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Comment by teeray | Hacker News Reader

> Our research in robotics is aimed at amplifying people rather than replacing them

Noble, but the reality is that once the genie is out of the bottle it will be used by many MBAs to replace people.

Controversial, but we can look at this as a good thing. If your entire job is simple enough for a robot to do that job shouldn’t be filled by a human. However, the human should receive a decent standard of living, regardless of their employment, which may be politically impossible.

> However, the human should receive a decent standard of living, regardless of their employment, which may be politically impossible.

Not gonna happen.

And not even for political reasons.

> which may be politically impossible

Try economically impossible for starters.

Do some napkin math on how much an individual needs to live each month, and then multiply that by how many people you need to support nation-wide. The dollar amounts are staggering, and make our current annual budget (all of it!) look like mere child's play.

We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars every month. It's simply not possible.

You're only adding up half of the equation. On the other half, your nation's productivity has skyrocketed due to plummeting labor costs.

Lets say that robots cut US 'labor' costs in half -- from about 10 trillion to 5 trillion. Add in a 5 trillion dollar tax on robot labor and you've got about 14,700 per capita to spend. And costs for businesses don't change.

So we replace full time employment with $14.5k annually? And people are supposed to survive on that, and celebrate the ushering in of tech?

Someone working an entry level fast food job earned vastly more than that per year.

Let's redo your math using realistic numbers and then we can see what's possible or not.

The per capita number was just for scale. I didn't mean that you'd distribute it on a per capita basis. Obviously you'd want to use a mechanism distribute it to people who need it.

> I didn't mean that you'd distribute it on a per capita basis

You have to, otherwise you assemble a perverse incentive to not be productive or work. We want less of that as it is, not more.

Working doesn't just mean "working for the man", it can be anything productive that results in income. Such as making and selling paintings, music, whatever.

However, there cannot be a reality where choosing to not work rewards you with as much or more than those who actually work. We also cannot have a system where people choose to peruse fruitless endeavors simply because they enjoy them, and then still get government payments. Yet, the system you propose will be just that - "I need it more because I'm poor - I'm poor because I choose not to work".

The money used to pay these people is complex, but it is not "free" and is largely supported by the working class. We cannot build incentives for the working class to stop working and subsist entirely off government payments (which come from the rest of the working class, leading to a downward spiral for any such program in terms of costs to the nation).

So realistically, the numbers for some sort of UBI are far, far greater than most people admit in these debates (as all-things government tend to be).

Additionally, if the tax equals the original labor, then there is now a negative incentive for businesses to adopt technology and replace employees as well. Employees are more flexible than a robot, for instance, so if costs are equal the human is the better value from the perspective of most businesses (some excluded such as maybe manufacturing).

No, the labor participation rate in the US is less than 2/3 already, because people like children, retirees, and the disabled exist. Distributing money to people who would lose jobs to automation would never be a per-capita exercise, anywhere.

You miss the point. The system you propose builds an incentive for more people to not work, not less.

Your system falls apart if more and more people decide not doing anything at all is a worthy trade off for a reduction in annual salary.

Yes, in today's labor market it would.

But that's not the scenario that is being entertained here.

We're talking about a hypothetical future world in which robots with AGI are capable of performing basic labor. Incentivize a human all you want, they will never be able to compete in a labor pool where their competition has no rights and will work 24/7.

That being said, a handout is not the best way to use that money anyway. What it should be used for are stronger safety nets and public services, along the lines of what already exists in western nations.

Let's assume the poverty line of $20,000 a year for a household of two people. For approximately 300,000,000 Americans, that would make $3,000,000,000/year. That is less than half of our current annual budget (all of it!). It's a staggering amount, but I don't see why you would exaggerate like this.

I'm actually pretty sure if you raised the income tax rate for the top 0.1% and closed corporate tax loopholes, you could get that level of money.

The poverty line?

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fp...

So you are saying we're going to doom an entire population to poverty, provided courtesy of the government?

I know you're trying to make a point, but let's be realistic. That's never going to fly... and it's wrong to even think people are going to be ok submitting to technology and the government overlords for a life filed with poverty.

Not possible with a capitalistic system in place but definitely possible. We would still have the same resources being produced possibly more if robots are more efficient at the jobs. But of course robots will initially be used to rake in more cash for their owners. Later we will get Star Trek way of life where things hold less value because we will easily produce more then we need and stop trying to sell everything.

> robots will initially be used to rake in more cash for their owners.

And as long as regulators maintain a competitive marketplace, the plummeting in costs to operate a business will result in lower prices. Labor is the largest cost for most businesses, and businesses that take advantage of new automation typically use it to undercut their competitors prices.

1.3% of US workforce is employed in farms. 1.3% grows the food for the rest of the 98.7% of the population. Add a couple of percents for transport and distribution and you probably have around 5% needed for food (maybe less if it excludes meat and processing).

It's simply very possible.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

> However, the human should receive a decent standard of living, regardless of their employment, which may be politically impossible

They'll get pie in the sky when they die

This rather sound like an inside facing expectations adjustment implying "don't fire assembly workers yet", with Toyota eagerness I'd imagine you'll be either fired on spot for blatantly lying or forced to make it happen by end of the quarter if you'd even suggest that.

This is FUS. Replacing people with machines is the story of the entire Industrial Revolution, and yet we haven’t ever had widespread unemployment as a result. Quite the opposite.

To be a bit flippant, the last thing our species needs is amplification- we are plenty loud, thanks.

It won't replace people, it will displace them.

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