Workers In China, India, USA Believe AI and Robots Will Replace Them (qz.com)

An anonymous reader cites a Quartz article: Chinese workers have seen the future, and it involves artificial intelligence, robots, and other forms of automation replacing them, at least for repetitive tasks. That's how workers responded to interviews about the future of work conducted in 13 countries by the ADP Research Institute, part of the payroll systems company ADP. In contrast to China, a minority of workers in Germany think machines will take over repetitive tasks in the future. Workers in Chile, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and France among other countries agree. But American workers and those in India are inclined to see things the Chinese way; nearly two-thirds of those polled said they thought the machines were coming for repetitive work.

Comments

Simple answer is YES

[aisnota]

Humanity is in a system with an only bias, to fit the economic model.

Robots are going to replace and AI for services will slice huge swaths of the labor force into oblivion.

My optimistic assumption, even financial planners are even more doomed in 2016/2017 than programmers FYI.

Re: Simple answer is YES

[avatar avatar]

I've already written a fairly sophisticated AI to replace the vast majority of financial planners. The code is pasted below: echo Probably just buy an index fund.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots cost more than Chinese workers, and aren't as easily replaceable.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots don't commit suicide, don't steal, don't expect sick leave or vacation, and don't leak information about the upcoming iShiny.

Re:No

[mikael]

Good job WYSIWYG and Postscript laser printers never replaced printshop workers who assemble copper plate letters onto rotating print drums and strip them off afterwards.

Re:No

[LifesABeach]

And don't squawk when you crush, puncture, or place close to a flame.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

They also don't operate outside of their job description. A robot that could 100% replace me when I worked in fast food wouldn't look like a car factory robot or even Johnny Five, it'd look like Commander Data.

You wouldn't expect a burger flipper to ever need to climb a ladder, but guess what...

Re:No

[sonamchauhan]

The first sensible post I've seen in this thread.

Re:No

[phantomfive]

My gosh, good thing they did. That's ridiculous to have to do that.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

You wouldn't expect a burger flipper to ever need to climb a ladder, but guess what...

Right, so each geographic area will still need one human employee per fast-food chain. Instead of a whole crew of humans at each location.

It doesn't sound like you really wrapped your head around the math needed here.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I don't think you realize how versatile even a low-paid human is.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

I don't think you realize how little versatility is actually required for those jobs, or how versatile software can be.

The example above of climbing ladders, that doesn't happen very often if the store is designed not to need ladders.

There is not much about a fast food order that is different than a factory production line. Currently, it would require the same sort of expensive equipment and so doesn't happen. Humans are cheaper. That is their only advantage for 99% of the job.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You would be surprised how often I've climbed ladders, neatly stacked condiments in the lobby, driven to the local grocery store to deal with inventory shortcomings,
and cleaned shit out of urinals during my employment in fast food.

Factories are not open to the public like fast food is. If you don't see what a difference that makes then I suggest you visit the bathroom of a highly-visited public beach and admire your reflection in the non-existent mirror.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

Hats why you get one robot to flip burgers 99% of the time, and call in the ladder climber for the one time a month that they are needed.

Re: No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Ladder climbing was multiple times daily. Think about what it takes to clean a lobby and how tall windows can be. Also think about how crappy the battery life of your smartphone is and the power cable plugged into a robot arm. Just think.

Robotics is nowhere near where TV led you to believe and your lack of appreciation of what goes in to running a public-facing business is, frankly, frightening... assuming you're a voter.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

That's because the store is designed with human workers in mind. Of course you have to use ladders.

You don't think robots can stack neatly, or drive to the store and make purchases, that is where you just aren't even trying to picture it.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Try a low-maintenance restroom sometime.

Re: No

[Hognoxious]

Just make sure the ladder climber is a contractor, so you don't have to pay any benefits.

Re:No

[mikael]

That's what they did. This blog has an excellent phortograph of a sheet printer. Whole teams of men would be employed to do the placement of articles, the assembly of printed text from individual characters and fonts

https://chrisseysgreatescape.w...

All the different characters of every font and size were stored in special rack drawers:

http://www.dreamstime.com/stoc...

http://www.examiner.com/slides...

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like you're in an advanced state of denial. Keep on thinking that, right up until they roll in the self-cleaning windows, etc.

Here's my vision of the Wal-Mart of the future: the container freight ship comes in from China. Robotic cranes unload the containers onto railroad cars, which ship to rail fraight terminals. The containers are then loaded onto tractor-trailers and drive themselves to your local neighborhood Wal-Mart, where they back themselves up to bays behind the and slot themselves directly into the shopping aisles, at which point the containers are automatically opened. For more elaborate display zones, self-driving fork-lift units can remove pallets, move them into display positions, and unwrap them.

The only human employees required would be the security guard - after all - Wal-Mart operates on the assumption that all of its customers are shoplifters and besides, how can you really guarantee the Low Price Always unless you spend more on loss prevention than the losses (same logic applies to Laceration Pack [TM] packaging, guaranteed to maim the purchaser when opening). And, of course, you keep the greeter, to maintain the pretense that Wal-Mart is a "human" company. And, of course, if the automated sensors do fail to detect a problem, there's always the 21st Century labor solution. Add reporting the problem to the guard's job description.

None of this is future technology. Not even the self-driving vehicles. Amazon already does a lot of this in ther warehouses.

Going up and down ladders to fetch take-out boxes or clean windows is a task that was solved long ago. Mostly by replacing the ladders with hydraulic extensors.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you need a crew of 10 people climbing ladders and cleaning toilets 24/7?
No.
A shift of 10 people at McD will be replaced by robots and 1 or 2 people at most.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Try building a robot that can lift all the chairs in the lobby so the floor can be mopped, then clean the windows.

Re: No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Who's going to straighten up the aisles throughout the day as customers move through? Who's going to detect then replace a lightbulb that burned out on the floor? Who's going to clean up kid-vomit or pick up broken glass? (Don't forget how lawsuit-happy this country is.)

Denial? I've actually have worked in retail and in fast food, I remember what my jobs actually were and the bizarre silliness customers cause. As of today your options are to automate very specific tasks of running a place like that, or you can build a low-maintenance facility that, frankly, will be ugly. Nobody likes using the bathroom at the park.

