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A comment on 100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take over (2013). Parent comment

Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by Wilsoniumite on Friday January 24, 2025 @06:40AM (#42812206)
I wrote about this a bit on my blog [1] but to add to this idea,

> Maybe prostitution to the owners will be the only available job.

Pre industrial revolution, labor was in a sense cheaper than it was during the industrial revolution, and one genuinely interesting set of professions that existed then was house servants. Butlers, maids, cooks, under butlers and so on. It would not be inconceivable to see the return of these kinds of jobs? Ones where the value of human labor is so low that working for someone with wealth in their own home is common?

[1] https://wilsoniumite.com/2024/09/09/how-do-we-fix-it/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by scrappyjoe on Friday January 24, 2025 @06:47AM (#42812229)
I suppose that house servants performed two functions - menial tasks, and emotional labour. Competence at both was essential. A house servant who was great at making beds but super annoying or had no emotional intelligence probably didn't last very long.

The menial tasks component will probably be automated away. Which leaves the emotional labour. Put another way, our job will be to be liked by the people with power. Liked enough to be kept around.

The only job left in the future is that of the pet.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by ashoeafoot on Friday January 24, 2025 @07:21AM (#42812421)
They were appliances. a kitchenaid at the farm of my great uncle did one job.. that of a kitchenaid. whisk and kneed all day+ gossip
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by scrappyjoe on Friday January 24, 2025 @07:43AM (#42812567)
I'm not sure if you are confirming or rebutting my argument. In the future, no whisking. Gossip better be saucy if you want to stick around.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by 9rx on Friday January 24, 2025 @06:53AM (#42812261)
> our job will be to be liked by the people with power.

So, for most people, no change from the job they are already doing?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by scrappyjoe on Friday January 24, 2025 @07:42AM (#42812555)
I approve of this implication
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:100% Unemployment: on keeping busy when the robots take o... by franktankbank on Friday January 24, 2025 @07:51AM (#42812615)
Maids already are common in barely upper middle class homes. They don't live there but.
[ Parent | on HN ]