1.3m Robots By 2018 Coming To Replace Human Workers

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One consideration is that the birthrate in technologically advanced countries seems to be in decline, so the lack of potential employees entering the workforce in the next few decades may lessen the impact of robots displacing jobs a bit.

My main interest will be seeing how the economy is impacted and adjusted to account for the declining number of wage earners. If no one has any money to spend on products, then the market for any business becomes smaller and smaller. You either end up with a handful of tiny robot-driven companies producing goods just for the rich 1% or the economy has to switch over to... I'm not entirely sure.

"...or the economy has to switch over to...." - a UBI. bread and circuses.

In other words: the only "people" with jobs will be robots. And robots don't buy consumer goods so there will be no demand for anything, and thus no economy.

That unless we just guarantee an income for actual people (employed or not).

True. I think the universal salary idea has been suggested by a few people. It would make sense to do something like this.

it is either a UBI, or a mass culling/die-off, that is the fork in the road where we're all headed.

Indeed.

Why are they doing this? I hate robots. How are humans supposed to work and earn a living if everything will be ran by robots? Robots aren't humans, they don't need warmth, food, money, love, etc, so what's society doing chucking hard-working people on the dole and replacing them with wires and circuits?

The smart-arse w*kers who are mega-rich by inventing robots and going, "wow, look how we're making a big improvement on society, everything's going to be digital, horray!" don't know the half of how they are actually destroying humanity. Who the f**k do they think they're impressing? Are we competing with other planets, trying to make earthlings look like the smartest living things in the whole universe and beyond?

Actually, robot-loving w*kers, you are making humanity look dumb by inventing machines that will soon wipe out all humanity.

I hope you're proud of yourselves. If you love robots so much why don't you marry your f*****g invention?

Robot inventors are as bad as terrorists.

Well, take it from a pretty much subsistence farmer-- most of the "economy" is junk that's not necessary to survival in the least, it's just "shiny". When civilization began the early economies were based on agricultural, it was necessary for survival. As we've learned to push crops (way past their limits, but that's for another thread) the economy transitioned into one were food was a given, so "shinies" became the thing with value. So when I hear, "if the economy tanks...", all I think is: thank god I spent the time to learn how to acquire the basics of life (food, water, shelter), without the help of the "economy" or other people.

To be honest though that's probably not going to happen. You have to understand the people in power and the mentality it takes to get there. They don't give a damn about money, or products, or anything of that nature-- those are merely tools to exert control over other people. Robots do what you say, there's no fun in smashing them down, and thus having complete control over a robot is not near as enjoyable to the power hungry personality type as say 80% control over another human being. There will be some other "invention" or "concept" used to control the masses whether they are the workers or the robots are. So basically I see mass enslavement as a very viable option for the future.

Is there a robot nurse that can clean poop, blood and vomit? Please say yes.

With in our lifetimes we could see 70% unemployment because automation. There will be no other option besides some sort of basic income, technology has advanced at a pace that far exceeds human development and society. I really don't know about technology, maybe Ted Kaczynski had a point about this industrial society. Human labor will be completely replaced, computers will become smarter than every human that ever existed combined eventually, I think we will bring about our own undoing.

Ditto.

all this reminds me of pogo saying "we have met the enemy, and he is us."

The scary thing is that could be a deterministic result of evolution, if not our own then some other pseudo-self-aware species' in the future. And yes, I believe the entirety of the universe is deterministic, but that's a discussion/debate for another thread.

We hear about Wall Street all the time in a negative light but what about Silicon Valley? They're the barons of industry now, lets compare someone like Bill Gates to someone like Henry Ford. Ford was a great who paid his workers a wage that they could support themselves and their families but Bill Gates and all these tech titans have built an empire on the backs of Chinese slave labor, go look up the working conditions of those at Foxconn where they make most of the electronic s**t that they use to distract us from our stagnant wages and grim job prospects. Why was this ever tolerated? These people have become wildly rich and haven't contributed to society at all except token gestures here and there. I think we might of been better off never opening relationships with China, freedom will not win.

There will be a time when machines are as alive as you or I are, they will be superior in every way so what do people expect to happen? We're going to play the role of the neanderthals while the machines will become man. How can't this be the inevitable result barring some intervention. I'm not sure we're better right now with all the technology we have today, I think it's hurting a lot more than it is helping. What can you do about it tho? Cat is out of the bag, Kascynski predicted there would be a revolution against technology but I dunno. We have to accept the fact that there even is a long term problem, there are too many people saying well there will be other jobs but there won't. We are being replaced, there is very little a person can do that a machine can't at eventually do much better and cheaper.

Imagine slavery but instead with machines, it doesn't make it all the sudden okay. Think about the effects that has on the rest of society.

I don't understand why people want to be served by others so badly that they will risk destroying society because of it. I get antsy if I'm not moving around very much unless I'm really tired or sick and sometimes even then I still want to move around.