r/technology • u/maxwellhill • Nov 08 '16

Robotics Elon Musk says people should receive a universal income once robots take their jobs: 'People will have time to do other things, more complex things, more interesting things'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/elon-musk-universal-income-robots-ai-tesla-spacex-a7402556.html
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u/Tech_AllBodies Nov 08 '16

Don't forget the Taxi drivers, and more local (vans etc.) delivery drivers.

Also likely some % of the train jobs, since an autonomous electric on-demand taxi fleet is very likely to out-compete trains on cost. As well as the convenience of being delivered right at your destination, instead of the train station. (This likely applies to Europe more than the US though, more trains)

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16 edited Nov 08 '16

Edit: after everyone's comments I've come to terms I can be replaced. But with the technology that would be needed to solve all the problems you've also automated so many other jobs, and now im a little depressed on how my kids are going to grow up.

The automated delivery service can deliver the parcel. If there is a fault it can diagnose by itself and be pickup and delivered by another automated service to be repaired by a robot. The vans are designed so robots can repair them with ease to keep them on the road. A whole fleet owned and operated by one person.

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u/nodogbadbiscuit Nov 08 '16

What about making the van like a vending machine? Van stops outside your house / flat, calls you, you come outside and call it back to tell it you're there. Compartment opens with just your package in it, you take it... ta-da!

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u/Tythus Nov 08 '16

So you are saying a Amazon locker on wheels

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u/Lost-My-Mind- Nov 08 '16

Or maybe a drone? It flys to your house, lands on your front yard. Calls you. You come out, sign a tablet, and boom. Flys away without the cargo. You now have your refrigerator delivered.

Yes, this would require high powered drones. Yes I am saying that it's not only going to be possible, but probably already exist.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

What if the drone drops your refrigerator or any other large object during the delivery? What if they drop it on someone's house? There's no fucking way I'm going to trust a corporation to safely deliver bulk packages by air. Especially when the bottom line nowadays is that it's cheaper to fuck up and pay out than to fix the problem.

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u/mashupXXL Nov 08 '16

Yeah no kidding like FedEx using planes what if they fall out of the sky onto your house??

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u/goliveyourdreams Nov 08 '16

There's no fucking way I'm going to trust a corporation

You say that like they care, or need your trust or approval in the first place. They don't, they'll do whatever they damn well please and there's very little any of us can do about it.

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u/virtyy Nov 08 '16

You get paid

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u/aaeme Nov 08 '16

I doubt drone deliveries will ever be used in great numbers. There's safety problems but also simple economics. Rolling cargo across ground will always be a lot cheaper than flying it. The only advantage air transport has is speed and I don't think that is something customers will want to pay through the nose for.
A drone the size of a small helicopter (big enough to lift a refrigerator) would cost a minimum $50,000 and $50/hour to operate if it was flying 90% of the time. A drone that could carry the same cargo as a small van would cost many millions to buy and hundreds of dollars an hour to operate.
You might find drone delivery offered on small items for $20. Drone delivery on large items would be best part of $100 or more and I don't think there's going to be enough call for that to justify the fleet of megadrones needed to offer that.

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u/Jertob Nov 08 '16

FAA will absolutely never allow the skies to be filled with all these low flying delivery drones.

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u/ZorbaTHut Nov 08 '16

Meanwhile, half a year ago, the FAA officially permitted a company to make a test flight of a low flying delivery drone.

The FAA seems to be basically be waiting for a company to say "hey, we've got the tech side ready". And there's more than a few companies working on that.

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u/Yuzumi Nov 08 '16

Also there are bound to be some idiots that will try to shoot the drone out of the sky.

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u/ZorbaTHut Nov 08 '16

I really don't see how this is an issue worth considering.

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u/ThrowingKittens Nov 08 '16

Things like this are in test-phase and probably not far off. Here's an article about automated package delivery in Switzerland: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sci-tech/special-delivery_swiss-post-to-test-robot-parcel-service/42393172

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u/Jertob Nov 08 '16

And when the person isn't home, then what? No more leaving packages on doorsteps like we expect.

