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[Frozenprince]

"The sooner we get people able to live lives they want without working" what lives they want? Universal basic income is going to barely scratch above the poverty line if it's going to be viable at all.

That's just making people more dependent on that govt check every month instead of working 60-80 hours a week. They are still in a state of constant economic crisis, but now their options to pull themselves up is stifled. Yes, it's good to not need people to work to death to make a living. It's not okay to destroy their source of livelyhood and income and go "make this two grand last thirty days". What if they have an emergency? What if something happens that takes a huge chunk of their savings? Now they aren't earning an accrued interest, now they earn a fixed amount every month.

Not everybody can go to college and get a degree. Not everybody wants to go to a vocational school and learn a trade. So you're now telling people to live on table scraps while fighting automation and living in a world where the government we have set in place does not believe that basic income is even worth looking into. Which means we're going to be so far behind the 8-ball on this that by the time we catch up it WILL be too late.

edit: I understand we live in a world where people think "if they just had the opportunity to educate themselves and learn xyz".

But we don't. Some people, yes, are stupid, or aren't able to function in an educational setting like academia. So, they work in the service industry where they can provide a function in return for compensation which they can then use to live independently.

These people that lose their livelyhoods aren't going to go to school en masse and bring in more educated workers into non-service jobs. They're just going to be left even farther behind.

Yes, there is nothing we can do to stop automation. But we don't and never will have a system in place that will save these people. The fact that we as a nation just voted in Donald fucking Trump should scream that from the mountaintops.

This terrifies me.

 

[Phreaker]

Something I had not thought about. Automation is inevitable. I don't think we should villainize companies for Innovation and Technology. We should be thinking of ways to support those who are unable to adapt.

A friend and I were talking about the same thing at lunch, that even code that runs all this stuff will also get automated. There could be a time in the not too distant future where "developers" more or less guide the machine learning aspects of systems. I know Elon Musk has talked of a "universal basic income" becoming inevitable. It's going to be weird times for sure.

Edit: I wonder if someone will run on bringing those jobs back.

 

[Biske]

Stuff like this is incredibly cool and obviously the death of the labor force to a great degree.

Only going to get worse.


We are going to have to move to a society where the basics of life, food, shelter and healthcare are a given or so negligible that it doesn't matter, and then profit off of all the rest.

After all, when we get replaced by robots, businesses will still need people to make money from, can't do that if we are all starving and dying/dead.



Really really shows how our focus and goal as a species is totally fucked, hopefully advancements like this will snap us into action.

 

[Frozenprince]

We elected an oligarch who won because he promised to kill automation when he knew that was impossible.

Anybody who thinks we're going to be prepared for this AT ALL is, I'm sorry, just not living in reality.

This is going to be what brings about the end times, the mass economic disenfranchisement of hundreds of millions is going to set this whole blue rock on fire.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

"The sooner we get people able to live lives they want without working" what lives they want? Universal basic income is going to barely scratch above the poverty line if it's going to be viable at all.

That's just making people more dependent on that govt check every month instead of working 60-80 hours a week. They are still in a state of constant economic crisis, but now their options to pull themselves up is stifled. Yes, it's good to not need people to work to death to make a living. It's not okay to destroy their source of livelyhood and income and go "make this two grand last thirty days". What if they have an emergency? What if something happens that takes a huge chunk of their savings? Now they aren't earning an accrued interest, now they earn a fixed amount every month.

I don't follow. What's the difference between making $2k/month as a cashier and $2k/month from government checks?

 

[Frozenprince]

I don't follow. What's the difference between making $2k/month as a cashier and $2k/month from government checks?

People tend to budget themselves around weekly or bi-weekly income. It's easier to survive a money hit if you know you have another check coming next week to bounce off the blowback and figure out what needs to be paid when.

Unless you're cut a $500 check every week and I highly doubt that, more likely they just update the EBT card system to put ALL your money on that, you're forced to function in an even more constant state of economic fear, because they can't work an extra shift or figure out how to scrape out another fifty dollars. They are utterly and entirely dependent on the government to keep them from being homeless and keep food in their children's bellies.

