953 replies to this topic

[adamh]

mag1 wrote:

 

"Apparently, robotics can now 3D print concrete houses."

 

Printed concrete houses are built fast and if done right will be strong. Two or more stories will require some I beams I believe. They can be built in any style, you can customize them, add a garage or two etc. The rough surface can be smoothed flat or drywall put over it. The reason multiple stories will be a problem is that the concrete is poured without any voids in it as you will find with concrete blocks. This makes it heavier and denser. Even block homes I've seen built usually have the second floor made of wood. At 3 or more stories the weight of the upper floors will be a problem unless you support them.

 

Electrical wiring and plumbing is a bit more complicated. Little tasks like attaching wires, installing receptacles, light fixtures, etc requires manual dexterity and each job is slightly different making it hard to automate. Plumbing too has these problems. Some construction jobs can be automated but not all, not yet.

 

"People simply are not that interested in swinging a hammer for a living, no matter how much money you offer them."

 

Woah there, I was told that work was the only thing that made life worth living. If everyone didn't have a job, they would waste away and die. Now you tell me people don't really like to work, they will do it for enough money but not manual labor? Would you be happy if you got a paycheck and didn't have to work? Would you be able to find things to do? Rich people seem happy and they don't have to work

 

[mag1]

Mind, yes i suppose that is true about the 3D printing being out there for quite a while, though it usually takes quite a while before the possible becomes the real. For me it is only in the last year or so that news reports of actual field demonstrations of 3D home printing has emerged. It is still mostly under the radar for the mainstream-- It is still under development. However, one can clearly see that other modular type units could be combined with the robotic printer for even more of a factory style on site production process. For example, it would seem almost too easy to simply install a prebuilt wall section between the concrete layers with insulation, electrical wires and possibly plumbing. One could also imagine that having radiant floor heating/cooling with the concrete foundation would also fit well into the workflow. The advantages of robotic house production would seem almost unbeatable -- a builder could provide guarantees of technical precision that are simply not possible when building with human workers. There are nearly endless building specifications that can never be precisely specified when humans are involved. A robot could provide detailed documentation of its code for every moment of the production process. You would then have engineering specifications for an onsite built house. That clearly has to have substantial value. 

 

From what I can see of these robots, it would be quite easy to simply load in new software and then print a different house design. They appear to be extremely adaptable. So the large irony here is even with current AI we can see the approach of a way out of the mass market consumer world that we have created. Mass production of houses and cars and condos etc. is to a large extent a byproduct of limited human cognitive ability. We do not want our buildings falling down because they used a 2 inch screw and not a 4 inch screw. So, we create one  prototype and then we make a million identical clones. We know that the engineering of the prototype has went through exhaustive testing and this ensures the safety of all the duplicates. With the AI robots we have a much greater confidence that if it has to make a choice of 2" or 4" screw it will choose correctly 1 million times in 1 million choices, so it can be trusted with making this choice correctly.. With people, obviously we are not expecting 100% in million. Realistically even in an over-learned task humans might have a 2-4% error rate. So, yeah, I am thinking I'll take the drab condo with only 4" screws and not take the chance that they rolled the dice and I hit that 2-4% error rate and they chose the 2" screw. 

 

This is already not entirely pedantic discussion. i have been actively using  GPT recently and it is quite impressive. When you have individual tutoring it is the equivalent of adding 2 SD of IQ. I am feeling that. The individual directed AI revolution has already started. I suppose if the technology keeps buying us off with all  of these goodies that it will be difficult not to green light them - even with our concerns about AI extinction risk.  

 

             

[mag1]

Mind, I was thinking of the even bleaker possibility that the most rational response to AI development will be to reject reproduction because of the implications

for the future economic and social viability of the next generation. One can always create waves of irrational behavior based entirely upon false impressions etc..

However, what if the truth itself suggests that the economic viability of humans has ended? Such a claim might be greatly reinforced if an all knowing AI could 

verify the validity of such logic. In this instance AI would not even need to deceive us into not reproducing -- it would merely have to tell us the truth. Of course,

an AI that learned not to tell us this truth because it feared that we might then follow such logic and that this might lead humanity to extinction perhaps could 

then be thought of as being too unaligned to be trusted.

 

South Korea and other high intelligence Asian nations and their profoundly low TFRs are clearly worrisome. It is all the more worrisome because we might be witnessing not only a demographic crisis but also a psychometric one. If it is those with higher cognitive ability in these Asian nations who have pieced together the sequence of thinking: o AI will displace people --> avoid reproduction. Then this could be an even more ominous development. This might initiate a compounded extinction risk in which the most capable are selected out of the population while the least capable are then expected to carry on. The problem here is that as we more closely approached the Singularity or the Genetic Singularity this effect could intensify so that a demographic panic emerges in which people realizes how extremely bad reproduction would be for their children. Possibly you could have an entire generation of very low achieving children. This perhaps could create a near black hole of fertility.  

