From: Christian Szegedy (szegedy@t-online.de)
Date: Tue Nov 09 2004 - 14:15:40 MST
> It's a situation
> where 1% of the population owns the robotic
> factories, and the other 99% are unempoyable.
> That could happen starting in the next decade,
> with up to several decades before a Singularity
> renders the issue irrelevant. That's plenty of
> time for irrational behaviour on the part of the
> unemployable to make things difficult.
Most jobs in developed countries are not in
the production sector. Even today, less than
25% of the jobs are in manufacturing and construction,
the ramaining 75% is service, business, health-care
and education. A complete automatization of the
production (including construction!) would only
eliminate the most unpopular quarter of all jobs.
Of course, the effect of the automatization of
the trading sector (warehouses, fast-food, etc.)
will be more devastating, but its effect is not to be
overestimated either. The dullest and boring jobs
are to be eliminated first. It is probable that
the increase of creative jobs will compensate for
that effect. I think that a lot of more personalized
and well-paid jobs will arise: the price of the
physical products will decrease and the service
fees will raise.
The singularity will arrive when 90% of the
population consists of artists, priests
and whores.;=)
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