I lived for a long time under or just around the poverty line, so this scares the shit out of me.

 

[Biske]

We elected an oligarch who won because he promised to kill automation when he knew that was impossible.

Anybody who thinks we're going to be prepared for this AT ALL is, I'm sorry, just not living in reality.

This is going to be what brings about the end times, the mass economic disenfranchisement of hundreds of millions is going to set this whole blue rock on fire.

It really does feel like at some point a big flip will happen and we will end up like in those movies where the world is all tech, but all the humans are idiot peasants with no idea whats really going on.

This unyielding push for profit and growth, eventually you just have to cut out the human element to make that extra buck.

Then you have everybody standing around, thinking "what do we fucking do?"

To keep consumers consuming, will need to take care of their basic needs that they can't work for cause you've robotized all the jobs, at that point there is no reason to work except the people who want that pursuit, the rest of us just lazing around fucking and getting more and more disconnected. Until we truly don't understand our robo world which increasingly runs itself.

Thats my thinking IF we handle it all ourselves and do whats needed for basic income or food and services.



Thats my good scenaro... humans creating ways for themselves to not be needed. Once we get AI good enough, why use humans, ever?

 

[magnetic]

Wait until your 90 and that's the only interaction you'll have all day.

If you're feeling isolated, there are much more viable opportunities to get in touch with other people than with some dude behind a cash register who is under enormous pressure to work as quickly as possible.

 

[Frozenprince]

Honestly at this point I'm more convinced we're going to be living in the future where we imprint a barcode on children at birth than a Star Trek utopia.

 

[SpookyFries]

What is stopping somebody who doesnt have an Amazon account set up to grab shit and walk out?

 

[Purkake4]

What is stopping somebody who doesnt have an Amazon account set up to grab shit and walk out?

Automated defenses?

 

[Biske]

What is stopping somebody who doesnt have an Amazon account set up to grab shit and walk out?

They will have to have some people actually working there, I think the video just emphasizes the concept of doing it all your own so they leave that part out.

I'm sure at the very least to get in, you'd have to have your account and all synced up, so if anything leaves, someone is getting charged.

 

[BoosterDuck]

What is stopping somebody who doesnt have an Amazon account set up to grab shit and walk out?

plenty of stores hire security guards and police officers to stand post

 

[enzo_gt]

Village blacksmiths crying reading this thread right now.

 

[SoRuffShoNuff]

Your user ID. Same mechanism that stops you from using a discount on amazon several times

My user ID knows I have 6 legit coupons and not 10? The bar codes on the coupon are identical.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

People tend to budget themselves around weekly or bi-weekly income. It's easier to survive a money hit if you know you have another check coming next week to bounce off the blowback and figure out what needs to be paid when.

Unless you're cut a $500 check every week and I highly doubt that, more likely they just update the EBT card system to put ALL your money on that, you're forced to function in an even more constant state of economic fear, because they can't work an extra shift or figure out how to scrape out another fifty dollars. They are utterly and entirely dependent on the government to keep them from being homeless and keep food in their children's bellies.

I lived for a long time under or just around the poverty line, so this scares the shit out of me.

With a basic income, won't more single-childless people just choose not to work? That will leave vacancies in non-skilled labor that can be filled by those who want or need a safety net for emergencies.

Granted, I'm assuming that "basic income" means everyone gets paid a flat amount regardless of employment. If it only pays out the difference between one's current income and the poverty line, then yeah, a lot of people are going to be fucked.

 

[Hephaestus]

There is one other problem I believe with basic income that society will have to deal with...bored young men.

I`ve worked in the trades for over 20 years now, the fact is many of the guys I work with are incredibly violent, angry, bored, thrill seeking, no impulse control, ext...

The only thing that keeps them kinda in line is working hard manual labor for 10-12 hours a day. So that at the end of the day they are too tired to cause any real damage.

I do truly believe that even if you handed out 100K a year to everyone and said...go live your life do what ever you want. Your going to have a large (not the majority) but a very large group of people that will not have any other interests than drinking, drugs and breaking shit. Think sports riots....but all the time and for no other reason than to let off steam.

