The argument of the book looked to me on a brief eyeballing like a woolly mass of words, but the question it asks seems fair enough: If the material needs and desires of the whole population can be met by the labour of a small fraction, how do the rest of the population get the stuff they want? But this question has been asked since mass production was invented, and the scenario has still not come to pass. Somehow, the work has always expanded to use most of the population of working age.
Even if this time, massive technological unemployment really is going to happen, I’m not convinced by the book’s answers. From the blurb:
The book directly challenges nearly all conventional views of the future and illuminates the danger that lies ahead if we do not plan for the impact of rapidly advancing technology.
Planning fallacy? We’ve had rapidly advancing technology for at least 200 years. What dangers of our rapidly advancing technology have in the past been avoided by planning? If automation does get to near-AGI levels, and a small fraction of the population can produce everything, the resulting society will look very different from today’s, but I don’t expect government planning to have much to do with the process of change.
Re: “Somehow, the work has always expanded to use most of the population of working age.”
Machines are still very stupid in many work-related domains—relative to humans. The issue of what on earth the unemployed will do is likely to arise with greater acuity once machine capabilities shoot past our own in most industry-related domains—retail, farming, distribution, mining, etc.
The argument of the book looked to me on a brief eyeballing like a woolly mass of words, but the question it asks seems fair enough: If the material needs and desires of the whole population can be met by the labour of a small fraction, how do the rest of the population get the stuff they want? But this question has been asked since mass production was invented, and the scenario has still not come to pass. Somehow, the work has always expanded to use most of the population of working age.
Even if this time, massive technological unemployment really is going to happen, I’m not convinced by the book’s answers. From the blurb:
Planning fallacy? We’ve had rapidly advancing technology for at least 200 years. What dangers of our rapidly advancing technology have in the past been avoided by planning? If automation does get to near-AGI levels, and a small fraction of the population can produce everything, the resulting society will look very different from today’s, but I don’t expect government planning to have much to do with the process of change.
Re: “Somehow, the work has always expanded to use most of the population of working age.”
Machines are still very stupid in many work-related domains—relative to humans. The issue of what on earth the unemployed will do is likely to arise with greater acuity once machine capabilities shoot past our own in most industry-related domains—retail, farming, distribution, mining, etc.
I go into these issues on: http://alife.co.uk/essays/will_machines_take_our_jobs/