Will machines and software totally replace human labor?

[-Vogoland-]

Hi!

New to this forum. So I know that corruption in politics and climate change is often discussed but what I find very lacking (in the mainstream especially) is serious discussion related to the gradual replacement of human labor with work done by automated machines and advanced software programs. I'm curious to find out what people have heard and what they think about this phenomenon?

I'd give a more detailed introduction to this topic but I'm in a rush and figured I'd give you guys the floor since it's the opinions of other people that I'm here for.

I'm also going to include a few links

1) http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/ ... -a-machine

go here to find out if your job in particular will be replaced by automated technology in the near future

2) http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Robots-Techn ... the+robots

check this book out, it's the best one I could find on this subject

3) https://www.facebook.com/techaugmented/

this is a page I recently created on facebook that wants to discuss and follow the rapid advancement of tech, especially tech that's designed to replace us.

I would greatly appreciate any and all involvement!

I personally believe we are headed for a great economic crisis in our lifetime because of this revolution in our private & public sectors but I would love to hear from those who think that isn't going to happen and why.

Thanks

[Shamhnan Insir]

I have a mostly negative outlook for future labour and workplaces. Big business will pursue profit so if cheaper labour exists they will take it. Small businesses however are unable to afford such technology and will lose out quickly to a leaner giant company. You'll have lost jobs from both workplaces, so where the hell will people work?
Jobs provide a fulfilling way of life (mostly) and also earns you money. To further remove people from workplaces and indeed work itself you seriously jeopardize the working class and more.

I'm never one for fully trusting or following editorial releases and essays on the internet, however I did find this interesting.
http://www.modernwarinstitute.org/coming-robot-war-not-robots/

[Ragnarum]

No. Unless they where somehow self maintaining, fixing, repairing.

[Luziyca]

Who will fix and maintain the machines?

Also, I don't think politicians will ever get displaced by them, so it's gonna be the safest career path.

[Salandriagado]

Not all of it, at least not for a while, but the majority of it, yes. In particular, pretty much anything to do with transport, data entry, back-office financial/admin stuff (to the degree that it hasn't already been done), wholesale trading, and a lot of unskilled labour (excluding a few situations, mostly in developing countries, where human labour should remain cheaper) is dead in the near-medium future.

[-Vogoland-]

Big business will pursue profit so if cheaper labour exists they will take it. Small businesses however are unable to afford such technology and will lose out quickly to a leaner giant company.

I'm never one for fully trusting or following editorial releases and essays on the internet, however I did find this interesting.
http://www.modernwarinstitute.org/coming-robot-war-not-robots/

I generally agree but how do you think giant companies will maintain themselves when the majority of mankind barely has any discretionary income left to spend on goods and services? I see news stories already popping up about the heads of companies like ESPSN, Wallmart, etc worried that consumer spending is assuredly falling and they worry about how they will maintain their large businesses. You could provide amazing services and/or have wonderfully efficient automated factories but what does any of that matter when barely anyone is buying your goods and services?

And thank you for the link! It was an interesting article and I added it to my page.

[-Vogoland-]

Who will fix and maintain the machines?

Other machines?

Also, I don't think politicians will ever get displaced by them, so it's gonna be the safest career path.

Unfortunately I think you're right :/ They'll definitely save their own hides.

[Hyggemata]

No. Computers only deal with logical things with patterns..

[The first Galactic Republic]

Who will fix and maintain the machines?

Other machines?

Also, I don't think politicians will ever get displaced by them, so it's gonna be the safest career path.

Unfortunately I think you're right :/ They'll definitely save their own hides.

You want robot politicians? That's like a complete lack of representation.

[Salandriagado]

No. Computers only deal with logical things with patterns..

Not true, even now, and will become increasingly less so (unless you're actually using those words in the technical sense, in which case "yes, but that's all of the things").

[-Vogoland-]

Other machines?



Unfortunately I think you're right :/ They'll definitely save their own hides.

You want robot politicians? That's like a complete lack of representation.

I want legitimate Democracy. I just think our current politicians will find a way to cast most of us into oblivion and only save themselves.

