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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStephen Hawking's final words to the internet:
Stephen Hawking's final words to the internet: robots aren't the problem, capitalism isThe last message Stephen Hawking posted to a public internet forum was an answer to a question in a Reddit AMA, querying how humanity will weather an age of technological unemployment.
Professor Hawking's answer said that there was no problem with robots taking jobs -- only with the dividends from that robotic efficiency accruing solely to the capital classes thanks to market dynamics, rather than being broadly shared through redistributive state intervention.
"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."
Stephen Hawking AMA [/r/science/Reddit]
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https://boingboing.net/2018/03/14/brief-history-of-class-war.html
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njhoneybadger
(3,910 posts)Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)We know how that WILL go.
SergeStorms
(19,193 posts)as it's going right now. I can't imagine the wealthy grabbing more of the pie than they already have. Wait......yes I can. There's never enough for them. They just can't be satisfied with what they already have. Greedy pigs, all.
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)
RKP5637
(67,104 posts)
Pluvious
(4,309 posts)From Wikipedia:
"The Midas Plague" (originally published in Galaxy in 1954). In a world of cheap energy, robots are overproducing the commodities enjoyed by mankind. The lower-class "poor" must spend their lives in frantic consumption, trying to keep up with the robots' extravagant production, while the upper-class "rich" can live lives of simplicity. Property crime is nonexistent, and the government Ration Board enforces the use of ration stamps to ensure that everyone consumes their quotas. The story deals with Morey Fry, who marries a woman from a higher-class family. Raised in a home with only five rooms she is unused to a life of forced consumption in their mansion of 26 rooms, nine automobiles, and five robots, causing arguments. Trained as an engineer, Morey modifies his robots to enjoy helping to consume his family's quota. He fears punishment when his idea is discovered, but the Ration Board—which has been looking for a way to abolish itself—quickly implements Morey's idea across the world.
oasis
(49,376 posts)
RKP5637
(67,104 posts)
Laffy Kat
(16,377 posts)I put it on my FB.
poboy2
(2,078 posts)
Roland99
(53,342 posts)poboy2
(2,078 posts)used for the betterment of humanity, so yes!
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)poboy2
(2,078 posts)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity)[1] is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.[2] According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent (such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence) would enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence. Stanislaw Ulam reports a discussion with John von Neumann "centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue".[3] Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.[2][4] I. J. Good's "intelligence explosion" model predicts that a future superintelligence will trigger a singularity.[5] Emeritus professor of computer science at San Diego State University and science fiction author Vernor Vinge said in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity that this would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate.[5]
Four polls conducted in 2012 and 2013 suggested that the median estimate among experts for when artificial general intelligence (AGI) would arrive was 2040 to 2050, depending on the poll.[6][7]
Many notable personalities, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, consider the uncontrolled rise of artificial intelligence as a matter of alarm and concern for humanity's future.[8][9] The consequences of the singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been hotly debated by various intellectual circles.[citation needed]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)With the concept that intelligent machines will become capable of application that swamp human capacity, I also believe that instead of fearing intelligent machines, we should instead fear hyper-intelligent, evil people that control those machines. Society will reach a point where it is not intelligent machines that threaten humanity, the but 0.00000000004% of humanity that see utility in enslaving or killing the rest of humanity via intelligent machines.
Intelligent machines like one critical characteristic that hyper-intelligent humans have, that is the capacity to generate an original thought, build something from that thought and test the workings of what was built. Intelligent machines can powerfully collect and apply existing knowledge, but none of that can lead to an original thought, novel thoughts maybe, but never to original thoughts.
Steven Hawkins is right, if the owners of intelligent machines accrue all the benefits and don't share adequately, most of humanity will suffer until that segment of humanity fights back via revolution and destruction of the elite classes.
magicarpet
(14,144 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I think that it will be hyper-trained engineers and scientists that will ultimately pose the most danger, even as I am an engineer. A tiny slice of those people will have the intellectual ability to control and out think intelligent machines. Of all the billions of people in the world today, the number that would be capable of controlling any intelligent machines would be like 800-900 people. If humanity is lucky, half or more of that group will be good and fight to preserve humanity. The others? One of the unfortunate outcomes is that hyper-intelligent evil people would needed to be hunted down and killed to protect the rest of humanity, not imprisoned, killed as soon as they are found. There is no redemption of pure evil.
BTW, people like the Kochs and Mercers will most likely perish early on. One thing those bastards don't seem to realize is their very existence depends on maintenance of a society around them, once society vanishes and machines are hunting people, the hyper-intelligent people controlling the machines won't need Kochs or Mercers or politicians.
Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)The crazy bastards wielding those machines are the greatest and most immediate threat. They'll easily wipe us all out before we can ever get to the singularity.
Machines don't care about skin color or nationality or gender identity or--for fuck's sake!--religion. They don't care about "money", which is a ceremonial concept that we've all agreed represents how much power or influence in the world that we possess, so that we can trade goods. Only human beings care about all of that stuff.
The human beings at the very top seem to be driven solely by greed. How much money does it take to live several lifetimes, let alone the rest of your life, in luxury? They will get us all killed much faster than smart machines will.
SCantiGOP
(13,869 posts)And then sent it to about a dozen people.
How can it be that 96% of the people will never hear or understand what he is saying, yet Trump, goddamn Trump, is in charge?
llmart
(15,536 posts)Corporate owned media.
SCantiGOP
(13,869 posts)Even more depressing because I think you are right.
llmart
(15,536 posts)Can you estimate the percentage of people who even knew who Stephen Hawking was and what he was?
I'll wager a bet that more people know who Kim Kardashian is or Beyonce or.......I could go on.
SCantiGOP
(13,869 posts)to Debbie Downer?
Just kidding, but you are pointing out another telling sign of the immediate collapse of at least our part of Western Civilization.
BigmanPigman
(51,584 posts)(older white men) are part of the problem I was discussing it with my 84 year old very Dem father today. We had a conversation about the cult/base and how they believe everything the moron says when 100% is lies. We discussed how this demographic is stuck in 1950s type thinking that the economy will always grow at 3% a year, coal is king, etc but don't want to face change and the reality of globalization and tech. changes in their lives. Capitalism is already creating worldwide problems where the very rich in a few countries own most of the world's wealth and want more and more (greed, lack of morals and corruption along with capitalism will destroy the global economy). Throw tech advances into the mix and people not adapting to it with their attitude is a very bad and dangerous combination. Hawkins is correct.
llmart
(15,536 posts)is made up of people who live very small lives among people just like them and whose worldly experience is nil. They never interact with anyone outside of their level of education and spend more time watching the idiot box than reading something.
FakeNoose
(32,633 posts)They're already ahead of the curve and they move farther ahead every day. It's all part of the rightwingers' plans. If there's any hope for us we have to look to the younger generations, not worry about the older ones.
I'm already retired so I guess I'm out of it too. But at least I can see that it will someday come to head just as Stephen Hawking described. The robots' labor isn't the problem, it's how the profits from their labor will be distributed. At the moment we're not taking any steps towards equal sharing of the wealth, and the younger generations need to understand this issue and work towards change.
poboy2
(2,078 posts)Created for the World Summit on Technological Unemployment by patreon.com/scottsantens
Transcript of Why are we here?
World Summit on Technological Unemployment
Why are we here?
There is a growing concern around the potential unmitigated effects of our advancing state of technology on humanity.
Is there potentially a root cause to all of these symptoms?
Universal Basic Income
Past, present, and future symptoms of a core problem
What's been going on?
40 years of occupational transformation
Source: David H. Autor, Journal of Economic Perspectives
Compensation from work decoupled from productivity over 40 years ago
Men have been slowly earning less since 1973
The bottom 80% has been receiving less and less of the total pie
Collective bargaining power has been falling since the 1950s
For the past 10 years, some costs have soared while others have plummeted.
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https://prezi.com/7fsj2kqx-nba/why-are-we-here/
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)When the bills come crashing down on people of limited financial means, thoughts of how simple childhood was floats through the head. Childhood was simpler for the child, but not the adults.
The fifties were so great for Americans because the vast majority of the rest of the war was ravaged by the after effects of war and would not recover for another decade plus. The world relied on America for goods, so employment in America was abundant and secure. The only period that came close to the 50s was the 6.3 decades following the Civil War when a largely isolationist nation was deep in internal growth and expansion, but those times were also very brutal for American Indians and African Americans - so, "good ole days" depends on one's perspective. The 50s, for example were mostly bad for AI, AA, independent women, LGBTQ people.
Caliman73
(11,730 posts)Looking back to a time that is perceived as more simple and pure. Like you said however, that "simple, more pure" time is all dependent on your status, largely based on geography, race, ethnicity, and economic status.
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)So the benefit of automation and machines making products will either be shared or the products will not be made.
