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Comment by gutino | Hacker News Reader

But the rate of product/services that machinery will produce will make that even a small tax to corporations producing everything autonomously will be enough to feed and give a quality of life to everyone with an UBI or partial time jobs.

You really want to push for high productivity across all industries, even if that means sacrificing jobs in the short term, because history demonstrated after that, new and more human jobs emerge latter.

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Every decade was supposed to see fewer hours working for higher pay and quality of life. It didn't happen, as business owners (not just 1% fat cats, the owners of mom and pop shops are at least as guilty as anyone, they just sucked at scaling their avarice).

So the claim that this technological revolution will be different and that it will result in a broad social safety net, universal basic income, and substantive, well-paid part-time work is a joke but not a very good one. It will be more of the same - massive concentration of wealth among those who already hold enough capital to wield it effectively. A few lucky ones who manage to create their own wealth. And those left behind working more hours for less.

You are right that this won't happen by itself. We need another economic system, and not just hope that this time things will magically fix themselves.

This new economic system you want has been in use since the 70s. Everything about the economy is practically socially managed these days.

What part of printing trillions of dollars to stimulate economic productivity is somehow a free market system?

I wasn't talking about free market, but the state of present economy. Unfortunately, those trillions of dollars aren't being distributed to the people, but instead is concentrated in the hands of the richest.

Im pretty sure the people got 5000$ on average in stimulus checks at the tune of 9 trillion dollars these last few months.

> those left behind working more hours for less

Doing what? Isn't the concern here that automation will push many people out of the workforce entirely?

Who debugs the software when there's a problem?

Professional software developers, i.e. members of one of the well-paid professions that is not under immediate threat from automation.

Automated debugging software of course

Well as long as humans are more energy-efficient to deploy than robots you will always have a job. It might mean conditions for most humans will be like a century ago.

> as long as humans are more energy-efficient to deploy than robots

Energy efficiency isn't relevant. When switchboard operators were replaced by automatic telephone exchanges, it wasn't to reduce energy consumption.

The question is whether an automated solution can perform satisfactorily while offering upfront and ongoing costs that make them an economically viable replacement for human workers (i.e. paid employees).

I'd agree that many business owners are blameworthy (specifically the ones who have sought monopolies for their product or monopsonies for their labour supply), but we shouldn't forget landlords. A huge fraction of people's income goes to paying rent, especially in urban areas, yet the property tax is relatively low. This leaves a fat profit margin for landlords, even subtracting off the capital cost of the building. The proliferation of "single family house" zoning hasn't helped either. Preventing the construction of high density housing drives up rents, and benefits landlords at the cost of everyone else.

Yeah, for sure, the corporations that already pay effectively $0 in tax today are going to suddenly decide in the future to be benevolent and usher in the era of UBI and prosperity for all of humankind. They definitely won't continue to accumulate capital at the expense of everything else and use that to solidify their grasp of the future.

It would be a lot easier if more people on this website would just be honest with themselves and everyone else and simply admit they think feudalism is good and that serfs shouldn't be so uppity. But not me, of course; I won't be a serf. Now if you'll excuse me, someone gave me a really good deal on a bridge that I'm going to go buy...

Have fun being a hairdresser or prostitute for the 0.01% then.

New jobs in academic fields will not emerge. Already now a significant percentage of degree holders are forced into bullshit jobs.

Would the implication be that we are stagnating as a species then?

Not stagnating but moving into an "Elysium" (as in the film) type of society.

The problem with this is that you increasingly have to put your trust in the hands of a shrinking group of owners (people who have the rights to the automated productivity). At some point, those owners are just going to stop supporting everyone else (will probably happen when they have the ability to create everything they could ever want with automation - think robot farms, robot security forces, all encompassing automated monitoring, robot construction, etc.)

So we give away the world to the 1% and are supposed to be satisfied with the "privilege" of being able to eat?

Just look at authocratic countries. That top 1% still need something like 3-4% to work for beaurocracy and 3-5% for armed and police forces. And there are always family connections and relatives of relatives who want better living. So fortunatelly no AI will ever replace corruption and other human society flaws.

But yeah remaining 80-90% of population will have quality of life and bullshit jobs because it's how the world is right now outside of western countries bubble.

If AI can replace us with difficult tasks, it can repress us. How are you going to agitate for a UBI when AI has identified you as a likely agitator and sends in the robots to arrest you?

The current state of most wealthy countries do not show any hint of any significant corporation tax. Wealth will continue to accrue in the hands of the few.

Indeed, even here on HN, it's a pretty regular talking point in the comments that the only fair corporate tax rate is 0%.

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