Pros and cons of a fully automated society

[TigerTedd]

The thread title sounds like a master degree thesis, and this post may end up being as long as one.

@GreenRam's idea of a self governing society in the 2015 election thread really got me thinking about more and more automation within society. And although I'm a massive technophile, a couple of things worry me.

Take, for example, the idea of the Google Car. The idea eventually is that Google Car's can drive around and deliver your pizza, all your online shopping etc. without the need of drivers. They will drive more safely, more efficiently, and they will never have to rest. Ultimately delivery prices for everything come right down, and society is benefited by generally cheaper prices. See also Amazon's experimentation into drones for deliveries.

In the future, Google Car technology may even be driving your taxi.

So what happens to all the taxi drivers, deliver drivers, HGV drivers etc.

And if it's not automation, it's self service. A minimum wage is a good thing, of course. But, from my experience in Peru (and I'm sure it's similar in other parts of the world) where there is no minimum wage, and no welfare to speak of, you end up with a thriving service industry. Things you are expected to do yourself here, like pump your own petrol, or pack your own bag at the check out, you have people to do it for you there.

You could call that exploitation, nigh on slavery. But businesses in Britain can't afford to pay people minimum wage to do these simple things that we can, and probably should, do for ourselves. So instead people end up on JSA at home doing nothing.

I worry that it's the thin end of the wedge, where does it stop? Self service checkouts in supermarkets may eventually replace check out workers altogether. Warehouses that operate like giant vending machines are taking away the need for warehouse workers and store men.

It's already happened within the car manufacturing industry. I've not researched it, but I'd be interested to know how, and if, the people in the West Midlands have ever been able to diversify into other industries after all the car manufacturing jobs disappeared to robots.

Is this something to worry about? Or will having all the menial jobs done by robots and computer programmes mean that the human race can have the time to devote itself to pursuing higher goals. Like a new renaissance, with an explosion of art, science and culture creating a utopian society.

Is every member of society capable of joining in this new renaissance? All will their always be members of society that can only ever aspire to the jobs that are now being done by robots? Will there always be an underclass that just becomes a bigger and bigger percentage of society, being cut further and further adrift of the rich elite (the people who own the robots).

I suppose there will at least be a new industry in the field of robot repairs.

What do we all think? Discuss...

[Wolfie]

Sometimes it does feel like we'll end up in a real-life version of the humans on WALL-E with everything done for us by some corporate giant or other. Replace Buy-N-Large in the film with Google and somehow it doesn't seem so unrealistic.

[Mostyn6]

interesting read, but I have nothing to add at this point.

[TigerTedd]

Sometimes it does feel like we'll end up in a real-life version of the humans on WALL-E with everything done for us by some corporate giant or other. Replace Buy-N-Large in the film with Google and somehow it doesn't seem so unrealistic.

[Tombo]

Bloomin' heck, the Luddites called, they want their style back.

Machines aren't going to take your jobs, there will be jobs in the future that you can't even imagine yet. Jobs get replaced with machines, but whole other fields pop up around that technology. Repairs, programming, design etc... I hate the phrase "the machines can't do everything" because we know that they can and will one day. They will, in time, be able to do every job that is currently in existence. But there will be other jobs. How can we talk about future jobs when we don't even know what impact automation is going to have on our society?

People have this utopian ideal where machines do everything for us and nobody has to work and we all sit on our backsides and enjoy ourselves. No, sorry, you'll still have to go to work, it'll just be a job we haven't invented yet.