And the scary part if I was 20 again and you handed me a check every month and said do whatever...I would literally have spent every minute that I wasnt passed out drunk looking for ways to get into lots and lots of trouble. again I can only speak for myself but I needed 12 hours a day 7 days a week of hard work to...dull my edge and for me to calm down.

 

[Foffy]

"The sooner we get people able to live lives they want without working" what lives they want? Universal basic income is going to barely scratch above the poverty line if it's going to be viable at all.

That's just making people more dependent on that govt check every month instead of working 60-80 hours a week. They are still in a state of constant economic crisis, but now their options to pull themselves up is stifled. Yes, it's good to not need people to work to death to make a living. It's not okay to destroy their source of livelyhood and income and go "make this two grand last thirty days". What if they have an emergency? What if something happens that takes a huge chunk of their savings? Now they aren't earning an accrued interest, now they earn a fixed amount every month.

Not everybody can go to college and get a degree. Not everybody wants to go to a vocational school and learn a trade. So you're now telling people to live on table scraps while fighting automation and living in a world where the government we have set in place does not believe that basic income is even worth looking into. Which means we're going to be so far behind the 8-ball on this that by the time we catch up it WILL be too late.

edit: I understand we live in a world where people think "if they just had the opportunity to educate themselves and learn xyz".

But we don't. Some people, yes, are stupid, or aren't able to function in an educational setting like academia. So, they work in the service industry where they can provide a function in return for compensation which they can then use to live independently.

These people that lose their livelyhoods aren't going to go to school en masse and bring in more educated workers into non-service jobs. They're just going to be left even farther behind.

Yes, there is nothing we can do to stop automation. But we don't and never will have a system in place that will save these people. The fact that we as a nation just voted in Donald fucking Trump should scream that from the mountaintops.

This terrifies me.

I know I've mentioned him before, but Mark Blyth explained how Trump's rise is a result of decades-long cultivations, and he is ultimately a symptom of a system, not a cause.

Mix neoliberal policies enacted some time after "The Great Decoupling" of the 1970s and you have the climate in which the far right is palatable. Of course, the problem with that element is that it's still working within the same broken cultural operating system that is in clear decay, which is why their promises are the days of the past, not really looking and measuring how far the tremors are going to expand for the future.

Another problem, perhaps nearly as big, is the failure of the "establishment" as a whole to even talk about this issue. Name five people who have held major government roles in just the last five years who have talked about this. Hint: nobody outside of Obama's cabinet has touched this, so those who have are all on the way out. Even Hilldawg pivoting from the few times she was asked it, as had Sanders, the spooky Socialist Santa.

Simply put, we're electing neonationalists because the cultural narrative is still within a jobs cult and about maintaining that, and nobody has the sheer honesty to say such a model is genuinely insolvent for the future. It Capitalism is focused on increased production, minimized costs, this also means because of technology, it is about negating human capital within it, as that's one of the largest costs of all.

Who in a position of power in American government has the balls to state this is what Capitalism is? A great gate for precarity, no longer for prosperity. The hook is the imposition of work as survival, as that what fuels the difficulty here most of all.

With a basic income, won't more single-childless people just choose not to work? That will leave vacancies in non-skilled labor that can be filled by those who want or need a safety net for emergencies.

Granted, I'm assuming that "basic income" means everyone gets paid a flat amount regardless of employment. If it only pays out the difference between one's current income and the poverty line, then yeah, a lot of people are going to be fucked.

A basic income in approach is an assured amount no matter if one is working or not. The model proposed by Nixon, if enacted and kept with trends today, would have assured all American citizens $1,000 a month. I'm not sure if it was based on age, but assume it applies to everyone 18 and older.

As for studies on the program, people end up becoming more productive and do meaningful work, even if in our current system it's non-canonical work, which is to say it's significant work that one isn't paid for. Work will always exist, but our dualities of "real" and "unreal" work only feed into the absurdities of the current system, as well as the fact machines can do most labor but there could still be communal activities one can do to be of service to others.

