When The Robots Rule The World

by Ian R Thorpe

23 April, 2017

Economist and humanity hater (apparently) Paul Krugman takes up a subject that as a former Information Technology professional I have long been mildly concerned about. In these two blogs (Futurism and Policy and The Conscience Of A Liberal) Krugman discusses the rise of robotics, or as he calls them "smart machines". Now I have to admit I love the irony in the title of the second, how a big government authoritarian like Krugman can put a title that includes the world 'liberal' and 'conscience' to one of his justifications of New World Order Fascism is a testimony to the fact that you don't have to be either intelligent or even literate to be a university Professor, all you have to do is suck up to the establishment.

Now while the 'liberal fascists' will be falling over themselves to praise Krugman for his enlightened vision that is pointing us towards an easy way out of the economic mess for which that Krugmanomics is largely responsible, brighter minds and thus people less likely to feel drawn to the vision of global fascism that so fascinates Paul Krugman and 'world leaders' who gobble up the turds of dogmatic stupidity that drip from his brow will have noticed two flaws in his ... well what passes for a mind.

First, Krugman sees robots paving the way to infinite economic growth. But to have growth there must be consumers consuming what robots make. So who is going to pay the billions of non productive humans so they can consume the products of the robot hoards.

Second, even though economists operate on a wholly unique level of stupidity one would think a committed Warmageddonist like Krugman would be aware we have a pair of teensy weensy energy crises on our hands. (A), if you believe the warmageddonists, the emissions created by the energy we consume now is driving climate change to destroy the planet; (B) robots run on energy (electricity) and with wind, solar, tide and other 'sustainable' sources proving unreliable, unsustainable and generally a waste of time and space, our viable energy resources are finite reserves of oil, coal, gas and fissile material. Thus it is not a good idea to commit ourselves to a development path that will double or treble the demand for energy.

Robots, androids, call them what you will, have been a source of wonderful ideas for science fiction writers but will they ever approach the intelligence and sensibilities of humans, scientists who are known for irrational over enthusiasm bordering on hysteria, insist intelligent machines that think and emote like humans are beginning to become a real and present reality – and possibly, to the more pessimistically minded, a danger too. To an old pro like me, this is exactly what the laboratory bound, reality averse type of computer scientist has been promising for forty years. And we're no nearer now than we were then mainly because we still do not have a clue how humans form thoughts, what combinations of data (from the senses) emotion, instinct, empathy, self indulgence and insanity are involved. The problem is you see, being human we might make one decision in response to a certain set of circumstances one day and in the same circumstances choose and entirely different response another time. This is because we are human, not machines.

Virtually every 'great leap forward' (a phrase deliberately borrowed from Mao Tse Tung) in labour productivity have come from labour saving machinery, which in turn have created time for humans to do things other than simply striving to keep body and soul together. Once you have devised something that can do previously menial tasks semi-automatically, you can apply your energies to some other, possibly more rewarding form of activity. Fair enough, but if the thrust of robotics is to free humans from menial tasks so we can get on with thinking it rather defeats the object, does it not, to try to build robots that can do the thinking for us and claim they will do it better. Unfortunately such advances always come at a cost and that cost hits the poorest in socity hardest.

The science community tells us artificial intelligence now coming on in leaps and bounds and robots promise another social and revolution and industrial revolution that will cause greater social change than the previous four combined. What could that be we wonder, will the robots decide humans are superfluous and destroy us all?

As with all previous great leaps forward in science and technology, the rise of the robot can be seen both positively and negatively. Marshall Brain, Mr Robotics, has published an essay Robotics Nation which you can read for free via my link.

On the positive side, robots ought to progressively free people from the need for human labour. They also have the potential to create unlimited economic growth, since the more robots you have, the more they can produce. On the negative side, every form of industry has an environmental footprint (not just harmless carbon dioxide without which life could not exist, but all sorts of truly toxic shite which destroys all living things that have contact with it,) so the fundamental flaw in the economic model based on perpetual growth via infinitely expandable consumption, i.e. nether resources not the environment's ability to absorb waste are infinite, is just sidestepped. The other flaw in the logic of the science heads is robots also have the potential to create massive unemployment. We've already seen this in action across a wide range of industries as they move from labour to capital intensive. For instance, it no longer takes nearly as many people to make a car as it used to.

Vast numbers of white collar jobs have already been displaced by the IT revolution. Eventually this will spread to basic manual and service work as the robots move progressively into the workforce. Again, this doesn't necessarily matter if the rewards of this revolution are spread equitably through society, but it obviously matters a lot if the owners of the robots – or the capital – monopolise all the wealth that they plan to create. And given the elite's track record on caring and sharing (singing Kumbaya as they kick the lower orders in the face) there is no reason to suppose they will behave any differently in future.

It can be argued quite convincingly that the process of making the middle and working classes redundant is already happening, with inequality between rich and poor steeply on the rise in both advanced and developing economies while the middle classes are pushed into a kind of genteel poverty reminiscent of the 19th century. Yes, if you are historically literate you will know that's actually what did occur in the early stages of the industrial revolution, when an extreme divide developed between capital and labour.

Society eventually managed to work through the imbalance, and the spoils of these productivity revolutions became more widely shared. Capitalism has repeatedly adapted to survive, and it will do so again. When societies don't, their leaders tend to be quite swiftly dispatched to the guillotine. Unfortunately what we have now is a kind of oligarchic collectivism to borrow a phrase from George Orwell, in which a new managerialist - academic - professional elite centred on the University system is stifling social mobility and bringing about a more rigidly stratified society than we have known since the early 19th century era of social reform.

From the Luddites onwards, every technological breakthrough has always produced the same hand wringing about the effect on jobs and wealth distribution, but in the end, each one creating far more jobs than it has destroyed – generally in more rewarding and less health hazardous forms of work – and greatly raised living standards in the round. The difference now is the technological advances are shifting work and therefore the ability to consume away from those able to consume. Those who create and control the machines believe their power will then be absolute.

I probably will not be around to see it but the day when the machines begin to takeover their creator will be interesting. The stuff of science fiction becoming reality will be the ultimate payback for the hubris of those who tried to be Gods.

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