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Yes. I refer to the Amazon warehouse operation as "Machines should think. People should work". All the thinking is done by computers and robots. Watch one of the Kiva robot videos that shows the human picker reaching where the laser pointer tells them to reach, waving the item under the scanner, and putting the object in the bin where the light is on.

Those people will be unemployed as soon as the Amazon Robot Picking Challenge (http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/) succeeds.

This is the future.

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I'm afraid for a future that ends up like this:

Nobody hires people because robots can do it cheaper, so no one has a job, so no one can buy anything, so no robots do those things that they could do cheaper.

The technology doesn't even have to exist to cause poor-world. Only be possible.

Put me firmly in the basic minimum income camp.

there will be people who have money (for example, those who inherited their wealth, or those who own capital/businesses). Their needs may vastly differ from the poor, and because they have money, the market serves them. The jobless poor will just either live on what little the state/charity can provide, or just die on the streets. I don't see basic income as feasible politically nor in practise. Therefore, what you must do now is to ensure that you are one of those who have money.

While I generally agree with your analysis/predictions, there is an alternative outcome to the "dying in the streets" outcome (which IS where we are heading, unfortunately).

The alternative is the same one that happens every time a large enough percentage of the population starts going hungry: they simply take what they need from those that are hoarding it. Sometimes this includes putting those responsible for the hoarding under the guillotine - possibly for revenge and and possibly as a warning for future generations.

The future you descirbe is a prerequisite, and it will get ugly a lot sooner than most people expect. While being one of those with money is probably a good idea when possible, it is also a good idea to prepare for when those who do not have money decide to go full Robespierre.

In the end we decide whether we'd like to carry a surplus population or not. We choose if a few lucky live off the machines or we use the machines to carry the extras.

I'm afraid the default is to just kill the unneeded with deprivation. That's what happens if we just let things sort themselves out.

The real question is whether or not the machines are suitably advanced this time to prevent a global "French Revolution" against those few from turning the entire world back to cave men.

You might be surprised what rapidly becomes feasible politically at the edge of anarchy.

> I don't see basic income as feasible politically nor in practise. Therefore, what you must do now is to ensure that you are one of those who have money.

What a grotesquely self-fulfilling fatalism.

Just to provide some contrast, society is headed for cultural warfare between this outlook, and the "OMG the Japanese population is declining and that's bad" outlook.

The basic cultural / economic assumptions that is being disagreed on, are that all humans will be participants in the economy as producers and consumers, in which case the existing pyramidal ponzi scheme can keep rolling a little while longer till we run out of cheap oil, or they will not be participants (which is where we've been headed for a couple generations), in which case we may as well create a startup plan for 3-d printed guillotines, because that's the inevitable eventual outcome.

You can see which side of the battleground you're on by analyzing your response to the Japanese population being 100M and shrinking and only having enough economy to support 90M. If you think the shrinking economy is great, because at least the bread riots will be smaller and maybe the smaller population will eventually match the size of the shrinking economy, you're on one side. The other side believes, (I think rather ignorantly) that if the Japanese grew the 100M population to 120M then magically the economy would grow from 90M people size to 120M people size, because it feels really nice to operate under that delusion, or something.

> I don't see basic income as feasible politically nor in practise.

From a US-centric view point, this might be valid, however, BI will most likely be championed by one or several European countries at this point.

> I don't see basic income as feasible politically nor in practise.

I too fear that the general population won't accept until it's very too late the concept that one should not slave their entire lives for just the right to live.

> Therefore, what you must do now is to ensure that you are one of those who have money.

More scary thought if your scenario actually happens: assuming that the tech sector is more likely to survive automation for longer, we'll all here suddenly have close and extended non-tech families and friends looking for our support. So you won't have just yourself to feed from your income. It might be 10 or more people.

I don't think this will be likely outcome - no change happens instantaneously worldwide, so the very period of (possibility of) deployment will - I believe - make this system turn into robots working for rich while most of the humanity starves.

So, while I fear a different future, I'm also firmly in the basic income camp. Right to live should not in principle be dependent on slaving away your life, so let's deal with that when the technology allows us to.

