On 7/8/12 1:00 PM, William Mook wrote about Catherine’s interview with Max Kaiser:
Catherine, Max,
Great interview! As a kid in high-school I had an idea about general automation after reading Isaac Asimov’s I ROBOT series back in the 1960s. It seems appropriate to relate the idea here after listening to your discussion on Press.tv. Namely, instead of letting people starve, or handing people checks, as you outlined, merely make it illegal for corporations to own robots. Require individuals to own robots. So, a person working at McDonald’s could have their job automated but would be in the value chain afterward. As IBM’s Watson’s performance on Jeopardy and Honda’s Asimo’s performance illustrate, we are very near to having a science fiction type robot available. The nature of ownership will determine the nature of society that will emerge. In a world of debased currency and special drawing rights and Trans Pacific Partnerships, we will have a feudal existence. In a world where only people can own automation – and where people own the data they generate or generated about them – we have a more sensible basis for community.
McDonald’s and other corporations would automate in the face of continued wages and benefits because doing so improves their productivity and reduces their management costs and off loading all automation cost on to their work force. It also removes upward pressure on wages especially if workers can use their personal robots at home or in other jobs that they take. Robots that operate 24/7 – and work 8 hours at a job, work a solid 8 hours more rapidly and efficiently than humans do. The robot is available after hours for its owner – to help around the house, with the kids, and so forth. The robot is also available for other jobs. I imagined that there would be a rule that a person has to work at a job for a few months before allowing a robot to replace him/her. They would also train the robot I imagined. I also imagined they’d be no more complex or costly than an automobile, and of course, low-cost financing would be available! lol.
So, for example if a person is making $36,000 per year at a job, and they buy a machine for $10,000 financed over 7 years at 6.5% interest they would pay $1,823.31 per year plus maintenance, let’s say less than $200 per month – for a robot, and they’d have the robot for use in their home along with the ability to go out and get another job, or take training and get a better job, or start a business, etc., – Let’s say they got a second job making $25,000 per year working at a different time of the day than their previous job. Why work odd hours? Because after a few months, they could introduce their robot to *that* job, and it could work both. Increasing the person’s income from $36,000 to $61,000 per year. The robot working the second job would free the person to get another job – at any shift – leave the first robot free to work 6 to 8 hours around the house, plus weekends – and the person would be in a position to finance another robot at his/her third job. The person would also be free to replace the robot at any time, and in fact would be required to do so if the robot failed for any reason. So, these sorts of considerations would limit the ability of folks to corner the market – allowing for a natural spread of wealth.
That’s what I thought when I was a young man, and I still haven’t heard anyone come up with anything better.
Cheers
William Mook