The problem, of course, is those services to others are not models to draw blood from the stone.

There is one other problem I believe with basic income that society will have to deal with...bored young men.

I`ve worked in the trades for over 20 years now, the fact is many of the guys I work with are incredibly violent, angry, bored, thrill seeking, no impulse control, ext...

The only thing that keeps them kinda in line is working hard manual labor for 10-12 hours a day. So that at the end of the day they are too tired to cause any real damage.

I do truly believe that even if you handed out 100K a year to everyone and said...go live your life do what ever you want. Your going to have a large (not the majority) but a very large group of people that will not have any other interests than drinking, drugs and breaking shit. Think sports riots....but all the time and for no other reason than to let off steam.

And the scary part if I was 20 again and you handed me a check every month and said do whatever...I would literally have spent every minute that I wasnt passed out drunk looking for ways to get into lots and lots of trouble. again I can only speak for myself but I needed 12 hours a day 7 days a week of hard work to...dull my edge and for me to calm down.

Thankfully, then, is the fact your concerns have not been even seen as even slightly becoming a norm in the decades of studies and tests we've done. Assuring people a minimum floor creates a work out of want, not the increasingly-dangerous notion of work out of survival value, which such a notion makes these changes the problems that they are. Productivity increases with an assured floor, which is the most profound paradox of all of the tests.

 

[Somnid]

What is stopping somebody who doesnt have an Amazon account set up to grab shit and walk out?

Same thing when you do it in a normal store except you make a scene on the way in instead of running out, a computer system tracks everything you took and will probably save lots of pictures and it's all tracable.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

We can easily stop this through legislation. We just need for our legislative leaders to actually show some courage and fight to protect jobs.

I wonder what it will take for people to turn on Amazon. They have been such a destructive force within our economy and treat their employees like human garbage.

Do you think politicians of the past should have used legislative against steam power, factories, conveyor belts,...? I hope you realize what a stupid post that was, you don't fight this process with legislative.

 

[DavidDesu]

Really wonder what type of security this place will have. Is there a way to prevent people from coming in without a supported smartphone? Once they are inside, they could basically just walk out with anything, right? Also wondering how accurate it would be if a lot of people walked in/out at the same time. I am assuming they are using some sort of RFID system.

I am sure they have everything figured out.

Well this computer vision etc must be able to detect exactly what everyone is doing in the store, so anyone walking in without scanning their phone will immediately be highlighted as dodgy and the one security guard on site will likely intervene sharpish.

 

[Orayn]

This is certainly good for accelerationism.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

I eagerly await our first election run on some kind of technological battle lines between an authentic luddite, technophile and technocrat.

 

[The Lone Courier]

So what if I slide an item out the door then pick it up outside?

 

[Somnid]

So what if I slide an item out the door then pick it up outside?

If you were the last person seen with an item and you leave the store, then you probably just bought it.

 

[BlanketFort]

Automated defenses?

Introducing: Amazon Deal.

Our new Defensive Employee Automated Laser.

With Amazon Deal, we are confident you will not only enjoy your shopping experience at Amazon Go but you can also confidently sleep at night knowing we are protected from theft with a defensive laser grid capable of destroying any human or animal thief. (e.g. shoplifters, burglars, sea gulls, raccoons, etc.)

 

[rexor0717]

I've always wondered when someone would do this. The fact that it's Amazon makes a lot of sense lol.

 

[andythinkpad]

The video just weird me out. Everyone looks like shoplifter.

 

[DjRalford]

It says it knows where items are, what if someone put an item back in the wrong place, will it take it out their cart then or still charge? Also the next person who maybe picks the out of place item up, will they get charged the right amount, or the amount for whats behind it?

Intresting use of technology though.

 

[Not]

Neat idea but this is the type of automation that is going to wreck the low to middle income families in the next decade.

Nothing is stopping this train.

My first thought.

Bye bye, retail jobs.

Hellooooooooooooo product stocking jobs.

 

[NobleXenon]

All part of the plan.

The technological singularity, that is.