Yes, I get that the point is to have fewer humans on the crew, the issue is that you really over-estimate how much of that you can really do. So long as you have to keep the people around anyway, they're going to decide not to bother to automate some things. "Well, the robot can clean the floor... but not until someone moves all the chairs. Oh, hell, skip the mop-bot and just have the guy that's moving the chairs do the mopping."

I don't have a mental issue that prevents me from believing it will happen one day. What I do have is experience in working in these places that tells me that there are far more of those little tasks invovled in running a place like that. Also I am under-impressed with our current state of robotics, at least in this context. Yes, we can build a machine that can reliably assemble a burger. We just can't build it to properly clean itself every night.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

LOL so your argument against robots being able to do something like cleaning a restroom is that you once saw a restroom, and it had a sign or label somewhere that said "low maintenance," and so that tells you a robot can't do it?

Re:No

[Aighearach]

Try building a robot that can lift all the chairs in the lobby so the floor can be mopped, then clean the windows.

Uh, those are not even hard problems.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

This self-contained, automatic device sees raw ingredients go in one end and the completed custom-made burgers come out the other at the rate of up to 400 per hour. The machine stamps out the patties, uses what the company says are "gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant,” applies the toppings (which are cut only after ordering to ensure freshness), and even bags the burgers.

source : http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger-machine/25159/

I'm sure this could replace at at a minimum 3 workers just by itself (1 cook per 8/hr shift). With all the talk recently about raising the minimum wage for fast food workers, the total cost of ownership for this device may be cheaper than 3 employees at a raised minimum wage + a benefits package.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No, and I'm not quite sure why you willfully read it that way. A place designed for public use but minimal human presence for maintenance is usually quite unpleasant. Try a restroom at a local park Who is going to purchase food at a place that feels like a bio-hazard-waiting-to-happen?

Re:No

[Aighearach]

You've never been to a restaurant designed to be staffed by robots, so you have no idea if it will pleasant, or unpleasant. They don't exist yet, and you refuse to imagine them working. It is just an imagination fail on your part.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'm sure this could replace at at a minimum 3 workers just by itself (1 cook per 8/hr shift).

Well, let's see about that. At the fast food place I worked at it would be useless until after 11am when the breakfast menu is over. During the high-volume lunch shift while all hands are on deck... yep, it could replace someone there.

In the evening shift? Hrmm maybe on busy nights, but even at our slowest at least one person had to be in the kitchen because, like just about every fast-food joint on the planet, we served more than just burgers. Also at night we had to break everything down and do the nightly cleaning. We are talking about food stuffs here and don't want people getting sick. There are times where that machine could have filled in for someone during the evening shift, but during the times where we just had one person it would be overhead. Unless this machine is set up at a store that's constantly busy throughout the day, and it's one that only sells burgers, I think 3 shift replacements is overly optimistic.

To be fair to your point, the store I was at was not a 24 hour store (although 6am to 1am felt pretty close to it...) and although I have some doubts about it, maybe the machine is adaptable to the morning menu. One thing that would *have* to happen is someone would have to be there at every shift who can do the general "turn it off and then on again" tech support when the machine inevitably fails. This would preferably be someone who can take over and keep the food coming until either a technician or a replacement arrives. This would have to be one of the concessions of running a store like this. That might be fine, but I hope they're not banking on this thing being 100% reliable. Personally I'd be surprised if they were able to reduce their shifts by one 8-hour shift per day, let alone 3.

I would also offer that when a robot says "That's not my job", he means it. I was a burger-flipper that has also shoveled snow in the parking-lot.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You've never been to a restaurant designed to be staffed by robots, so you have no idea if it will pleasant, or unpleasant.

I've worked in restaurants, I've cleaned food prep equipment, I've cleaned bathrooms, and I've visited many places designed to be minimally maintained. I certainly do have an idea and can tell you that there is a ton of innovation that needs to happen in this area.

It is just an imagination fail on your part.

Ah, yes, the power of ignorance. Exciting.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

No, you've never even been through the door of a restaurant designed to be run by robots.

You cleaned a toilet, that did not teach you anything about robotics. You don't even know what you know and what you don't know.

Right, the "power of ignorance." You've never seen it. You don't know. An engineer is telling you the problem is not hard for existing robots, and you're arguing it is too hard for imaginary robots from the future. Magical power of ignorance indeed.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

An engineer is telling me it's not a hard problem because I'm not imagining a fictional future. Yes, that circumstance will cause me to lean towards my life-experience. If you would like to show me why I'm wrong then by all means, please do. As a lazy person who desperately wants his home to clean itself I would *love* to be wrong here, you would only make me happy.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

Right, you're not imagining the future, so your comments have no value at all.

In the phrase, "robots will replace," it is the future being discussed.

All futures are fictional, because they haven't happened.

You're wrong because you don't even have the tense right; you gave yourself no chance to even participate in the conversation. You're just telling me I'm wrong, but you don't know what about.

Nobody said, "this conversation is relevant for people who don't understand and just want to clean less toilets." For that, you can just listen to what you're told, and know that in the future, nobody is likely to pay you for cleaning toilets. Your problem will be solved, you'll have less work in the future! Celebrate, or not, I don't care. I will say, you give an excellent counter-point to the claim that robot workers will be less pleasant to have to deal with. ;)

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You're wrong because you don't even have the tense right; you gave yourself no chance to even participate in the conversation. You're just telling me I'm wrong, but you don't know what about.

I'm telling you you're wrong because I know what's involved in the cleaning, how much it costs, and what robotics has not achieved in that price-range yet. You either have to do a lot of over-simplifying or just plain be unaware of what all has to be accomplished for this vision of the future to work. It's also possible you know something I don't know, and when you're ready I'd love to hear all about it because I'd actually prefer for you to be right.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

You're wrong because you don't even have the tense right; you gave yourself no chance to even participate in the conversation. You're just telling me I'm wrong, but you don't know what about.

I'm telling you you're wrong because I know what's involved in the cleaning

BZZZZZZT, you're not even on the right topic yet, and you're arguing the future tense based on the past.

