We’ve shifted people away from all the boring stuff machines are good at (plowing fields [...] and we’re still at full employment, with no sign of that changing soon.
The price many states pay to achieve this result is giving tons of money in form of various subventions to people who work in agriculture. So in my opinion, the technology is already able to put many humans out of agriculture… but we are paying them to stay there regardless.
Because if we removed all those subventions, then… well, in theory, in a long term the people would move from agriculture to something else. But in practice, in short term we would most likely have social unrests leading either to a revolution, or to some political party gaining votes by putting the subventions back.
The situation where all the work is outsourced to machines, can be OK if those machines are Friendly. I see bigger problem in a possible intermediate situation where most, but not all work is outsourced to machines, and maybe 10% people are able to do the remaining human work, and the remaining 90% are economically useless.
The problem would be one side saying: “Hey guys, if you never work, and just enjoy your 24 hours of free time daily, why exactly should we work so hard just to keep everyone happy? We demand some huge rewards for our efforts!” And the other side would be saying: “Shut up, we are the majority and you are the minority, what makes you think that we would willingly give you higher status, you freaks?”
So the Luddites were partially right, and the problems are not as big as they predicted, because the society pays some money to sweep them under the rug. But if fact, many people today are made useless by technology; we just pretend they remain useful to prevent the social consequences.
We have empirical evidence of what happens when agriculture subsidies disappear—New Zealand ended them all in the early 80s, when they were having financial trouble. Within a few years, their farming sector was actually healthier, because they moved away from being subsidy whores and became farmers, and it turns out that farming is a better business. Also, a revolution? Less than 1% of the first world is farmers. Who exactly would be doing all this revolting?
As for the machines replacing humans bit, I specifically mean “machines” to be the unintelligent ones—AIs are people, not machines.
The price many states pay to achieve this result is giving tons of money in form of various subventions to people who work in agriculture. So in my opinion, the technology is already able to put many humans out of agriculture… but we are paying them to stay there regardless.
Because if we removed all those subventions, then… well, in theory, in a long term the people would move from agriculture to something else. But in practice, in short term we would most likely have social unrests leading either to a revolution, or to some political party gaining votes by putting the subventions back.
The situation where all the work is outsourced to machines, can be OK if those machines are Friendly. I see bigger problem in a possible intermediate situation where most, but not all work is outsourced to machines, and maybe 10% people are able to do the remaining human work, and the remaining 90% are economically useless.
The problem would be one side saying: “Hey guys, if you never work, and just enjoy your 24 hours of free time daily, why exactly should we work so hard just to keep everyone happy? We demand some huge rewards for our efforts!” And the other side would be saying: “Shut up, we are the majority and you are the minority, what makes you think that we would willingly give you higher status, you freaks?”
So the Luddites were partially right, and the problems are not as big as they predicted, because the society pays some money to sweep them under the rug. But if fact, many people today are made useless by technology; we just pretend they remain useful to prevent the social consequences.
We have empirical evidence of what happens when agriculture subsidies disappear—New Zealand ended them all in the early 80s, when they were having financial trouble. Within a few years, their farming sector was actually healthier, because they moved away from being subsidy whores and became farmers, and it turns out that farming is a better business. Also, a revolution? Less than 1% of the first world is farmers. Who exactly would be doing all this revolting?
As for the machines replacing humans bit, I specifically mean “machines” to be the unintelligent ones—AIs are people, not machines.