 

[Octavia]

-What if you make a new dummy account, link an expired gift card, grab and go, and the card bounces? What's to stop people from doing this repeatedly for higher priced items to resell?

Otherwise, you guys are wayyyyy too optimistic about job loss to this type of automation. You'll get better self checkouts and such, but I don't see full store automation killing millions of jobs. This is for a tiny little store with all prepacked food and a human-manned deli. There's still stockers, security, housekeeping, and a manager there I'm sure. Just no cashiers.

Not all products are going to be compatible with this, I don't see how this is going to work with fresh fruit/veggies that need to be bagged, weighed, and verified somehow for example. Walmart isn't going to lose all its cashiers, you've still got finicky items as well as the elderly that won't be using smart phones and apps. Even then at a reduction in cashiers, you've still got cart pushers, maintenance, security, stockers, managers, helpers, housekeeping, ect. Retail isn't going to be a desolate wasteland of robots for a very long time, and with climate change ripping non-scarcity society apart in a century +-, it probably never will be honestly. It's a non-issue for humanities projected path.

 

[Jzero]

My first thought.

Bye bye, retail jobs.

Hellooooooooooooo product stocking jobs.

I'm down, fuck people

 

[Fou-Lu]

No more menial jobs and bullshit work that we are supposed to base our self worth and entire lives on. Just a utopia where humans play, study, create, explore and learn. That's the future I want and this is part of getting us there.

 

[Steelyuhas]

Smartphone manufacturing can be automated

Most manufacturing will be automated.

 

[Maxinas]

No more menial jobs and bullshit work that we are supposed to base our self worth and entire lives on. Just a utopia where humans play, study, create, explore and learn. That's the future I want and this is part of getting us there.

Can't really work if people don't have a way to provide for themselves, not everyone can afford college or get a decent paying job.

 

[soco]

My first thought.

Bye bye, retail jobs.

Hellooooooooooooo product stocking jobs.

Pretty sure amazon warehouse robots have already taken that job.

 

[Matthew23]

There is one other problem I believe with basic income that society will have to deal with...bored young men.

I`ve worked in the trades for over 20 years now, the fact is many of the guys I work with are incredibly violent, angry, bored, thrill seeking, no impulse control, ext...

The only thing that keeps them kinda in line is working hard manual labor for 10-12 hours a day. So that at the end of the day they are too tired to cause any real damage.

I do truly believe that even if you handed out 100K a year to everyone and said...go live your life do what ever you want. Your going to have a large (not the majority) but a very large group of people that will not have any other interests than drinking, drugs and breaking shit. Think sports riots....but all the time and for no other reason than to let off steam.

And the scary part if I was 20 again and you handed me a check every month and said do whatever...I would literally have spent every minute that I wasnt passed out drunk looking for ways to get into lots and lots of trouble. again I can only speak for myself but I needed 12 hours a day 7 days a week of hard work to...dull my edge and for me to calm down.

The solution might be to reverse the current trend in society of working well into our senior years. Heavily incentivize working for the youth and take away that incentive once a person is in their mid 40s. Earlier retirement will free up jobs and create a much younger, happier (no longer have to work till the day I die!), and likely more productive work force.

Still need more jobs? How about a 3 - 4 day work week and standard 2 months of vacation time. Oh I hope I live to see the day.

 

[Nokterian]

Nope no good, there doing it in saying he you don't need cash to pay do it all electronic way easier!

I don't trust this the slightest since it can be hacked, also you cannot be careful with your money instead of paying with cash and it is an attack on cash as a whole. Let's add another thing on top, it happend before when system goes haywire nothing works and then? You can't pay for anything.

 

[soco]

I don't trust this the slightest since it can be hacked, also you cannot be careful with your money instead of paying with cash and it is an attack on cash as a whole. Let's add another thing on top, it happend before when system goes haywire nothing works and then? You can't pay for anything.

Anything, including ATMs, can be hacked in one sense or another. You're probably more likely to have money stolen through that than through hacking in some areas.

Also, if the system goes haywire in this case, they either charge your card later or you don't pay anything. Compare that to a recent trip to a store i had where all their computer systems went down. People couldn't even pay cash because nothing would scan. People just stood there, many just walked out. There were at least 300 people in the store before it happened.

