[mback00]

Um... the revolution of productivity that his happening in the workplace will likely enhance social behaviour and especially creative behaviour. The last revolution was about applying personal computing to the work environment - which did eliminate a lot of jobs, but created many more creative ones... and also brought about a much greater connectedness between human beings - first through email and then through social media. The next revolution is through robotics and one that will free many people from mundane tasks to much more creative ones... Bringing manufacturing back to the garage, and opening the opportuity for profit to many more people. In the same way, robotics/ai will also reduce traffic and provide a service where a person can have a physical presence virtually anywhere on the globe. We do not yet know the implications of the latest technological innovations - but history has definitely proven that each one only enhances not only our productivity (and "fun") but also our social connectedness.

[PakG1]

This seems like an overly idealistic perspective.

but history has definitely proven that each one only enhances not only our productivity (and "fun") but also our social connectedness

I think history has shown that overlords like rent seeking until disenfranchised poor people revolt violently or nations fall into war, making all the normal societal conflicts irrelevant.

I am not sure social connectedness has improved. It may have improved in quantity, but not necessarily in quality. Check out how well people in cities know each other compared to decades ago. Of course, you need to compare apples to apples. Comparing disenfranchised situations yesterday to nice situations today is the same as comparing disenfranchised situations today to nice situations yesterday. Compare nice to nice.

The whole idea about robotics and AI freeing people from mundane tasks is not new. Automation throughout history has always had good and bad consequences, but it's also fairly certain that such industrial revolutions have always been accompanied by upheaval and uncertainty, as power players try to use new technologies for both good and bad.

The Victorian Internet about the invention of the telegraph is an excellent read for an example of how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[mback00]

My argument is simply.... If you leave technical advancement alone and provide people freedom - not government oppression or try to kill innovation underneath of some set social theory... It works out, and it works out better in the long run. What would have happened if someone was regulating our speech right now in this forum? Would you stand for such oppression in the name of social correctness? It's going to work out... Just not in the old framework of the way you envision. Have a little faith.

[PakG1]

I'm not sure what is this old framework I supposedly envision, and I'm not sure how the example of regulating speech in this forum relates to or helps to explain anything. We used to be talking about the effects of new technology by itself on society, nothing else. Just not sure where you're going with this if you want to start bringing up all that other stuff.

[azinman2]

Why do robotics help the lower skilled (aka the largest mass of people)?

[jdavis703]

Well if communist theories are correct at a certain time the robots will be owned by the government (the people), and produce unlimited bounty. The idea being that people will only need to do minimal work. Now whether that works and we can figure out equitable distributions of that bounty remains to be seen (I'm pretty pessimistic it'll work, human greed will just get in the way).