It’s Time to Talk about the Burgeoning Robot Middle Class
How will a mass influx of robots affect human employment?
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514861/its-time-to-talk-about-the-burgeoning-robot-middle-class/
I am sure that this article is relevant, but not sure that it will have any impact. ‘Robots’ (really, they are automation tools, the term ‘robot’ has too many connotations to be ideally useful in a discussion like this) are replacing humans because in each instance a simple decision is made: can this automation tool save me money or make me more money? If the answer to either question is ‘yes’ then make way for the robot. If both questions get a ‘no’ response, then we keep humans. The biggest issue is that this economic tradeoff line keeps shifting over time and rarely shifts to disfavor the robots, meaning that over time (and time being measured in years, not decades or longer) the economics increasingly favor the use of robots which will translate 1:1 to a decrease in the need for human labor. Unless something comes along to pick up the slack we will wind up with a huge unemployment/underemployment problem in short order (years, not decades) and likely a rebelling against the machine (sort of like Frank Herbert’s Butlerian Jihad). Talk about race riots!
Anyway, I think it is a thoughtful article that is relevant (and increasingly so), but doubt it will have any beneficial impact because there is no monolithic decision making apparatus out there, it is the diffuse aggregate decision making by millions of company owners. And the robot industry is heavily advertising to that group and the author above is a blogger.