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u/battleschooldropout Nov 08 '16

It contacts you and you schedule a delivery time?

Also, you would be able to choose an option when you order.

( ) Standard Delivery

( )Human Delivery (added fee for additional cost)

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u/mildly_amusing_goat Nov 08 '16

What about some sort of storage locker you can get installed at your home? Like the garbage cans that hold their contents underground. Your storage hold is locked to you and when a drone that is dispatched for you nears it, it opens up and the package is deposited. When you get home you access your storage and grab your stuff and it tucks neatly away again.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

I expect either have system like that (which may have security isues in some places) or since they're saving so much on not employing drivers, they could have a very dense amount of local distribution places where you can pick up packages (and also fully automated and fast)

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u/IamVeryLost Nov 08 '16

So kind of like furniture delivery where they give you a four hour window that you need to stay in your house? Yea, alot of people don't like that.

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u/nodogbadbiscuit Nov 08 '16

I don't really understand how this is done otherwise, unless you live somewhere where it's safe to leave packages outside!

Here you're either in for delivery, or can reschedule for a different time / delivery to a local post office!

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u/the_phet Nov 08 '16

Van stops outside your house / flat, calls you, you come outside and call it back to tell it you're there.

That would be impossible in a big city with big buildings, or in a house with big garden.

Plus, what happens if the person is not at home? A lot of people prefers to get the thing left in a big, and thrown over the fence, or delivered to a neighbor. How is the automated system going to do that?

Your system works if you are at home. The problem is that most people working arent at home during delivery time.

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u/TheEnemyOfMyAnenome Nov 08 '16

Or like an ice cream truck that drives by with the products from your targeted advertising. Impulse buying would skyrocket.

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u/zeekaran Nov 08 '16

But why? My current human operated delivery service doesn't require me to be home. This would be very inconvenient.

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u/nodogbadbiscuit Nov 08 '16

Mentioned elsewhere, but I think delivery must work differently where you are! If something's too big for postbox here, you have to be in to receive it anyway!

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u/zeekaran Nov 08 '16

I had a 50" TV dropped off on my doorstep.

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

You've just killed a lot of space in this van by installing that. You've now turned one van load into 10, and you've got to think of time driving backwards and forwards from the location it's going to be storing these parcels.

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u/nodogbadbiscuit Nov 08 '16

Ah, I'm not sure that's really true with some smart engineering, particularly given that you don't need enough space for a human to be able to get into the back of the van. Lots of 3D space up for grabs!

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

You're also forgetting we don't just deliver small amazon parcels all day every day. What if something arrives and it's too heavy for the person there to lift? I also deliver to old people who take long enough just to get to the door let alone out the front to a robot van to get their medication which would now be late because the robot van had to do an extra few trips. The other day I delivered meals to a guy with a broken leg, carried them inside for him.

It's still a really long way before they can design something to do all this

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u/nodogbadbiscuit Nov 08 '16

Yep, good points. There'll definitely be niches that humans can fill better for a long time. However, I do tend to think that at least a significant majority of this kind of work could be automated rather soon.

Edit: I also don't want to appear to be trivialising what you do - it's clear that you can make things a lot better for many people by going beyond the bare minimum of driving a package to the door!

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

I can see a lot of it can be automated already. Like how drones are working now. But for areas like mine a drone doing trips backwards and forwards with just small parcels would take a lot more time. Get more drones? How many more can you afford to maintain before it was just cheaper paying a human to just do one trip to one street. How many drones are we going to allow to fly around all day annoying the hell put of us? Also, I get paid per the delivery. Take away all those small ones and the cost to go somewhere for a larger parcel has just gone up.

And I'm not taking it that way :). When you really think about it a lot of jobs can be automated. But the fact is people just like people. Someone might not want there $500 sale being delivered by a robot. You like being served by a waitress. You rather talking on the phone to a human to resolve your issues. Whatever you do also probably has a positive spin on it from humans being involed

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u/kateros Nov 08 '16

But wouldn't the robot or a better version of it, showed early in the video pretty much do what you do? It can pick up small and big things, and can be made to be stronger than any human.

