Musk, Hawking, Wozniak and Chomsky hate Tim

[Martinus]

Unlimited material production and enormous amounts of leisure time.

Unless one machine can make infinite machines with finite raw materials, I don't see how that is true.

Totally automated production implies the ability the produce more producers.  Thus the only limit is raw materials.  But that historically that has not been a binding constraint since the dawn of the industrial era.  Since the evidence suggests that high levels of material affluence tends to be accompanied by low or even negative population growth, that probably would not change either.

Woudn't we need space to put the producers in? So unless we keep miniaturising and/or colonising new planets (or we start culling the poor), such economy would collapse under itself in a Malthusian catastrophe in a few generations.

[jimmy olsen]

Planets are not neccessary, O'neil Cylinders are good enough.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Spacecolony3edit.jpeg

[Valmy]

Not this discussion again.
Our long term development leads to a post scarcity civilization.

Post-scarcity civlization only makes sense in socialism. In capitalism, it will just mean absolute accumulation of capital in the hands of the few and/or revolution - that's worse than what we have now.

Well from what the modern politics tell me socialism is just capitalism with slightly different numbers in a spreadsheet so we should be ok.

[Siege]

Not this discussion again.
Our long term development leads to a post scarcity civilization.

Post-scarcity civlization only makes sense in socialism. In capitalism, it will just mean absolute accumulation of capital in the hands of the few and/or revolution - that's worse than what we have now.

What are you talking about?
Every successful nation on earth have build their economy while using capitalism, and only after being successful have become a welfare state socialist cesspool extremely slowing down their economic growth.

There is a reason why the Soviet lost.

[Valmy]

Since we added welfare in the 1930s our economic growth has been extremely slow and anemic. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Woudn't we need space to put the producers in? So unless we keep miniaturising and/or colonising new planets (or we start culling the poor), such economy would collapse under itself in a Malthusian catastrophe in a few generations.

There's an awful lot of land - it would take a inconceivably vast expansion of production for space constraints to bite hard.

So yes literally speaking production isn't "unlimited" - practically it is though.

[The Minsky Moment]

What are you talking about?
Every successful nation on earth have build their economy while using capitalism, and only after being successful have become a welfare state socialist cesspool extremely slowing down their economic growth.

There is a reason why the Soviet lost.

The question is what role is left for a capitalist to perform in a purely automated economy.  Assuming the automated agents are capable of developing improvements on their own, and assuming automated agents are capable of monitoring demand and allocating resources (including capital) - it's not clear that there is any.

[Caliga]

enormous amounts of leisure time.

This is actually a horrible thing, not a good one.  People who have too much leisure time often spend it thinking, and we don't want people thinking too much because then they come up with crazy ideas, like black people should be killed in their churches or random people should be killed in movie theaters, or children should be killed in their elementary school, or Americans should be killed in the World Trade Center.

[garbon]

The only crazy ideas involve murder?

[Siege]

What are you talking about?
Every successful nation on earth have build their economy while using capitalism, and only after being successful have become a welfare state socialist cesspool extremely slowing down their economic growth.

There is a reason why the Soviet lost.

The question is what role is left for a capitalist to perform in a purely automated economy.  Assuming the automated agents are capable of developing improvements on their own, and assuming automated agents are capable of monitoring demand and allocating resources (including capital) - it's not clear that there is any.

Misnky, serious answer:

I agree the economic system of the future might be different from capitalism, however I don't see how we can get to supply-side future of abundance without having free market capitalism growing the economy today, creating the opportunities for inventors and investors to develop and commercialize their products.

Socialism and the welfare state just don't have the economic growth to propell us into an abundance 360 society, let alone to the post scarcity utopia.

The things that technology promises, the digitalization, dematerialization, demonetalization, and democratization of the economy, are only possible with the evolutionary selection of products and services that only a free market economy can make possible.

Any other economic model selects products and services based on political decisions rather than consumer selection.

I'm sorry. I don't think I am expressing my point coherently. I hope you understand the idea I am trying to convey.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes the answer is coherent.  Probably wrong but coherent.   

Actually there is a decent argument that a good social safety net encourages entrepreneurialism by limiting the downside of failure. 

[grumbler]

Unlimited material production and enormous amounts of leisure time.

Unless one machine can make infinite machines with finite raw materials, I don't see how that is true.

Unless you never recycle, I don't see how this isn't true.  One doesn't need raw materials to produce, one only needs feedstock, which could be raw or intermediate materials.

[grumbler]

Anyway, on the topic, most of the LARS people are talking about are really just advancements on the mine; they are triggered by a sensor, and then they act.  They are no more "summary execution" than a machine gun blind-firing at potential enemy positions.

What AI does for us is allow us to avoid the land mine/blind fire/potential-killer-robot approach by making the killer robot purely reactive; unless fired upon, it won't fire.  But if it is fired upon, it can response with a speed and accuracy that, though it precludes the ability of humans to authorize return fire, also doesn't involve noncombatants.  The actual combatants firing on it couldn't move quickly enough to escape return fire.

Imagine that, in Mogadishu in 1993, the US deployed a battalion of reactive killer bots instead of the Delta and ranger guys.  Aidid's forces could engage and die or not engage and allow Aidid's lieutenants to be captured. In either case, the mission is accomplished because the mission wasn't intended to kill a thousand militia.

Now, these things would have to be proof against reprogramming (Brazen makes that excellent point in her article) and used with care, but casualties wouldn't be a major issue and the benefits seem to me to greatly outweigh the risks.

[Razgovory]

Not this discussion again.
Our long term development leads to a post scarcity civilization.

Post-scarcity civlization only makes sense in socialism. In capitalism, it will just mean absolute accumulation of capital in the hands of the few and/or revolution - that's worse than what we have now.

What are you talking about?
Every successful nation on earth have build their economy while using capitalism, and only after being successful have become a welfare state socialist cesspool extremely slowing down their economic growth.

There is a reason why the Soviet lost.

This is simply not true.  Capitalism is a modern phenomenon.  It was theorized by people beginning in the 18th century and was really put into place in Europe and American in the 19th century.  Vast empires rose declined and collapsed longer before capitalism.  We can look at some countries and retrospectively say they had elements of capitalism, but I don't think we can say the actually had capitalist economies.