The Great Resolution

[Dean Mullen]

I have developed a system which could be used in the future. This system would see a world in which the words poverty, recession and tax dissapear forever! With futuristic technology on the horizon, I see coming soon the rise of robot workers.

 

I have a theory that if robot workers did every job and I mean every single last job including running the companies and did it all for completely free working practically 24/7 and with these jobs manufacturing even more robots to increase their population hence increase the amount of products they create we'd eventually reach a point in which the amount of products in the world would be virtually endless.

 

If this happened then people could have shops filled with products to get. Yet the problem is where do people get their money from without jobs? simple as this, we get rid of money all together. The robots work for free, people make no money, the robots develop an endless amount of supplies and the people get these products for free. With this new system everyone would be equal but not in a communist way where the rich lose money and the poor gain money, because in this system there is no money firstly and secondly no one loses status, in fact everyone on the planet just gains. People can get as much as they want.

 

With this system, you wont have to pay tax again and in other words there would be basically no problems again as most of the worlds problems arise over economic problems. We could also stop using non-renewable and polluting resources as even though solar power costs more, there is no problem, the robots don't mind extra work so in this way we can resolve many wars such as wars over oil and owed debt. Also global warming will end.

 

So in other words this system could potentially bring:

 

1. End of poverty and world wide equal wealth

2. End of global warming and dispute over oil

3. Potential world peace agreement

 

and if your wondering what will support our increasing population? well by then we'll probably have the technology to colonize the oceans and the rest of the solar system conclusively.

[Ophiolite]

I'm not quite sure why this isn't in speculations, but anyway, let;s take a closer look at your idea.

I see coming soon the rise of robot workers.

These robot workers will, presumably, be built by companies which are owned by shareholders who are looking for a return on their investment. How do you achieve the transition from a situation where they reap the rewards of their investment, to one in which the benefits of their investment are turned over to everyone. The conventional method is bloody revolution. I wondered if you had an alternative.

 

I have a theory that if robot workers did every job and I mean every single last job including running the companies

Do you have substantive reason to believe that we can create an AI capable of running a company. Having robots that can run equipment and build other robots is one thing, but can you create a robot that has sufficient intelligence to make the business decisions necessary to run a global enterprise? If you can, what is to stop that robot deciding it will work for itself, rather than its maker?

 

we'd eventually reach a point in which the amount of products in the world would be virtually endless.

And who is making the decision on what goods to produce, where to produce them and how many to produce? You think the products would be practicaally endless, but where are your raw materials for these products coming from? Sure, robots can mine and farm and sp forth, but there are still limiterd resources on the planet. An army of efficient robots churning out virtually endless products would just use up the natural reousrces more rapidly.

 

 

If this happened then people could have shops filled with products to get. Yet the problem is where do people get their money from without jobs? simple as this, we get rid of money all together. The robots work for free, people make no money, the robots develop an endless amount of supplies and the people get these products for free. With this new system everyone would be equal but not in a communist way where the rich lose money and the poor gain money, because in this system there is no money firstly and secondly no one loses status, in fact everyone on the planet just gains. People can get as much as they want.

I want to have to have a home in the centre of a major world city, with a hundred rooms or so and several acres of landscaped garden. What if other people want the same thing? How are you going to provide it? If you cannot provide that, then certainly some people will lose status, something you said wouldn't happen.

 

We could also stop using non-renewable and polluting resources as even though solar power costs more, there is no problem, the robots don't mind extra work so in this way we can resolve many wars such as wars over oil and owed debt.

The issues of available resources and the transition to a new system remain. Besides, what do you plan to use to replace the oil that is used for making synthetic fabrics, fertilisers, plastics, etc? The tools of production are relatively unimportant compared with the materials of production.

 

So in other words this system could potentially bring:

1. End of poverty and world wide equal wealth

2. End of global warming and dispute over oil

3. Potential world peace agreement.

Or,

1. Continued disputes over who gets what.

2. Accelerated problems as resources are depleted at accelerating rates.

3. Global armageddon as robots, humans and fantasists battle for the last inch of Amazonian rain forest.

[Marat]

There are many jobs which robots could either never do or never do as efficiently as human labor. I'd hate to read a new novel, listen to a new song, or look at an original work of art done by a robot. Also, ever since the 1930s robots have been touted as a solution to the world's drudgery jobs, but even now they are still so clumsy and require so much technology just to go up and down stairs, they just wouldn't be practical for much of the work humans do. There are in addition numerous tasks which require greater or lesser degrees of human inventiveness, and a computer program for a robot intellect simply wouldn't be as effective at anticipating all the potential novel solutions to complex interactions with strange or volatile environments as a human brain would. Service professions of all sorts, like lawyers, accountants, physicians, nursemaids, prostitutes, university professors, judges, politicians, performers, artists, etc., could at most be partially computerized and so would still require human labor, and it is now the service industry which is the rising source of employment in developed countries.

 

A further difficulty is that without overcoming the problems implicit in friction and the conservation of energy theorem, robots would always be using up some form of energy either for their required repairs, their continued activities, or their replacement, and this energy would have to be extracted from somewhere in processed in the endproduct required. Much of this work couldn't conveniently be done in turn by yet further robots.