What's the harm? By the end of the century robots will be doing most of the work anyway. People can concentrate on the things that matter to them instead.
Who's going to build and service the robots? Who's going to build the chips necessary to build the robots? Who's going to operate the ships required to move the parts to the destination to be assembled? Who's going to build the ships? Who's going to to secure the shipping lanes? Who's going to grow and process the food?
We don't have the parts that we need now to build new cars and tractors. Can we really afford to be building robots?
Well, there will be some jobs in robot service, but most of that work should be done by...robots. Self-driving ships don't need humans. Robots should be doing most of the ship building.
Growing and processing food should be highly automated, and soon. If we have "infinite" (renewable) energy we can cut down on the chemical input and have robots plucking each weed and carefully metering out the water. The price of "organic" should drop close to or even below "conventional".
> We don't have the parts that we need now to build new cars and tractors. Can we really afford to be building robots?
half a billion people have food insecurity, and with climate change that is growing. Can we really afford to build more meat puppets?
More to the point, the article talked about the population of SK dropping by a half by the end of the century. A transient parts problem today is irrelevant, especially given we have to design better robots over the next 78 years.
There is a lot of semiconductor investment going on right now. My employer is pledging $300B of investment in the next decade, with $40B here in the US. I would expect other companies are doing the same, especially as the EU and the US look to bolster semiconductor manufacturing through subsidization.
How many people would you need, in order to build robots? Not many, and most of it'll be automated anyways. And remember the birth rate is not 0.0 it's 0.8. So I think fewer people will be there because we don't need more people. Society will change to accommodate to low birth rates.
By the end of the century robots will be doing most of the work anyway
1) What if they don't? 2) The end of the century is 78 years away, somebody's going need to turn you on your side every few hours when you're in that old folks home - what happens if there aren't enough people to do those jobs?
> somebody's going need to turn you on your side every few hours when you're in that old folks home - what happens if there aren't enough people to do those jobs?
Obviously we will have robots doing that job! Elder care is already a major area of robotics effort in Japan.
And if the robots don't get there? Well, it's not terrible. A smaller population doesn't need as many buildings erected, or crops grown etc. Some people can move in from other countries. I'm confident it will all work out.
What do you mean? Hopefully they will be surrounded by family members and friends, none of whom were burnt out or financially ruined by looking after an elderly relative but instead are receiving and providing love and support while robots do the "dirty work" as it were.
You might look how elderly patients and other end-of-life patients are treated by their (almost all quite low-paid) carers. It's pretty shocking, but the experience of being the person providing that care is also pretty shocking.
I think you underestimate the emotional and physical labour involved in looking after a dying person, and in particular a relative. I saw (mostly remotely) my mother in law die and her two younger daughters restructured their lives to help her -- and this despite the twice daily visits from the Diakonie to change dressings, attend to medication etc. And, because that was in Germany there was no meaningful financial burden for this process.
There's another factor: my mid-80s mother (herself a physician) doesn't want human caregivers for privacy and prodding sake. She doesn't mind human physiotherapist or actually talking to another doctor about her complaints. But she doesn't want people fussing over her. And her mother in law (my grandmother), from a completely different culture from a completely different continent, also hated the consequences of losing her autonomy. She was still delivering meals on wheels at 89, and when she finally needed assistance in her 90s, just couldn't stand it.
IMHO machines that support more autonomy for people are an unalloyed good.
I mean this sincerely. I will kill myself before I become such a massive burden on society. I will not needlessly cling to life at the expense of others.
I can say the same right now, while it's still a distant abstract thought. I've said to my wife repeatedly that I'd rather leave my family some inheritance and go on my own terms than have the nursing home take it all so that I can live, bedridden, for a few extra years.
But I might feel different in a few decades if my physical body starts breaking down while my mind still works. Maybe I'll become afraid of death, or I'll suddenly want to stay alive watch my kids/grandkids grow up.
Robots don't buy products or services, meaning your revenues are shrinking. Meanwhile growing numbers of elderly citizens who require care are going to be supported by an ever smaller pool of young workers who will be overworked instead of starting families of their own. You have a spiral of death which is likely unavoidable.
At that point the actual workers might decide to just stop pouring endless resources in to keeping elderly people alive at all costs.
This is only a problem because we gained the ability to keep people alive much longer given extreme resources. If we just cap the resources dedicated here we would have no issue.
Robots are not free yet. Even if energy was free and we had automation that could produce any product so labor is free, we still need raw materials that might be hard to come by or conflictual in origin.
you re not wrong, but people are always looking for meaning in life. If kids are not there, they will look for meaning elsewhere. But maybe kids are too demanding and have repetitive needs, which is off-putting for meaning-driven uberhumans. Well then maybe we should automate the raising of kids , but wait, daily school already exists and now we have tablets too. OK so how did the adults find meaning now that their hands are untied? Oh, they are in social media all day
