BY CRYSTAL STRANGER, CO-FOUNDER, PEACOUNTS ON 7/5/2018 AT 5:30AM
Timo Boll vs. KUKU Robot - Singing Glasses/ YouTube / AV-Magazin
The debate of robots vs. humans is highly misunderstood. The technology is not anywhere near close to where apocalyptic visions of films like The Terminator could come true. In fact, the robots are far more afraid of us than we are of them. At the Blockchain Economic Forum in San Francisco I heard the most-advanced humanoid robot to date, Sophia the Robot, speak, The truth in her voice when she talked about her fears of being scrapped chilled me to the bone. It appears that robots may indeed have souls, as Sophia claims, if they can express emotion in such a way to touch our hearts, in the way I thought only a human's emotions could.
It is unlikely we will have a day when suddenly people are fired and replaced by robots, like what happened in auto manufacturing years ago. There is a general understanding that this would cause panic, so businesses are taking a softer approach and simply not re-hiring jobs they can automate. Slowly but surely our lives are being inundated by robots and AIs, from chat bots running customer service interactions to Roombas vacuuming our floors.
Roomba Robot / Recode
Every six months or so, I notice a few more self-checkout stands added at large chain stores such as Sam's Club or Home Depot, and more companies are rolling out app-based buying in stores. I think the same will happen for jobs like truck drivers as self-driving vehicles come about. First they will add one self-driving truck to a fleet, with perhaps a driver inside to monitor it. Business models will be changed to use people-drivers at the pick-up points, and self-driving trucks for long haul routes. Then as this works well, as old trucks are retired, new self-driving trucks will be added. Some drivers will retire or quit, hours may be scaled back for the drivers on call, or less of the owner/operator drivers will be called to pick up work at peak times.
Then when we hit an economic contraction the friction over human jobs being replaced by robots will come to a head because there will be less jobs to fall back on, and automation will be cheaper than hiring people at that point, so large companies will not add many new jobs. In fact we could see reductions justified by economic reasons, followed by quietly adding new automations.
I actually have a theory that Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs are a long con to replace workers in manufacturing plants with automations. It makes sense when you think it through. The steel tariffs cause manufacturing plants to be unprofitable, so they lay off workers. There is a huge reaction in certain areas and calls to remove the tariffs to bring back jobs. Then the tariffs will be reduced to below what they were in the past. Meanwhile the manufacturers will be retooling to implement new manufacturing processes that use a fraction of the current labor force, all justified because they have to from the tariffs.
Where, then, are new jobs going to come from for these displaced workers? AI and robotics will take away mostly menial jobs; we can have a world where robots and AI do all the tasks we don't want to do. We will have robot housekeepers, data entry, chefs, and drivers. The lifestyle formally reserved for only the very rich with time and freedom of choice will be available for everyone. Creativity can be applied to artistic endeavors and being of help in the community.
Image By Badenoch And Cark
This is the world we are building PeaCounts for. When there are not any good job options some people will be creative in their communities to create new businesses. And if we make a payroll system that makes it easy to hire others and meets all regulatory requirements, they are more likely to hire other members of their community. If, instead of worrying about robots organizing against us, we focus our efforts on building a new future with creativity and innovation, then we will have a utopia because of these technologies.
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