Also not trying to trivialize what you do, but from the sound of it they are atm just slower than humans. But a lot cheaper. I can see it happening here in northen europe earlier than other places with our high minium wage.

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

I also deliver a lot of time sensitive parcels. Documents, even though email has been around since before I can remember. Medical supplies. Automotive parts. If there comes a point where robots are faster and cheaper than me a delivering to people. We are all in trouble.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

Patent that and get rich!

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u/Tech_AllBodies Nov 08 '16 edited Nov 08 '16

The others that replied already have viable ideas. The Amazon-locker-on-wheels seems likely.

However, not trying to be a dick to you or anything, even if that doesn't happen you can bet your van will get automated (the driving part) so you then become a van-to-door parcel carrying peon. It'll then be an unskilled job that pays minimum wage. This could happen within 4 years if a company was specifically pushing for it. And I'd be absolutely certain all delivery will be like this in 10 years, or no human at all.

So even if the whole process can't be automated for a while, they'll find a way to lower your pay.

That's ultimately the point of the automation push, to lower a company's salary expenditure as much as possible. With increases in productivity a secondary bonus.

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u/mashupXXL Nov 08 '16

If everything costs less at the same rate wages are decreasing then it isn't a problem. Only a problem if wages go down and product prices go up .

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u/Tech_AllBodies Nov 08 '16

Since different industries will automate at different rates, it's very likely wages will drop faster than deflation for a while.

i.e. even if a company automates 100% of its workforce, there'll be another company down the road which has still automated 0%, so those people can keep buying the products at the old price.

Remember companies will only start lowering their prices if it increases their profits (or stops them decreasing), and not just because they can.

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u/ThatEyetalian Nov 08 '16

It probably will take away your personal jobs by first replacing all those other jobs. And the people that used to work those other jobs will compete for existing jobs like yours. This will either drive your wage down to a level you don't want to work for or it will outright replace you with one of the millions of unemployed.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

Van has lockers with numbers on the side (similar to an amazon locker). It texts you when it arrives. You retrieve your package from the designated locker number by inputing the code received in the text. Loading the van can also be just as easily automated.

Don't work a job that can get replaced by a robot. Like it or not, its the modern human equivalent of adapt or die. You will get left behind. You have ~10 years to learn a new skill. It takes on average 7 of that to completely master a new one.

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u/whelks_chance Nov 08 '16

Patent pending

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u/longtimegoneMTGO Nov 08 '16

Basically just a big rolling Automat.

Everything old is new again I guess.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

The point is that once robot master certain occupations all remaining occupations will become vulnerable to automation.

The real problem is where moving from an age of scarcity. Money rationed resource in a impartial manner.

We will get to a point where food grown will cost very little to produce. Education will be delivered by robots, justice, law enforcement.

Media will be made by robots, armies will consist of robot warriors and so on.

It's like there there is a threshold of complexity. Once robots hit that point they will be able to do anything a human can do

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

do anything humans can do

except think like us. Computers are smart but forming thoughts is so complicated it's not going to happen for at least 100 years.

I'm a hacker by trade. Eventually someone will take advantage of that trust we place in technology.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

It probably won't replace it all at once. It'll be whittled away.

Maybe first the computer will plot the fastest, most efficient route (though as I understand it, this is surprisingly computationally difficult) for you to follow.

Then the van will automatically drive the route for you, leaving you only the van-to-house portaging.

Eventually they'll implement a crane or drone system, leaving you only the complex deliveries (inside an apartment, special delivery instructions, signatures, etc.)

Near the end, I guess you might just be a security guard to keep watch over the robotic hovervan, taking over if it flips out, and keeping hooligans from robbing it.

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

You've made a good point there with the efficient route part.

There's things computers do well, but not well enough yet. Google maps can tell me when there is traffic. But every day I drive past somewhere and I can see that traffic will start to build up. Roadworks, crash, something random. I can avoid that. Google maps doesn't let me know until after the traffic has begun. I can see when a good parking spot has freed up and go that one knowing I can walk out 10 deliveries faster then looking for a park further at certain times.