There will still be work to be done like raising children, talking to people about their problems, teaching, etc.
quakerboy
(13,919 posts)Sophia4
(3,515 posts)Because if a person doesn't have a job, and if there are no jobs to get, how is a person to pay a credit back unless he pays with his soul?
quakerboy
(13,919 posts)Debt, guilt, all of that. It comes back to control.
-Puzzler
burrowowl
(17,638 posts)zentrum
(9,865 posts)
PatrickforO
(14,570 posts)There's nothing good about capitalism, particularly the less restrained version of it we have now. It's parasitical.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)The most charitable view of your statement is that it suffers from binary thinking tunnel vision.
It is a narrow-minded fallacy to think that capitalism can only be parasitical. Robber baron capitalism is parasitical. The tremendous wealth & income inequality we have in the US and some other countries now (getting worse) is parasitical and unsustainable. The US system is not the only system of capitalism in the world.
Capitalism is very efficient at creating jobs and employing people and advancing many aspects of society. Capitalism is very efficient at distributing goods and resources to where they are needed. Command economies fail. Communism fails since "from each according to ability and to each according to need" fails to provide adequate incentives for advancement.
DU is capitalist (private and owned) and employs several people. It is good.
The problem with capitalism-on-steroids is that it over-rewards the top 1% and 0.01%, people who don't need extra incentive, at the expense of the bottom 47% who are people who need support and incentives. Therefore capitalism must be well-regulated, well-monitored, subject to progressive social goals, and operating under progressive tax regimes. Byzantine tax systems need to be truly simplified by turning amorphous invisible tax breaks into publicly visible subsidies.
On the side of socialism, more and more studies are showing that if you provide people with guaranteed housing, guaranteed basic income, and guaranteed health care, then the outcome actually saves money and makes the society much more productive and harmonious. People with an address (not homeless) are much more likely to find work. People use less emergency services. There is a reduction in the cost of policy and a reduction in crime (poor/homeless people are also likely to be victims of crime). People have better health and that means there is less drag on the economy for health care and they are more productive and more able to help each other (the elderly and disabled for example). Note: guaranteed basic income subsumes social security and welfare.
Pure systems of any kind are bad, be it capitalism (robber baron capitalism), socialism (communism when purest), fascism (corporate-statist-bureaucratic elitism), dictatorship (of despots or proletariat or peasants or monarchs or whatever) or anarchism (dog eat dog).
A hybrid of capitalism and socialism is the only way to go. At least until humanity is so highly developed that something approaching nearly pure enlightened self-interest is feasible (community and socially and globally connected).
When all is said, Stephen Hawking's point about the distribution of benefits is very much correct.
PatrickforO
(14,570 posts)perhaps, than you might think. I made this bold statement that capitalism sucks, yet isn't it funny that I don't disagree with you...much?
Now, I will make my point. Let us consider your second-to-last sentence, which states that a hybrid of capitalism and socialism is the only way to go. I would agree wholeheartedly with you, save for the word 'capitalism.' I would change that word to entrepreneurship.
I've worked hard all my life and have owned three successful businesses at various times in my life, as well as devoting my career to the public good as a public servant in local government. I am an economist. That said, my biggest objection to capitalism is the large, publicly held corporation.
Consider this. A company makes X. It does really well, but can only expand so far. So, the owner of the company decides to become a corporation, if he's not already done this, and raise capital by taking the company public. OK, so far so good. I'm all right with that. No problem.
However, let us now contemplate the corporate charter. The owner of the new publicly held company is now the shareholders. The former proprietor and owner is now CEO, and instead of caring about making the very best X possible and making a good living, he now must care about only one thing - increasing earnings for shareholders. As you are well aware, Bernardo, this is known as 'fiduciary responsibility' and it is exactly this to which I so strongly object when I make the statement that 'capitalism sucks.'
A C-level officer in a publicly held company is ONLY responsible for increasing earnings for shareholders, and this fiduciary responsibility leads to all sorts of abuses.
First, there is no real responsibility toward the people without whom there would be no profits - the labor. Corporations pay at least a minimum wage because they are forced. Corporations provide a safe working environment because they are forced. They provide an 8 hour day, healthcare and so on because they are forced. They make sure their production process results in a product that meets a certain standard of environmental and consumer safety - again, because they are forced. You see my point.
Lastly, of course, we have the environment. The earth. It is the only one we have and we are allowing the capitalists in big corporations to sow doubt with pseudo-scientific studies designed to stave off regulation for just another year or two - so that profits for shareholders might be maximized. And, of course, when the production of X pollutes the nearby waterway which endangers the water table, the EPA steps in (well, not so much under Trump - but it USED to) and says, "OK you can pollute up to here, but no further."
