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<title><![CDATA[Comments for entry "A Guy Named Bill Agrees with Me" at Dilbert.com Blog]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/889]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Regular thoughts and updates from Dilbert.com]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from farnsworth]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/2001576]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[The cost of materials required to make the things we ask our personal robots to make for us will still cost money, and if those materials are scarce, then their costs will still be prohibitively expensive for most people to afford.

So I do wonder about the reality of a post-scarcity economy given this obvious area of scarcity.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[SunAMCSTE_Rrdrd]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from jregester]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1995327]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I have a degree from Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering - Automated Control Systems and have been working in industrial settings for 20 years, so I believe I have a pretty clear view of this topic. Robots already do a large percentage of assembly in most major factories (car, glass, etc.) especially with large heavy items. They achieve higher quality with less variation than humans in general. In light weight, smaller applications humans still have an edge if the time step is not too short. (equipment can work at very high repeat rates).

But for all their assembly advantages, robots need a structured environment in order to work well.  People reprogram themselves quickly with little fuss for the most part. Robots need a coheasive instruction set to work properly and conditions outside that set, can lead to trouble fast. 

I agree that robots will enter more and more applications, but so many tasks are still better done by humans and will be that way for many years to come. Humans still are the ones who will fix the robot when it breaks and needs servicing.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedAMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Drugbert]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1990473]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[A possible robot future is postulated in &quot;Animatrix -- The Second Renascence&quot;.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[FriPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from timothyhigh]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988983]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I'm not sure why you equate robots with anthropomorphic all-purpose creatures that will just do our work for us. It really makes no sense to imagine in a welfare economy having robots that people can own and lease out as part of the general work force. Much more likely that robots will be self-running blenders, auto-opening fridge doors that tell us when we need more cheese and so on (actually, more probably, food synthesizers that can print up a meal based on the recipe we pulled off the net, or whatever our neighbor or favorite cartoonist is having when we get lazy). Single-purpose devices that just do their job and get out of our way is where the future of robots lay (not counting those made to keep us company or whatever). In cases where robots (machines, really) can be used by more than one household, they will probably be community property shared by all (that can't afford something better), such as self-driving cars working as taxis.

Humans evolved the way we did to be adaptive and general purpose because basically no one is watching out for our ass (and many are wanting to kick it). Robots won't have the same problem (not counting robot poachers), so they will be designed for their specific task, and just that. If there's any sort of ownership that will be shared, it makes more sense that it would be in terms of shares in a business rather than at the level of a specific robot that goes out and tries to make it in the world on our behalf.

A harder thought experiment is trying to picture how the dominoes will fall as people find themselves more and more out of work, and society as a whole hasn't come to terms with the fact that it's just not necessary to have 95% of people employed. What will the world look like when 35% are unemployed? 60%?
]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[ThuAMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Shimmerville]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988910]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;If corporations experience tenfold increases in productivity because of robots, and equally impressive increases in profits, one can imagine that for every human taxpayer there might someday be fifty humans living off the government. In our current pre-robot economy, that math doesn't work. &quot;

Well, we're in that situation now.  We think that unemployment in the US is high, but higher and higher is going to be the new normal.  Unemployment is never going to decrease.  All the progressive production efficiencies, from the 1966 paint robot in Norway to Google in 2012, collectively mean it takes fewer people to provide for the world.  (By which provisions, by the way, we are totally saturated.)  

Which means, in turn, that there are more and more people who have nothing to do, and never will have anything to do.   

We're there now.  It'll just get deeper and deeper.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[ThuAMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from fledder]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988866]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Pity that you did not link to the original reddit AMA with Bill. Instead, you gave the ultra low business insider crap site lots of link love.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Melvin1]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988853]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Several problems with this one.  Skipping the technology part, let's look at economics, humanity, and history.

In the past (and, sadly, many places still today), people lived subsistence lifestyles. Just in the last 30 years, the percent of income that the middle class spends on food and shelter has dropped by half.  That's why we have so much more free time now... oh, wait.  We're busier than ever.  And our demands just keep increasing beyond our basic needs.  Recall how many times the words &quot;great depression&quot; came up in 2008-09.  How many people went without A/C, cell phones, or cable TV (non of which Rockefeller or Carnegie had).  Our demands will never be met.  What would someone 200 years ago think of the luxuries and conveniences we enjoy today (running water, indoor bathrooms, cars...)?  We must all be rich and bored by now.

And society will not work with a few paying for the many.  One of the chief reasons for our nation's prosperity has been the belief that anyone can improve their lot through hard work and self-sufficiency.  People risk their lives to get into this country for that opportunity.  When that notion no longer holds, our society will crumble.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from pand0ra]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988762]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I, for one, salute our robot overlords (at least until I can get my code uploaded to their network).]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from BigNoo]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988742]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I mean Cat  !]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from BigNoo]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988706]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Nah, won't be like that.

Everyone will become lawyers and spend their entire life in litigation over whose responsibility it is when a robot goes wild and crashes your car, kills the car etc etc]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from callcopse]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988665]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[@isonno
&quot;Time to read Marshall Brain's essays:

http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

It's happening sooner than you might think.&quot;

Manna is another good one. In the US the robots do everything and the robot owners live in luxury whilst everyone else is a peon. In Australia however they let anyone do anything that their heart desires. A nice contrast of approaches. 

You can understand the problem would be the high percent of the population who just enjoyed getting wasted though. I'll be honest, I might be one of them, though I'd probably prefer to get really good at sailing after a while.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Stui]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988661]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[There are some serious fundamental flaws in this hypothesis, some I can't quite pull together to articulate.

