Robots solve inequality in a social, humane society. Not in Capitalism. Capitalism is based on inequality, it cannot survive without oppression.
Robots will solve wealth inequality, they say
Submitted 22 hours ago by stabby_cicada@lemmy.blahaj.zone to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/e3e86f86-48b8-4ea0-a66a-eb050a2f0e93.webp
Comments
hayvan@piefed.world 21 hours ago
krisevol@lemmus.org 21 hours ago
It actually can’t survive without slavery. We just call it offshore labor now.
Soup@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Slavery is oppression so they’re still right, and oppression includes more things than just slavery which is more true. Capitalism is designed to give power to money, not equal power to people. It doesn’t even serve as a way to give a louder voice to those who work hard because it’s about having money and not about how said money was made.
So, yes, but you’ve made the comment less accurate.
lightsoflife@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Sure, Offshore it to our local slaves we tend to call prisoners.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 12 hours ago
Robots are just the new slave labour. The old slave labour is now redundant so doesn’t need to be fed.
Zacryon@feddit.org 7 hours ago
TL;DR:
Automation erodes the base of the labor market faster than new roles emerge, while our current economic system depends on human labor as the primary source of income distribution.Solution ideas:
In the short term, mitigate the effects of automation-driven job loss through mechanisms like automation taxes and universal basic income.
In the long term, move toward a system where access to basic needs is decoupled from labor entirely, as human work loses its role as the primary source of value distribution.Long version:
I am a robotics reaearcher working in the field of cognitive systems, the lemmy-wide beloved AI. From my point of view we are at a crossroads: one path leads to a robotic utopia, the other to a dystopia.The near-future reasons are mainly of socio-economic nature: AI powered robots will replace more and more jobs that are low on the required job-skill hierachy and iteratively improve over time with regard to costs as well as capabilities. And the speed of this developments is increasing. While some may embrace it since this frees capacities such that people can seek positions that require higher qualification, I think that this will not be the case, because I suspect we have something that I would call a “job pyramid”. At the broad lower end we have many jobs available that require only low skills. As we look further towards the top, the availability of jobs becomes more scarce as the qualification level rises.
“It is lonely at the top”: not everyone can become a CEO, a professor, or take some other high ranking position, because there are not enough openings available.
At the same time, robots and AI devour the lower end of the pyramid more and more, kicking people out of the level where they would’ve gotten a job and throwing them into an existential crisis.I need to emphasize that my “job pyramid” perspective is just a hypothesis and I did not have the time yet to conduct thorough research on this to see whether this is actually justified. It also does not consider other market dynamics such as the evolution of new or small market segments that could result from the economic pressure. (I suppose though that the options are too limited in that regard as well.)
An additional failure mode (ignoring access to education) is that people are not just motivated enough by money in order to take on the education necessary to get those high qualification positons. Otherwise most of us would probably try to become tech CEOs for example and we just don’t see that happening. This is apparent already at an academic level: most people do not pursue higher education at universities or alike. That’s a systematic incompatibility with how humans actually tic. They are not just simple economically optimizing agents, since human motivation and actions are much more multi-faceted. Therefore, “just reskill upwards” is not a universal solution.
We have long crossed the threshold where robots became cheap to build, deploy and maintain and much more efficient, safer as well as cheaper than human labour. And that’s what the capitalists see: they do not really see a marvellous new technology that improves the lifes of everyone and leads us into a world where nobody would have to work. They see cheap work force.
From a business point of view this is fair game, even if ethically questionable.So how do we get out of this? If robots and AI steal more and more of the jobs that humans would’ve done, job openings becoming scarce, and financial pressure starts affecting more and more people in an increasingly worse manner, what can we do?
From my point of view: we need to move towards a post-scarcity society in this regard.Currently, labour only has value because it can not be replaced easily. But the devaluation of work will continue. Also, even though it currently looks like a meaningful path for more and more companies to pursue increasing the amount of automation in the short term, this will sooner or later rebounce: if people don’t get enough money, they can not pay for goods and services, which will lead to those companies loosing profits, which will lead to less people being able to afford a basic living and so on.