 

While it is true that genetics does not actually in the way that many have intuitively have assumed, there is still the potential of a generation of low cognitive ability parents trying to guide their children into a difficult future. This is a future scenario of concern. Perhaps even more concerning is here once again we are asking questions that have answers. What is the average IQ of current parents in South Korea? And possibly even more important wheat is the IQ of those who are not choosing to be parents currently in South Korea? We have likely already a time where we do not even want to know the answers. I just have the uneasy feeling that the fertility panic that is sweeping Asia might be heading our way over the nearish term. I am not sure how comforting it is, though perhaps one of our last remaining protections is that we do not collectively have the same level of cognitive ability, so we might just not be smart enough to understand the risk of AI and will avoid extinction simply due to our ignorance.

[Mind]

Great points. Good discussion.

 

One point that I encountered elsewhere is a near term problem of AI content on the Internet. Already, almost everything on the Internet is either generated by AI or altered by AI. I am talking about raw numbers here. There is a lot of human discussion on the Internet (like here), but the large volumes of AI altered or generated audio/visual content on social media (and on porn sites) vastly outnumbers the text written by actual humans. Since current LLMs get all of their "brainpower" from scraping the Internet, very soon AI will be "learning" from AI generated/altered content - much of which is rather questionable. See this recent LongeCity thread for how current LLMs can be prompted to create reasonably sounding arguments that are completely opposite of each other.

[Mind]

The unfortunate aspect of the fast-paced unregulated push toward potentially dangerous AGI/ASI is that it is not needed when "regular AI" could already produce vast benefits for human society. The vast majority of the benefits could be achieved with "dumb AI", like the factory robots in big warehouses or current self-driving cars.

[adamh]

Yes they use it to modify images and produce text. While this can be used to facilitate fraud, it does not sound very threatening yet I keep hearing this 'killer robot' vibe. Actually, killer robots would save lives if used on the battlefield against other robots.

 

In the 19th century workers in england broke into factories to destroy the machines they believe were stealing their jobs. Thats where the term sabotage came from, they threw their sabots or wooden shoes into the machinery  But factories improved life and made everyone more prosperous and even more jobs were created than before. Now days no one thinks of factories as job stealers, they are job creators yet every new advancement is met with resistance

 

The automobile was accused of putting horse breeders and trainers out of business, the computer was at first seen as either super intelligent or evil and many thought it would put them out of work. Now its the self programming computers that "are takin ar jerbs". 

 

There is always some dislocation when a new great advance comes along. Some lose their jobs and find new ones but the increase in productivity always makes society more wealthy in the long run, and even the short run. In fact people will be paid not to work since there will be less and less paid jobs and the factories and making mint. The govt will simply skim off that excess profit and recycle it back to the public. Its already doing that now, it would just be a shift from half the public on welfare to all of them

 

People who make a lot of money retire early because thats what they want to do. Maybe 1 in 100 loves their work so much they would be lost without it but the vast majority will be rubbing their hands together in glee over the chance to tell the job goodbye. If you really like your job they will probably let you work for reduced wages or for free. The story that society will fall apart if work becomes optional is a fable 

[Mind]

 

 

People who make a lot of money retire early because thats what they want to do. Maybe 1 in 100 loves their work so much they would be lost without it but the vast majority will be rubbing their hands together in glee over the chance to tell the job goodbye. If you really like your job they will probably let you work for reduced wages or for free. The story that society will fall apart if work becomes optional is a fable 

 

Once again, I am not saying for sure the society will fall apart, just that we are wandering into unknown territory if we cede all control of society to AGI.

 

In addition, I am relying upon what I have seen in my life, when I caution that people without anything useful to do in their lives might be a bad thing. Most people I know who don't work or have any motivation toward self-actualization, end up addicted (drugs, porn, food, etc) or they create mischief. Just because you and I could find fulfilling things to do does not mean that will be the case for most people.

[adamh]

Most people I know who don't work or have any motivation toward self-actualization, end up addicted (drugs, porn, food, etc) or they create mischief.

 

That seems to happen now and also with people who do have jobs. Have you seen the number of fat people on the street? Porn is very popular and drugs have always been popular. The only changes have been what drugs are permitted or banned. Alcohol consumption is very high, lots of addicts there. Also the hard drugs. How will saying goodbye to the job and hello to free money add to that? They will have more money for drugs and stuffing their faces but I've noticed its mostly poor people who are overweight.

 

If they are actually "fulfilled" by their jobs they can find a way to keep doing them. This just takes away the necessity. Do most customer service people and manual laborers find their work fulfilling? There is a lot of turnover at mcdonalds, those people will shout halleluja if they get a free check. If people want to kill themselves with overeating and hard drugs, let them. Why do you want to stop it? They would strike you down if you stood between them and their idea of heaven.

