[gutnor]

IMO it depends a lot on the timescale. Give it 100-200 years and all the positive scenario are the likely outcome.

In 200 years, people will only have hobby because that will be all they have to do and most of their needs have been automated.

The problem is the transition to there and that's the annoying thing in all those discussions, nobody ever talk about it.

For example, Industrial Revolution and the 2 World Wars were the fantastic drivers that pushed EU and US in an unprecedented golden age. I'm sure the majority of people would have been happy to get the golden a few years later rather than going through the mass loss of lives or the misery of those years.

> This is not a technological consequence; rather, it’s a political choice.

Not quite sure how it is reassuring. Except China, there seem to be no move to even acknowledge that we may have something to do other than "the invisible hand of the market will solve everything"

[tdfx]

> In 200 years, people will only have hobby because that will be all they have to do and most of their needs have been automated.

This has not been the trend. Interconnectivity and ease of travel were supposed to relax the amount of work we do, but instead people put in more hours than ever. The efficiency gains have created winners and losers, but both are working at least as hard as before.

[davedx]

Depends on the country. In the Netherlands we are definitely working less :)

"In the mid-2000s, the Netherlands was the first country in the industrialized world where the overall average working week dropped to less than 30 hours."

Nice tables: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/studies/tn0803046s/nl080...

[sanxiyn]

People may not work less (I don't think people are working more), but both working condition and nature of work greatly improved. That is, work is more enjoyable now than in the past.

According to some economists, this is the primary reason why work hours has not declined as expected.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/07/the...

[superuser2]

>In 200 years, people will only have hobby because that will be all they have to do and most of their needs have been automated.

How will their living expenses be paid, then?

[throwaway9812]

Are you serious? People work currently, because that's the way _society_ works, currently. We have convinced ourselves that everyone either works or reaps the benefits of having worked (which is why he "justly" owns the means of production).

However, your question is meaningless _if_ everything is produced by robots. Nobody will be able to charge for anything, because the justification for the current way wealth is distributed will be gone: Nobody works, or will have worked or can pretend to have worked: Charging for products will be difficult to justify. Therefore, things will be free and there is no need to "earn a living".

If the powers to be would have it otherwise, there _will_ be a revolution. Or people will move to a country where the robot dividend is fairly distributed.

[seren]

Until now revolution have pitched humans against other humans. And in most successful revolution, at one point, the police/army refuses to shoot on the protestors anymore. (or oust themselves the current head of state)

I don't necessary have a really bleak view of the future, but I wonder what would a revolution would looked like with a robotized police. You could hope that at one point someone on the loyalist side would press the robot kill switch.

But taking today's world as an example, I wonder what would Assad or Gaddafi would have done with an army of robots.

[throwaway9812]

My point was not really that the revolution actually has to happen. Political pressure will build up long before and things will get sorted out peacefully.

[JoeAltmaier]

...or some other rationing of goods will occur. When things are free, people waste them. When they cost even a nickel, they don't. So some credit system (basic income?) and some cost function will be necessary, because people are people.

[superuser2]

In a world where property rights exist, you don't need a justification to charge for something, you just can.

[gutnor]

Well that's the transition period still. Either you own your share of means of production that sustains you or you don't and you starve to death because there is literally nothing you can do.

I enjoy a good distopian novel as the next man, but it would take a really unlikely set of circumstances so that technology has improved enough to enslave the population durably, yet not enough so that this enslaved population still has some use and, added to that, a ruling class or at least a culture motivated enough to maintain that kind of status quo.

[TeMPOraL]

>> This is not a technological consequence; rather, it’s a political choice.

> Not quite sure how it is reassuring.

I don't find it reassuring and I also think it's wrong. Politicians won't even see it coming. Political decisions tend to be consequences of technology, not the other way around.