Robot Got Your Job! Will Every Human Soon Be Unemployed?
~ From stone axes to computer-generated fluid-dynamics modeling, tools have always functioned as devices created to help people do their work more easily. Now, intelligent machines are beginning to appear which are designed — not merely as useful tools for us to use — but with the eventual goal of completely REPLACING us as workers altogether. ~
What do you suppose would happen to the world if shockingly human-like “workforce enhancement droids” (i.e., human labor replacing robots!) were to begin rolling off assembly lines in mass numbers? Numbers large enough to begin taking away just about everyone’s job, profession-by-profession?
How long would it be before these synthetics began overwhelming professions across the board from engineers and mechanics to surgeons, architects, construction workers and truck drivers? After all, beyond the initial purchase price and some occasional maintenance, robots can work continuously 24/7 without complaint, pretty much without any errors, and definitely without the requirement of a paycheck at the end of the week!
Not to mention their deep well of AI-powered knowledge plus infallible electronic memory. Face it, just how long could any of us compete against such fully human-capable bots before we are made permanently unemployed by them?
My latest installment in the Synthetic Doom Series: Robot Got Your Job! takes an in-depth look into THE #1 question foremost in all our minds when it comes to the encroaching preeminence of Artificial Intelligence: will advanced automation make my job — and ME — obsolete?
It’s no joke… the threat is certainly there and it is looming big (10-20 years at most). Think about it, once inexpensive AI moves “into the cloud” and becomes little more than a simple utility that anyone can stream into their business, it won’t even take a substantial investment for any small company to replace their office staff with an AI-based virtual human system.
Artificial Intelligence alongside advanced robotics is poised to create deep structural problems all throughout world economies and societies. We are going to be faced with making foundational changes both to our basic economic systems and our own personal attitudes about work and money. Otherwise, we could end up living in world rapidly collapsing towards a catastrophic ‘Hunger Games’ type of social and economic inequality.
On what sort of timetable is all this madness likely to happen and how can you prepare for it? Are there some professions that might continue to employ mostly people in the foreseeable future? Is a Universal Basic Income (a general government support payment like the ‘Economic Impact Payments’ made to everyone during COVID) going to be necessary to keep people like you and I out of a homeless shelter?
In this second installment of Synthetic Doom we will examine the massive economic disruption that is about to be unleashed on a society that — while it may not be entirely unsuspecting — is about to be shocked and alarmed at the speed with which these changes are about to explode upon us.
Table of Contents
* The AI Winter Has Finally Thawed and a Storm is Coming * Is the Threat of Robotic Automation Real? * Robo-heads in the Cloud * Robo-bodies in Our Office Chairs * Autonomous Cars: Your Luxurious Four-Door Canary in the Coal Mine * Why Unemployment is Going to Become Permanent This Time * Your Cushy Desk Job is in the Crosshairs Too * Robots Make Poor Consumers * Will a Universal Basic Income Save us? * Socialism Redux? * How Would a UBI Work and Where Will the Money Come From? * Machine Rights? * Reproducing Robots? * Direct-to-Carbon Unit Marketing * Haves vs. have-nots: Is Widespread Economic Turmoil Unavoidable? * The Dreaded Rise of Techno-feudalism * Augmented Nightmares * Psychological Decay in a Workless Society * Conclusion: Synthetic Life is on the Horizon — We Must Get Ready For It