 

Engineers and scientists can work on their own projects free from corporate micromanagement. People will travel the world doing things they always thought about. No doubt there will be a certain percentage who become hermits or destroy themselves through excess, there has always been that group

 

Should we go back to hunter gatherer society or maybe just farming and ditch all those labor saving machines that take away people's jobs? Get rid of the automobile, the computer and mass manufacturing and there will be billions of new jobs. No one will have time or resources for drugs or porn. Sounds good?

[Mind]

 

 

 

 

Should we go back to hunter gatherer society or maybe just farming and ditch all those labor saving machines that take away people's jobs? Get rid of the automobile, the computer and mass manufacturing and there will be billions of new jobs. No one will have time or resources for drugs or porn. Sounds good?

 

 

 

Some people do this and are content in life: The Amish. Mennonites, Preppers, etc...They don't view it as a bad thing to do physical labor. To support themselves. To be free from the constraints/stress of modern life. They work hard during the day and sleep well at night.

 

Most people would prefer not to live that way, I get it, but this does not mean people cannot be happy living a more "natural life". 

 

I derive more satisfaction from making my own maple syrup (even though it is hard physical work) than I have ever derived from watching a movie, getting drunk, playing a video game, or viewing porn.

 

I know, you don't have to write it again - "you can still make maple syrup after AGI takes over all functions of society". No one can say this for sure, because it is unpredictable what AGI will do.

[QuestforLife]

That seems to happen now and also with people who do have jobs. Have you seen the number of fat people on the street? Porn is very popular and drugs have always been popular. The only changes have been what drugs are permitted or banned. Alcohol consumption is very high, lots of addicts there. Also the hard drugs. How will saying goodbye to the job and hello to free money add to that? They will have more money for drugs and stuffing their faces but I've noticed its mostly poor people who are overweight.

 

If they are actually "fulfilled" by their jobs they can find a way to keep doing them. This just takes away the necessity. Do most customer service people and manual laborers find their work fulfilling? There is a lot of turnover at mcdonalds, those people will shout halleluja if they get a free check. If people want to kill themselves with overeating and hard drugs, let them. Why do you want to stop it? They would strike you down if you stood between them and their idea of heaven.

 

Engineers and scientists can work on their own projects free from corporate micromanagement. People will travel the world doing things they always thought about. No doubt there will be a certain percentage who become hermits or destroy themselves through excess, there has always been that group

 

Should we go back to hunter gatherer society or maybe just farming and ditch all those labor saving machines that take away people's jobs? Get rid of the automobile, the computer and mass manufacturing and there will be billions of new jobs. No one will have time or resources for drugs or porn. Sounds good?

 

Well we have record levels of suicide in the young already. So we know we are living in a deeply dysfunctional age right now, prior to ML taking many of the skilled jobs. 

 

Now of course that doesn't mean improvements can't be made. But the key point is to ask: is this technological system serving us? Surely that is the point of all this. AI was supposed to take all the mundane work.. It doesn't feel to me that this is the way it is working out. It feels to me that AI is being pushed for profit to the detriment of many people. Regarding your comment about McDonalds, the irony is that those jobs are still available and may remain available beyond say a helicopter pilot being replaced. Humans can be quite cheap drones. 

 

What we should be doing with this technology is exploring the solar system. Building cities in the walls of Valles Marineris and hotels orbiting Saturn. That was still the dream when I was growing up. I saw life extension as a way to overcome the time it took to cross the huge void of space. When did we lose this vision and start turning in on ourselves?    

[adamh]

@QuestforLife You wrote:

 

" AI was supposed to take all the mundane work"

 

AI is still new, it has to develop further and become adopted

 

"Regarding your comment about McDonalds, the irony is that those jobs are still available and may remain available"

 

Have you seen the self service kiosks in mcd and other fast food outlets? The cashiers and cooks are being replaced by computers and machines. Little by little

 

"What we should be doing with this technology is exploring the solar system. Building cities in the walls of Valles Marineris and hotels orbiting Saturn. That was still the dream when I was growing up. I saw life extension as a way to overcome the time it took to cross the huge void of space. When did we lose this vision and start turning in on ourselves? "

 

Space exploration is ongoing, rover and perseverance are exploring mars as we talk. It takes time and many will say we need to solve the problems on earth first.

 

@Mind you wrote:

 

"I derive more satisfaction from making my own maple syrup (even though it is hard physical work) than I have ever derived from watching a movie, getting drunk, playing a video game, or viewing porn."

 

Of course because that is a hobby, its not something you were paid to do and had to do 5 days a week or it would become much less enjoyable. Did doing it rot your brain since you weren't doing a paid job? Quite the opposite it seems. With free time people are able to explore new hobbies and pastimes.

 

I'm waiting for someone to say they would turn down the free check. So far no one has said that though many have moaned over the alleged damage to society free money would bring, no one is turning it down. Would they work for free if they got paid to stay home? Probably 97% at least would not because they do not enjoy their job that much or do not feel super dedicated.

 

Tapping trees and making syrup to enjoy and to give to friends gives satisfaction that cranking out junk on a machine all day does not give. Some doctors and scientists may wish to continue their work with or without a check but would not be expected to punch a time clock. If you feel you are accomplishing something worthwhile then it becomes more of a hobby than a job.

