Just own the damn robots

Re:Just own the damn robots by adrianN on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @12:39AM (#15496922)

Machines didn't take all the jobs in agriculture either, but they changed the society from >90% of the population working the fields to <10% what we have today. Imagine what would happen if a similar development would affect all kinds of work. Even if structural unemployment is "just" 40% our current social system would be wholly inadequate.

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Re:Just own the damn robots by goatlover on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @01:47AM (#15497136)

Yes, but that's a really bad comparison because the net result ended up being a huge increase in new jobs that were created, thanks to the machines. We have tons more people and jobs today.

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Re:Just own the damn robots by TuringTest on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @06:17AM (#15497996)

That's because machines needed lots of manual operators to take care of them while working.

Now that we have computers, it's not at all clear that this will be true anymore; machines need to be designed, but that requires much less people working on them.

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Re:Just own the damn robots by goatlover on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @06:48AM (#15498092)

We've had computers for 70 years now. In order for the machines to seriously cut into available jobs this time around, the software and robots have to be able to do tasks across a wide swath of activities humans are currently doing.

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Re:Just own the damn robots by TuringTest on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @06:54AM (#15498108)

You haven't been watching the news recently?

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Re:Just own the damn robots by goatlover on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @03:22PM (#15502104)

Yeah, but I've also read what people like Rodney Brooks have to say on the matter.

And I take tech hype from the media with a healthy dose of salt.

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