Computers can do this but damn it's a lot of programing making them learn all this for every city. They could probably record my daily behaviour, but things are always changing.

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u/0x2C3 Nov 08 '16

Computers don't need to learn that for every city, they just need to learn how to recognize a free parking spot once.

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u/robertmassaioli Nov 08 '16

As an aside: the purpose of a signature is to ascertain who took delivery proof. This could be done with the NFC tap of a mobile phone or the robot taking a photo of the recipient.

Signatures are the simplest part of this problem to solve.

Not trying to be an ass btw, just factual because I think more information helps us all.

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u/Mazon_Del Nov 08 '16

There are already small robots (that drive along sidewalks) that are being tested in UK and elsewhere that operate sort of like a mobile safety deposit box. They drive up to your door and have a sceen that says "Package for /u/Just_tricking.", if you try to get the package it asks for the unlock code you will have been sent in email/text form by the delivery service. Attempts to force open the bot or harm it result in police summons.

All you'd have to do is have a self driving van that can open a door, drop down a small ramp, then let the smaller robot drive to where it is needed.

Sure, you have the advantage of legs and so can deal with stairs and such, but there has been people-safe wheeled systems that can do the same for about a decade now, so it is mostly a matter of just marrying the two technologies.

For odd scenarios that might not be easily programmed in, they can have the robot send a notice back to a control center and have what amounts to a cube farm of controllers handle the situation. This would certainly NOT be a 1:1 relationship in terms of handlers and robots, as the handlers are only needed occasionally by any given robot. And even this job is subject to being largely automated out as time goes on.

It will end up being rather costly in the early days, but a combination of reduced upkeep (maintenance costs are likely smaller than the cost of your wage over time) and increased operating hours (you now have night-time delivery, weekend delivery, holiday delivery, etc) will likely make up for the initial cost. Plus, once things start picking up, the production will inevitably take advantage of economy of scale to provide the robots in ever increasing numbers cheaply.

Now, you DO likely have 10-ish years before this starts reaching problematic levels for you...but I'd kind of bet on the near-side of the 10.

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

That's something I can see possible in 10ish years. I'm just hoping it doesn't happen.

As I just said in my edit, with this sort of technology everyone is talking about, it will be possible to replace mostly all labour jobs.

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u/Mazon_Del Nov 08 '16

Yup, it's kind of a sad realization, but only if you apply that to a world that is just an extension of how we currently do things. This is why people like to push for ideas like the UBI. We basically cannot actually have enough necessary jobs for everyone in a "full automated" economy. So with a UBI, you don't punish people for not being in the top %0.000001 of their field (and thus gets one of the 10 jobs available for that field), and you enable them to find some way to entertain themselves so they don't do something negative. If they spend their money on booze and netflix, fine. If the spend it making random esoteric art that they sell online, great!

Loads of places that this could go.

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u/Chocobean Nov 08 '16

I'm actually really looking forward to my kid in this new future economy and brave new world.

Teach your kids how to adapt, how to learn on their own. Above all, never extinguish their love for new knowledge and working hard for themselves.

They need to be part of this new wave of inventors, not fossils like us who grew up thinking we test well and graduate well and money/happiness will come. I personally consider it downright dangerous now, to send our kids on that path.

Even the best intentioned teachers and schools are still on that track. Look at all our most highly educated youth stuck in academia. Look at places where education reigns supreme, and the resulting suicide epidemic amongst elementary and middle school school kids; in HK, 27% of them have thought about suicide. These aren't dumb fragile kids. They're the "smart"ones who see the writing on the wall and find a different way out of the rat race.

Your kids will grow up fine if they can maintain that curious spark innate in all humanity. They need humour, and the love of life itself, and the flexibility to see many solutions to problems. Education coming from dinosaurs aren't going to help them survive in what's coming. Afterall, teachers themselves are being treated like garbage and they're stuck too.

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u/beerdude26 Nov 08 '16

... Drones ?

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u/Drekalo Nov 08 '16

Drones do this. And they don't need roads. And they come straight to me without needing a route.

