The future, what will it hold for us?

mkopec

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,389
37,457
So while wading through /reddit today I stumbled on the below video. It deals with the future of automation and how basically all of us will at some point be obsoleted. Now I used to be a staunch believer in the Luddite Fallacy, but the more and more I look into this and think about it more, there seems to be a point where the Luddite Fallacy ceases to work.


We live in exciting times right now, on a verge of some earth shaking changes both economically and socially. Some of these changes will happen in our lifetimes, some will happen in or kids and grand kids lifetimes, but the changes are inevitably coming and at a fast rate, faster than anyone though. What I wanted to do with this thread is explore the economic aspects of this and whether the world becomes a dystopia or the utopia we all dream of. Are we ready for these changes? How will our economy change? What will happen with the millions of people unemployed in the inevitable transition period?
 
Kuro

Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
8,346
21,203
Is this narrated by text to speech, or by someone with horrible voice cadence.
 
jooka

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
14,405
6,116
seemed like text to speech to me but honestly am not sure.
 
Mist

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast
<Gold Donor>
30,382
22,160
This is basically why I decided to go into psychology, rather than staying in IT or making another attempt at a CS degree. We'll make computers that fix themselves and eventually program themselves within my lifetime, but people will always be broken and likely just keep getting crazier. Especially if machines make people idle and strip them of vocational identity.
 
mkopec

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,389
37,457
You dont think they will have bots that do your job, mist? Have you watched the vijeo?
 
Mist

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast
<Gold Donor>
30,382
22,160
mkopec_sl said:
You dont think they will have bots that do your job, mist? Have you watched the vijeo?
Click to expand...
My current job of compiling stats and instructing tutors, definitely. My future potential jobs? Almost certainly not.
 
radditsu

radditsu

Silver Knight of the Realm
4,676
826
Mist, I chose IT because people will always, ALWAYS want someone to figure out how to get their game to work. My job is futureproof.
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
6,890
521
All human jobs will migrate to luxury products. Literally, things made by humans will be a luxury by default. Politics & Entertainment(Art) is the last thing we'll be able to hold onto, and they'll still be unrecognizably hybridized by automation. I think we're actually going to get a LOT more art in this automation encroaching age as people still seek to remain a valuable part of society, but much of it will be assisted by algorithms which control color schemes or physics for you.

I call bullshit on "you can't have a painting economy". The economy is literally made up of those participating in it. When there is NOTHING else, the economy will be entertainment. There isn't going to be a majority interest in watching server blades play rock and roll or jazz. You'll go to the bar to have a human pour you a drink and listen to humans play music and talk with humans about your life. This is 100% luxury. Robots could do all of that more efficiently, and perhaps even more beautifully, but when they do everything absurdly efficiently they actually start to become a non-factor in the ongoings of society. Life will go on layered on top of the automated economy and we'll all just become entertainment contributors and consumers by default. The alternatives are doing nothing, being part of a humans do everything sub-group (amish 2.0), and suicide. The majority of people won't pick one of those three options, but amish 2.0 will be the most attractive to the nihilist luxury economy.

I expect there will be a lot of historical re-enactment style of entertainment and adventure/education style getaways where people live primitively as a choice while still not subscribing to the "robots are the debil, we do human stuff" philosophy of the neo amish. MMOs are pretty much the digital vanguard of this kind of period based escapist romanticism. It's going to be big. Matrix big possibly. Some people will just go live in a different reality with the aid of software.
 
Mist

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast
<Gold Donor>
30,382
22,160
Neuropharmacologywill most likely be 'solved' by mechanical minds but drugs are only a small portion of psychotherapy, let alone the entire field of mental health or psychology in general.

I'll most likely end up in a job writing education curriculum or education policy anyway, which is not really what I want to be doing, but seems to be what everyone else thinks I'm good at. Maybe I'll end up as some kind of therapist or counselor later. Getting into, and through, a PHD program for machine learning or computational neuroscience or anything like that is starting to look more daunting than I originally imagined. The programs I want to get into just don't accept that many people.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.