[treis]

>The construction worker it replaces isn't going to start managing a team of robots construction robots

Some of them will. You've slashed construction labor cost to 5% of what it was before. With that and a similar reduction throughout the supply chain means we're going to start building a lot more stuff.

[idopmstuff]

Even if we start building a lot more stuff, you still don't need those construction workers. You have a GC to manage the whole project, aided by an AI who's handling scheduling/operations/logistics. You have a detailed plan to build against.

So why do you need former construction workers to manage the robots? Why can't the GC and management AI run the whole thing?

Maybe there's some scenario where you still need something like one licensed person from each skilled trade to be responsible for the robots employing those trades. But there's no way you need everyone who worked on building sites managing robots, no matter how much construction you're doing.

[treis]

That's pretty far away from where we're at. If things do get that far it's not going to be a problem. Eventually the robots will murder us in our sleep and our worries will be over.

[galactushonor]

For which poor unemployed people who just got laid off due to AI are the Robots building house for? More abstractly, for whom are we creating are these productivity miracles and surplus for. Does a rich person suddenly need a million iPhones for himself and himself alone?

[treis]

There's not going to be much additional poor unemployed people. They're going to get different jobs.

[rglullis]

Doing what, exactly?

[treis]

Could you have predicted in 1920 that in 2020 that 48% of the country would stop farming and some would be programmers?

[rglullis]

"Past performance is not indicative of future results". People stopped being in farms because automation freed manual labor and people could move up in the value chain. We are getting to the point where there will be no chain left to go up to, at all. If you don't see the difference, I don't know what else to tell you.

[NothingAboutAny]

this time we're automating humans that can do anything that humans can do. you should be asking what happened to the horses which were replaced by the tractors. the answer is elsewhere in the thread, their pop dropped 88% or w/e, we didnt need them anymore.

[wookmaster]

So just hope something else appears?

[rglullis]

Labor costs are not the limiting factor on production.

[fragmede]

If they were suddenly cut to near zero, a lot of projects that were previous uneconomical become viable.

[rglullis]

"Becoming viable" does not mean "automatically put into execution". You still need to take overall demand in account.

Consider this: if demand was not a factor, anyone living in a moderately wealthy country would be practicing labor arbitrage and sending money to poorer places. Ask yourself why this doesn't happen.

[fragmede]

I'm sorry, I must be missing your point, because isn't that exactly what's happening with manufacturing having gone to China?

[rglullis]

No. It's different in two ways:

1) corporations moved manufacturing to where labor was cheap, but brought back the goods to sell them. This only works for as long as there is healhy consumer market somewhere. If AI really gets to automate most white-collar work, there will be no healthy consumer market left anywhere around the world.

2) The essay touches on this: any of the previous offshoring / job displacement movements happened on a much longer timeframe than what is being pushed now by the powers that be.

[treis]

What is?

[jonners00]

In theory breakeven demand, but ecosystens are basically economies, so termites are break even demand, and that's not good news.

[rglullis]

Demand and primary resources go way higher on the list.

[treis]

Demand and primary resources are effectively infinite.

[djeastm]

>primary resources are effectively infinite

You just solved economics?

[rglullis]

What?!

The primary resource needed to build a home is land. Do we have infinite availability of land in desirable areas to build on?

[twoodfin]

In a world where it’s dramatically cheaper to build infrastructure like roads, power, and plumbing, lots more land becomes desirable as a place to live.

Take Phoenix, for example, once air conditioning became cheap and pervasive.

[treis]

Enough that it's effectively infinite, yes. Especially if we are imagining a world where subways cost 1/20th of what they do today.