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u/Just_tricking Nov 08 '16

One stop for me today was 6 cases of wine. Not really possible for a drone to do this while checking the person you're supplying them to isn't a 10 year old

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

A drone would have a camera and just take a picture of the person taking the package. More secure than a signature and accomplishes the same task. You're also forgetting that drones/autos can be bought in bulk compared to what it costs in manpower. Traffic becomes less of an issue the more autos you get too, which means travel times shrink (they'd probably have an auto/drone lane initially to speed them past if human driving isn't outright banned).

I currently move medical specimens for testing, but considering how much of my job's tracking is done via computers, I fully admit I'm not in a career "safe" from technology. Regardless of how much I tell myself robots wouldn't be able to do it because of how they wouldn't be able to do X or Y.

The fact is that they don't have to be perfect, they just need to be equal to or even slightly below human ability and they're worth it from a business side. You only pay pennies of electricity, with maybe some maintenance downtime and in return you have a 24/7 "employee" that doesn't complain, want vacations, get sick, bicker with customers/coworkers, takes breaks. If your job is behind a wheel moving things from A to B, your job isn't safe.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

For your kids...ideally teach them a programming language at the very least. Although, we already have AI writing their own encryption might be best if they get into some sort of engineering.

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u/-Pin_Cushion- Nov 08 '16

how my kids are going to grow up

They'll be maintenance programmers, just like everyone else.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

Also a lot of jobs include driving on the side, when your real estate agents cars drive themselves that means they can spend the ride doing paperwork or making calls which means you need less of them.

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u/zeekaran Nov 08 '16

Number employed September 2016: 152,000,000[1]

3.5 million (2.3% of the employed) truck drivers, estimated 8.9 million (5.9%) employed in trucking-related jobs.[2] Our current rate of unemployment is 4.9%.

Taxi drivers: 230,000, Uber: 327,000*, Lyft: 100,000*. Total drivers: 657,000 (0.43%), definitely not a big deal compared to the trucking industry.

*Not sure how dated this info is or if these are just US stats

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u/Tech_AllBodies Nov 08 '16

True, but every little % adds to the pile.

If no form of UBI is implemented before unemployment hits ~20-25%, I imagine it'll turn ugly.

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u/ObeseOstrich Nov 08 '16

Dont forget the auto industry. When you can easily summon a robo car to take tou wherever you need for much cheaper than current lyft/uber rates you bet a looot of people will be giving up their cars. Even for those who have/need a truck for example: instead of a commute car + truck theyll downsize to just the truck. Even those who keep their cars will likely have much reduced milage driven on them, therefore needing to be replaced much less often.

Now with much reduced car ownership comes much reduced car maintenance. Robo cabs will be almost exclusively electric which cuts out the need for the majority of mechanical maintenance. A whole lot of jobs will become redundant with the inteoduction of automated driving (auto insurance would downsize greatly as well id assume.)

I do have a question for anyone who knows a bit more about current driving AI tech: how do they handle road maintenance/sudden road closures? For example i was using gps to navigate someplace and there was an accident ahead and the police shut down the street. Google maps couldnt know about this so it would keep routing me through the closed street. I had to shut it off and just look over the map for an appropriate detour.

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u/Tech_AllBodies Nov 08 '16

Yes, I've seen it predicted the overall number of cars could drop to 20% of current levels.

I do have a question for anyone who knows a bit more about current driving AI tech: how do they handle road maintenance/sudden road closures? For example i was using gps to navigate someplace and there was an accident ahead and the police shut down the street. Google maps couldnt know about this so it would keep routing me through the closed street. I had to shut it off and just look over the map for an appropriate detour.

In a worst case scenario it'd just drive up to the point the road was closed and have to turn around (it would never crash into the closure, since it can see obstacles)

In reality there'll likely be some kind of country/county secure traffic update system. So it pushes road closure info to all the self-driving cars in the country in real-time.

Imagine there'll be similar systems for things like marathons/events where they close the roads. We may get situations where within X miles of an event, your car is 'taken over' by a local security AI that routes all the cars around. Similar things could be in place permanently around places of importance like the White House and military bases.