I think it’s important throw an addendum onto that statement. “They will, and it is a good thing. Although there may be some short term downsides we should look to mitigate.”

I love to listen to economics podcasts and read economic articles and books in my spare time, so I’m sufficiently convinced that automation is a good thing for quality of life around the world. That being said, there is a real human cost as well that shouldn’t be downplayed. If we suddenly had autominous trucks available tomorrow, that would potentially lead to millions of American (tens of millions of world wide) workers that will become unemployed. Some percentage will pivot into new work. Some will struggle to find new jobs. Some will never find new employment. What we shouldn’t do is just discount that human suffering as “the cost of progress” and just move along. We short continue to work to find ways to help people with these transitions when and where we can.

In short, let’s always try to mix in some humanity with our disruptive innovations.

An important point, but I hope it is recognized that "we" don't do economic downside-mitigation, at least in the US. People said the same thing about NAFTA - they'd fix it in post. I think there were some half-hearted education efforts and a bit of other fluff, but nobody who could actually do anything really cared. You can see this pattern repeated over and over.

I only mean to pick on the US a little; we are worse than some other nations, but the problem is not unique to us. Humans just generally don't mitigate big, looming collective action problems. They ignore it until it happens and then whine that nobody did anything. Or, if it only effects the already-poor, everyone else settles on a narrative that it is their bad morals or laziness or whatever excuse doesn't make people think too hard.

Just like free trade, yes, a good thing in the aggregate. But many individuals will be displaced, and we should discuss these effects openly and honestly. The last generation wasn't so upfront about the secondary effects of globalization on blue collar workers in rich countries.

Even assuming we end up with some society where robots do most of the labor and universal basic income becomes a thing, what do you think 90% of people will do? People need to be occupied, and the typical person isn't an inventor or artist. Furthermore, good luck making kids want to go to school when they see it as pointless since they can just get everything free from the robots while they watch TV. If you think obesity and our sedentary lifestyles are a danger now, it's only just starting.

We're in for some huge problems as automation ramps up. The people saying "this is good" now will be screaming to go back once the problems start rolling in.

Well, I think you give people too little credit. Nobody can stand passively watching TV the entire day every day of their lives.

But even if you aren't, why would it bother you? If other people want to waste their lives on a coach in front of the TV, what makes this wrong?

Assume that the one thing you do best for a job AI/computers come out and do better. How do you recover from that. Especially, if said AI owners decide you only get a barely livable stipend while they keep most of the profits.

Is it worthless (for you) doing just because a computer can do it better? If so, you may need to look for a better hobby... because after computers start doing everything better than we, all we do will be hobbies, not work.

Exactly, you have to rely on the "charity" of the Capitalists, which is going to be the worst gamble anyone made since the last time we tried to assume humans wouldn't be greedy and grab all the resources and power for themselves.

These couch dwellers, what are they going to do to protest? They can't strike; if they're completely sedentary then they probably can't even protest without having a heart attack; cut off their VR or sugar-pump for 5 minutes and you can probably get any sort of compliance you want.

Our only hope is that the great rolling balls of flab that develop from these sedentary couch-dwellers who exist only to consume HFCS mixed with palm-oil in a satisfying soup of flavourings, and consume the latest immersive media, can't procreate and the problem sorts itself out. Though I fear we'll be using artificial wombs and the like and so manage to remove any reproductive pressure that might push our race back on course.

> Nobody can stand passively watching TV the entire day every day of their lives.

People keep saying this but directly contradicts the observed experience of the vast majority of people.

Coming from a rural area where all the farm jobs went away and half the people are unemployed: they very well can, and do.

There are three main hobbies in my hometown: drinking, heroin, and TV. things haven't changed a bit there in 20 years because nobody cares to change anything.

I think the current theory is: play video games.

you mean you're not watching the [actual] matrix all day already? [neo, is that really you?]

and NOBODY watches porn anymore...

That's a loaded statement. You could say as well that's it's hard to take seriously those who don't know the lump of labour fallacy.

If you think that models that are used to think about economy in aggregate somehow act as a guarantee that a life of an individual will not be wrecked as a result of large-scale automation.... well, lets discuss "lump of labor fallacy" when a former truck driver is "replacing" his job with 3 gig-economy part time jobs that sprung out as result of the "expanding economy".

It's not that those models are wrong, it's that it's a very different thing to read about 20 years of traumatic events from the pages of books on economics, vs. having to live through it.

To add to this, a bit: Our present political kerfuffle is no small way caused by collective feeling of anger by population who have seen their (industrial, mining, farming) jobs in rural america disappear due to globalization, while the market expanded .... elsewhere. In New York, in San Fran, in China, in India. And the money from that expansion did not go anywhere near those affected.

But the upside is how much lives of Chinese have improved, so they got that going for them, which is nice.

Kind of. Middle Class Chinese have had their lives improved quite a bit. Worker class Chinese, well, that situation seems fuzzier.

This may be more or less true, but that's a separate problem from globalization. Due to globalization China got much much richer (to the point of politically bullying other countries due to economical power), but the distribution of the income is an internal problem.

I agree with that.

My critic is towards stating that automation (robots, ai, etc.) causes a loss of jobs in absolute terms, as if in the future most of the people will be unemployed.

There's a radical difference between stating that changes (loss and creation at the same time) in the jobs market will cause disruption, and stating that jobs will be lost and that's it.

Thinking the (r)evolution in nihilistic terms will distract from improving the problems typically caused by the market change (which is the one you mentioned).

Whether or not it's a good thing depends entirely on us as a society. We can either decide to free people up, and give them the freedom to do things without having to worry about bills or where their next meal is coming from, a la Star Trek, or we can continue to put the same capital requirements on living that we currently do, and end up with the Hunger Games.

It could be a good thing; it won't if we retain Western Capitalism as our social order.

Perhaps, but they also take away income.

It's hard to take seriously someone who doesn't hold the same speculations about the future as yours?

> They will and it is a good thing.

Donald Trump, and whatever opportunist demagogue comes after him, agree with you.

Who says the people won't rise up and attempt to destroy thinking machines in some kind of holy war? No one likes being marginalized.

But then the thinking machines will make machines of their own to protect them.

Naw, the ideologues will go after the programmers first, as soon as they realize, much like in the movie 'transcendence'... [besides infrastructure etc]