The problem with polluting 'up to here but no further' is that the cost of the allowable pollution is not reflected in the price consumers pay for X. Any health problems aren't reflected in the company's books, except as litigation settlements. These are known in corporate parlance as 'externalities.' Externalities and pseudo-scientific studies by paid merchants of doubt are why we aren't paying $8/gallon for gas.
So, Bernardo, when I say I despise capitalism, I am most definitely NOT despising the small merchant who starts a business and works hard, makes good money and lives in a nice house. Not at all.
What I despise is the concept of fiduciary responsibility that promotes earnings for shareholders above damage to the environment, the community, the workers and the consumers. I also dislike how it is the very nature of these giant, publicly held corporations to gobble up those around them until they become monopolies. Because once a company is the only one that offers a needed product, they can charge whatever they want for it - consider Shkreli raising the price on the AIDS drug umphteen thousand percent. He did it because capitalism allows that.
Which is why we are back to your hybrid, with which I agree, with the proviso that we need to adjust corporate charters to expand the scope of fiduciary responsibility and better enforce anti-monopoly laws.
Again, I'd like to thank you for a thoughtful response - this is a very fun discussion for me. Hopefully for you as well.
Locrian
(4,522 posts)its the MONEY SYSTEM.
Money created by debt - and its explicit purpose it to concentrate wealth to the ones issuing and controlling it.
Capitalism, whatever - it's the money system.
Wasn't always that way (and no Im not talking about gold) - forms of exchange that do not *hoard* wealth or concentrate it do exist and did exist.
A very interesting book on this history:
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Inc-Corporatism-Conquered-World/dp/0812978501/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521214594&sr=8-2&keywords=life+inc&dpID=51bJU-M7vwL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
I would call it "corporatism" not capitalism as the issue.
PatrickforO
(14,570 posts)As to your first paragraph on monetary policy - I'm ABSOLUTELY in agreement with you. If the 'massive $19 trillion' US public debt is MONEY WE OWE TO OURSELVES, then why are we paying it back with interest to 'investors?'
In fact, the term 'populist' initially meant someone who believed that government should serve as its own central bank, as it implies in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution - "...To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof..."
When we consider how many of the American colonies so prospered under a British imperialist system, and how Abraham Lincoln financed the Civil War by coining 'greenbacks,' we see that it is possible to eliminate the bankers from this equation.
(Trivia - the US Secret Service was not formed in 1865 to protect the president. It was formed to battle counterfeiting. Because the big European and American banks did not like Lincoln's decision to have the government simply print greenbacks to finance the war, those nice bankers flooded this country with counterfeit currency until it was estimated that a third of the money in circulation in the US economy in 1865 was counterfeit.)
In fact, right up until the Federal Reserve Act was ramrodded through Congress with barely a quorum and signed into law on December 22, 1913 by Woodrow Wilson, most Americans could follow along with the competing arguments around monetary policy pretty well.
By the way, the Fed isn't as quasi-governmental as we are told it is. The banks with the biggest ownership interest are Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. It really was created to better control money supply and mitigate financial panics, but now it is part of an unsustainable system of scarcity.
I strongly support public banking because 1) passing a balanced budget amendment at the national level would make the government incapable of being the 'spender of last resort' to shore up demand for goods and services, and so remove a very important safety net that keeps recessions from turning to depressions, and 2) the current path the government is on, monetarily AND fiscally, is not sustainable.
In the meantime, 25,000 people a day on this earth die of starvation. Here in the USA, about 25 million people are hungry every month. Why?
I'll end with the words of a friend of mine, Dan. Dan says that scarcity is an economic construction, just as race is a social construction, and that there is plenty of money to take care of everyone, and ensure that everyone in the world has enough - shelter, food, clothing, clean air, potable water, physical safety - but alas, that money is concentrated in too few hands - an unsustainable system.
I'll try the book you suggest - thanks! And in turn I recommend to you https://www.amazon.com/Web-Debt-Shocking-Hodgson-Paperback/dp/B00IIBEHK2/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5Z1SVM0Y5EWFGD64F1QZ, and also https://www.amazon.com/Public-Bank-Solution-Austerity-Prosperity/dp/0983330867/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5Z1SVM0Y5EWFGD64F1QZ.
Locrian
(4,522 posts)The system is the problem - and it's doing exactly what it was designed to do.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)It was a good read. I agree with everything you said, and was educated on some issues. I'll check out your book suggestions.
