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Comment by neon_electro | Hacker News Reader

Do you believe automation can have no net benefit for society, then? Is there no future where increasingly all of the basic needs of people can be taken care of by automation, freeing up humans to do creative work?

I would like to understand your viewpoint.

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The point is I think: Problem is somebody invests in the automation (algorithms and hardware) and then own all the results from the automation.

You seem to assume that the proceeds from automation would be evenly distributed. Why would it? The reason most people today can eat is because they (or people close to them) are needed as a workforce.

In the past once things got too bad then people went on strike etc. and taxes were raised and wages improved. But if the basic need of the robot-owners are met without any humans working for them, strikes fail to be efficient. One can only trust in the benevolence of the people owning the capital and the inertia in the current laws and the democractic system to keep things somewhat stable...

Why would the people owning the capital even invest in those robots if most people won't be able to afford the things made by them?

They only would need to sell to other robot owners. In a borderline case, a small group could own and operate a whole tree of technology required for a modern living standard, like a self-sufficient farm that buys nothing from the outside.

While possible, this is usually not efficient, though.

I think the idea is that the scenario where most people can't afford to purchase goods is going to creep up on us.

We are medieval creatures, we long for a purpose, no matter how small, no matter how trivial. If the machines take the purpose, all the fruit-baskets in the world wont fill that hole.

Is "machines taking all the purpose" a logical conclusion? I don't see a future where machines will create all of the popular culture in the world. I choose to support human-powered culture now, and increasing automation would not change my mind on that.

A UBI would enable humans to do more work that society either can't or won't automate. Care of other humans is an example. Yes, machines may be able to take on some of that role, but never all of it.

Do you think Usain Bolt considers his life meaningless because a car is so much faster than him?

If that car would race againist him every race - yes.

Purpose can be found in many things unrelated to wage labor.

> freeing up humans

What a nice euphemism for unemployment, because that's what it does.

Some might consider "employment" a euphemism for slavery. It goes both ways.

Automation certainly can benefit society (the majority of whom are workers), but in the way in which it is used at the moment does not benefit them in the fullest sense; they can take advantage of lower prices, but they can't take advantage of having much more free time to pursue creative hobbies, science, education and entertainment.

There are at least two possible solutions offered; the first is UBI in which everyone gets sufficient money to live off. Where exactly this money comes from and from what profits is up for question, and raises interesting questions about profitability in industries where there is higher organic composition of capital. The second option is one in which automation isn't used for profit at all, it is used simply to reduce working hours via ceasing commodity production and instead only the manufacture of use-values. In my opinion this second option (frequently called Socialism, endorsed by the likes of George Orwell, Einstein, Oscar Wilde, Marx and Engels) leads the way to an even greater emancipation and heightened productive capacity of society, given that there would no longer be any need to ensure high employment (high employment across industries is necessary for workers to buy back the products that they make, which generates profit). The second option also deals quite well with the psychological issues of living in a commodity-producing society brought up by the likes of Marcuse and Adorno.

Although the UBI solution to the problem of rising automation has rightfully earned the interest of many, I do not believe it goes far enough to ensure a more free, equitable and democratic society for all.

Edit: Regarding UBI, what is the incentive to stop companies from "offloading" the duty to pay a fair wage onto the state? I'm not really up to scratch on UBI details, so a response would be appreciated.

Agreed on your last point, far more than UBI is needed to achieve a "more free, equitable, and democratic society for all".

The problem with socialism without free market is that it has been tried many times, and it drastically lowers productivity, leading to deficits. People start spending their copious free time in lines waiting for the rare and insufficient goods to arrive. If you think USSR was long ago and this time it will be different, look at Venezuela.

This was not a problem with Socialism, it was a problem with the form of economic planning used. We must also bear in mind that there are forms such as market Socialism. Neither the USSR nor Venezuela paid attention to cybernetic planning; scientists in the USSR were repeatedly shut down by bureaucrats for suggesting it.

There exist modern planning methods, though still academic, such as those elaborated by Cockshott and Cottrell in Towards a New Socialism, it's worth a look if you haven't seen it already.

Nobody is suggesting rigid five year plans any more.

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