[Hyggemata]

No. Computers only deal with logical things with patterns..

Not true, even now, and will become increasingly less so (unless you're actually using those words in the technical sense, in which case "yes, but that's all of the things").

Patters quantifiable by humans. A computer essentially deals with numbers, and plenty of things can't be done mechanically due to the forces of entropy.

Like stitching three-dimensional shapes.

[Salandriagado]

Not true, even now, and will become increasingly less so (unless you're actually using those words in the technical sense, in which case "yes, but that's all of the things").

Patters quantifiable by humans. A computer essentially deals with numbers, and plenty of things can't be done mechanically due to the forces of entropy.

Like stitching three-dimensional shapes.

Erm... nope. Computers can absolutely stitch three-dimensional shapes. I don't know what you think entropy is, but you're wrong. And no: computers are increasingly capable of teaching themselves patterns.

[Imperializt Russia]

Pretty sure machines already exist in a near-serviceable form that could replace all forms of labour, now.
Actually implementing these machines to do so would be unfathomably expensive compared to paying people to do it.

The order of things is not set up to handle a world where lots of people are not able to have a job anymore, which is another barrier.

I stack boxes (amongst a handful of other things) in a fish factory.
While it's very labour-intensive, the amount of labour-saving in the machines we use is kind of astounding - though their purpose is almost solely in just increasing the throughput.

One line is actually fully mechanised. I don't understand what it does, but it seems to be manually fed with scampi that's surplus to other lines. Because it's only fed as and when, and it'd be stupidly impractical to actually have it manned except to feed it, it has box-filling machines and a whacking great pallet-stacking robot at the end which stacks a hundred-something boxes.

Every other line has individual packages packed by machine, then the packages are filled into boxes and the boxes stacked onto pallets and the pallets moved by people.

[Wine-loving Chimps]

At this point I honestly believe that this must be the starting point for this discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

[Empire of Narnia]

Yes. Chuck E. Cheese will one day replace human musicians and other animatronics will replace humans in other fields.

[Luziyca]

Who will fix and maintain the machines?

Other machines?

Also, I don't think politicians will ever get displaced by them, so it's gonna be the safest career path.

Unfortunately I think you're right :/ They'll definitely save their own hides.

Yeah.

I can imagine a future where there are only two jobs: mechanics and politicians.

[Indo-Malaysia]

Machines and Software don't program themselves.

[Salandriagado]

Machines and Software don't program themselves.

Not many of them, and not yet.

[Luziyca]

Machines and Software don't program themselves.

I think there are software bots that can teach themselves how to do certain tasks.

[Wine-loving Chimps]

Machines and Software don't program themselves.

At the moment. But the technology for them to learn already exists. They already handle the vast majority of the stock market, because they have learned how to do this. Machines will eventually learn to program themselves.

[Imperializt Russia]

Machines and Software don't program themselves.

You say that...
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2 ... each-other

[Sanctissima]

No, because it's only efficient in certain settings, like factory work. In terms of labour, machines are effective at mass-production, and very little else. They can't problem-solve on the spot (at least not without becoming prohibitively expensive) and are entirely stationary when used for mass-production. This means that they can only be designed for one sole purpose, like canning tuna or making boxes. Outside of the very menial and repetitive forms of human labour, machines are simply not as efficient as their biological counterparts. And even then, they're only cost-effective when they themselves are mass-produced, so you'd need machines mass-producing machines, which requires quite a bit of infrastructure, technological development, and time.

So no, I'm not too worried about labour jobs being completely dominated by machines. Some factory jobs will inevitably become machine-dominated, but the broader labour sector will remain largely intact. And besides, machines break and wear down over time, so you'd need mechanics to be maintaining them. Humans are far more cost-effective than robots as mechanics, so it's not like factories will become entirely void of human involvement.

[Internationalist Bastard]

I think it's a matter of what we're willing to leave up to robots

[Kainesia]

Well, physical labour perhaps, but there will always be jobs for humans, or else nobody could buy the products produced by the robots.