Jed-- I hope you are correct.
Your argument about the washing machines probably allowed people to go to work, not lose their jobs. Particularly, "housewives" and husbands--I might add--. Their UNPAID efforts were no longer needed at home and they got jobs to provided financial support for the family. The welfare of the society was improved as a result. My only argument is that, if some technical advancement is undesirable from the standpoint of welfare in the society, it could become regulated or even out-lawed. Robots are no exception. As you point out some may be ok and some not. This is where the DEFINITION of the undesirable ones is important. You seem to imply that only the quality of safety is ok to assure by regulation. My argument is that there are other values (environment values, for example) in the society that could become the focus of regulation and laws including the welfare and happiness of the natural persons in the society. Even aesthetic values like the volume of music being played or the noise levels of engines or wind mills or any machine or even natural person's voices or mobile amplification devices or other non-safety related things may become and/or now regulated. I can imagine that a time may come when any condition that improves efficiency in manufacturing relative to the use of a natural persons labor and thereby reduces the need for employment may become regulated or out-lawed, even if such unemployment is caused by a robot as you define it. I would say this is already happening in some communities, particularly in Europe, where the efficiency of fast-food restaurants is not allowed in favor of traditional eating establishments that provide opportunities for traditional food preparation and serving and allows for full employment of the local folks involved in retail food preparation. I was reading where the automation/efficiency of egg production by hens is taking a hit in some areas by laws coming on the books to protect the hens from poor living conditions. Pigs are also finding better living conditions in some areas. It may even happen with respect to natural persons in some places via regulation of industries and activities that provide employment and improve the general welfare, robots be damned. Such a condition may be invoked by a state via requirements on charters of corporations, permitting their existence and/or operation. This method of control, as well as legal regulation, is another possible means of creating jobs in a community. Actions by corporations that reduce employment such as use of "robots" could be disallowed by charter, thus cutting into possible profits/efficiency of the corporation. As more and more people become adversely affected with the growing population and improved "efficiency of robots" negating substantial employment, I hope the society will take action, (regardless of the perceived "rights" of corporations or some few individuals to make a profit by eliminating jobs) to correct the adversity. I do not consider the US Constitution disallows such action through the Bill of Rights or any other provision. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: Jed Rothwell To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 6:54 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:OT: what if everybody got free cash? Bob Cook <[email protected]> wrote: Your last comment: "I do not think so. I do not know of any inherently safe products that regulated solely for the good of society. " Making beer and wine is limited and distilling ethanol is prohibited without a license. (Ethanol, however, is considered safe and can be purchased by any adult.) Such action is taken for the good of the society. You misunderstand. Beer and wine cause harm. They are not inherently safe. They should not be sold to minors, or sold on the street, or consumed in automobiles. Many other products that can cause harm are regulated, such as explosives. Many are potentially dangerous, such as automobiles, which have to be licensed and periodically inspected for safety. Gigantic robots used for mining or manufacturing will have to be regulated. You would not want your neighbor installing a robot large enough to crush an automobile. However, small robots will be no threat to anyone, any more than a washing machine is. People who are worried about the fact that robots reduce labor should first concentrate on machines that already do that. Probably, the washing machine has reduced labor more that any other machine in the last 100 years. Let's launch a campaign to regulate washing machines and limit their use, to put all those housewives and maids back to work with washboards. Abolishing washing machines would be absurd, obviously. It would be equally absurd to restrict the use of Roomba room sweepers and the Baxter robot. Yet we know that over the next 20 to 50 years such things will evolve into robots that take away almost all human jobs. Baxter has no measurable impact on employment today. When the first few thousand washing machines were installed around 1910, I am sure they had no impact on overall employment. It wasn't until hundreds of thousands were installed that they began to tell. By that time it would have been too late to ban them, if anyone had thought to do that. By the time the Roomba and Baxter machines evolve into more practical machines and their numbers increase enough to have an impact on employment, everyone will be used to having them around. People would not more allow the government to restrict their numbers or use than they would allow the government to ban washing machines today. The Internet, Amazon.com and Google have gutted the newspaper business, book publishing, bookstores and the Post Office. This outcome was a sure thing ten years ago. I and many others knew it was inevitable. Overall, these innovations greatly reduced employment. Does anyone imagine they might have been stopped -- or even slowed down -- for that reason? Along similar lines, the coal industry is pulling out all the stops to prevent the use of wind and solar power, because wind and solar are now competitive with coal in many markets. The moment it becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, I am sure that oil, coal, wind and solar companies will go ape shit and fight cold fusion with every means at their disposal. They will advertise like the dickens and they will buy every Congressman and Senator. That is inevitable. However, if we can make the public understand that cold fusion will save people tremendous sums of money, far more than any tax break, then I am sure the energy industry will lose that fight. - Jed
