

In the UK, I suppose you have a system which pays the unemployed, but the whole philosophy is geared to getting the jobless back to work, rather than offering a stipend to allow one to live (and to be able to spend that leisure time constructively).

Elon Musk (who has since disgraced himself with a series of twitter rants) suggested a few months back that a Universal Basic Income is going to become a necessity but how would it be funded? If it's not done, I fear that the consequences such as civil unrest and rising crime may be the result.

THere will need to be some form of universal income
What’s the point in having stock in apple etc if no one has any jobs because of automation so has no money to buy anything
The whole economy would just stagnate

Technology has been hit and miss.

Great that you can fly from one side of the planet to the other in a day and you dont have to waste time and energy washing clothes by hand.

On the flip side technology replacing human beings in the workforce is gonna be catastrophic....

Judgement Day is inevitable. We're all fugged.

If your job is so basic that it can be replaced by a machine, it probably should be.


There will have to be a change in the way kids are educated so that they have more transferable skills in a fluid job market

It's a system which "pays the unemployed" just about enough money to survive depending on where you live. Even working people use food banks and get clothing from charitable organisations. For those who are unemployed for any length of time the situation is desperate

The bored favourite Jordan Peterson has a good line on the problem of the complexification of the modern world, and what that means for future (and present even) job opportunities. His essential point being that even when there were manual jobs aplenty, there was a base minimum IQ you'd need to complete that work (he uses American Army experience, which is based on the fact that the army will take anyone as long as they have just enough education to perform, which eventually led them to working out that 10% of the population is simply too stupid to do even do the most menial of tasks).

The issue being, (and this me speaking now and taking that theory forward) that as the world gets more complex, and computers take up all the 'simple' jobs, the IQ level at which you are intellectually priced out of the job market is ever increasing...and will only carry on increasing.

As such, it doesn't matter what you teach the kids of the future, you'll need to rocking a 100+ IQ to just be able to get a foot in the game, then a number of years from then, a 115 IQ, then 130, so on and so forth. You'll end up at a situation where the intellectual requirements of the remaining jobs will end up out of the reach of a significant proportion of the population.

That, in my opinion is the issue. Neoliberal free market economics will surely start to breakdown some point when computer/robots do a shit tonne of the work, and only the very smartest still have jobs...simply put, if there aren't enough people out there to generate the demand, then the supply will dry up and it'll all go tits up from there.

We really need to start seriously thinking about how we structure a society when robots/computer can do most of the jobs a human can do. To that end, I've become a fan of the notion of taxing 'robots'. All that mechanical/AI based 'efficiency gains' gets you is corporations producing their wares for ever greater profit while simultaneously laying people off. Some sort of metric would need to be put in place that quantified how many 'man hours' a robot is taking, and then tax the company appropriately.

Yes, the wares are then more expensive as that cost is passed onto the consumer, but you can funnel that tax money back into society so more people have money to buy said wares (Universal Credit maybe?)...and, importantly, because you've managed to preserve the market, you can still get the benefits its supposedly meant to bring, i.e. competition so that if Company A hike up their price in defiance at being taxed for the amount of AI/Robots they use, Company B can come in and undercut them.

Right, that's the next few hundred years sorted...what' the next question?

You should try being jobless in most of Africa.

Good post.

Where this scenario ends up is the point at which human beings are essentially obsolete because people can't contribute to society and have no reason to exist. When all human endeavor can be done more cheaply and more efficiently by a robot you have rendered human existence pointless.

This is an interesting one.
Current projections are that there will be an employment issue in the future, but the opposite to what many are predicting. We wont have enough people, at least in the developed world. Jobs are lost to technology, but new jovs are created. Equally we have an aging population as family sizes are down. Unfortunately these jobs will be of higher skill.
Vasically we need more people.

I don't agree with that. Human existence isn't to work. However, I do agree it presents a great problem (maybe even an existential problem) for out species. If we don't have a purpose, or any meaning to our lives, then we will all suffer...but it will be up to us to find new meaning, and new purpose in a world where it's not directly tied to our financial wellbeing.

I suppose alongside whatever form of society comes next will be a need to solve a few fairly massive problems (food crisis, energy crisis, water crisis)...but should they be solved (and I'm a great believer in necessity being the mother of all inventions), then we should look forward to a future that was always dreamed of for our species.

The real worry I have is the the staunch adherence to set societal and economic theories will mean ideologues will resist any requisite change to the very last...almost certainly violently come the ultimate pinch point.

Work is integral to the human experience as we know it. What we do for work forms a huge part of our identity, it defines us and provides us a sense of self worth. Entire communities and cities have historically derived their community pride from the big industry in town or the largest employer, be it coal in Wales, steel in Sheffield etc.

On a personal level from a young age kids are asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" because we condition them to think about what role they will have in society, how they will contribute and how they will help others. If you take work away from Joe Average because he's got mediocre intellect and no outstanding talents you are gonna have great difficulty filling that void imo.

