From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Thu Jul 24 2003 - 12:40:23 MDT
Alfio wrote:
> http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
>
> Some Kurzweil-like estimates, and an article entirely dedicated to the
> jobs that will be lost to "robots"...
>
>
> "... If you add that all up, it's over 50 million jobs lost to robots.
> That is a conservative estimate. By 2050 or so, it is very likely that
> over half the jobs in the United States will be held by robots.
>
> All the people who are holding jobs like those today will be
> unemployed.
>
> American society has no way to deal with a situation where half of the
> workers are unemployed. During the Great Depression at its very
> worst, 25% of the population was unemployed. The robotic future will
> be twice as bad, and it will be permanent."
### You might want to apply Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage, and also
briefly think about the price of robots in relation to the average income of
the unemployed. If you add these two simple considerations, you could
conclude that there is no need to "deal" with any situation here, and
especially not deal as in the New Deal, which resulted in losses to the
economy which continue to this day. The robotic future will be many times
better than you imagine, as long as you don't spoil it by "making jobs".
Rafal
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