From: Matt Welland (matt@essentialgoods.com)
Date: Mon Sep 01 2003 - 18:52:49 MDT
The answer depends, I think, on what you value and how you perceive human
nature. Given that in my experience there are many humans that seem to be
short sighted, selfish, self-centered, and uncaring my concern is that
without mechanisms in place to prevent it, over time most of the resources
available to us will be controlled by a powerful few. I'd go further to say
that it seems to me we are well on the way - I've read (no atribution, sorry)
that 98% of the land in the US is owned (i.e. controlled by) 3% of the
population.
Now if your values leave you comfortable with this scenario then all is well
in the world. However if you see the earth as being something that all humans
inherit more or less equally then a roboticised world with no economy is a
dismal future indeed (unless of course you are destined to be in the
controlling 1% of the population).
On Monday 01 September 2003 06:22 pm, Kevin Freels wrote:
> I have a (maybe) dumb question.
>
> I keep seeing people debate about the consequences of having a society
> where robots do the work and AI's do the computation. Most of this debate
> seems to revolve around what kind of jobs will be left and how that will
> affect the economy.
>
> My question is: Is an economy necessary?
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
> To: "Extropy List" <extropians@extropy.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 7:18 PM
> Subject: Robots r Us
>
> > Oh boy, you folks are going to have a field day with this.
> >
> > Marshall Brain has written an article called "Robotic Freedom":
> > http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
> >
> > It outlines the problems that modern economies will have as
> > robots start to significantly displace individuals in the
> > work force. (Mind you I don't completely agree with his
> > predictions/time-frame.) But this goes back to points that
> > Moravec has made in his books, e.g. "How does the economy
> > function when robots do most of the work?".
> >
> > The interesting suggestion that Brain makes is that the
> > government should literally give money away.
> >
> > So, question -- does or does not the knowledge of several
> > lawyers on the list require "real" artificial intelligence
> > or could their arguments be presented by a robot with
> > a "simple" logical argument component with a very large
> > memory? (E.g. essentially a legal "expert system".)
> > As background, I'll simply point out that expert systems
> > that diagnose certain diseases have been built (and IMO
> > would probably do a much better job than several physicians
> > I've encountered over the last year). This relates to the
> > question of precisely *when* do many of the service jobs
> > go to the robots in addition to the physical labor jobs.
> >
> > (To the lawyers -- no offense -- I'm just trying to fuel
> > the debate of "what are robots" and "what are AIs" and how
> > trends may dictate how people should prepare for the future.)
> >
> > Robert
-- Be strong, have patience, pay attention and live well.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Sep 01 2003 - 19:03:38 MDT