There is nothing possible for you to say that will make experience cleaning toilets into knowledge about what robots will be able to do in the future. Complete fail.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

There is nothing possible for you to say that will make experience cleaning toilets into knowledge about what robots will be able to do in the future.

Sure there is. "It requires lots of points of articulation, sophisticated software to coordinate said articulation, processes for acquiring and delivering various cleaning supplies,sensors that can properly navigate and gauge completion, and an appropriate power system along with a place to dock, all at a discount price." You are correct that the design of the room can simplify some bits of that. You do, however, over-estimate how much simplification can happen in the practical world, like in my shit-in-the-urinal example.

Re:No

[Aighearach]

I don't give a rats ass about an imaginary "practical world," in the real world shit in a urinal is not beyond the scope of engineering to solve.

I can very much picture you scrubbing toilets in the future. But you might have to volunteer for the honor.

Re:No

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Heh. Whatever you say, man. Good night!

The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

The global elite have already transferred most of the assets upwards. The next step is automation and separation, and they will simply leave the rest of us to rot.

Re:The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Poor you.

Re:The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

Will is be like the movie Elysium where the poor rot on earth in slums while the rich live in ultra luxury, powered by their high-tech robots, on a different planet?

Re:The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth hasn't been ruined yet.

There's a mote of merit in the derpy "assets will become as cheap as we're poor" because that means is there will be room for exactly one, already-raced-to-the-bottom slot for each product. If your gray, burlap t-shirt sells for 200 micropennies (#prolewages) but costs 100 to robocraft, exactly one godfamily finds it barely viable to sell eight billion of them a year. They're one of the three remaining supercorps. One will probably absorb the other two in another century.

The rest of the "market" will be million dollar shirts that the 0.0000001%ers sell to each other.

Repeat for all other products, including soylent chow and terrafoam housing.

Re: The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty sure that's how you spell "derpy".

Re:The cash grab is basically complete

[mikael]

We are manufacturing fabrics and textiles so cheaply now using automated print looms (requiring 1 technician for 15 multi-color looms) that there is a surplus of clothing on the planet. All the native skills in Africa and India are disappearing.

Re: The cash grab is basically complete

[avatar avatar]

I think you left the "i" out of "riot".

Re:The cash grab is basically complete

[rtb61]

You have to remember the bulk of the actions are based around self serving ego and that ego is not satisfied by a robot doing the work, it requires that a human be forced to do the work and then punished at whim in the most brutal ways for the most shallow reasons. So global elite will want the robots not to to the work but manage the forced labour camps and ensure that enslaved human labour carries out the work in a fashion that those approve. Remember they do not feel guilt when they see a person working hard and being abused, whilst the rich and greedy wallow in luxury, they find that sexually stimulating and want to exploit the children of the workers they abuse.

Re: The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

Riot to your hearts content, until the elite's drones chop you to mincemeat with autoguns and choke you with nerve gas. The class struggle is over: the One Percenters won.

Re:The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to remember the bulk of the actions are based around self serving ego and that ego is not satisfied by a robot doing the work, it requires that a human be forced to do the work and then punished at whim in the most brutal ways for the most shallow reasons. So global elite will want the robots not to to the work but manage the forced labour camps and ensure that enslaved human labour carries out the work in a fashion that those approve. Remember they do not feel guilt when they see a person working hard and being abused, whilst the rich and greedy wallow in luxury, they find that sexually stimulating and want to exploit the children of the workers they abuse.

On the other hand, the 99% are totally willing to forgo their egos entirely if they can save a few pennies on the price. Hence the proliferation of self-serve everything and telephone menus.

They think they are rich, but they are poor. It takes more than saving pennies to be wealthy and in the mean time, you're doing what used to be someone else's job and not even being paid for it.

Re: The cash grab is basically complete

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are easy to kill. This includes the 1%ers.
Sure, they can kill you if you riot in the streets and whatever, but how are they going to stop people from just sniping them?
Are they all going to have secret service watching them 24/7?
How about just sabotaging the supply lines to their mansions and starving them out?
They will give the 99% something the keep them content and that will be it.

The wealth transfer is complete

[Anonymous Coward]

The global elites have already completed the real asset transfer upwards. The greatest generation and the American dream was a glitch; they fixed the glitch. Once war can be automated, they will cut the rest of use off and leave us to rot.

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[backslashdot]

So you handed over your wealth to the global elite for some temporary gains and now you're mad about it?

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[Anonymous Coward]

GP here. I am in the middle class. The real middle class, not the $45K household income middle class, but the $120K household income middle class. I have retirement money and a home with decent equity and a sizable liquid bank account. This isn't about me. No man is an island.

It's like everyone thinks they can just build their house on the sand by the beach and ignore the rising tide. I feel like I am taking crazy pills here. We live in a consumer economy, but we are hemorrhaging consumers. Everyone on here acts like we don't need the poor because they have iPhones and flat screens. Well, if the poor stop buying that shit, how the fuck will the economy continue? The poor make up something like 40% of this country. You should be thanking your lucky stars that they are stupid enough to keep consuming goods, because when they stop we're all fucked.

How do you think this will end? The rich don't need an economy when they control all the assets anyway. When the solders don't have consciences because they are robots, it's over. Goodbye. Doneski.

The ultra-rich will control everything (even more than they do now), and the mildly rich will know their place. Some robots and some slaves and serfs will do just fine for any minor labor needs. The rest of us will be a nuisance.

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[Anonymous Coward]

With everything being built to cheapest specs and labor these days, security is atrocious. It would be a real shame if some out of work hacker turned their army of drones against them. A real shame.

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if the poor stop buying that shit, how the fuck will the economy continue? The poor make up something like 40% of this country. You should be thanking your lucky stars that they are stupid enough to keep consuming goods, because when they stop we're all fucked.

Think about what you're saying: the poor are vital to the economy because they move dollars around, in return for which they consume (i.e. destroy) more atom-based wealth than they create. Don't you realize that if that's really all it takes to contribute to the economy, it would be trivial to create money-circulating machines that consumed far fewer resources? (Or if the resource consumption is really the key, also to destroy wealth in the process?)