 

[Joni]

im sorta thinking about how this actually works and i feel like there has to be a sensor on each item similar to the security tags on game boxes. they still have some cost but i guess it may be offset by not having to pay cashiers. but because its a static cost per item it would be bad for lower cost items since it would be a larger percentage of the item's cost. so it may skew prices in a weird way cheaper items would be more expensive while more expensive items wouldn't be affected.

It is difficult to find prices, but as volume goes up, price goes down. They might be at $0.05 per tag or lower nowadays.

My user ID knows I have 6 legit coupons and not 10? The bar codes on the coupon are identical.

They won't be at that point.

Case-in-point of the technology being used for profiting the elite instead of providing for the masses. They're not cutting payroll to reward cardholders or help employees.

They're cutting payroll to provide time benefits to people. The need to wait in line is a flaw of the system, not a feature. That is why this system is important. Trying to stop automation to make sure poor people keep poorly paying jobs is idiotic. It is just making sure they remain poor but working. That isn't the solution to the problem as you would also need to block automated cars, which will cost just as many jobs. But at that point you'd be sacrificing human lives to ensure these lower-paying jobs remain. You'd be the type of person looking at the industrial revolution and saying it is bad because so many people will lose their bad jobs. We don't want to keep those type of jobs around. We need to change the system to ensure that these people can live without those jobs, not keep the system and forbid the jobs from going away.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

They're cutting payroll to provide time benefits to people. The need to wait in line is a flaw of the system, not a feature. That is why this system is important. Trying to stop automation to make sure poor people keep poorly paying jobs is idiotic. It is just making sure they remain poor but working. That isn't the solution to the problem as you would also need to block automated cars, which will cost just as many jobs. But at that point you'd be sacrificing human lives to ensure these lower-paying jobs remain. You'd be the type of person looking at the industrial revolution and saying it is bad because so many people will lose their bad jobs. We don't want to keep those type of jobs around. We need to change the system to ensure that these people can live without those jobs, not keep the system and forbid the jobs from going away.

If only the systems were already in check to get sure that these people are not going to starve.
And yes, I know these systems are going to be maintained, but this wont be done by the guys who have such a bad education that they have to take this jobs they have right now.

 

[satriales]

I'd rather queue up for 5 minutes somewhere else where you aren't forced to download their app (and they pay taxes).

 

[ramparter]

So another technology that removes even more jobs from the economy? No thanks.

By that logic we should invent more jobs that aren't necessary.

 

[GAMEPROFF]

By that logic we should invent more jobs that aren't necessary.

Or maybe get the safety nets to get in place before hyping that stuff up.

 

[Blastoise]

Better targeted emails and ads. Reduce privacy for convenience.

 

[Infinite_Daremo]

Tesco have had a kinda low tech version of this for a while now. The barcode scanner handsets. It speeds up shopping massively, just scan something and pop it straight into your bag. When your done you go to a separate checkout where it tallies your shop, you may get chosen for random selection where they scan 5 items but thats the only slow point.

I no longer have to deal with slow checkouts, old people paying with pennies, checkout assistants chatting over their previous night out, those smug fucks who ask to bag my shopping in exchange for some charity and greet me with a fuck you smile when I turn them down.

Bring this tech on sooner please!

 

[Fallout-NL]

As for "lost jobs", I'd rather see universal basic income, than legislate away new technology so we can keep people doing minimum-wage busy work. Things like this are probably what will give society the impetus to implement it.

Yeah, I'm kinda hoping it will make it absolutely clear to everyone we need a UBI so that we can finally rid ourselves of the antiquated notion that absolutely everyone needs to work all the fucking time.

 

[Zelias]

The technology sounds great, if it all works out. We as a society need to adapt to protect the people who will lose jobs to automation... but I don't think we will, at least not quickly enough. And 2016 has shown us what happens when people are down on their luck and angry.

I hope I'm wrong and UBI gets implemented.

 

[Rorschach]

Can't wait.