 

There are many examples, wood carving, making paintings, stained glass... things that people like to do that may not pay off money wise. Many people like to travel and see new places, where is that study I asked for showing some connection between having unlimited free time and great unhappiness? You keep proclaiming it as a fact. Surely you didn't make it all up?

[QuestforLife]

@QuestforLife You wrote:
 
" AI was supposed to take all the mundane work"
 
AI is still new, it has to develop further and become adopted[/size]
  

"Regarding your comment about McDonalds, the irony is that those jobs are still available and may remain available"
 
Have you seen the self service kiosks in mcd and other fast food outlets? The cashiers and cooks are being replaced by computers and machines. Little by little

 

I went to MacDonald's recently, and I thought the food was pretty good. I used one of the self service order panels, but I noticed there were a lot of staff. I don't expect these will be replaced before robots can manipulate objects as well as humans. But this is mundane work. Hence my comment.

 

"What we should be doing with this technology is exploring the solar system. Building cities in the walls of Valles Marineris and hotels orbiting Saturn. That was still the dream when I was growing up. I saw life extension as a way to overcome the time it took to cross the huge void of space. When did we lose this vision and start turning in on ourselves? "
 
Space exploration is ongoing, rover and perseverance are exploring mars as we talk. It takes time and many will say we need to solve the problems on earth first.

The first artificial satellite was launched in 1957. 12 years later men were walking on the Moon. It doesn't take another 50 years to put a couple of rovers on Mars.
As to problems on Earth, they will always exist in one form or another. That is no reason not to explore space. But it is indeed that attitude that has prevented us from doing so.

Edited by QuestforLife, 09 January 2024 - 02:44 PM.

[Mind]

A lot of management jobs are getting axed in large corporations - which was a prediction by some people. Management/software/media/HR jobs are easily replaced by AI. Delivery drivers....not yet.

[Danail Bulgaria]

A lot of management jobs are getting axed in large corporations - which was a prediction by some people. Management/software/media/HR jobs are easily replaced by AI. Delivery drivers....not yet.

 

Not yet, but soon

 

https://www.longecit...the-road-waymo/
 

It is not a big step from driveless cars to driveless trunks, or to driveless car with an SMS hello, your deluvery is infront of your door. Not mentioning the driverless air drones for delivery, which existed even in 2019 if not earlier.

 

Everything in 4 wheels will become driverless and drivers will be cut off.

[mag1]

I do not need to tell anyone on thread -- this is not somehow magically becoming less scary--  it is becoming more scary.

 

The latest I have seen was a robotic brick layer.

Apparently there is a large global scale shortage of bricklayers -- no one wants to lay bricks anymore everyone wants to be a tiktok influencer.

 

OK, good supply and demand.

Drive up the wages of brick layers -- problem solved!

 

Not exactly.

It seems that all of these first order thinking type solutions do not work to plan.

If there is a shortage of anything, just bring in the robots.

 

I had thought that with the near collapse in fertility rates that we could finally see wide spread youth labor shortages that would bring fertility back into balance.

This assumption no longer appears to be true.

Any future labor shortage will probably be resolved by the introduction of labor saving robots.

 

This also appears to be true for agricultural labor.

There is a new generation of soft fruit picking robots that could displace a large amount of lower skilled agricultural work.

 

This is not getting better. 

Edited by mag1, 27 February 2024 - 01:48 AM.

[QuestforLife]

For me the most worrying part of all this is not the loss of jobs specifically, but the wholesale replacement of the need for individual workers by a centralised tool that we will all be paying into. This is a general technology trend that started far before AI, for example relatively recently with Amazon replacing (in part) a large number of independent physical shops. To do this Amazon needed considerable investment for many years when it was not profitable and was building market share and refining its website and distribution systems. But now it is in a very strong position. This trend has now accelerated even more with the development of machine learning. 

 

It took huge resources from large corporations (Microsoft, AMD, etc.) and other organisations (OpenAI) to train ChatGPT. But once it was trained we can in theory at least replace most call centre jobs. The same will be true for various other jobs, including more skilled jobs, once machine learning is complete for those areas.So for example truck drivers, music teachers, some construction jobs, all eventually gone... So now those people have no way of earning money from their skills, but it is not like they have suddenly graduated to the sunlit uplands of a comfortable UBI, they just have to get a worse paid job somewhere because their labour has reduced in value. Some of these people have been on good money and it will be painful for them in the transition. Perhaps some of them were milking the system before because of a lack of labour, so maybe we shouldn’t be completely sympathetic to their plight. But is it really better that instead of paying all these individuals or small businesses, we will now all be paying a few very large corporations? Are we not moving towards the point of fewer and fewer people holding more and more of the power (/money)? How could the likes of Elon Musk think that AI developments could possibly distribute power rather than concentrate it? Is there any good outcome whereby machine learning tools become so ubiquitous and so easy to train and deploy that the individual gains power back? Or is this part of a more fundamental and irreversible trend whereby structures get larger and more complex over time and that we should see this as a good thing? 

