VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
The problem is, our society is built upon the current work model. If it goes - and AI radically changes everything - a different model is needed.
The Future of Work
- Thread starter VaughanJB
- Start date
The problem is, our society is built upon the current work model. If it goes - and AI radically changes everything - a different model is needed.
Brookswood
Senior Member
Get a job where you have to touch the person who hired you or his/her property. Fix cars, install and maintane HVAC systems, fix leaky pipes, repair ships and airplanes, etc.
Lawrence00
Senior Member
I would guess that many of these Microsoft people had big house payments. 6000 layoffs. I asked ai about the programmers. 
dilettante
Well-known Member
- Location
- Michigan
It is hard to know where to begin with this one. Where do people get these ideas? Have they even been inside an operating auto plant?
Things haven't look like that since the mid-1950s. By the 1970s they were very different.
In small manufacturing operations nobody worked liked that. You set up a line of 10 to 30 units, and worked down the line step by step building up the product from parts. Sure, there were specialists operating welding equipment, lathes, industrial scale vac-u-forms and blow-molds to shape molded casings. But most "lines" used generalized workers to bend, bolt, wire, assemble, smooth, label, package, and stack a series of units.
I know. I did that my Summer before starting collage.
And that was just the low-tech stuff. I got a one-on-one tour of a Lear Siegler Industries plant in the 1960s. I saw the lines testing and packaging integrated circuits from wafer chips to finished components, avionics gear being assembled, and an inertial navigation test room for products that went into Gemini and later Apollo.
I suppose some people pushed a pencil or sold butt scratchers or something, never having a clue what goes into building the world they inhabit.
David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
Working isn't the only way we humans can enjoy a worthwhile, meaningful life though their activity might not be productive nor counterproductive for a society. So NO, a human world where everyone is expected to or gets to work, need not be as long as a basic income or credit source is provided. With far less humans and changes to our many negatives existing with long term, harmonious, balanced, environmental sustainability, AI increases in medical science providing much longer lives, freedom from fossil fuel source energy, this amazing planet in a future technology age could be an absolute paradise.
That noted, one can also predict that there are many people today with weak self control that if they did not work and were just paid a basic income, would descend into some psychologically addictive feel good or numbing drug, excessive food obese, fitness poor, unnatural sex oriented, gambling for $$$, foul existence. So in that regard given our current human world, regular 8-5 m-f work keeps many people on a reasonably even keel.
Many other people for entertainment depend on watching movies, tv, especially watching tv pro sports, watching others do things instead of participating themselves. If those folks were suddenly cast out of a working world, many would not find their way into an alternate healthy lifestyle. And yes there will always be plenty of productive jobs like in the sciences and technology for some to immerse their lives in. But realistically in the near century future, probably not enough, soon enough, to successfully spread across the way over-populated human world we now live in.
It is those with hobbies and active physical pursuits, especially outdoor activities that won't have trouble in a workless world with a guaranteed income. Only about 50% of people have hobbies today while what qualifies as a hobby is a vague term. Hobby goes beyond creative activities if one includes having fun, playing. Does playing video games qualify as a hobby? Maybe, but ought be put in its own category as it may become psychologically addicting in negative ways. Generally the more technologically capable and educated one is, the more interesting life can potentially be. And that is especially true for those knowledgeable about natural sciences like this person. I could easily spend an eternity here on planet Earth enjoying, studying, experiencing its myriad environments.
And besides hobbies, many people will always be able to enjoy learning, educating, enhancing their minds in myriad ways that are not necessarily to make $$$. The more one educates one's mind, the more potentially interesting a life can become. Heck, just studying history can immerse one into an immense journey of knowledge.
And for the physically fit, especially those young and fit, there is a vast world of active physical possibilities the majority of working urban people never develop interests in. Many never had the time as they spent their lifetime pursuing, struggling for money, allowing their bodies to degenerate from what they were at 20. Like playing all manner of sport games from golf to team basketball to team softball to table tennis to surfing to snow skiing to fishing, to climbing, to sailing, on and on with possibilities.
And what will future amusement parks be like? Yeah lots of thrill rides but how about underwater ocean tunnels with viewing portals where people get to watch all manner of ocean life in natural ways. Or free to visit parks on idyllic tropical corral reef surrounded islands or high alpine mountains, or some fantastic temperate redwood forest.
That noted, one can also predict that there are many people today with weak self control that if they did not work and were just paid a basic income, would descend into some psychologically addictive feel good or numbing drug, excessive food obese, fitness poor, unnatural sex oriented, gambling for $$$, foul existence. So in that regard given our current human world, regular 8-5 m-f work keeps many people on a reasonably even keel.
Many other people for entertainment depend on watching movies, tv, especially watching tv pro sports, watching others do things instead of participating themselves. If those folks were suddenly cast out of a working world, many would not find their way into an alternate healthy lifestyle. And yes there will always be plenty of productive jobs like in the sciences and technology for some to immerse their lives in. But realistically in the near century future, probably not enough, soon enough, to successfully spread across the way over-populated human world we now live in.
It is those with hobbies and active physical pursuits, especially outdoor activities that won't have trouble in a workless world with a guaranteed income. Only about 50% of people have hobbies today while what qualifies as a hobby is a vague term. Hobby goes beyond creative activities if one includes having fun, playing. Does playing video games qualify as a hobby? Maybe, but ought be put in its own category as it may become psychologically addicting in negative ways. Generally the more technologically capable and educated one is, the more interesting life can potentially be. And that is especially true for those knowledgeable about natural sciences like this person. I could easily spend an eternity here on planet Earth enjoying, studying, experiencing its myriad environments.
And besides hobbies, many people will always be able to enjoy learning, educating, enhancing their minds in myriad ways that are not necessarily to make $$$. The more one educates one's mind, the more potentially interesting a life can become. Heck, just studying history can immerse one into an immense journey of knowledge.
And for the physically fit, especially those young and fit, there is a vast world of active physical possibilities the majority of working urban people never develop interests in. Many never had the time as they spent their lifetime pursuing, struggling for money, allowing their bodies to degenerate from what they were at 20. Like playing all manner of sport games from golf to team basketball to team softball to table tennis to surfing to snow skiing to fishing, to climbing, to sailing, on and on with possibilities.
And what will future amusement parks be like? Yeah lots of thrill rides but how about underwater ocean tunnels with viewing portals where people get to watch all manner of ocean life in natural ways. Or free to visit parks on idyllic tropical corral reef surrounded islands or high alpine mountains, or some fantastic temperate redwood forest.
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VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
Yeah - coders, accountants, architects, and so on - it's over in general terms. I have issues with that (which revolve around the issue that too often I've had to work with systems that are undocumented, and no-one quite knows how all the pieces fit together in code), but it's not about me.
No-one is going to be safe or unaffected.
dilettante
Well-known Member
- Location
- Michigan
I suspect that given human nature a far more stable society might be assured by shortening the "work week" for most people to ensure regular employment for anyone capable of it.
No welfare state has ever been successful or survived for very long.
No welfare state has ever been successful or survived for very long.
VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
A rethink of what constitutes a working week is long overdue, imo. The problem with changing it, and of previous benefit systems in the western world, is that they sit atop a system of capitalism. That system will always demand more. So, any change made will have to address the counter demand.
People need money to survive. Or rather, they need a method to get the resources they need for survival. Cutting the work week to say, 35 hours, would be good for the workers, but bad for business. Also, you'd have to earn enough within those 35 hours to be happy. Effectively, less hours, more pay.
Still, I'm a supporter of so called "welfare systems", I think they're essential, and a good sign in a civilized society.