Regardless, not a world I look forward to, where Robots do 95% of everything and all the humans have to do is eat, drink and rapidly overpopulate the earth beyond any point of sustainability.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Raskolnikov]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988591]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[The tipping point will probably be self-driving cars.  That will be a technological milestone, and also a psychological tipping point in that we'll no longer feel there's an upper limit to what robots can do.  We'll have to enact laws to allow it, so that will be the white flag of surrender, psychologically. 

After that it could go one of two ways, utopia or dystopia, depending on whether we can control the accelerating development of robots.

Utopia might be more like a &quot;Dark Ages II&quot; where the common man doesn't do much besides bend his brain with computer games and pharmaceuticals.  Richer feudal lords might keep it interesting by competing with each other to redefine the meaning of material excess.  Huge pyramids, floating cities, creation of new animal lifeforms, billboards on the full moon, private land grabs on Mars, the occasional limited nuclear exchange. And that would be utopia.

Unfortunately, patent lawyers will probably fight for the next few decades to suppress all these technologies and I'll never see any of this happen.  I'll die at the age of 100, while driving my own car.
]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Merlisk]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988590]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Someone's been watching Battlestar Galactica again.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from aaror2]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988543]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Replace &quot;Robots,&quot; with &quot;improvements in productivity,&quot; and we are already in this future.  We have gone from 20 hour days in factories to 8 hour days.  We have weekends and holidays and sick days and vacations.  We have Social Security to take the oldest out of the workforce (to save jobs for everyone else) and (child labor) laws to keep kids from taking our jobs.  
But now, thanks to budget cuts, we have increased the retirement age and reduced government spending on intentional inefficiency, which is why unemployment has been hovering near 10% for years (it isn't just the housing crisis).  Lower the social security and Medicare ages, and you will get folks out of the workforce, providing more jobs for the rest of us, which will raise competition for workers and raise wages.  Of course, it will only work for so long, we continue to produce 3% more per worker per year, and with the magic of compound interest, we keep producing more than any sane person can consume.  Whether we are flooding landfills to constantly buy &quot;new&quot; or showing up on &quot;hoarders&quot; shows, our consumption for the sake of producing jobs is taxing our lifestyles and our planet.  We need to use twice as much stuff per person every generation to keep up with productivity growth, and frankly I don't think we can keep it up any longer.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from UnregisteredUser]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988541]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;one can imagine that for every human taxpayer there might someday be fifty humans living off the government.&quot;
I just received my tax return for 2011 back from the IRS. It puzzles me!!! They are questioning how many dependents I claimed. I guess it was because of my response to the question: &quot;List all dependents?&quot; I replied: 12 million illegal immigrants; 3 million crack heads; 42 million unemployed people on food stamps, 2 million people in over 243 prisons; Half of Mexico; and 535 persons in the U.S. House and Senate.&quot; 1 useless President. Evidently, this was NOT an acceptable answer.

I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, WHO DID I MISS....?]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from aaaman259]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988540]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[can imagine business taxes approaching 95% and no one complaining because the remaining 5% is more than Exxon's total earnings today.

Right, because greed has nothing to do with it and these folks have shown through human history,just how generous they are. Love your stuff,but that is really an offbase and truly naive comment about human nature Mr. Adams. You really should know better. As for this whole robot thing,please stick to your day job at Dilbert for your own sake. Thank you]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from delius1967]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988472]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I never understood the optimism that robots will reduce the amount of work required of humans.  Change it, certainly, but reduce it?  Not going to happen.

I've been a people manager for about 15 years, and let me tell you, about 80% of my job is communication.  Getting basic points across to human beings can be incredibly hard.  That's not a slap at the folks who work for me, by the way, just a statement of fact.  Unless you are talking about the simplest, highly-directed task (e.g. &quot;take out the garbage&quot;) there is inevitably some amount of miscommunication.  You have an idea, you form words to imperfectly express it, the listener hears those words in the context of whatever is going on right at that moment, and then translates them into his own internal dialog.  It's like a miniature game of &quot;telephone line&quot; only nobody realizes they are playing it.

And that's with all of mankind's word-processing and reasoning skills.  What's going to happen with robots?

Another problem is the &quot;run-ahead&quot;.  With humans, there is inevitably a back-and-forth period where miscommunications are cleared up.  This is wasted time.  Not only will this problem be worse with robots, but the amount of wasted effort they produce during that time will be greater, too.  If I tell my contractor robot to tile my bathroom, and he picks up the wrong tile and finishes the entire job before I have a chance to inspect it, it isn't just wasted effort, it's actually causing MORE work.

Productivity can be measured in several ways.  The speed at which work gets done may increase with robots, and that is what most people seem to focus on.  However, the speed of a single piece of work is one thing; throughput is another.  Because of the additional coordination required, and chance for error, throughput may stay the same even as speed increases.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from isonno]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988436]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Time to read Marshall Brain's essays:

http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

It's happening sooner than you might think.
]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Johnestauffer]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1988435]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[If technology creates a situation in which the number of jobs is far less than the number of potential job seekers there will be significant problems.  
In one SciFi novel, they had what was know as a &quot;Negative Income Tax&quot;.  If you made less than X dollars, you would be paid by the government up to a designate threshold.  If you made more than the X dollar number, you would be taxed.
One problem in this senario, was the lack of activity to make productive use the time of those receiving the NET.
Technology will continue to reduce the human work load.  As this occurs, more people will join the ranks of the unemployed or unemployable.
While all basic needs are currently met though some sort of welfare, there is a human desire to be productive.  This will not go away.]]></description>
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