 

The other aspect of this is that governments seem as bemused as the rest of us by these developments. Right now governments’ main purpose seems to be shipping huge numbers of people around the world to keep labour costs down and control the democratic vote so that their managerial class of rulers can remain in perpetual power (IMO).  But what happens when the cost of human labour becomes almost nil? Is this the emancipation of the human race from work, or is it the ultimate enslavement? 

 

A final question. Are we just going through some very choppy times, and eventually this will all shake out? Or is this pace of change set to continue to a final breaking point?

 

[Mind]

For me the most worrying part of all this is not the loss of jobs specifically, but the wholesale replacement of the need for individual workers by a centralised tool that we will all be paying into. This is a general technology trend that started far before AI, for example relatively recently with Amazon replacing (in part) a large number of independent physical shops. To do this Amazon needed considerable investment for many years when it was not profitable and was building market share and refining its website and distribution systems. But now it is in a very strong position. This trend has now accelerated even more with the development of machine learning. 

 

It took huge resources from large corporations (Microsoft, AMD, etc.) and other organisations (OpenAI) to train ChatGPT. But once it was trained we can in theory at least replace most call centre jobs. The same will be true for various other jobs, including more skilled jobs, once machine learning is complete for those areas.So for example truck drivers, music teachers, some construction jobs, all eventually gone... So now those people have no way of earning money from their skills, but it is not like they have suddenly graduated to the sunlit uplands of a comfortable UBI, they just have to get a worse paid job somewhere because their labour has reduced in value. Some of these people have been on good money and it will be painful for them in the transition. Perhaps some of them were milking the system before because of a lack of labour, so maybe we shouldn’t be completely sympathetic to their plight. But is it really better that instead of paying all these individuals or small businesses, we will now all be paying a few very large corporations? Are we not moving towards the point of fewer and fewer people holding more and more of the power (/money)? How could the likes of Elon Musk think that AI developments could possibly distribute power rather than concentrate it? Is there any good outcome whereby machine learning tools become so ubiquitous and so easy to train and deploy that the individual gains power back? Or is this part of a more fundamental and irreversible trend whereby structures get larger and more complex over time and that we should see this as a good thing? 

 

The other aspect of this is that governments seem as bemused as the rest of us by these developments. Right now governments’ main purpose seems to be shipping huge numbers of people around the world to keep labour costs down and control the democratic vote so that their managerial class of rulers can remain in perpetual power (IMO).  But what happens when the cost of human labour becomes almost nil? Is this the emancipation of the human race from work, or is it the ultimate enslavement? 

 

A final question. Are we just going through some very choppy times, and eventually this will all shake out? Or is this pace of change set to continue to a final breaking point?

 

There is this assumption among techno-utopians, that either:

 

1. Society will become a utopia once we have AGI.

 

or

 

2. Unemployed people will instantly find new productive jobs/careers.

 

When everything can be done faster, better, and cheaper, with AGI/robots, who is going to pay a human to work slower, at a higher cost, with more liability, and for lower quality products/services? Answer: No one.

[Danail Bulgaria]

There is this assumption among techno-utopians, that either:

 

1. Society will become a utopia once we have AGI.

 

or

 

2. Unemployed people will instantly find new productive jobs/careers.

 

When everything can be done faster, better, and cheaper, with AGI/robots, who is going to pay a human to work slower, at a higher cost, with more liability, and for lower quality products/services? Answer: No one.

 

"2" slowly will be becomming more and more impossible until full impossibility. It is already happening. Slowly, yes, but it is here already.

Factors:

-pausing hireing.

-hireing canceling.

-increasement of the requirements for people for the remaining positions. A possible future example: We are searching for a person with a minimum 15 years of experience in the field.

-AI taking the other jobs which you may be qualified in. A possible future scenario example: you got fired, but you have a drivers license, so you can become a driver. No you can't. driver's job is lost.

-absence of qualification educations and courses, which to provide you with real advantages against the AI. The real qualifications will be becomming less and less in number, harder and harder for getting, and more and more expensive.

 

But you needn't be worried. Invite sensei and YOLF. They will explain you how I am totally nuts, and why you simply have to ignore me.

[adamh]

What does not having a job mean? It means mainly, no money coming in. If everyone got a check, that problem is solved. Do people want to work but there are no jobs? If the problem is that people want to work, they can work for low wages or for free. I doubt people enjoy laying bricks very much or manual labor in general.

 

Where will the checks come from? From the profits earned by the robots of course. The factory owner no longer has to pay people so a major expense has been eliminated. Profits, therefor, go way up and govt taxes go up. People are doing whatever they like and getting a check every month. 

 

So, what is the problem with robots taking the jobs?

[mag1]

OK, so they are now moving the neural net capability to IRL.