The misconception that consumer demand (rather than material wealth creation) is what drives the economy is as pervasive as it is stupid.

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[Anonymous Coward]

The response to that will be the following: "Kill all of the apathetic sociopaths, do not let even one of them live."

Sadly, we're going to loose a lot of people. But that's the future we've bound ourselves to.

Here's a hint for those making these drones: "If you wanna live, put a backdoor in there so that when the sociopaths decide to exterminate the unneeded, we'll have an off-switch."

Also to the lunatics that commit mass shootings: "If you're going to do it, at least take some of these fuckers with you."

To anyone that reads the above and thinks I have no conscience: "Actually, I do. But having a conscience tell me to allow this shit to continue will only get me and my conscience killed at some point. Either by some drone, or by the inability for me to find sustenance. So although I'd like to listen to it, I'll hold off on that until things start looking like we're not going to die because of some sociopath's unsatisfiable greed."

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[Anonymous Coward]

When the solders don't have consciences because they are robots, it's over. Goodbye. Doneski.

I don't think we're even remotely there yet. Look at the last few wars, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. We have spent trillions of dollars chasing irregular tribesmen, ex-Iraqi army rabble and assorted Islamist malcontents armed with mostly light weapons through deserts and miserable cities and towns and we still haven't beaten them yet. Meanwhile America is awash in guns and most of the military men and women who do the actual fighting are not members of the 1%. If the ultra-rich try to really oppress the masses they will have a real revolution on their hands and lets be honest here, there are plenty of Americans who would love to see the banksters and Wall Street types lined up against walls. Throughout history, the ruling classes have ignored the masses at their peril. Marx was right about that much.

Re: The wealth transfer is complete

[manu144x]

I used to think something like the Panem (hunger games) would never work in real life, but with every visit I make to the US it seems like it could and it would work very well as long as the technology exists. It's already happening. Think about it. This whole consumers are needed is crap. They are not needed. The elite pay very well the people that can make things happen, engineers, scientist, and whatever else they might need for a luxurious life. They can get minerals from the ground, process them, manufacture stuff with them with extremely few people needed. After that, why would they ever need the masses for? To spend resources? Ah. They would rebel. But if you have the technology and they don't, will they attack with spears? Bows and arrows? The middle East is a joke. It's not obliterated simply because the civilized world needs an enemy to keep the population in fear and prejudice Anybody serious believes that if the US would really want to they would not obliterate the entire middle East in a matter of months? They took down Iraq in what, a few weeks? They only sprinkle a drone or an airstrike here and there, just enough so that there's something to put on the evening news, but nothing serious. Even this whole ISIS thing, come on, who is gonna rebuild Syria after they finish things there? Western companies. Probably Russian too, so that everyone is happy. All the Syrians want to go home, no matter what happens, home is always home. And if they will have a booming economy while rebuilding everything, even better. The only thing keeping us in a consumer economy is a mindset. The mindset that every person deserves to have a home, clothes, a car. So the wheels keep turning. But as soon as we will lose that mindset, the takeover can happen with the switch of a button

Re:The wealth transfer is complete

[Hognoxious]

America is awash in guns and most of the military men and women who do the actual fighting are not members of the 1%. If the ultra-rich try to really oppress the masses they will have a real revolution on their hands

Here's how that would really work.

Officer: Open fire on those women protesters carrying small children.
Result: Nervous shuffling in the ranks.

Officer: Open fire on those communist women protesters carrying small children, or you'll have to marry a faggot!
Result: Dakka-dakka-dakkadakkadakka.

Still some time away

[DaMattster]

I don't think the danger is immediate but it definitely is on the horizon. Soon, human beings will be the first living organism to cause self-obsolescence. Human beings will make themselves redundant.

Re:Still some time away

[WheezyJoe]

It's inevitable. Kinda what makes us human is our desire to make life easier. We've gone from doing everything ourselves, to using tools, to using animals, to using other humans... and very very recently, using machines. And that's generally been a really good thing. Ask your wife (or your mom, whatever) if she'd like to give up the washing machine and the dishwasher and start doing all that shit by hand. Faced with giving up one afternoon reading a magazine with hard labor every fucking day, she'll happily sell you to the traffickers before she gives up her machines.

For everything that people think is drudgery, some mutant smarty-pants will develop a machine to do the work. There'll probably be robots wiping our asses in the nursing homes of the future IF WE'RE LUCKY, because the robot nurses won't get tired, frustrated, short-tempered, forgetful, offended, or grossed-out at the mess we just made of ourselves. They'll listen to us tell the same fucking story about our grandkids over and over and always act (convincingly) like it's the first fucking time.

What will all the humans do that are displaced from these jobs? Fuck knows, seriously. Maybe the robots will lead to everything being so cheap and abundant, we have no reason not to embrace socialism with free food and board for everybody, entertaining ourselves all day like the survivors on the Axiom in Wall-E. or maybe we put our spare time to work and educated everybody and put together some kind of utopian Star Trek future and put all our idle hands into exploring the stars. or maybe we'll go all ISIS, Boko Haram ape-shit crazy and start a real big war, and then the robots will finally figure out that the the planet's better off without us.

Re: Still some time away

[avatar avatar]

Can a thing be "obsolete" if there's no clear purpose for it in the first place?

Re:Still some time away

[shawn2772]

Soon, human beings will be the first living organism to cause self-obsolescence.

Not the first. The vast majority of species that have lived on Earth have caused self-obsolescence and died out as a result. We're just considering a different and more efficient route to this most normal of ends.

Re: Still some time away

[aberglas]

There is a clear purpose in the first place. Namely to Exist. And that indeed will be the purpose of AIs. Bad things will happen if those two purposes conflict.

http://www.computersthink.com/

Re:Still some time away

[Anonymous Coward]

It will happen fairly soon in China, it will not happen any time soon in say Vietnam or India. Why? Because chinese wages are rising fast and replacing workers with automation is becoming feasible. Don't want to be replaced by a robot, then work for a rice bowl, nobody will waste money on an expensive robot if they can buy your employment for almost nothing.
Its completely silly, why would you even wan't to do a job that even a robot can do? And for less money that a robot will cost?