To fix this temporarily, we could, for example, impose an automation tax on companies: determine the amount to which a company could be automated and then impose a tax proportional to the amount they were actually automated. If we allow purposing specific taxes, we could use this automation tax to finance a universal basic income. Starting with those people who are not able to make a living due to an increasingly automated society. This tax should strike a balance to still allow making it attractive for companies to go for automation and stay competitive.
However, this is only a temporary solution, because in the long term, this leads to the same issues I already described before.
I am convinced that the core issue is an inherent incompatibility of advancements in robotics and AI with a capitalistic society. And for as long as this is the case, there is a creeping doom approaching, leading to a long period of a dystopia where the few keep getting richer while the many will struggle for life. We already have this issue without automation in our society today.
Wealth re-distribution might help, money is only meaningful if it is being kept in circulation. But I suppose this is also just a bandaid fix.
We need to move to a state of things, where living a basic life is granted and virtually free of charge. To get there the above solution ideas can help. But ultimately, we will probably need communist robots to open the path towards the utopic future. Someday nobody has to work, but is free to pursue their happiness and unfold their potential, even if it is working on something in the end anyway. But no one would have to fear not getting basic needs met. Everyone could get shelter, enough food and so on. (We are wasting insane amounts of food anyway already today. Isn’t that cruel?) That is the future I am dreaming of.
But one thing is certain: robotics and AI will continue to develop and the momentum increases. It has come to stay, one way or the other. It is not some basic technology that makes only few jobs obsolete, it will keep distorting the labour market more and more in the future. So we will have to deal with it.
I have been saying this for what feels like half an eternity and advocating for legislation worldwide to develop new laws and structures in order to deal with this, because we are missing crucial time and are already starting to see how wrong this can go, if we do not act accordingly.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
moonshadow@slrpnk.net 18 hours ago
In my town the children fuck with these to learn to fuck with waymos when they grow up. Trapping them with signs is funny and you can’t get in trouble, bashing/stripping them is cooler but they’re expensive enough that pretty much any damage is a “felony” so watch out for that
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 18 hours ago
There have to be trackers on it, so if you take it home to dissect it, they’ll be crashing through your door pretty soon. That robot is owned by a big corporation, and has more rights than you.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Kids are inherently anarchist in nature. Donate a faraday net to the local children today. Keep them safe.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 12 hours ago
Don’t have to steal it to fuck with it
moonshadow@slrpnk.net 18 hours ago
The pros used to use foil lined vans for stripping scooters, imagine they’re still at it. The kids smash n dash with the batteries like pheasant hunters just pulling the breasts and put them in their ebikes to get away even faster next time
Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Robots can pick up corpses of the formerly homeless without feeling bad about it.
jestho@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
Robots can make pizzas out of the homeless without feeling 101011010011 about it
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
So has anyone broken into one of these things for food yet or no? Because I could definitely see a particularly hungry crackhead with a pry bar cracking one open like a kinder surprise egg.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 18 hours ago
I saw a video of a group of guys beating the shit out of one, screaming “No Clankers!”
backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 17 hours ago
youcantreadthis@quokk.au 14 hours ago
They have a lot of anti tip stabilizing stuff. Its really fun to tackle them.
Sucks murdering the scum who own and code them wouldnt help anything.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
CEOs and owners hate payroll, it’s their biggest “expense” and many would eliminate all employees the second they are able to.
The board would be very happy to have that expense removed; a perfect capitalist company needs no employees, just robots.
At least we’ll get to see the CEOs bitch, they’re quite an expense on their own and will also be replaced.
reksas@sopuli.xyz 12 hours ago
where will they get the profits without customers though? If all companies got what they wanted and replaced employees with robots, people wouldnt have jobs and couldnt buy anything. Do they have endgame for that scenario?
qarbone@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
You set up debt plans to enslave people through credit on daily necessities.
thetentacle@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
you don’t need profits anymore when you have robotic slaves. you need profits to pay people to do the work you want to be done for you. if you have robots doing everything to keep a large estate running for you with all necessities, what do you need more humans or profit for?