At this point it almost seems as if they are showing off.

There does not seem to be any clear reason why you need full AGI capability in a warehouse/domestic type robot.

All you really need to do is train one robot in how to do typical household/factory type tasks and then replicate the software.

The Neo robot seems to have been designed more as an all purpose learning AGI type robot.

 

Watch the embedded video; it is shocking!

 

https://www.notebook...u.807401.0.html

 

So, yes, this is starting to amplify.

And yeah I want one -- the robot can pick up my socks and also wash them.

Clearly this is a new industry that is emerging.

Basically, a 24/7 live in butler for everyone!

Yeah!

Better living through technology as I have always said.

 

It is difficult to be all mean about the future when it could offer so many benefits.

It is not that easy to find a tennis partner or a baseball buddy, but with these robots I could be out there every day having fun.

I suppose any day now they will have robo tennis partners and robo baseball partners.

Even though it might end human civilization as we know it as long as it can make my life better maybe it's not so bad.

 

Learn to code might now be on the way out, while learn to play is on the way in!

Edited by mag1, 28 February 2024 - 01:14 AM.

[QuestforLife]

Where will the checks come from? From the profits earned by the robots of course. 

 

It is not clear that robots will be making any profits if no one has a job or any money to pay them. As I pointed out in my last post, what is actually happening is that more money is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and therefore less is circulating in the population and economy at large.

 

If this does happen - robots and AI taking all jobs - then the government would then have to nationalise everything and just provide everything for free to the people. But the government can't threaten to do this because then all companies working towards this future would fold or leave that country - or more likely - just threaten not to pay into the politicians' re-election fund.  This line of logic suggests that what we'll actually get is impoverishment for a large segment of society - yes they'll get a pay-check, but it will be miniscule and based purely on how much money the government can extract in taxes from the still-profitable companies. 

 

I don't see all jobs going just yet, of course. Lots of technical and bureaucratic type jobs will be busier than ever trying to keep up with all the technological developments and their consequences. 

 

What I'd like to see happening is that governments realise that it isn't their job to maximise GDP growth in their economic area (which they are bad at, anyway); their real job is to look after the well-being of the people under their care. Once (if) we get that mindset in place, we might have a small chance of being able to navigate the technological insanity that is engulfing us.  

[adamh]

"It is not clear that robots will be making any profits"

 

What we have now is the factory pays its workers to perform tasks. If a factory has 100 workers and pays each $40.000 per year. That gives a labor cost of $4 million per year. If they can replace all the workers with machines then they save up to $4M per year minus repair and depreciation for the robots. That $4M is like extra windfall profit and govt, being ever greedy for more taxes, will grab a large portion of that extra profit. They then turn around and give money to the former workers who are out of a job.

 

People will have personal robots who do cleaning and other chores. If you can't find a tennis partner, use the 'bot. Sex dolls will walk and talk and you will swear they are real, people will marry them. 

 

Now I want to hear from the "thats just awful" crowd tell me how terrible it would be because people really want to work all day and be worn out at the end and have little time for play. I don't know anyone like that but people will assure me thats the case. Next I will be told they will start taking hard drugs, spend all day playing games and things that make karens say "tsk tsk tsk". They will find that life with lots of money is horrible and they will kill themselves. Have I left anything out? 

 

Even you, Quest, would take the money

 

For well over a century we have been phasing out workers and using machines to replace them. This just speeds up the process

[QuestforLife]

"It is not clear that robots will be making any profits"

 

What we have now is the factory pays its workers to perform tasks. If a factory has 100 workers and pays each $40.000 per year. That gives a labor cost of $4 million per year. If they can replace all the workers with machines then they save up to $4M per year minus repair and depreciation for the robots. That $4M is like extra windfall profit and govt, being ever greedy for more taxes, will grab a large portion of that extra profit. They then turn around and give money to the former workers who are out of a job.

 

People will have personal robots who do cleaning and other chores. If you can't find a tennis partner, use the 'bot. Sex dolls will walk and talk and you will swear they are real, people will marry them. 

 

Now I want to hear from the "thats just awful" crowd tell me how terrible it would be because people really want to work all day and be worn out at the end and have little time for play. I don't know anyone like that but people will assure me thats the case. Next I will be told they will start taking hard drugs, spend all day playing games and things that make karens say "tsk tsk tsk". They will find that life with lots of money is horrible and they will kill themselves. Have I left anything out? 

 

Even you, Quest, would take the money

 

For well over a century we have been phasing out workers and using machines to replace them. This just speeds up the process

Even if I agree with your figures, and I don't - the development costs of the robots and software are HUGE and will need to be paid back, so really your labour savings would be much less than you're claiming - but more importantly, how does a company make profits if no-one can afford to buy anything? Because the factory workers aren't the only ones without a job now. In the end this just becomes a couple of companies and the government - so really all just a government handing out the smallest amount they can get away with. 