Wow, you weren't joking.

http://youtu.be/Fr6Rco5A9SM?t=2m33s

I knew about Kiva and the widescale automation in warehousing but I had no idea the UI was so...simple. I see no reason the person couldn't be taken out of the loop completely here with a robotic arm.

The Amazon Picking Challenge, to do that job with a robotic arm, is underway. Finals, with live robot demos, are on May 26-28, 2015, in Seattle. That's the next step, and it's not far away. In a year or two, robots will probably be handling everything rectangular, like boxes and books. There may still be a few people around for odd sizes and shapes. Not many.

As for "there will be jobs building and repairing the robots", Amazon has about 30,000 pickers during peak season. Kiva Systems has about 600 employees. Because all those little mobile robots are interchangeable, there's not much need for on-site maintenance. There's someone on site to replace wheels and batteries and do basic diagnostics, but seriously broken ones are just shipped back to the factory.

The Kiva system requires little installation, which is why it's being deployed so fast. Previous systems required conveyors, stacker cranes running on tracks, and lots of specialized, custom machinery. Kiva just needs a flat floor, markers on the floor, and WiFi.

Here's what US employment looks like, by sector: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm Manufacturing is only 8% of the labor force, yet the US makes more stuff than ever. US manufacturing is doing great. The drop in output after 2008 has been completely recovered. Manufacturing just doesn't need many people. The jobs lost never came back.

In 2012, retail employed 10% of the US labor force. Remember malls? (See deadmalls.com) No new indoor mall has been built in the US in 10 years. (OK, American Dream Meadowlands in New Jersey is still under construction, after 12 years, three bankruptcies, and a roof collapse, but that's a political boondoggle, part of a stadium complex.) Online ordering doesn't need many people. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates show a small decline over the next 10 years, but those numbers predate Amazon's recent growth and are probably optimistic. The BLS shows employment growth in transportation and warehousing. Probably not going to happen.

This is the future, and the future is now.

>Manufacturing is only 8% of the labor force, yet the US makes more stuff than ever. US manufacturing is doing great. The drop in output after 2008 has been completely recovered. Manufacturing just doesn't need many people. The jobs lost never came back.

The US doesn't make more stuff than ever as can be verified by:

* Taking one look at the gaping US trade deficit.

* Taking a look at all of the manufactured items in your home. How many say made in America?

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/1/13/saupload_us...

http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/manufacturing-for-we...

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/23/saupload_mf...

http://cerasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/manufacturing-...

US Industrial production index, graph:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=INDPRO

Does not account for:

* Inflation * Overcapacity * Transfer pricing

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/IpNotes.htm

* Inflation

> (1) output measured in physical units

* Overcapacity

I'm not even sure what you're claiming as a problem with the IP index here; it measures actual production, while there are entirely separate indices for Capacity (and Capacity Utilization). See http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/CapNotes.htm

* Transfer pricing

Again:

> (1) output measured in physical units

The people who put these indices together are, surprisingly enough, professionals who have thought about these issues.

it hasn't hit quite yet, but when self-driving cars arrive, it's going to turn into a shit-storm, as predicted by this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

> No new indoor mall has been built in the US in 10 years.

This does not imply that malls are dying. Existing malls may be expanding, e.g. the largest in NY started another round of expansion in 2007 and shops are still opening up in the new space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny_USA

Online ordering is never going to put clothes & accessories or fragrance shops out of business, until you have very high resolution displays and tactile output, or figure out one-hour-or-less drone delivery for free.

In the aforementioned mall a large proportion of the shops are exactly this type, along with restaurants and entertainment (video games, bowling and the like). It's hard to deny that the expansion of online ordering has forced malls to adapt or die, but it's simply incorrect to pronounce the death of the concept.

I agree with your overall point. Just want to correct one thing.

It's true that we haven't been building indoor malls. That's not because of online ordering. We're still building malls. But now they are outdoors and called "lifestyle centers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_center_%28retail%29

The difference between them and a strip mall is mostly connotation. Lifestyle centers tend to target upscale retailers and feature better landscaping (some grass and benches between the store and the parking lot). Many stores that used to open in malls are flocking to lifestyle centers because indoor malls are going out of fashion. And unlike malls, lifestyle centers don't have large common areas to keep up, so the rent is cheaper.