There's an argument to be had there about how much of an individual's IQ is innate and how much is learned or impacted by their upbringing. It's well established that the average IQ trends higher over time and that must be "nurture" rather than "nature". Petersen is being overly cynical with his example. I think the percentage of genuinely genetically stupid people is much much smaller than would be sufficient to destabilise the economy. For the majority, if we can educate them well and provide them with adaptable skills then they will be fine. Opening up access to retraining and higher education for adults will be critical.

A much larger threat to employment is the automation of jobs, but that will always be countered by the cost of labour. We might see more income inequality between highly skilled and less skilled workers but I would have doubts that people would be completely unable to find work.

Sex robots.

Fin.

Luckily there will be enough poor people to supply body parts and fetuses for stem cells for the ageing elite to keep themselves fit and in working/playing condition. Technology is a blessing, for some.

In Australia sure. The problem is far worse for Japan or Korea as they pretty much reject immigration.

But globally? No. Africa, South America, India, China paint a different picture.

Absolutely.
Like i said, its a develooed world problem. Not a third world problem.

Surely in less than 100 years the intellectual elite will be heading off-world to colonise new planets, leaving the rest behind to fend for themselves on an overheated Earth?

But what about the 'trickle down' effect?

You do not understand. Protein is a scarce commodity.

Rewatch the flick Soylent Green .

I just wonder how the grand kiddiwinks will grow up into.

I expect they will have mobile phones embedded in their brains on birth.

Much as I embrace the "new tomorrow" I cannot but think of my days growing up.

We had the only phone in the avenue and people used to queue in the hall to use it.

"Caller, what number do you require?" "I'm putting you through".

We were Eaton 322. The local funeral directors were Eaton 332.

Dad used to take a call late at night from distressed widows/widowers on a few occasions.

Bakelite phone with a proper dial (weighed a ton). Strowger equipment.

My current mobile phone is useless. Takes an age to open, or commit to a function. Old phones did not do that, were uncomplicated but honest.

Guess I will have to fork our and get a new one.

Even Japan which is being touted as an example of demographic collapse is stable at 127 million people.
It's hard to see why with their land mass why they would want more people. A loss of population driven by lower birth rate and increasing longevity, is a massive benefit.

As for jobs being created, it can't have escaped your attention that most are low value jobs, otherwise we would not be seeing the increasing divergence in wealth.

I read a recent argument which stated that by his estimate up to 50% of jobs in developed nations are effectively of no value. Job where people sell products or services that no one really needs, but are kept going for no other reason than because people can be persuaded to buy products or services they don't need.

We shouldn't be surprised at this, because production efficiency has soared, but there us a practical limit to what people can consume.

The other inescapable conclusion is that the leverage afforded by intelligence/skill/capital will continue to increase.

What can be done about it?
I don't fvcking know.

I had that happen by accident once in the bathroom

Quite colourful for a darkage.

Sure.
But we are still going to see a shortfall in people for the jobs out there. They wont be low skill jobs mind.

We have to rethink our notion of work. The unemployed are still looked upon as dole scum, benefits cheats. The vast majority of people want to work but there isn't enough meaningful employment to go around. An artist or an artisan or whatever who produces something of value, perhaps not enough to get by but worth something nonetheless, is contributing something even if they claim jobseekers or whatever. Certainly technology is chipping away at humanity's sense of purpose as it is so we should go easy on the shaming of those who don't fit into somebody's notion of a model citizen while we're at it.

Have a look at this essay:

ON THE PHENOMENON OF BULLSH1T JOBS

Opening paragraph:



It's an entertaining read.

It is. I'm very pleased you picked up this. Working in Milton Keynes then.

a few years ago there was some article about how technology have affected mostly white collar workers. With the advent of laptops and mobile phones, work does not really stay at the office anymore.
Before those pieces of tech, when you left the office, you tended to leave your work until the next day and had a true break from work.
Now when you leave the office, the laptop and phone comes with you, so when your boss at 8pm ask you to quickly update a spreadsheet or whatever.... that is exactly what you do, instead of doing it the next day.

So in that sense people have less break from work than before.

And from personal experience, i have no clear cut break from my work anymore.... even when on holiday, the laptop is always with me in case something needs done. When i just started working after studying, mobile phones were still only something the rich can afford... my after work time were a lot more free in those days.

Perhaps straying a bit but there's the death of the retail High Street imminent. Amazon et al have murdered it.

On-line purchases will rule.

English will no longer be the language of commerce, machine learning translation accuracy, availability and speed will ensure the language of commerce is whatever language you speak. That’s my prediction .

Interesting observation. I might disagree but I speak quite a lot of languages as does The Management.

We hop from one to another in a sentence! I can get by in Esperanto, of which which I learnt a few years back. But a central language will be a real hurdle.

Some are "sing-song". I've sailed a lot in Thailand and their language is a right blighter. Siamese (head in hands) and even Manadarin are complex, involving the same word expressed in different tones.

Oim from Norfolk. If I put on my native tongue, only the natives will understand. So I stick with the cut-glass speech I'm comfy with.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsE8jm1GzE

Only a few mins as a taster.

Considering we’re only ten years into this, I’m expecting universal translation in about 20 years min.