Well, I’m a working robotics engineer in the Silicon Valley area and I am trying to design robotics for a post scarcity collectivist utopia. At home I do research in to functional 3D printed robotics and I operate a YouTube channel and discussion website [1] to pull people together so we can discuss collectively owned automated communities. I’m a fan of Murray Bookchin and want to live in a collectively owned automated farming commune. I’ve just taken a new job on an actual farm as a robotics engineer, and we’re going to try to build automation for farming.

I’m also a writer and I study the intersection of automation and society.

So while it’s true that most automation engineers don’t think this way, some of us do. :-)

[1] http://reboot.love

It's not the engineers I'm talking about so much as business owners, stockholders and politicians, the people actually writing the laws and making the decisions about how automation is going to shape the future.

The problem with seeing automation as a means to liberate people from capitalism and free them for intellectual pursuits (a noble and laudable goal) is that it exists to serve capitalist ends. Amazon, for instance, is definitely not automating for the benefit of humanity. They just don't want to pay people.

Although it is good to know someone is thinking about it. I really worry that, at scale, mass employment won't be addressed until it actually threatens the status quo.

This might be good point to mention the only 2020 presidential candidate who is talking about how UBI could address this seemingly inevitable future that is closer than we think.

Andrew Yang. See his discussion with students at Georgetown Univ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tuJ0phjFys

or for a longer exposition of his ideas see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8

UBI represents a continuation of capitalism where the machinery of our world is still under elite control. I’d rather see a candidate that will provide seed funding for cooperatives. Way more liberatory than cash handouts from our rulers.

Isn't seed funding for cooperatives also basically a cash handout from our rulers?

Yes, though much more directed than UBI. Credit Unions are well positioned to provide loans for coops. The government could provide some backing for those loans to stimulate growth. That’s way, way less intervention than a UBI.

I absolutely agree with you. I don’t think there’s much I can do to stop what’s currently got so much momentum. The capitalists will capitalize and the workers will be treated as tools to be taken on and used when needed to fill in the gaps, and quality of life for many people will continue to be low even as some of us travel to other worlds.

But the technology, while not liberating, will become more accessible. And I think a lot of people, just as in many decades past, are interested in something beyond bare capitalism.

My hope is that the collectivists can make progress in the coming decades too. We can develop our own open source alternatives to the machinery of dystopia. We can abandon intellectual property as a concept and ensure that when we labor for new development, the knowledge we gain is accessible to everyone who wants to liberate themselves.

And just as a group of hobbyists and corporations built Linux, perhaps we could build our own alternative to dystopia.

Politically right now I think we need unity and we need to stop trying to use the government to solve our problems. The government is a tool of force and force cannot be the way we build utopia except perhaps as defense against those who would have it shut down.

https://youtu.be/V6HWLJqTASA

Hmm, certainly Amazon doesn't want to pay anyone, robot, company or human more than they have to to do a job. Does that benefit humanity? For it's customers and shareholders yes, for the replaced warehouse worker, maybe not. But even that can be argued.

I'm guessing you're a Cory Doctorow fan too? I thought Walkaway was very interesting, though not his best novel.

I don’t read a lot (YouTube lectures are my thing) but I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Cory Doctorows work. Someone has recommended Walkaway to me.

Holy cow that's awesome.

Thanks!

This is not necessarily true. See: The washing machine, which gave people an average of ten hours of free-time more each week when it was invented. And countless other inventions that automate away manual labor and are accessible to average people.

The washing machine and other household appliances only allowed women to reallocate their labor time to the market rather than at home.

That isn't accurate. The electric washing machine was first invented and sold en masse in 1928. It wasn't until seven to eight decades later that women started participating in the labor force more broadly. Until then, and even now, the washing machine contributes a significant amount to extra leisure time. And indeed, Americans have a lot of leisure time. That is how we are able to spend 35 hours a week on average on watching television. (Source: Nielsen report on television consumption)

Seven to eight decades after 1928 is 1998-2008. Female participation in the labor force grew significantly prior to that, though the main impetus was probably the Second World War.

Only 43.3 percent of women worked outside the home in 1970. It'd be some time yet after that before most of them did. The point was that your argument against the washing machine was incorrect. Those 10-15 hours a week were actual gains for the working class. Women didn't jump into the labor force right after that machine was created and sold, after all.

It was an enabling factor but not a causative factor.

Another question: what proportion of homes had washing machines by year starting in 1928? Large proportions of American homes weren’t even electrified in 1928.

Do they?

It is in their own interest that the inequality doesn't grow past a certain point. Even an army of robots can do very little against a hungry mob.

Please, let's not ever find out how a hungry mob fares against a emotionless robot army. I don't think it would be pretty.

Right now the robot/automation is not cheap enough/easy enough for individual people to operate it. If these become reality the traditional capitalist societies will change and it won't be necessary for people to provide value to other human to survive.

Capitalism is just an abstraction for the human condition.