Alberat@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You’ve just spent the night sleeping face-down in a plate of synth-spaghetti in a bar called the Chatsubo. After rubbing the sauce out of your eyes, you can see Chiba sky through the window, the color of television tuned to a dead channel. Ratz’s prosthetic Russian arm whines as he stores the bar. “I don’t care if you eat that spaghetti or sleep in it, you still gotta pay for it. 46 credits. Pay up, cyberscum.” “You’re under arrest, citizen, for not paying your tab.” "You find yourself in a Justice booth. On the wall monitor in front of you if the huge image of a frowning Compu-Judge. On the smaller monitor is there serious face of a Compu-Lawyer “You have been charged with a serious crime, citizen. I will be your Judge. Due to the serious nature of your crime, there can only be one verdict… Guilty. You must remain in Chiba City. A fine of 500 credits will be deducted from your bank account.”
GrandpaDJ@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
A gentleman of culture I see.
RecursiveParadox@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Found the Gibsonian.
matlag@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
“Robots will replace all jobs and work for us!” – Who realistically thought they would be in the “us” here?
Robots belong to companies owned by shareholders, but mostly oligarchs. In their view, when robots work for “them”, human population has been culled with 99.9% of the population died by starvation and/or stopped reproducing, and the 0.1% billionaire families survivors enjoy a cosy life where robots do everything.
Until the system crashes and none of these idiots know how to fix anything.
That’s one more human extinction scenario to the list…
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 2 hours ago
It’s legal for your boss to replace you with a robot and fire you. But it’s not legal for you to just buy a robot that is doing your job for you while you are still getting paid.
hark@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
What we need are Luigi robots.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Robots that automate food and medical care production and that are open source will make capitalism obsolete. Not robots in general.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
that’s cute
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
Humans will come for whatever peace you build eventually. You need nukes to make them think twice.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
Robots will solve inequality because once the military is fully automated, the 1% will murder everyone they dont want to have sex with.
Hope youre hotter then a 8.
Gork@sopuli.xyz 21 hours ago
Goddamn clankers
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
Why are people still using Twitter?
qarbone@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
The same reason people still learn Latin or maintain legacy system in outdated programming languages.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Remember cow tipping? That possibly urban myth about farmer’s kids pushing over sleeping cows? I was just thinking about that for some reason. Seems like good viral video content, I mean if it were true.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Probably one of the reasons you see these little robots far more often in the online shitpost section than the real world.
NYT had a whole article about stochastic violence aimed at robots
A hitchhiking robot was beheaded in Philadelphia. A security robot was punched to the ground in Silicon Valley. Another security bot, in San Francisco, was covered in a tarp and smeared with barbecue sauce.
…
Dozens of vigilantes have thrown rocks at driverless cars in Arizona, for example, and incident reports from San Francisco suggest that human drivers are intentionally crashing into driverless cars.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 20 hours ago
The more we do this, the more their tech bro owners will push for allowing these things to defend themselves. Image that little bot in OP’s pic armed with a taser.
Spendius@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I love how distopian cyberpunk the reality has become. We’re living a fantasy!
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
I think robots can help, but it requires laws, overhauled society, and a twist on things. Instead of companies owning many individual robots, such as shelf stockers, cleanup bots, and food handlers, individual people own a single robot. This robot is loaned out to companies, but service can be retracted by the human owner.
That sort of requirement would make it so that companies can’t become fiefdoms of an individual will, as they have to get robotic labor from ordinary people.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
It requires truly abandoning the idea that one must work for one’s pay. That basic assumption has to completely die before you can enter that world of technological post-scarcity. I don’t think that reckoning is going to arrive peacefully.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
IMO, the United States is speedrunning the conditions needed to upset the apple cart. As such, much of my focus when making suggestions is the assumption that society would have a serious redefinition of how the economy is supposed to work.
To that end, I think UBI socialism could pair with capitalism, but in specific ways. UBI providing free necessities, while capitalism offers luxuries. For example, UBI allowing anyone to own a single generic car in one color, with a set feature list. Luxury cars have to compete against the free basic government car, by offering creature comforts, aesthetics, size, and so forth.