2 large lifestyle centers are being built in my town (Northern NJ, the land of malls). And we already have a large lifestyle center and an indoor mall nearby.

E-commerce certainly took business away from brick and mortar stores. But those stores reacted by changing their offerings. They aren't totally suffering, as shown by these articles:

Walmart performs well on cyber monday:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazons-new-nemesis-brick-and-mo...

Amazon opens brick and mortar location:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-open-first-store-14128...

The trend of "showrooming" is reversing in traditional retailers' favor:

http://www.businessinsider.com/reverse-showrooming-bricks-an...

However, I agree that, in the long term, technology will swallow jobs. It will happen slowly.

Holy fuck.

That's basically Manna, sans headphones.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

How will anyone purchase anything if they don't have money from a job because robotics and software can do the job better? Basic income?

Or are we resigned to a dystopian future where the landscape is covered by Amazon fulfillment centers sitting silent, stocked to the ceiling with product that can't be sold because no one can afford said merchandise?

No. That's a silly question - if the `Idiocracy` future you're describing comes about it'll only last for a moment until the distribution centers are pillaged by regional warlords.

However, long before that we will have adopted some form of Basic Income, or we'll have decided to go to space and restart the resource race on hardmode.

> until the distribution centers are pillaged by regional warlords

The security robots should deal with warlords quickly.

Before every major war, the media tends to be full of very brave yet inexperienced pronouncements that the war will be over in weeks. The Athenian Sicilian Expedition in the Peloponnesian war, WWI, WWII, the second Iraq war, its all the same propaganda story.

Trying to kill the entire 99%er population of the world by starvation to preserve resources for the rich is likely to make "starting a land war in Asia" look like brilliant military strategy.

One interesting side effect of the existing system, is stratification of wealthy by family connection, race, and gender is likely to mean the smartest people will be on the other, larger side. So one side has the numbers, the brains, self preservation instincts, probably quite a bit of anger and hope, and the other side has ... money, temporarily. Wonder how that'll turn out.

I think people won't be dying of starvation en masse. There will be welfare programs, just like there are now. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a giant slum instead. There are already huge slums today, why don't their inhabitants rebel? The future poor won't rebel for the same reason, whatever it is.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535108/

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a giant slum instead.

That's a likely future. Lots of people in big housing projects, surviving but not much more than that. About 1% do really well, maybe 5-10% are "middle class", and the rest are warehoused in housing blocks. That was the normal living condition in the Soviet bloc, and today's urban China is much like that. The US is headed that way, but with better gadgets in your tiny apartment.

Those who will have income will either design or maintain the robots, or produce value which robots can't produce.

When a job disappear, people either retire or change job, that's pretty much what happened when agriculture became mechanized.

> When a job disappear, people either retire or change job, that's pretty much what happened when agriculture became mechanized.

Or go on disability until they're eligible to retire:

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

> "Machines should think. People should work"

This dystopia has been envisioned for more than 80 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q030WNZvXrA

It's a good reminder that social and technological progress must often be fought for separately.

The market is brutal when applied to people. Worker fungibility is a value add for the company, and yet it drops wages to the minimum, since the worker's individual bargaining power is practically non-existent. The traditional answer is unions, but even that becomes impractical as the cost of replacing a worker approaches zero.

This is especially relevant when the buzzwords of the day are crowdsourcing and independent contracting. Are we really making things more efficient and creating value, or are we just helping drive down the wages of people that already have a hard time scraping by?

The market serves Moloch[0], not humans. We have bootstrapped a system that is close to become self-sustaining, and humans are increasingly becoming cost rather than value. Unless something is done it will either collapse or become a human-free (or almost human-free) system. Neither outcome is good for us.

[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

This kind of thing makes me sad. We know that one of the things people need to feel satisfied is a degree of autonomy. And by taking that away and treating them as a commoditized component in some machine you're taking away a lot more than you realize from them.

You still need humans to explain to the machines how to think. The problem is the training that it requires.

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