The reality , is that robots will subvert human society not because they are more intelligent or intent on doing humans harm, rather, they will scupper at least industrialised societies by simply being capable of most of the work now done by humans. It will be simple economics which does the trick, with employers caught between the Scylla of needing to compete with other employers who use robots to replace men (which will mean a catastrophic and irreparable lost of demand) and the Charybdis of having to throw away the idea of laissez faire economics and engage in a command economy, something which political elites raised on worship of the great god Market will have immense difficulty in doing.
Why would a command economy be necessary to avoid that? Welfare Capitalism- you run the economy with laissez-faire except you tax some and give it away to poor people, who can then spend it as they wish as if they’d earned it in laissez-faire economics- would work just fine. As mechanization increases, you gradually increase the welfare.
It won’t be entirely easy to implement politically, mainly because of our ridiculous political dichotomy where you can either understand basic economics or care about poor people, but not both.
The reality , is that robots will subvert human society not because they are more intelligent or intent on doing humans harm, rather, they will scupper at least industrialised societies by simply being capable of most of the work now done by humans. It will be simple economics which does the trick, with employers caught between the Scylla of needing to compete with other employers who use robots to replace men (which will mean a catastrophic and irreparable lost of demand) and the Charybdis of having to throw away the idea of laissez faire economics and engage in a command economy, something which political elites raised on worship of the great god Market will have immense difficulty in doing.
Read more at https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/robotics-and-the-real-sorry-karl-you-got-it-wrong-final-crisis-of-capitalism/
Why would a command economy be necessary to avoid that? Welfare Capitalism- you run the economy with laissez-faire except you tax some and give it away to poor people, who can then spend it as they wish as if they’d earned it in laissez-faire economics- would work just fine. As mechanization increases, you gradually increase the welfare.
It won’t be entirely easy to implement politically, mainly because of our ridiculous political dichotomy where you can either understand basic economics or care about poor people, but not both.
Since we’re citing sources I’ll admit Scott expressed this better than I can: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-like-left-libertarianism-ist-manifesto/#comment-23688