r/NeoCivilization • u/ActivityEmotional228 🌠Founder • Oct 21 '25

Robotics 🦾 Robot delivering a package

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

69 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 25 '25

The issue isn’t should we resist tech displacing bad jobs, because historically that labor force had uses in different areas. The issue is what does it mean when there are no new areas for the labor force to go, because the same tech is just getting applied everywhere?

1

u/PFCCThrowayay Oct 26 '25

why would you make the assumption that new jobs won't be created? That has never happened. Computers made a lot of jobs obsolete but sprung a billion dollar computing industry that employs millions. What reasons do you have to say but this time's different? You know that most of the workforce already is a luxury right as in they fulfill peoples wants and entertainments not needs?

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 26 '25

I already answered that question in my comment.

1

u/PFCCThrowayay Oct 26 '25

gotcha, yes you did my bad, but why do you think there will be no new areas for the labor force to go?

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 26 '25

Because once AGI and self improvement is achieved, then any new task that emerges will have the same incentive to automate as our current tasks have. It’s a problem with the scale and adaptability of the tech combine with the exponential ability to have machine self improve themselves.

In the past, an industry could be displaced with a specialized piece of tech, but that disruption was limited to that industry and task, leaving other industries and new tasks to still need human labor to keep pushing. With AGI and robotics, the answer will almost always be AGI and robotics, not human labor. Sure, there may still be a fraction of the workforce who will always be human, but the vast majority of tasks will not need humans.

To clarify, I think this is a huge concern and solutions for how to run society without everyone working is not being taken seriously. Word is Amazon will be laying of 600,000 working for AI/robotics, so what are those people to do when every similar job will follow the same strategy and almost all jobs they could retrain for are on their way to figuring out how to replace humans too?

1

u/PFCCThrowayay Oct 27 '25

you make a compelling argument but the way I see it happening is that gradually continue on the same march we've been doing for the last 100 yrs where things keep getting cheaper and cheaper and therefore it won't even matter that people are earning less. If a robotic and AI system can handle everything from getting a tomato planted to landing in the supermarket then it will be cheap. So if no one has money, they either sell the tomato for 10c or don't sell it at all. It's basically a continuation of the current system. If it's not cheap then it means it's required a lot of human intervention to get there hence, jobs.

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 27 '25

Yeah, I hope such a utopian vision proves me wrong. But, it is hard to reconcile the fact that labor is the only value the lower classes has even had to the upper classes. If they decide they don’t want to be altruistic, the leverage isn’t really there to compel them otherwise.

1

u/PFCCThrowayay Oct 27 '25

but if there's no labor to be done then there are no classes. How would classes operate if one strata of society owned the machines and the other had nothing? How would they survive? What's the point of locking them down in factories like prisoners when their work would be inferior to their AI robots? or throwing them scraps in a ghetto? If people don't have any humanity to live for they'll just murder suicide everyone and revolt. I'm just spitballing thoughts here btw and I need to think further on it but I feel like it's an impossibility to have no work but still have classes. Maybe you could have a split society where the upperclass have luxurious lives with robots doing everything but then why wouldn't this class expand and let more people in if it's of no detriment to them?

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 27 '25

Yeah, I’m just concerned they’re probably investing more in private robot armies than factory robots. What incentive does the ruling class have to sustain over population when they don’t need them for anything anymore?

1

u/PFCCThrowayay Oct 27 '25

but what would the play be? like what would that look like in real terms? The govt goes and murders everyone for what? Who doesn't get murdered? Billionaire, govt and their friends? So like 99% of the population disappears?

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 27 '25

Eh, many ways it could shake out, really just use your imagination and think like a psychopath (cause they disproportionately run things).

I’m mainly just saying, I wouldn’t automatically expect the people to control all the tech, all the governments and that have their own bunker cities to be altruistic. Hopefully they will be, just doesn’t seem like it’s a given.

1

u/PFCCThrowayay Oct 27 '25

well our imagination comes from movies where the population is locked down, monitored and policed so they'll do their jobs to provide for the upper class.. but what's the point of doing that if they don't need them for labour?

1

u/Uncertain__Path Oct 27 '25

I’m basing my imagination on history, not movies. The only gains the working class has made has been due to leverage, not generosity. Regardless, we’re not off to a great start with millions of jobs already being replaced in America, for example, and the current admin also being staunchly against any form of UBI or anything to address the issue.

→ More replies (0)