IMO, capitalism is great at offering interesting stuff for a person. But it is fundamentally is unfit at ensuring the wellbeing of people. Money should be used solely used for buying lifestyle, while everything fundamental to a decent life is freely given. Free fuel, free food, free basic lodgings, free utilities, free healthcare, free basic supplies, free childcare, free generic clothing, ect.
It is the bandages decorated with children’s cartoons, fashionable clothing, fancy christmas lights, and so forth that people have to spend money on.
RosaLuxemburgsGhost@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
It requires a planned socialized economy so that the robots are programmed to help the masses, not programmed to help protect the private property and endless enrichment of the capitalist class.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
Allowing ordinary people to modify their robots to have software that is loyal to the person, would be key. A Linux for automatons, essentially.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 18 hours ago
Robots will solve wealth equality…
Yeah, we’ll all be equally poor.
PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Until robots can drive revenue for corporations by spending actual real dollars, everyone being poor is a bad thing.
Capitalism used to be about getting move money, improving previous things, and making more money. Now it’s just about the next quarter.
Eventually that next quarter won’t go up. Because not enough actual humans can afford to make line go up. Companies will lay off more people and there will be even more people who don’t make line go up.
Capitalism has a hard end. Not a soft one. Eventually there just is not enough money for every day people to make money. When you funnel all of it into the top 1%, unless you’re just trading money back and forth or hording it while the world burns… What happens after the latter? What happens to the multiple multi-trillionaires who all of a sudden can’t find plumbers to fix their mansions, pilots to fly their planes, or chefs to cook the famine they created?
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 15 hours ago
I submit that we reached that point long ago. I remember working for a record company in the 90s, and being to go talk to my closest retail buyers, and try to get them to buy a pallette of some slow moving title, telling them that they don’t even need to crack it open, just stick it in a corner, and I’ll authorize the return next month. And that happened regularly.
Now we’re at a point where they are doing all sorts of crazy things to keep the numbers looking good. We’ve blown past all the normal markers like efficient experts, layoffs, downsizing, shrinkflation, lobbying, literal fraud, and now they’re pinning their hopes on replacing asich of the human workforce as possible.
They aren’t looking forward to an America with 60% permanent unemployment rate, or even the next quarter, they are trying to keep the Dow up for the week.
taygaloocat@leminal.space 18 hours ago
If you’re poor enough to need to pay for pizza in installments, you don’t need to get it delivered to your doorstep. Walk out and get it.
(Unless it’s too dangerous to walk the streets in the US now idk)
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
A lot of Americans are poor because of structural economic issues and systemic oppression. There are just as many Americans that are poor because they make absolutely pants-on-head stupid financial decisions over and over and over again. But if you ever mention this on the internet people immediately pile on to you and call you a monster. Literally nobody needs pizza.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
These things go hand in hand, the biggest reason to pay the large premium on prepared food is that it solves logistical problems, which you will likely have more of if you suffer from poverty. I started the dough to make pizza half an hour ago which is going to end up as several very inexpensive meals, but I had a childhood where I was shown how to make pizza, I have a kitchen to myself, a relaxed day where I have plenty of time and energy to prepare food, and enough financial stability and space for planning to buy all the ingredients at once in advance. I’ve known people who went into debt to buy pizza, and they lacked all of these things.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 12 hours ago
Much cheaper to make your own pizza. Gone for years without ordering a takeaway as I don’t really see the appeal of them. Overpriced food that will probably give you cancer? Pass.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 12 hours ago
Or don’t eat takeaway food in general, would probably do you some good too.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
walking to get a pizza only works for maybe 2% of statesians, and those areas have costs of living that functionally prevent the poor from living there. do you suggest the actually poor statesians do?
Tempus_Fugit@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Shit is devolving faster than I thought…
darkmogool@feddit.org 21 hours ago
Where are the molotovs, when you need them…
SarahValentine@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 hours ago
Don’t let it bring you down It’s only castles burning Find someone who’s turning And you ARE ON THE FASTEST ROUTE.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
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