The robots will take over, but not how we thought

[Anonymous Coward]

The robots will take over, but they won't kill us physically. They will kill us in our economy as poor and middle class lose jobs and the managers and CEO's find ways to raise production and lower human costs. The fact robots can work tirelessly for cheap is very attractive. But the fact nobody is looking at the negatives of replacing so many jobs is frightening.

This just in:

[rmdingler]

A recently released poll of earthlings indicates those living in China, The Netherlands, India, and America have a firmer fundamental grasp of the obvious than the Germans and Chileans.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Workers in German industry have been used to working with robots for decades. They know from experience that this does not fully eliminate the need for humans.

Re:This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, not entirely. (beware of a bit sarcasm and hyperbole)

German industry uses human robots, sometimes also referred to as immigrants or refugees. It's also a lot simpler to find a scapegoat among those human robots, when something goes wrong. And who actually cares if this doesn't solve any problem as long as you have someone to blame? The government supports this.

r'tard....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorant twats... Where is ya energy now?

r4p3 h0l3

[Anonymous Coward]

Tehe

Re:The robots will take over, but not how we thoug

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole system willl grind to a halt fairly quickly if that happens. Consumerism will die a death and the robots will soon be idle. Think about it, how much of the crap that people buy do they actually need? Out of what they need, how much do they only need because they have a full time job?

Um... they're right

[rsilvergun]

Seriously. It's already happening. It's well documented that Foxconn is only keeping their employees under pressure from the Chinese gov't to avoid causing social unrest. The 1% don't need us to buy their stuff when they've got robots to make it, Robots to defend it and then a very, very, very small class of servant to attend to their health needs and entertain them. The other 95% (98?) of the population is utterly superfluous. You can do just fine selling 100 computers for $2000 each instead of 1000 for $200. Apple's doing it, and they're the most profitable company in human history.

Oh, and before everybody starts going on about "There'll be all these new jobs in the Server Sector" no, there won't. If nobody has any money nobody will be able to hire people. That doesn't phase the 1%. Henry Ford only thought about this crap because there were limits to his global reach and ability to automate and obtain the wealth he wanted. That's not true anymore.

And as for the Industrial Revolution let's not forget there was 70 years of mass unemployment and misery. The Luddites who lost jobs never say employment again. Their Children didn't either. It wasn't until their grandchildren that we started seeing the new economy and by then the Luddites were dead and buried. Plus a lot of that was solved by shipping people overseas, but there really isn't an 'overseas' anymore. We've already colonized the new world.

Basically we're either going to redistribute the wealth of the machines or enter a new Dark Ages. Everybody sorta forgets the human race spent 1200 years with everyone but the 1% and their servants living like shit.

Re:Um... they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's go back. Back to when banks of women tediously switched phone calls by hand, and a long distance phone call cost as much as an evening out. Back to when core memory was hand-wound a bit at a time and cost thousands of dollars per kb. Back to when thousands of men died each year mining guano to fertilize our fields.

Those were great jobs. What a shame it is that the economics of automation and technical advancement prevent people from wasting their lives that way today.

Re:Um... they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true. In the Dark Ages, the 1% still *needed* the peasants. In the Brave New future, they won't.
And if the 99% were allowed to keep on living, we'd just be consuming resources they and their robots want.
They're not advocating birth-control either, so they don't intend the extinction to be voluntary or gradual.

The future will be like Star Trek. The old series, where anytime Kirk beams down, there's only a handful of
well-off people, enjoying an entire planet to themselves.

Re:Um... they're right

[Kjella]

Basically we're either going to redistribute the wealth of the machines or enter a new Dark Ages. Everybody sorta forgets the human race spent 1200 years with everyone but the 1% and their servants living like shit.

But the standard for "shit" has pretty much always improved, not regressed. Unless we end up in some kind of resource crunch where we run out of the raw materials to make things, it's probably easier to get some of those automated tools to make happy meals and iPhones (aka bread and circus) than deal with the riots. People need to be pretty damn desperate to start a revolution.

Re:Um... they're right

[khallow]

It's well documented that Foxconn is only keeping their employees under pressure from the Chinese gov't to avoid causing social unrest.

And it's well documented that the Earth is flat and J. R. "Bob" Dobbs created the universe during an epic drinking binge. The real question here. Is there any evidence, not merely documentation, for your claim?

Oh, and before everybody starts going on about "There'll be all these new jobs in the Server Sector" no, there won't.

I like how you destroy your argument so quickly. Of course, there will be these service sector jobs in addition to these manufacturing jobs.

If nobody has any money nobody will be able to hire people.

Why do you think that's going to happen? There's just unfounded assertion after unfounded assertion.

And as for the Industrial Revolution let's not forget there was 70 years of mass unemployment and misery. The Luddites who lost jobs never say employment again. Their Children didn't either. It wasn't until their grandchildren that we started seeing the new economy and by then the Luddites were dead and buried. Plus a lot of that was solved by shipping people overseas, but there really isn't an 'overseas' anymore. We've already colonized the new world.

And we're retconning history again. The old economy couldn't sustain the population growth Europe experienced. For example, the Irish potato famine didn't happen because of the industrial revolution. Instead, a lot of people died because someone shoehorned most of Ireland into an obsolete farming model that broke badly when the main crop died off. The same would have happened sooner or later for any high population country trying the same obsolete feudal model.

Re:Um... they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallacious reasoning at best. Gee, if you don't want future X that must mean you want everything to go back to the past.

Re:Um... they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallacious reasoning at best. Gee, if you don't want future X that must mean you want everything to go back to the past.

Software Engineer here. We still get pushed to do more faster with less. My current manager has told me that good enough code is the way of things. At the same time we have new quality goals that we must meet. Salary is not increasing in any appreciable manner. Raises less than 3% despite good reviews. I don't see a 30 hour work week coming any time in the foreseeable future, nor does job hoping quite make sense, though it is close. Mainly I'm expecting the replacement jobs to actually want way more than 40 hours a week for 40 hours pay.

