01-11-2017, 04:27 PM
Quote:This will be my last reply to this, since the number of stripes is out of control.
Do what you want. I mean, you know, you don't have to do it line by line just because I am.
Quote:... said the one posting to every thread.
I am posting in substantially fewer threads than you are. There is a whole slew of group-signaling... I mean, political threads that I simply don't bother with.
Quote:The PUMA was the first actual robot to be marginally useful, and just barely at that. That was 1983, as your own link indicates. I actually remember the early applications -- primarily fixed welding.
Now you're just making things up. The first Unimation robots went out to GE in 1961, and the PUMA was made in 1978. And yet the global number of manufacturing workers has not shrunk, has it? The US numbers peaked in 1979, but plateaued for 20 years, and didn't start to tumble until 2000, which I maintain had much more to do with trade policy than it did automation. It is presently increasing. The global number of manufacturing workers didn't shrink during this period either. In any event, the use of machines to boost human productivity in manufacturing has been going on for at least 200 years, i
Quote:No, but the landscape will certainly change.
Things have a tendency to change. Change still doesn't mean the inevitable loss of all jobs to robots.
Quote:Millennials use online ordering far more than I would, but it's their/your world now. My DIL orders her groceries online, and just does a drive-by pickup. My son is worse. He even orders toilet paper from Amazon, because he can get it delivered for free.
What does this have to do what we are talking about? The plural of anecdote is not data!
Quote:Don't discount the natural human tendency to do as little as possible to complete undesirable tasks.
That's the story of my life, particularly the part in the Army and at school. While we're exchanging anecdotes, I still felt, by the end of my 20s, an almost overwhelming need to find employment, even when I had other sources of income (Hi, Mom! Uncle Sam. <salutes lazily>). Don't underestimate the human ability to find shit for themselves and other people to do, either.
Quote:Fixed that. No, the near future is not going to kill all jobs, unless you have a very long view of the term 'near'. If fact, I'll be willing to bet that the process is both iterative and meandering. People will move from job to job until they can't adjust to the rate of change. As labor fallout grows, solutions to the "growing idle class" will be tried until something works. That takes time. How much? I don't claim to know, but several decades seems to be a minimum. Humans have to adjust mentally to the change before it can be accepted.
So, you do realize this thread is called "Report Card for Donald Trump", right? My measuring sticks for Donald Trump, which included trade policy and infrastructure investment, were talking about near-term policy changes to improve things in the here and now. So what does this hypothetical situation of permanent joblessness several decades in the future (which you have merely asserted, not demonstrated) have to do with what I originally said?
Quote:The motivation to create machines is directly proportional to the expected cost/benefit ratio.
Yes, which includes weighing the price of them (purchase, installation, maintenance, energy costs, etc.) against the price of alternatives.
Quote:iPads to order in a restaurant, and automated carts to deliver the food (in trade for avoiding tips) might fly easily.
Which they'll deliver from the robot kitchen, which means we're basically talking TV Dinners. How much would pay you to eat one of those, and how often do you think you would go? The answer better be "a lot" to both, otherwise I fail to see how that would pay for itself.
Quote:Apparently, Level 5 automated cars (a much more ambitious project) will also fly, though it should be less likely.
Oh good, flying cars at last! How long have those been on the docket for?
Quote:Why is any of this surprising?
Is what surprising? That an aging boomer geek is still convinced that the future is going to look like the Jetsons?
Not all that surprising, actually.
Quote:TBD Stay tuned. The biggest variable: The Donald. I still can't decide what he thinks he's doing, so what he will actually do is still a known unknown.
So we're switching from the (not near) future back to the present? That's cool, but it makes me wonder what the point of the rest of this was.
Quote:Grandiose claims tend to be the product of people with an agenda.
Agendas like the desire not to deal with the demands of roughly half the electorate by fixating on a future that's been 50 years away for 50 years now?
Quote:If I run Lockheed-Martin or Boeing, building space toys will get lots of positive press if I can help it.
And if you're running a company that sells software/software services that has been hit with a federal antitrust suit/civil class action suit for suppressing wages you distract attention by pointing at... what do you think?
Quote:Yes, assuming enough time and the desire to get there, we can fully automate everything. I doubt we will, but we can ... eventually.
Are you able to perceive that this is a statement of faith and not an argument?
Quote:Writing poetry. Being life companions. Neither is in the cards at the moment, or even desirable at this point. So what? Both can happen if that make sense to future generations.
How in God's name is this a response to this:
YOU: We know we can do it.
ME: What, everything? Define "know". Please give me an example of "everything automated".
Quote:Machines have needs, but they can be met without human intervention.
Can they? You're begging the question again.
Quote:Nor does it mean it won't in the future.
It doesn't mean it will, either. Kind of like the complete automation of everything.
Quote:Right now, we're still highly capitalistic. If that changes, so will the motivation to charge for things that should be free. Note: power may not be one of those. Power is not available in unlimited quantities, so some limiting factor will always be required.
So, you're saying the power to, well, power all of these robots may not exist in the unlimited quantities needed to make them costless compared to human beings whom you would presumably still have to feed whether they were doing anything useful or not?
Quote:Consumer preference is unaffected by who of what delivers the products and services that are preferred.
Which is why all the richest people eat manufactured foods and only poor people still eat things grown, crafted, and/or cooked by hand. Got it.
Quote:I mentioned energy usage in my last comment, and that will be a factor, but it will be a factor regardless.
And you don't think that factor may affect the relative costs of using one versus the other? Why?
Quote:And relative labor costs are the entire point.And relative labor costs are the entire point.
If the demand (for human labor) falls faster than the supply, the price of human labor will fall, which affects the price of it, which affects the demand, etc. Since you've already acknowledged that these machines will depend on resources (energy, materials, labor costs (the value of the robot's time, if nothing else),etc.) that are not limitless, they will still have a price to their use, which may or may not be lower than that of a human equivalent.
Quote:When the need for human intervention drops to zero (or close to it), labor by humans becomes nonviable.
Circular reasoning.
Quote:We may still elect to maintain some specialized human tasks ... or not, but that decision will not be based on cost.
No, you gonna back up that assertion or just run through the catechism again?