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Comment by petronio | Hacker News Reader

People still fear the "robots will take all of our jobs!" dialogue. Many societies still have work as a core component of personal value, so the idea of people having to work less doesn't translate to "Great, I can let these robots do the work and I can enjoy myself" but to "I can't find work and so I'm a worthless disgrace."

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It's more that most societies have "doing work" as a core component of obtaining money, and requiring money for things like food, housing, ...

That is also true, but that is something that can be mitigated and resolved with government policies. However, that is unlikely to happen effectively in societies that have a work as a core component of personal value as they will say "they're not working? Why should we help them?" At some point the policy changes will NEED to happen, but the societies with that core value will have a very difficult time adjusting as value systems can't be changed overnight like laws can.

It can be mitigated but it isn't being mitigated.

At some point those changes will need to happen, as you say, but it would be better if we didn't reach the point of needing a revolution to get there.

I'm sitting in a McDonald's right now in the Netherlands. There are about 30 unfilled orders on the TV and only 1 cashier. How is that possible? The other cashiers were replaced by touchscreen ordering kiosks, which there are 4 of in this restaurant. This has happened in McDonalds worldwide, easily eliminating hundreds or thousands of jobs. It is only a matter of time before these ordering kiosks become commoditized. I'm surprised I can't already order on a tablet at restaurants.

I hate those tablets, they play ads. Microeconomics states that prices will always fall right down to the edge where it's barely worth manufacturing the product. Maybe there's another rule that says that the user experience in a restaurant will always fall right to the edge of it barely being worth going there.

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