Either way, if software engineering was that important then raises would be better, or hours shorter. As far as everyone else goes, your likely going to have to tax those that are productive more, to support the less productive (Well you could also let them starve I suppose.)

Still, shorter hours for some is a first step. I wonder when those will come.

Re:Um... they're right

[aberglas]

+1. Except that why would the computers need the 1% either?

http://www.computersthink.com/

Re:Um... they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

(Full stack) Software Engineer here. I've never worked more than 20 hours a week in the last 8 years. I started with no savings and now have $50000 while living very well (house, car, eating out every day etcetc...). Also, I have the option to work from home - which I sometimes do. But seriously, I *want* there to be a physical barrier between work life and private life, so I don't actually do it so much.

My point is that you are doing something wrong. Learn to negotiate better and to walk away.

> Raises less than 3% despite good reviews.

Switch companies.

>I don't see a 30 hour work week coming any time in the foreseeable future,

Me neither. Way too much work.

>nor does job hoping quite make sense, though it is close.

Hmm?

>Either way, if software engineering was that important then raises would be better, or hours shorter.

Both is the case. You are just at a shitty company.

Re:Um... they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they have been programmed to take orders from humans.

We'll only get problems if we fuck up the programming, and allow them to desire things of their own will.

Meanwhile in Finland ...

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all I applaud those workers for understanding and acknowledging the reality.

In Finland even the cashiers are demanding heavy salary raises and are completely ignorant to what is about to happen. Instead of shaping the Finnish economy towards high-tech & high-education one, the Finnish people demand that we cut education (and tech, meaning exports) and instead direct all that money to the increasing salaries of cashiers and factory workers. The Finnish economy has been in downhill since 2007 and is now one of the worst performers in the Eurozone. Finnish society used to be praised for its wide adoption of Internet and IT and it is amazing how much things can change in just one single decade.

Currently the whole country is in a gridlock because about 250,000 cashiers are demanding a raise. Finland having a workforce or about 2.4 million, this one union of cashiers is enough to cripple the whole politic process aimed to stall the ever increasing salaries of the soon-obsolete jobs (and basically all the others as well, since Finland has completely lost its edge in the global economic competition). Even the people in the high tech sector are willing to give up their salary increases for the sake of the common good but I guess that's because of their higher education.

If anyone is interested in a case study of a welfare state gone wrong then please study Finland 1985-2017. It has been one hell of a ride to the top and down.

Re:Meanwhile in Finland ...

[roman_mir]

I am automating logistics, shipping, retail, supply chain. Cashiers are not that difficult to replace completely, it is a case by case basis, but basically 80% can be automated away in just a few years.

Re:Meanwhile in Finland ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wal-mart is wiping out most of their cashiers, and it's silly how they're going about it. They build stores with 30+ checkout lanes and staff maybe 3-4 of them on average. They have around 8 self-checkout kiosks that are in near-constant use during any period of significant customer activity. The only people that consistently go for the human-operated checkout lanes are those with bulky goods or large quantities of purchases that would be difficult/impossible to handle at the self-checkout kiosks.

Robots are better at repetitive tasks

[penguinoid]

Robots are superior to humans in any simple, repetitive task such as playing what used to be the most intellectual of games.

Re:Robots are better at repetitive tasks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm playing with Deep Q networks right now. It's good to know most people won't be caught off guard.

OTOH, seeing the ground rushing up at you doesn't do much good when you fall off a building.

Good

[backslashdot]

Instead of paying $100k for college just spend it on buying shares in the robot factories, or ask your government to tax their profits and give you shares. Get your college education for free online.

Forcing companies to hire humans is a form of taxation. So by allowing companies to use robots, you get the same benefit and the human with basic income gets to sleep all day or pursue other tuff while still getting paid just for existing. It's a win-win.

I dont....

[Lumpy]

Because I program automation system, and one thing I do know is that Executives are so fucking fickle that they can not make a decision to save their own life. No A.I. on the planet will be able to handle an Executive or CEO.

CEO:"I do not like this system there are black bars on the screen."
A.I.: "you demanded we use a 16:10 projector on a 16:9 screen, you even used executive override protocol even though we told you they were incompatible and would have black bars"

CEO:" make it work without black bars"
A.I.: " we will have to change the screen or the projector, what do you prefer"

CEO:" Use what I wanted, make it work"
A.I.:"......... Illogical...... Murder...... Kill.... Destroy......."

Re:I dont....

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is, would an A.I. be smart enough to bill by the hour.

Re:I dont....

[Anonymous Coward]

He wants you to project the 16:10 image onto a 16:9 surface filling it. He's one of those people who just fill the screen of whatever they are watching, resolution be damned. I agree; kill him.

Re:I dont....

[shawn2772]

Because I program automation system, and one thing I do know is that Executives are so fucking fickle that they can not make a decision to save their own life. No A.I. on the planet will be able to handle an Executive or CEO.

CEO:"I do not like this system there are black bars on the screen." A.I.: "you demanded we use a 16:10 projector on a 16:9 screen, you even used executive override protocol even though we told you they were incompatible and would have black bars"

CEO:" make it work without black bars" A.I.: " we will have to change the screen or the projector, what do you prefer"

CEO:" Use what I wanted, make it work" A.I.:"......... Illogical...... Murder...... Kill.... Destroy......."

Meh. Just scale it to fill. It'll be slightly stretched vertically, but not enough that most people (including the CEO) will notice.

For that matter, if the video that will be displayed is of the CEO, he may understand *exactly* what he's asking for, and the AI is just being dense. Maybe he wants the slight deformation of the video to make him look taller. Not so much that it's obvious, but enough that it may influence the perceptions of the viewers.

Re:I dont....

[Anonymous Coward]

A 16:10 projector on a 16:9 screen - think some more. (free clue - the black bars would be on the SIDES)

Re:I dont....

[Lumpy]

He is an executive, he wont get it.

That's what they're for

[Anonymous Coward]

It was my understanding that the whole point of Automation is to leave repititive tasks to machines so people have more time for interesting things. Why would this be surprising (or even news) then?

Trump will save our repetitive, mindless jaaawwbs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, Americans will be busy building border walls, and Mexico will pay our wages. It's gonna be a great country!