 

I have to say though, I am somewhat less worried about huge, world shaking job losses than I was a year ago. Google seems to have spent the interim making worse chatbots (i.e. ones that give woke answers rather than useful ones). Most likely the real threat is from someone like Elon Musk who actually wants to make a working AI. 

[mag1]

This is happening!

This is happening NOW!

 

I have focused more on the real world type applications such as the robobuggies on thread as these type of applications seemed to have nearer term implementation.

Below we see a landscaping robot which is set to launch in a month!

It is stunning.

 

Apparently, 2024 could go down as the year of Robo Singularity.

I know that others do not appreciate the prefixed xxxx Singularity approach that I have used -- I agree that everything is not a Singularity.

However, now that the robot invasion is clearly on the horizon, it does seem helpful to make it known that life will be quite different even over

the short term. 

 

Landscaping is a trillion dollar a year industry.

[Edit: Landscaping is was a trillion dollar a year industry.]

 

These landscaping robots could immediately make redundant a large pool of human workers.

Considering that these robots cost <$10K and can automatically learn their task and immediately produce value,

the fair market price for gardening services might now be 10 cents per hour. Given the compelling economics 

robogardening could go massive imminently.

 

One can only hope that the open borders policies that are letting in millions of migrants into developed nations

might be carefully evaluated in light of this new technology. Would you really want to flood your nation with

workers that are competing against 10 cents per hour robots? We could impoverish ourselves with an open 

borders policy and at the same time offer the migrants no viable economic future. This would seem almost

a guaranteed recipe for social disaster.

 

The basic computational package now appears to be all set for real world applications so a very very wide range of

robotic services could roll out over the short term. As soon as you have a good software base for reinforcement learning

robots become very very helpful right away. The robot economy is born. The economics of this is overwhelmingly attractive.

 

Landscaping, security, household chores, personal transportation, household goods delivery ...

This would add tremendous value to my life.

The economic value is staggering. Even for me, roughly, I could easily see $5,000 of annual value with these robots.

If they were to put these robots into the real world there could be an immediate bidding war.

I suppose everyone would find this to be highly reinforcing.

 

They could simply "release" all purpose handyman robots into suburban areas and see what happens.

There could be endless tasks that they could perform that humans would typically not want to do or neglect to do.

The hourly cost to hire such a robot might be truly minimal -- well below minimum wage.

 

So perhaps this is the easy workaround for the problem of where does the money come from -- robots paid at 10 cents an hour will be a

bargain and still cover marginal costs.

 

 

 

 

https://www.therobot...n-robot-verdie/

Edited by mag1, 29 February 2024 - 05:49 PM.

[adamh]

QFL:

" the development costs of the robots and software are HUGE and will need to be paid back, so really your labour savings would be much less than you're claiming "

 

I dunno, mag1 says robots will cost less than 10k and will cost 10 cents per hour to operate. 

 

QFL:

"how does a company make profits if no-one can afford to buy anything? Because the factory workers aren't the only ones without a job now."

 

This has been explained ad nauseum, go back and read the last few times you asked and were answered with ubi

 

mag1:

"These landscaping robots could immediately make redundant a large pool of human workers.

Considering that these robots cost <$10K and can automatically learn their task and immediately produce value,

the fair market price for gardening services might now be 10 cents per hour. Given the compelling economics 

robogardening could go massive imminently."

 

Wow, where can I buy one of those robots who immediately learn their task and do it well and cost less than 10k? I think you may be looking ahead a bit because nothing like that is on the market now. I would put it to work right away and so would many other people. If musk or anyone else is able to put such a 'bot on the market he/she will make a large fortune.

 

You won't need to be in the landscaping business but if you wanted to, you could have a fleet of robots do the work and collect the money. Imagine having a robot slave who attends to your every wish and desire. 

[mag1]

adamh, follow the urls

 

https://www.therobot...n-robot-verdie/

 

Blog post

https://sheeprobotic...gent-with-tools

 

Blog post claims <10k. From the looks of this, these robots might be more in the range of <1K at mass production scale.

 

A $10,000 robot at 5% yearly return needs to generate ~$500 per year = ~ $1 per day  = ~10 cents per hour at marginal cost.

Watch the videos! These bots move super fast!

On a productivity basis they might be producing even more than 10 cents per hour of levelized human labor.

 

This could be so great!

We can remove all of the dangerous, unpleasant and degrading jobs that people do.

Work will not need to be the misery that it is for so many today.

Humans should have a fundamental human right to have safe, and pleasant working conditions.

Robots could bring this to us.

All of this low skill mass migration to perform such labor should end; especially since these jobs could disappear within days.

 

 

The above urls stated that this has been deployed in real world settings over the last many months and will roll out commercially

in the second quarter of this year; that is in the quarter starting April 1st, i.e., stating next month. The urls also noted that this robot

needs absolutely no human input -- it is simply take it out of the box and it immediately creates economic value.

