tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post5708683822911680040..comments2013-11-05T05:55:27.968-08:00Comments on The Dragon Talking: The Advanced Civilized Paradigm I: WorkBrian Rushhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552215953144171416noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-51096616035608663072010-03-11T15:07:37.061-08:002010-03-11T15:07:37.061-08:00Thanks for the extra help here in getting it. I&#...Thanks for the extra help here in getting it. I'm all for the end of jobs and wages. And maybe you're right and machines will take us there -- I think of my 1916 cohort grandma talking about her first washing machine as opposed to washing "on the board." Pretty big transformation. The ownership piece is perhaps trickier. With that story, looking backward doesn't bode well for a peaceful sharing looking forward.Christi Killienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04017150061392387555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-40087481331618075492010-03-10T22:49:19.189-08:002010-03-10T22:49:19.189-08:00Humans have to produce the technological infrastru...Humans have to produce the technological infrastructure that makes the robot, including first-generation machines that make second-generation machines. Humans also have to develop the technology that makes all this possible, and it has not been fully developed yet. However, all that means is that the end of paid work is not upon us YET. Once the technology is developed and the infrastructure built so that robotics becomes self-sustaining, humans will no longer be needed (for that). But I don't really want to go too much into the technical details of AI and robotics, partly because I'm not an expert at it and don't know in detail how any of this would work. All I'm going to say along those lines is that I see no reason why it can't eventually be done.<br /><br />There are two ways to make a living in a modern society. One is to hold a job. The other is to own a business (or shares of a business).<br /><br />If you hold a job, that means you are doing work for someone else's profits (not your own) in return for a fixed, agreed-upon sum of money per hour or per month or per sale or what have you. The wealth that you produce is not yours; it belongs to those who own the business that you work for. Since your money is coming not from the profits of the business but from your wages or salary or commission, you have an interest in high wages or salary or commission -- even though that will increase costs of doing business and so lower profit margins. You don't care about profit margins, because the profits don't belong to you.<br /><br />If you own a business, or shares in businesses, you do not receive a fixed, agreed-upon sum of money per what-have-you, but instead receive a share of the profits of the business equivalent to your percentage of ownership. Your attitude towards wages or profits is completely reversed. You don't get money from wages -- that's something you have to PAY, and it reduces the share you get to take home. So you want to hold wages down, not bring them up.<br /><br />One way to hold wages down is to cut them out altogether by getting machines to do the work for you instead of people. True, machines have costs as well, but generally speaking those costs are less than the human costs they are replacing.<br /><br />Taking this to its logical conclusion -- and again, assuming that there is no concrete, objective human functionality that machines are in principle unable to perform -- what we would eventually have is an economy with no jobs at all.<br /><br />But that same basic economic function of distributing the wealth, which today is accomplished (sort of) by paying wages for work, would still need to be done. If you can't do that, there's no market for the goods being produced, and the whole thing breaks down.<br /><br />Goods can be sold and business can be profitable only if at least most people are making money. You can't sell stuff to people who have no money. So one way or another people have to have money, or the whole economy goes kerputt. And since people won't be able to get money by working at a job, and the only other way to make money is by being a business owner -- everyone is going to have to be a business owner. Ownership shares will have to be taken from the few people who own most of them today, and broadly shared among all the people. The sharing won't have to be perfectly equal, but it will have to be at least generous enough to make up for the absence of wages.<br /><br />Exactly how this is to be brought about isn't nailed down, but regardless of the form, the transition must be revolutionary.<br /><br />Now, does this mean that the future after this will be completely empty of work? No. But it does mean that it will be devoid of jobs. People will still work -- but they'll work for the sake of the work itself, for the satisfaction of it or for the joy in what they're producing, not for wages or salaries, which they will neither need nor be able to find.Brian Rushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06552215953144171416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-73269229822476312782010-03-10T12:42:12.172-08:002010-03-10T12:42:12.172-08:00We have to distribute wealth differently, absolute...We have to distribute wealth differently, absolutely, but why that means the end of all jobs I don't understand. What I envisioned after reading your essay was a civilization absent the drudgery and slavery of jobs, not the end of work altogether. We're still in the Classical Civilized Paradigm as far as wages and jobs go! Work as the creation of wealth in the future could be interesting, relevant, unconnected to insurances and retirement, and less hung up on the Puritan/Calvinistic morality of busy-ness.<br /> <br />I can't get my mind around (imagine) machines producing all the wealth, including art. Doesn't a human have to make the robot, or at least activate the robot who makes the robot?Christi Killienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04017150061392387555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-73243380649325509582010-03-10T06:53:26.304-08:002010-03-10T06:53:26.304-08:00Cheaper for those who want to make money off it. T...Cheaper for those who want to make money off it. The point here is that we're eventually going to have to get away from the idea of wages for work as the way to distribute wealth. If all wealth is produced by machines -- if there are no jobs -- who can buy the stuff that's produced? Unless we distribute wealth in some other way.Brian Rushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06552215953144171416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-11562262736658655312010-03-09T22:09:30.429-08:002010-03-09T22:09:30.429-08:00Oh my. I thought AI stood for Amnesty Internation...Oh my. I thought AI stood for Amnesty International. Ha! Artificial Intelligence indeed. Well, robots could be a distant future stage of human evolution I suppose. Robots playing a role or dancing on stage, painting a portrait, leading a ritual. It doesn't move me much, I have to say. What's the advantage again?Christi Killienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04017150061392387555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-10049785742777034212010-03-09T20:24:15.204-08:002010-03-09T20:24:15.204-08:00Me, too. :)
But are we sure art isn't somethi...Me, too. :)<br /><br />But are we sure art isn't something that a machine could ever do? All we can be certain of is that current AI technology isn't capable of it.Brian Rushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06552215953144171416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4744790826528804732.post-388099945759291982010-03-09T12:25:10.964-08:002010-03-09T12:25:10.964-08:00A superb historical distillation. At the end, I w...A superb historical distillation. At the end, I was dying to glimpse your imagined "logical 'end states' of visual developments" of what future people will be doing and how, especially with "machines that can do anything humans can do as well as humans or better." Perhaps that future description is the stuff of art (which is not to say that your essay isn't), and art is what we'll all be doing.<br /> <br />What wealth creation can be done only by human beings? The Western concept of art as chiefly embellishment with little or no utilitarian function beyond the aesthetic is new, narrow and isolating. Art for art's sake. This is in contrast to the Precivilized Paradigm and the Classical Civilized Paradigm where art wasn't a peripheral phenomena but had utilitarian, social and religious benefits. The thing that survives is cave art!<br /> <br />The behavior of art. We've all got it. It's making special that which has survival value. We've evolved because of it. Ellen Dissanayake, the UW professor and author of Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why, calls it, "a psychobiological necessity." Art for life's sake, lives lived as art. Sounds like a world I'd like to live in:)Christi Killienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04017150061392387555noreply@blogger.com