What I find maddening is that some of us may KNOW there needs to be a balanced system, how to get there is another thing. And one of the big stumbling blocks is that because we allowed the elite classes to gain so much at the expense of others, they have now enough wealth to fund a large PR campaign against any attempts to bring any fairness to the system. That capitalism, like a giant pyramid scheme, has concentrated so much wealth at the top now, with so many on the bottom rung, that they can afford to buy every major media company as well. They can control the message. And if any leader came along and proposed public banks, for instance, all these corporate loyal institutions would attack and smear them relentlessly.
I always think about the what could have been. If during the last 40 or so years, the progressive tax levels had remained higher, if so much of the treasury was not wasted on wars and invasions, and relatedly, spent on the MIC. If the US had set up a single payer universal health care system when most other western democracies were doing it, it would have saved a lot of money too. If these kinds of progressive building blocks had been in place decades ago, the US could be the world leaders they should be in regards to advancements in technology, transportation, alternative energy. Say a high speed rail system criss-crossing the entire country, and high speed fibre optic internet wiring to every corner. And all the while with a less stressed out citizenry, less crime etc..
Oh well, its best not to live in the could a should a world.
cheers
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)poboy2
(2,078 posts)Hawkings words are so fundamental to why civilizations exist. The social contract. Humanity.
titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)Then we will become the BORG.
IluvPitties
(3,181 posts)
malthaussen
(17,187 posts)Biggest social problem faced by the First World today: what do we do with all the people we don't need? (Note I say "social" problem; global warming is a physical problem) Once there is no need to work, what do people "do for a living?"
Riders of the Purple Wage, anyone?
-- Mal
poboy2
(2,078 posts)Riders of the Purple Wage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Title[edit]
The title of the story is a take-off on Riders of the Purple Sage, a Western by the American author Zane Grey.
Plot introduction[edit]
Riders of the Purple Wage is an extrapolation of the mid-twentieth century's tendency towards state supervision and consumer-oriented economic planning. In the story, all citizens receive a basic income (the purple wage) from the government, to which everyone is entitled just by being born. The population is self-segregated into relatively small communities, with a controlled environment, and keeps in contact with the rest of the world through the Fido, a combination television and videophone. The typical dwelling is an egg-shaped house, outside of which is a realistic simulation of an open environment with sky, sun and moon. In reality each community is on one level of a multi-level arcology. For those who dislike this lifestyle, there are wildlife reserves where they can join "tribes" of Native Americans and like-minded Anglos living closer to nature for a while. Some choose this lifestyle permanently.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Wage
underpants
(182,769 posts)
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Miss you already, Professor.
SpankMe
(2,957 posts)Hawking hadn't posted to the Internet in 2 years?
LisaM
(27,801 posts)Of course in his case, technology could not be too highly valued. But there are things I do for myself - in particular, shopping and cooking, that I'd never want a machine to do for me. I even enjoy folding laundry sometimes and sticking my head in the fresh dry sheets or shirts or towels.
I think other people have fun chopping wood, or cleaning; certainly people enjoy driving. There's just some higher satisfaction from personally performing a job well, not to mention that it's often physically good for you. Depending too much on machines can really end up without unintended consequences. I think this is some of the disconnect the tech sector has with people who live in blighted manufacturing areas. A lot of displaced workers got immense satisfaction from working hard at a physical job.
poboy2
(2,078 posts)The fundamental, and only issue being addressed is the vanishing opportunity to work.
But maybe you think vast numbers of desperate, hungary, people unable to sustain themselves or family is a good thing.
It builds character, and maybe there is 'joy' you see in a fight for daily survival.
LisaM
(27,801 posts)I honestly think, though, that part of the value of work, aside from basic sustenance, is the physical satisfaction it can provide. Out of work people with nothing to do often get seriously depressed.
2left4u
(186 posts)She's right in pointing out there is a value and benefit to having a "work ethic"...it provides options.
She didn't imply anything else.
Freedom and independence provide us with choices, choices you don't get when somebody controls your level of drive.
What's considered work will just be different and change with the times.
Your talking Universal income or standard of living, which is a great concept just not at the expense of individualism.
poboy2
(2,078 posts)I've worked my entire life, but expound upon those 'values' for all of us.
I enjoy working on my house. whoop-tee doo.
Who is charging 'individualism' as an undesirable with any of your straw man arguments?
Knock down that which was not even proposed or critiqued.
I hope all the future dumpster divers among us take solace in their individualism.
At least you bump the thread though, so thats good.
Rap on rap on brother...yawn
rocktivity
(44,576 posts)
rocktivity