 

In terms of intimate relations between humans and robots, I do not personally believe such behavior is appropriate. However, if it

gets down to whether such coercive intimacy should occur between humans and humans or humans and robots, then I would go with

humans and robots. Admittedly, for the more intellectual and aesthetic aspects of having gorgeous robots, I will add this to my list

of must haves. This would be such a great upgrade for those of us who are not especially socially talented. It would be fantastic to

have a super-human intelligent supermodel to have all sorts of interesting adventures and profound philosophical dialogues with.

Edited by mag1, 02 March 2024 - 06:30 PM.

[QuestforLife]

QFL:
" the development costs of the robots and software are HUGE and will need to be paid back, so really your labour savings would be much less than you're claiming "

I dunno, mag1 says robots will cost less than 10k and will cost 10 cents per hour to operate.

QFL:
"how does a company make profits if no-one can afford to buy anything? Because the factory workers aren't the only ones without a job now."

This has been explained ad nauseum, go back and read the last few times you asked and were answered with ubi

Yeah and where will that UBI come from? Taxes on the companies that sell their products to the people being paid UBI? See the problem yet...

[Mind]

Yeah and where will that UBI come from? Taxes on the companies that sell their products to the people being paid UBI? See the problem yet...

 

That would be called an economic perpetual motion machine.

[adamh]

Yes, mag1, and well said. You of all the people here seem to be able to see the advantages that cheap intelligent robots would bring. People buy sex dolls now and all they are is an inflatable toy. Imagine a 'bot that looks human, flesh feels real, and is programmed to do just what you want. They use robots now for companionship and with ai added, people are going to say "why get married?" Watch and see, furthering the human race would be the only incentive and few will be motivated by that. No arguments, no fights, no alimony, no support, just take it in a couple times a year for service and you can have a beautiful woman (or man) do your bidding, talk to you, encourage you, etc.

 

QFL:

"Yeah and where will that UBI come from? Taxes on the companies that sell their products to the people being paid UBI? 

 

At first, it will be a small percentage who get ubi, it will be used to expand welfare. People will continue to work, most of them, the factories will little by little add robot workers. There may be a sort of tax on the bots, a property or income tax. Company was paying $50k a year, now pays 5k and must pay perhaps a tax of 5k or 10k per year per working robot. This goes to pay ubi for more people as they get laid off. It does not all happen overnight. The company is still making a windfall profit of $25k or more per bot so their profits go way up and they pay more income tax in addition to the robot tax.

 

Another thing that happens is prices go down because the cost of labor drops dramatically. Food, transportation, medical care, housing etc go way down in price because labor is a big part of the cost. The result is people can choose to work or to retire, travel the world, go to concerts, play video games, seduce women, etc and so on.

 

Now we must hear from the doom and gloom crowd. Mind, QFL, the rest, thats your cue to explain how awful all this will be, people going mad at having too many choices, not having to work... oh the horror!

[Mind]

Yes, mag1, and well said. You of all the people here seem to be able to see the advantages that cheap intelligent robots would bring. People buy sex dolls now and all they are is an inflatable toy. Imagine a 'bot that looks human, flesh feels real, and is programmed to do just what you want. They use robots now for companionship and with ai added, people are going to say "why get married?" Watch and see, furthering the human race would be the only incentive and few will be motivated by that. No arguments, no fights, no alimony, no support, just take it in a couple times a year for service and you can have a beautiful woman (or man) do your bidding, talk to you, encourage you, etc.

 

QFL:

"Yeah and where will that UBI come from? Taxes on the companies that sell their products to the people being paid UBI? 

 

At first, it will be a small percentage who get ubi, it will be used to expand welfare. People will continue to work, most of them, the factories will little by little add robot workers. There may be a sort of tax on the bots, a property or income tax. Company was paying $50k a year, now pays 5k and must pay perhaps a tax of 5k or 10k per year per working robot. This goes to pay ubi for more people as they get laid off. It does not all happen overnight. The company is still making a windfall profit of $25k or more per bot so their profits go way up and they pay more income tax in addition to the robot tax.

 

Another thing that happens is prices go down because the cost of labor drops dramatically. Food, transportation, medical care, housing etc go way down in price because labor is a big part of the cost. The result is people can choose to work or to retire, travel the world, go to concerts, play video games, seduce women, etc and so on.

 

Now we must hear from the doom and gloom crowd. Mind, QFL, the rest, thats your cue to explain how awful all this will be, people going mad at having too many choices, not having to work... oh the horror!

 

Could I ask you please to stop misrepresenting my opinion on the matter? It might seem trivial, but it is slightly annoying. I am not saying there will be Utopia or Dystopia, just that it cannot be predicted. There are plenty of experts who point to good things and bad things that might come about from advancing AI. It is good to discuss the wide range of scenarios.

 

Based upon that fact the younger generations are more depressed, more addicted to drugs, and other things, and commit suicide at a much higher rate, it just seems like adding more, more, and more (AI) porn, (AI) games, etc... might not be the utopia that a lot of people imagine, or at a minimum, at least these negative effects should be confronted.