Interesting point, anyway, to say only programmers and unemployed left, would be wrong. we still need scientist, researcher.

if we came to a point of an invention can reinvent itself (the holy grail of autonomous robot build even better autonomous robot), why can't there be an AI that write software, rendering programmers useless?

it just the next step of writing a compiler that's finally able to compile it's own source code.

anyway, robot cannot replace human in art and science. robot lack "imagination". they can only do a brute force calculation on given input. a robot can test 1000's of element faster, but human are still needed to invent light bulb.

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Original post by FableFox anyway, robot cannot replace human in art and science. robot lack "imagination". they can only do a brute force calculation on given input. a robot can test 1000's of element faster, but human are still needed to invent light bulb.

I think it's a common misconception. If we can invent true AI (which is the goal, and necessary to evolve to self manufacturing robots), then why couldn't machines have imagination? I think imagination comes with true autonomous intelligence. And we got to a point where inventing something has much less to do with imagination than with hard work and lots of resources. The lone wolf genius garage inventors' time has long gone.

Creativity, innovation, and art have too much connection to the human condition. A robot will never be able to create something new because it cannot understand what is beneficial to humanity without first experiencing what it is to be human.

It will only be able to identify what is useful to itself.

But I'd rather not steer the thread into a discussion about AI - I'm more interested in the direction the country will be heading when work is all technology based, and jobs become more sparse and requiring higher intelligence and education.

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Original post by Chris Reynolds Creativity, innovation, and art have too much connection to the human condition. A robot will never be able to create something new because it cannot understand what is beneficial to humanity without first experiencing what it is to be human. It will only be able to identify what is useful to itself. But I'd rather not steer the thread into a discussion about AI - I'm more interested in the direction the country will be heading when work is all technology based, and jobs become more sparse and requiring higher intelligence and education.

Country? World != USA

It seems not unlikely that the greater the inequity the more obvious the lack of humanity of the organic objects superficially resembling human beings but clearly lacking in humanity will be, resulting in more and more people understanding what could possibly drive someone to 9/11 and more and more desire to see to it that next time around the head of the beast is far more effectively and totally destroyed.

It does however seem unlikely that the inhuman creatures would long resist the need to wallow in power over others, surely more andmore things more and more demeaning can be invented for the slaves to do? How is there any limit to the amount of things one can dream up for other people to do? If they won't do them for half a meal, lower their rations. They'll do it for a crumb or they'll starve...

Or maybe they will instead feel it is not only more than fair but more than sporting to defend oneself from a person wielding a nine billion dollar multinational weapon by use of a nine millimeter bullet. The disparity is far less between a person armed with a gun and a person hogtied on their living room floor watching their children suffer but a tiny few moments compared to the lifelong suffering of the shooter's children...

How could one possibly blame people for such acts of self defense?

The creatures seem incapable of grasping the concept of suffering, maybe if there were some way to cause them to experience it they might at last understand?

Responsibility for seeing to it that robotics obeys the Laws can devolve upon the owners of the robots, obviating the need for A.I. implementation / interpretation of them.

Sorry, your robotic factory is breaking the second clause of the first law, we have to confiscate it to produce medical supplies...

(For extra points: sock puppets as robots, mechanical turk congresses or senates, is a mechanical turk still a robot even when its inner workings are known, etc...)

[Edited by - markm on December 20, 2010 8:54:44 AM]

If we get to the point where machines replace the majority of human work, we will likely have to shift away from our current capitalist style economy. I wonder if communism could actually work when machines are doing all of the work.

Aren't we at the point where these issues are more than science fiction?

@tshrimp - That's a good point. Without work, or even without enough work (unemployment >30%) capitalism will fail and we will quickly need to look at an alternative solution. We would have to live in some sort of hybrid economy to support the many unemployed while still respecting the intrinsic value of limited resources and the remaining workers.

To me this is an extremely realistic future. With technology progressing the way it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see 20-30% unemployment within 10-20 years.

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Original post by tstrimp I wonder if communism could actually work when machines are doing all of the work.

A very interesting point which I must now contemplate!

The only other possibility I see is a transhumanist future where humans can compete with machines by becoming bioengineered cybernetic supermen.

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Original post by Chris Reynolds Aren't we at the point where these issues are more than science fiction? @tshrimp - That's a good point. Without work, or even without enough work (unemployment >30%) capitalism will fail and we will quickly need to look at an alternative solution. We would have to live in some sort of hybrid economy to support the many unemployed while still respecting the intrinsic value of limited resources and the remaining workers. To me this is an extremely realistic future. With technology progressing the way it is, I wouldn't be surprised to see 20-30% unemployment within 10-20 years.

No such thing will happen. By the time, we automate everything, terraforming will be a reality. The rich is will on Earth, while everyone else will be mining the moon or some asteroid. The non-rich will just be sent off to the void to work.

I don't believe honestly that a tech boom of that sort will be mainstream in the next 30 years. There will be still be manufacturing jobs but very specialized. The move to green tech will spur that sector again. More space travel (if that every gets picked up again) will also pick up blue-collar workers (again in the next 50 years or so). I think the jobs of today are rapidly becoming extinct, but they are being replaced with newer systems that still need human hands.