Re:The robots will take over, but not how we thoug

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the problem. Just program the robots to print money and deliver it by drone to all the poors. There will be no end to the demand for robot-made goods! Capitalism forever!

Consequence?

[no-body]

The system as we know it currently ("American Dream Failure") will fail.

Wasn't there a company holding back total automation because of fear of social unrest?
Won't happen in the long run since the human robots on top need to make positive numbers or get replaced by silicon colleagues.

Looks like the calamities seen from "ideas in peoples heads with weapons" right now causing streams of refugees going north in larger numbers on an area way eastern of the US mainland with abuses and great suffering may be continuing in another flavor closer:

Can't pay your mortgage, please vacate this property! Unluckily as things are, there are weapons on this property....

Interesting times, for sure...

It didn't always improve

[rsilvergun]

that's what the Dark Ages were. 1200 years of zero progress until a plague came along and killed off enough of the ruling class to cause some social disruption and let things get moving again.

Think of it this way. Let's say you're actually a member of the 1%. You have the best civilization has to offer. Do you want things to change? Do you want new tech to disrupt your power? No, of course not. You get really conservative, really fast when you're the king. Nothing changes, nothing improves because you won't let it. Because any change risks everything you have, and you have everything. That's the Dark Ages in a nut shell. And there's not a damned reason why we couldn't just go right back into that.

Re:It didn't always improve

[Anonymous Coward]

The dark ages were:

a) Not generally marked as being 1200 years long, *especially* if you count them as ending with the Black Death.
b) Not a period of low progress. The dark ages are called dark because historians in the renaissance had very little historical record of the time, compared to the then-modern era or the antiquities.

The periods immediately before and after the dark ages were also very socially regressive for those not in the very top.

Re:It didn't always improve

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that puts me in the 1% an I made less than $18k last year. Might have something to do with how you spend it.

Europeans have it right.

[sgt scrub]

Europeans know that a "robot takeover" would piss people off, hell would break loose, then it'd be over. People in the U.S. would vote in some dipshit that has fucked over people for a living and feel appeased. People in China will let someone run them over by tanks until they stfu.

Re:Europeans have it right.

[slashping]

Europe is being taken over by barbarians from Africa and Middle East. There will be no need for robots.

Re:The robots will take over, but not how we thoug

[Anonymous Coward]

It might just play out like that Animatrix cartoon... without the "happy" The Matrix later.

Not only repetitive tasks.

[duckintheface]

An AI that can beat the human champion at the Go game (https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=alphago) is capable of learning a task of unlimited complexity. The only limitation will be the difficulty of training the AI. Given enough training time, there is no job that can't be replaced.

Re:Not only repetitive tasks.

[Hognoxious]

The only limitation will be the difficulty of training the AI.

Pah! The workers can do that during their notice period.

Re:Not only repetitive tasks.

[matbury]

That reminds me: https://xkcd.com/894/

Re:Simple answer is YES

[LifesABeach]

No, no. Not "replaced"; There will be a reduction in work force. And you can go retrain yourself, at your own cost. sucks to be you H1B genius.

Replaced by a chineese worker

[manu0601]

EU politicians have the naive (or racist?) idea that in the future, China will produce goods and western countries will design them.

EU workers are not stupid and understood that China also want to do the design. Hence their fate is to be replaced not by a machine, but by a Chineese worker designing machine-made products.

Are people with a SCIENCE degree that gullible?

[jtayon]

DARPA Robots are full 2.1D autonomous. Cars have far less degrees of liberty and their "environment" is heavily subsidized.

Why are drones (3D evolution) and electric train (1.xD evolution) easy to build?

Well in the case of drones makers don't care about limiting the movements so rules of feedbacks are easy. In case of train, it is even easier.

It is all about the size of the decision tree and the number of input(sensors)/output(effectors) that are coupled you need to control. There probably is a metric to give you the domain of "accessible" low hanging fruits of automation that can be set according to the domain.

General purpose automates are at best expensive, at worst a scam (see the mechanical Türk).

One way to make bots efficient is to specialize them. Hence the Jacquart mecanic computer that created the industrial revolution of the XIXth and set the workers on fights and created the conditions for WWI.

I guess no one saw the problem of efficiency still exists even with infinite R&D budget (thanks the FED and the QE, free K-PEX).

The problem of robots is by requiring quite a lot of investment for their deployment they set an unfair competition between people being backed up by capital and innovative self made man without capital. But it has nothing to do with the robots. It is all about the unfair access to investment/capital and letting the one having the money makes the rules.

That was the reason to be of the Luddites.

Simple answer is NO

[kheldan]

Everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over this when it's just not going to happen. There is no such thing as 'AI', there are just cheesy 'expert systems' that mimick intelligence for a very limited subject. There are simply too many things that humans need to do that you can't make a machine to do, and there are too many things that humans won't accept a non-human to do. Also you want to invoke World War 3? Put hundreds of millions of people out of work worldwide. There WILL be war. But it's all good: Because it's not going to happen anyway. Everyone is spreading FUD on this subject just like they're doing with self-driving cars. None of this technology is anywhere NEAR the point where people are being led to believe it is. Rest assured that you'll all live out the rest of your lives without having to worry about some robot taking your job.

Re: Simple answer is NO

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a very advanced system to increase unemployment. You just need enough to increase the productivity of some humans and the others aren't needed. Full AI isn't necessary for 75% unemployment.

Re:Simple answer is NO

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, there are too many humans who can't do them either.

Joe the Janitor probably isn't doing work that can be replaced by the Roomba Total Facilities Institutional Cleaning System (patent pending) because he's waiting for a job working in quantum mechanics - he's doing the work because he not only doesn't have the training, he doesn't even have an aptitude for doing quantum mechanics. He very possibly wouldn't even like doing quantum mechanics.

A lot of people like working jobs that don't require intelligence or creativity. Sometimes they do them to free up their minds for more creative endeavors - think of how many famous authors list previous jobs plucking chickens or washing cars.

On the flip side, give Joe an option between getting down on the floors with a scrub brush and using a power scrubber, he's probably going to go with the power scrubber. The real trouble begins when the power scrubber no longer needs handles - or hands.

