Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage

Elon thinks it will be 10 to 20 years til this is going to happen. I wonder if this will in fact cause a global meltdown before a universal basic income will be granted.

I hope he is correct and it is a peaceful transition to a whole different economy where people have time to go after things that make them happy.

Computers, intelligent machines, and robots seem like the workforce of the future. And as more and more jobs are replaced by technology, people will have less work to do and ultimately will be sustained by payments from the government, predicts Elon Musk, the iconic Silicon Valley futurist who is the founder and CEO of SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX.

According to Musk, there really won't be any other options.

"There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," says Musk to CNBC. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen."

In a country with universal basic income, each individual gets a regular check from the government. Switzerland considered instituting a universal basic income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2578) a month this summer. Voters ultimately rejected the plan, but it sparked a broad, global conversation.

Also this summer, President Obama addressed the idea of a universal basic income in an interview with the Director of MIT's Media Lab, Joi Ito, and Scott Dadich, editor in chief of WIRED: "Whether a universal income is the right model — is it gonna be accepted by a broad base of people? — that's a debate that we'll be having over the next 10 or 20 years."

www.cnbc.com...

Somebody has been saying this since the 80s.
It's the wet dream of every tech head that's ever been.

a reply to: seasonal

Ontario will be doing some universal income trials soon. I think many countries will be watching to see how successful or unsuccessful it is.

And as In4orment says, this has been said for decades and that is right. Twilight Zone even did one tale based on this back in the 60's. And even as people have been saying this for decades, we can see it going on now and as Musk points out it the advent of the real effect is getting closer and closer. And are either of the candidates talking about this? Giving any insight on plans to deal with it? Neither. Baloney to them both.

There also was an excellent book on this back in 95 by Jeremy Rifkin titled "The End of Work
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: In4ormant
Your right this has been talked about for a long time. I was always told our work week would get shorter because of productivity gains. Well that didn't happen.
Now it maybe different because the "robots" are cheap, the computers are fast and cheap, and even in china at the apple foxconn factory they have installed robots. Time will tell.

Maybe he should spend a little more time building cars that don't catch on fire.

a reply to: seasonal

I remember when I graduated from high school the question of leisure time increasing and work time decreasing was being discussed. How people would work only 20 hours a week or so. Right. That did not happen at all, except for the rich of course.

If robots are able to do the jobs humans do, then they will take away from the workforce. However, they will also be providing slave labor and at least some of the profits should come out as a payment to citizens - this would be in a situation where a high amount of jobs are done by robots for no pay and with nothing to do, citizens lounge around. This would be in the far future, in my opinion, if it came up at all.

In reality, robots will take jobs from humans and the corporations will reap the profits and use tax evasion to avoid any of it going to the people. We will probably be worse off for a while until it reaches a breaking point.

If robots become sentient, we will have to deal with ethics involving their rights and such.

a reply to: darkbake

In reality, robots will take jobs from humans and the corporations will reap the profits and use tax evasion to avoid any of it going to the people. We will probably be worse off for a while until it reaches a breaking point.

I hate to say it, but I think that is closer to the truth.

We need a President and congress that understands this. We need to actually actively engage this and do it in a planned manner. Robots can eventually build Robots too. Fusion will open this up for Humanity.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Maybe he should spend a little more time building cars that don't catch on fire.

Yeah. I love that. How many Teslas have caught on fire? About a dozen.

How many gas-powered cars catch on fire per year? 17 per HOUR (Source)

Conclusion? Teslas catch on fire.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Maybe he should spend a little more time building cars that don't catch on fire.

Yeah. I love that. How many Teslas have caught on fire? About a dozen.

How many gas-powered cars catch on fire per year? 17 per HOUR (Source)

Conclusion? Teslas catch on fire.

Is there an acceptable amount. His statement wasnt false.

I thought about this today.

Almost did a thread on it.

A solution I have is simple.

Currently government takes money from others and redistributes it.

What if government actually MADE a product and sold it? Government can manufacture robots, and sell them. For every robot they sell, the government can assist the individual that would be out of a job.

That way, the government isn't taking more from us who still work. . . and can work with the unemployed who have been displaced by automation.

a reply to: seasonal

I don't understand where all of this free money comes from.

a big part of the problem is that our debt based currency isn't designed to deal with the prospect of having more work than people available.

Corporations will reap the benefits of robotic advances, while the average person will come to depend on our overbearing ruling class- while being controlled by the rich and powerful corporations.
A pretty terrible dystopian future, to be honest. Probably no so far from the RoboCop film series mixed with coal mines of old- Omni Consumer Products meets sold my soul to the company store kind of thing... only people won't be actually working, so I'm not sure what will keep them from burning the place to the ground.

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: seasonal

I don't understand where all of this free money comes from.

Same place it comes from now- they make it up out of thin air.

But then they tell us it comes from our taxes, so they can squeeze us just a wee bit harder year after year...

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Maybe he should spend a little more time building cars that don't catch on fire.

Yeah. I love that. How many Teslas have caught on fire? About a dozen.

How many gas-powered cars catch on fire per year? 17 per HOUR (Source)

Conclusion? Teslas catch on fire.

How many million gas powered cars are on the road for each tesla?

$100k cars cathing on fire.. to funny

originally posted by: In4ormant

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Maybe he should spend a little more time building cars that don't catch on fire.

Yeah. I love that. How many Teslas have caught on fire? About a dozen.

How many gas-powered cars catch on fire per year? 17 per HOUR (Source)

Conclusion? Teslas catch on fire.

Is there an acceptable amount. His statement wasnt false.

Everything has an element of risk. You know there are 40,000 deaths per year in automobile accidents every time you get into a car. The issue here is relative risk and how you assess it. Teslas are "famous" for catching fire, so that appears in peoples' risk assessment, especially when they say, "Don't get a Tesla because they catch on fire." Turns out that's a false conclusion. Gas-powered cars catch fire more often, AND more often per billion miles traveled. So it turns out the correct conclusion about Teslas is that they are safer than gas powered cars and in terms of risk assessment, "better" in that respect. You are less likely to die in a car fire in a Tesla than you are in a gas powered car. If you assessed your risk otherwise, you screwed up.

Now, in terms of an "acceptable amount" yes there is one. We as a culture are willing to travel in automobiles knowing full well there is a chance of being killed in them. On a yearly basis currently the "acceptable amount" is 40,000 deaths per year. Our Nanny State wants to reduce that, and they do that by mandating further safety measures such as air bags. Those have a small, but measurable effect in reducing fatalities, o the Nanny State feels "justified" in doing so. But half the deaths in car accidents are attributed to drunk driving. A far more effective policy in reducing deaths would be a zero tolerance policy of revoking the driver's license of anyone who is caught DUI or even drunk at all in public. Do we do that? No. Why not? Because we have made a cultural decision to tolerate an "acceptable amount" including driving with a .08 level of intoxication. MADD does not agree with that, of course, but they don't always get their way. There is an "acceptable amount" of risk in everything we do, and we are the ones who have set the bar where it is.

originally posted by: Bluntone22

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Maybe he should spend a little more time building cars that don't catch on fire.

Yeah. I love that. How many Teslas have caught on fire? About a dozen.

How many gas-powered cars catch on fire per year? 17 per HOUR (Source)

Conclusion? Teslas catch on fire.

How many million gas powered cars are on the road for each tesla?

$100k cars cathing on fire.. to funny

Ha ha. But it's not that simple. On a per mile driven basis, Teslas are safer. You are much more likely to die in a car fire in a gas powered car than in a Tesla. Too funny