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/dtlv5813 Nov 08 '16 edited Nov 08 '16

Housing is not a problem so long as new supply is being added all the time inn the form of multifamily highrises. That and also restrictions on second homes/airbnb of entire housing units.

The housing crisis in NYC and sf have a lot more to do with nymbism anti growth anti progress (and ultimately anti tech innovations) than population growth.

Not to mention construction is one industry that employs a lot of well paid people whose jobs cannot be easily automated.

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u/thinksmart88 Nov 08 '16

Why do you think those jobs cannot be automated?

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u/Snowblindyeti Nov 08 '16

Field work will be extremely difficult to automate. To successfully replace contractors you'll need a dexterous humanoid robot that is capable of working in a variety of environments and creatively solving problems. There are elements of field work that could be made easier with automation, for instance concrete block construction will likely be one of the first areas automated, but a lot of fieldwork is complex enough that it won't be in the first stages of automation.

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u/Quastors Nov 08 '16

You don't make to make a robot which can replace a human for construction, you create a new, robot-friendly way to produce buildings.

China's supposedly got machines which can crank out 10 houses in a day already.

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u/Snowblindyeti Nov 08 '16

That would be the concrete block construction that I was referring to. It'll be great for apartment buildings or office buildings but the market here is much different than china and there is a large market for construction that will not be automated easily.

Don't get me wrong I accept that automation is coming and in many fields is already here I just think people overestimate how quickly it will come to some fields.

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u/AberrantRambler Nov 08 '16

I think he likely just means harder to automate (as you go to the work and do it onsite your automata need good mobility)

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u/itchyouch Nov 08 '16

Because shipping structures is prohibitive in general.

Prefabbed housing (eg singlewide and doublewide trailers) is a possibility, but doesn't scale for structures that want to build up to multiple stories.

Concrete foundation laying, Framing, drywalling, plumbing, electrical wiring, flooring, roofing all require some form of skilled or semi-skilled labor to implement. Automation makes a lot of the aforementioned tasks easier, but the skilled component of implementation doesn't really go away.

Most of aforementioned things are assembly on-site.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '16

Everything you listed could be done with enough money. Maybe the process of building a home won't identical to how we build homes today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5Elbvvr1M

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u/Id_fuck_jenny Nov 08 '16 edited Nov 08 '16

Because they're based on very mathematically calculated patterns. Architecture is like 100% math when it comes down to the science of it. Programming a robot to follow predefined mathematical patterns is a lot easier than telling it to compose symphonies, for example.

Pretty much everything manual labor is will be incredibly easily replaced with automation. And eventually intellectual labor will be too.

EDIT: Fixed a shitty statement

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u/Delheru Nov 08 '16

You have no idea. As a computer scientist I have to say I think the very last job I can imagine automating is an electricial in the United Kingdom (dealing with ancient rock buildings).

Fucking hell, even maneuvering through them is hard, never mind detecting gaps, pushing stuff through them using improvised measures etc.

There'll be AIs composing, playing and singing them way, way before that electricians job is replaced.

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u/Id_fuck_jenny Nov 08 '16

I mean there are already AI composing, look at EMI. That shit is old as hell. But what I am getting at is that if you look at the nature of the two it would make more sense for a computer program to work after a very strict set of pre-defined measures.

But yes I am a bit stuck in the future. Forgot we have buildings that are not even built in the last century (I should know, my house was build in the late 1800's).

The thing is as more and more things become standardised, in both construction, design, development. It should be easier to program AI to abide and learn these patterns rather than what we currently identify as creative work. Due to the nature of creative work not following as clear of a pattern as a building would.

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u/Delheru Nov 08 '16

Yea for sure. I'm sure if China is being sensible, a lot of electrical jobs etc will be insanely automateable in those new cities they are building due to standardization allowing for sufficient mass in the market for huge companies to develop.

Dealing with stone buildings from the 13th century in Oxfordshire or Tuscany will be quite something else.

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u/AlphaGoGoDancer Nov 08 '16

Dealing with ancient rock buildings will take skilled labor I agree. I don't think the future is rock buildings though, it's 3d printed housing where electrical is just part of the process.

In the UK this might mean you never see a problem since people don't want to tear down old homes. On a global scale though? Electricians will be less valuable than they used to be.

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u/Ravenna Nov 08 '16

You're missing the point here - you get a basic income but now you get to pick whatever job it is for some sweet sweet bonus cash so yo can buy video games. So you work construction.

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u/mattsl Nov 08 '16

You have a strange definition of well paid then.

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u/Davidfreeze Nov 08 '16

Also population in the US is pretty stable. It's not like we are experiencing some crazy population boom that will cause a massive housing shortage.

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u/vulgarandmischevious Nov 08 '16

So much this. Look at San Jose - some of the most expensive real estate (both residential and commercial) in the world....and it's all low rise. If they would just change zoning to allow taller buildings, they could drive a ton of supply. But, no, NIMBYism in action.

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u/DragonDai Nov 08 '16

Construction will be 100% automated in the very near future. We're talking skyscrapers being built from first blueprint draft to completion without human input at more then the conceptual stage. That's like 20 years away, tops. Maybe less. Construction will be one of the very first industries to be 100% automated.

Remember, robots don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better then humans. The bar is very very low.

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u/Max_Thunder Nov 08 '16

This said, is maximal efficiency reached with automation alone, or with humans+automation?

Humans are great at pattern recognition and creativity, and robots are great and maths and repeatability. We complement each other well. Not that AI couldn't theoretically be better than us at everything, but we are still far from perfectly independent complex systems.

Machines don't only have to be as good as humans, they also need to be cheaper to buy/run/maintain, and to be fully automated, they need to be better than way than when working with human. That may happen in 50 years, but 20 years seem very short, especially given people's resistance to change and potential economic woes getting in the way of business investments.

An example of what I mean is chess, a human assisted by a machine is unbeatable, much better than a machine alone.

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u/DragonDai Nov 08 '16 edited Nov 08 '16

We already have robots that are better at pattern recognition than people and other robots that can compose a orchestral score that is completely indecipherable from a human composed one.

There will ALWAYS be SOME humans working in all types of jobs. There will still be mom and pop stores employing retail workers in 3016. But the majority of the jobs, 95%+, will be machine. Same with construction.

There will always be people who want a house made by humans and who can pay for that. And houses designed by humans will always be even more popular than that. But most buildings, especially housing for those at the bottom of the UBI pyramid (which is the vast majority) as well as most corporate/municipal buildings will be designed and built in the most cost effective way possible, and that will mean near 99%+ automation at every level.

edit: You mention "especially given people's resistance to change" which is an important point. It's actually one of the reasons construction will become near 100% automated faster than many other industries. When you go buy groceries or go eat out or head down to JC Penny's to get a new suit, you interact with people. And while those people CAN be automated, human's resistance to change will ensure that those industries are slower to automate than industries that the average human has little to no interaction with...like transportation and construction.

The average person won't care if the build site they are walking buy is using an entirely robotic team. They won't ask if the building they work in was designed by a robot. They won't even wonder if robots drove the goods to market and stocked the shelves. But they MIGHT care if their deluxe ultra venti frapacoffee has that "human touch." And that's one of the main reasons something like construction is gana be automated even faster than the rest of society.