Those factories only exists if they have a market for the goods they produce.
Yeah, pretty much. Human wants are unlimited. (To quote Boethius, "If free-handed Plenty should dispense riches from her cornucopia as plentiful as the sands cast up by the storm-wracked sea, or as the stars that shine in heaven - men still would not stop their miserable complaints.")
Have you read Chase's 'Plutonomy' papers from a few years ago? Fearsome reading.
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=2512...
It's not that fearsome.
Over time it becomes easier to give more value to more people thanks to progress in technology and greater amounts of money/economic wealth sloshing around.
The people who do something of value, or capture it, derive a huge surplus from the leverage provided by what's out there right now ( billions of people, trillions of dollars )
You can see the difference between Nikola Tesla - an absolute genius - who created the basis for all modern technology/progress and Google.
Even with all the value he created, he couldn't really derive that much personal benefit, as the utility of his inventions were low before network effects set in and there were fewer people with less disposable income to spend money on his inventions. He also got screwed but that's another story.
Compared to Google ( very smart guys yes, geniuses perhaps ) which started less than 14 years ago and has become one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world.
Lady Gaga ( 4 years ) vs. Madonna ( 40 years ) for huge success.
Avatar ( 3 billion ) vs. Jaws ( .5 billion )
You catch my drift. Feedback loops are getting larger and faster - it's like nothing stands still anymore.
But society is getting better.
You can worry about the computers taking over, or worry about humanity collapsing under the weight of resource crises. I know which I'd prefer. Someone's going to have to build all those wind farms, and retrieve scarce resources from landfill, and I'd rather it wasn't me.
http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Machine-Accelerating-eboo...
A perfect example is modern electronics. A large part of the reason for the rise of surface mount electronic components (SMT parts are soldered to the same side of the circuit board that they are placed on) is that they make it much cheaper to assemble electronics by automated pick & place machines than it would have been to keep the older through-hole components (with pins/wires that go through the board and are soldered on the opposite side) and use human-like robots to assemble them.
Likewise, airplanes have autopilots designed into them for that purpose instead of having robotic pilots sitting in seats.
The reality is that in most large volume manufacturing, special purpose automation will win out over general purpose robots.
On the other hand , threatening to replace workers with robots in mass , seem like a powerful negotiation tactic.
I'll believe it when i see it.
Say this to any AI researcher who has done work in the past 5 decades. See what happens.
In all honesty I have no idea. Would they laugh and say that "no way AI needs another 20 years"? Or would they say it's only a few years until everyone working with their hands is out of work? Kudos on the pretentious reply btw.
However, there is some evidence that it really is different this time. Big data makes a big difference to things like image recognition.
The problem is to many peoples jobs are to easy and highly specialized. They don't require strong AI - just good enough "dumb" algorithms, and we're getting really good at those. Doing paperwork by strict specifications. Driving a truck from point A to B. Assemble a circuitboard from a blueprint. As long as you keep a handful of humans in the loop incase something unexpected happens, this is all stuff robots can do today.