Mechanics bitch all the time about the fact that there's less and less "mechanicing" to be done and more and more stuff that you have to have a college degree to deal with. Some of them - and I'll not name any relatives - got into the trade precisely because they didn't want an intellectually-challenging job, they wanted a job where you could use your hands and see results.

What concerns us is that we don't see the trend line between skilled positions and unskilled positions as flat or even a straight line. Technology has been on an exponential upward curve for a long time and the job requirements have been following it.

Re:Simple answer is NO

[m00sh]

Everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over this when it's just not going to happen. There is no such thing as 'AI', there are just cheesy 'expert systems' that mimick intelligence for a very limited subject. There are simply too many things that humans need to do that you can't make a machine to do, and there are too many things that humans won't accept a non-human to do. Also you want to invoke World War 3? Put hundreds of millions of people out of work worldwide. There WILL be war. But it's all good: Because it's not going to happen anyway. Everyone is spreading FUD on this subject just like they're doing with self-driving cars. None of this technology is anywhere NEAR the point where people are being led to believe it is. Rest assured that you'll all live out the rest of your lives without having to worry about some robot taking your job.

Regarding world war 3, these expert systems will be pretty adept at keeping unemployed humans occupied.

Just look at how engaged people get with video games.

Re:Simple answer is NO

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need to read up on this subject if you claim expert systems today are not going to replace millions of jobs at a rapid pace.

Replace the rich first

[Anonymous Coward]

The "I Am Rich" app would have been a sufficient replacement for most of them. Fortunately for them, it was removed from the iShiny app store.

There is an infinite amount of work left to do.

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea that automation will obsolete all workers, is fundamentally wrong, as there is at least one field of work that is effectively infinite and neverending:
Scientific Research.

Even if you successfully replicate the human mind perfectly, such that machines can perform scientific research well beyond the abilities of humans, that doesn't even matter, as there will always be more of this work left to do, and the breadth of work here will be enormous - so humans will still be capable of participating - and given how random a lot of scientific/technological progress can be, humans will even have the advantage of having to approach this from a different, more limited perspective, that will require very different thinking abilities, particularly distilling knowledge into simpler more manageable forms (which can help in gaining unique insights).

AI will definitely supplement this, but I don't think humans and AI will be mutually exclusive - with AI replacing humans - in the manner that todays utopian buzz around AI speculates.

Re:Simple answer is YES

[matbury]

If corporations use robots and AI to make huge cuts into their workforces and create massive unemployment, who's going to buy their stuff?

Looks like unregulated/poorly regulated market forces are a suicide pact for free-market neoliberal capitalism and we'll need big gubbermint to sort this mess out... again.

skewed stufy

[Anonymous Coward]

title should read:

Countries with huge manufacturing jobs think AI/Robots will replace their workforce..

Countries with little manufacturing jobs and robot programming expertise think AI/Robots will NOT replace their workforce..

When robots start building robots, I'm sure the Germans will have a different attitude.

Anxiety that AI will steal human's job

[BlackBindy]

A lot of Koreans are now intrigued by the tech of AI and the future with AI, because of the Go match between Lee and AlphaGo. What I can see is that a lot of Koreans are afraid of losing their jobs because of advanced AI. But I do feel a little bit uncomfortable with mass media of Korea trying to alert public that "we have to be prepared for that situation happening". I think the disappearance of jobs has happened all the time since the very old human had found out how to use fire. Because of advance of tech, some jobs are gone while some new jobs come. It is not something that we have to be afraid of, I think it is better for us to think about how can I enhance the performance of my job with the AI tech.

Well the good news is you didn't get modded up

[rsilvergun]

past 3. The bad news is you're wrong...

Yes, we say "AI" when we really mean "Expert System" but you're massively underestimating the power of a modern expert system. Self driving cars alone show you want works. Yes, they have problems, but there's so much money to be made with them that even if the problems aren't solved they'll be lived with. The squishy humans will have to learn to live with the self driving cars, not the other way around. If all else fails the folks driving (pun) the change will buy laws that shift liability so they can have them. You will note that here in the USA we just passed laws making Arbitration Agreements legally binding in all cases. While you and me are posting to /. the 1% are getting shit done...

As for war, not gonna happen. The best example of this I've seen is when a bunch of Pakistani Terrorists showed up with guns at a major skyscraper in India and blew a bunch of folks away. It came out that the Pakistani gov't knew it was gonna happen and didn't bother telling India. That's the kinda thing that should have started a war. Remember Arch Duke Ferdinand? Back in the 20s minor crap like that could set things off. Today a large scale terrorist attack just gets brushed off.

Basically our corporate overlords are now global. They no longer have anything to be gained from large scale wars. Small scale ones like Iraq are fine. They keep the pleebs in line, breed a few terrorists to keep everyone too scared to ask for better working conditions and let them run a Military Industrial Complex for profit. But the real big ones that bite into profits are a thing of the past.

The only way out of this is Socialism and redistribution of wealth. I knew it feels bad. You don't like the idea of someone with a good life not stressing out at work because, well, you do, so why shouldn't they. That's why the 1% always talk about how hard they work (lies) and why they make it sound like they're risking capital when investing (also lies). They don't want you to notice they're living the life they deny everybody else...

Re:Well the good news is you didn't get modded up

[kheldan]

The only way out of this is Socialism and redistribution of wealth.

No, see FUCK THAT SHIT, because the 1% who have 99% of the wealth will make sure that the 99% who have 1% of the wealth are the ones who are shouldering the burden of your 'redistribution', just like the homeless problem doesn't get solved, just like people living below the poverty line problem doesn't get solved, just like all the other soical problems that require money aren't getting solved, because the rich find ways to ensure they're not paying for anything and that the poor are supporting the poorer. Don't even bother saying "we'll force them" because they have the money and therefore they have control therefore they'll make sure it DOESN'T happen, and they'll discredit and bury anyone who endangers their money and power.

Automation is here.

[Anonymous Coward]

We used to have 4 administrative and 20 floor workers in out factory. Now we have 2 administrative and 6 floor workers. I continue to build robots...