Automation: An age of unseen prosperity
We are about to enter an age of unseen prosperity. For years we have been seeing the prices of high technology decrease incredibly rapidly – with an item reducing to a third of its price within a few short years – even to the extent that smartphones and tablets are available to many people, even in developing nations. We’ve already seen computers replace many jobs. Naturally, mechanical thinking tasks such as human computers were the first to go. Yet with the age of automation – the age of artificially intelligent robots – the same gains that have been realised in the technology sector are going to be realised in every other sector – either directly or indirectly.
We are at a stage where machines cannot just aid manual labour, but replace it entirely. Let’s imagine a case study. You might pay $30 for a new pair of jeans, or if you live in Australia you might pay $100. How did those jeans get on your legs? Which steps can be automated, and which steps can be removed entirely?
The current situation
Those jeans were probably made in a sweatshop in a cheaper country, by hand. They were driven by van to a shipping yard to be packaged and sent across the seas. They’re unloaded at the dock, and transported by truck to a wholesale centre, then on to retail stores. At the mall, the labourers unload the jeans and carry them up to the store, where the shop attendant puts them on the shelves. You take a bus to the mall, and you’re served by a fitter who gives you some tips on sizes and styles. That’s how it happens today. Let’s have a look at how it will happen in The World of Next Tuesday.
The future situation
The jeans are made in a factory by stitching robots. This factory is located within your own country, as the price of labour (i.e. robot maintenance and electricity) has dropped down so low that it is cheaper to produce the goods in your country than produce and ship them from another. A robot truck delivers them, perhaps interstate, to a local distribution centre. You could go to the mall and look at some jeans, but that’s somewhat excessive when you can just order a solar-powered drone to fly to your house with a selection of jeans in your size, let it land itself on the table and give you a couple of different camera angles as you try them on. Or maybe you forgo remote production and delivery entirely by ordering the patterns online and entering them into your own stitching machine, or order them from a stitching machine in your neighbourhood.
Using automation, scores of human positions have been replaced, and scores more have been eliminated. It wouldn’t be unusual to see the price drop to a quarter of what it was previously.
Greedy capitalists
You might say “But those greedy capitalists will just install their robots and keep the profits for themselves! Those savings won’t reach the consumers!” Some of the business owners will behave in this way, no doubt. But it only takes one very efficient and economical company to use a new production and cost model to put pressure on an entire industry. One single company selling clothes this way can disrupt the existing models enough to change everything, bidding down the price like a Dutch auction.
Far-reaching effects
You might say “So what Kurt? Now we’ll be getting cheap jeans, whoopedydediiddly-doo!” The point is this: these savings will be passed on to just about everything you buy. Every table made from wood chopped by robots, every television delivered to your door by a drone, every tomato shipped from Sonora to Jalisco, every piece of fertiliser delivered by auto-truck to grow that tomato, and every irrigation pipe laid by machine. Every, every, everything.
You won’t need a corner store any more. You’ll have access to a convenience distribution centre. Look through the merchandise online, and the drone will deliver your goods in less time than it takes you to walk around the corner and back. The store doesn’t even have to be large enough for customers to walk into, potentially saving money on real estate, or allowing a larger selection of goods.
Many people, when eating cheaply, will opt to eat from fast food machines rather than fast food stalls or restaurants. In apartment buildings, you won’t necessarily have a kitchen within the apartment any more. You will simply look through a list of thousands of recipes, order an omelette from the building’s central kitchen, and the robots will prepare it and deliver it for you, using eggs sent directly from a farm that morning by drone.
The very near future
I tell a lot of people about these technologies becoming accessible, and they tend to dismiss it as something in the distant future, perhaps something that governments will try to stop, something potentially dangerous, or something which we might not even have to think about in our lifetime. But this is not science fiction or something distant. This is already happening. Google’s autonomous vehicle is already on the roads, along with autonomous trucks; Baxter the robot is already in factories. This is real change that’s already occurring. In five years, these technologies could have a dominant role in many economies.
This could provide many people a problem which they never thought they would have – the problem of having too much money. Of course, many people will squander their newfound wealth. But many more will save it, and take a risk on creating a new technological breakthrough, propelling us exponentially into a future where grand luxuries aren’t just available for the few, but for the many. What would you do if you were living at a 50% discount?
"I'm not a plagiarist!" notice
I originally posted this article on our website here: The age of automation - The Paradise Paradox.
About me
My name is Kurt Robinson. I grew up in Australia, but now I live in Guadalajara, Jalisco. I write interesting things about voluntaryism, futurism, science fiction, travelling Latin America, and psychedelics. Remember to press follow so you can stay up to date with all the cool shit I post, and follow our podcast where we talk about crazy ideas for open-minded people, here: @paradise-paradox.
Some other cool posts
Here are some other posts of mine to check out:
Choose Liberty, or Choose Domination
Would you prefer to live in a just world? - An argument for liberty
Economics lessons from an alien 👽 A true science fiction story
It's always seemed so strange to me how people look at new production methods being cheaper than the old as a -bad- thing. Like, goodness, how terrible that it costs half as much time and energy to produce thing X.
Yes. They're concerned about their livelihoods no doubt. It's hard for people to see that things will be better in the long run, when they or their friends have invested so much energy into a pursuit which is now obsolete.
It takes about 4 years for a London cabbie to gain "The Knowledge" - that is, to learn the intimate details of the London streets. It's an comparable level of knowledge to gaining a university degree... But when GPS navigation devices came out, London cabbies really should have taken a hint and realised that The Knowledge might not be so valuable for much longer. I guess it's hard to see what the future holds when you're so invested in the present.
Yeah. It's just part of modern culture, to cultivate 'secret knowledge' and then do everything to be a gatekeeper when the knowledge stops being secret. Hell, I work in IT, and any time someone will listen, I will explain everything I know about what caused their problem and how to avoid it again until they tell me to shut up so they can get back to work.
If your job relies upon no one else having your knowledge, you need to either restructure your job, or get a different career, because that model is dead.
That's a nice quote, though it's funny to think about. We all have access to so much information for almost free... If a specialist is going to provide value, he has to be very good to know more than Google, smarter than Google, faster than Google, or do things in a more accessible way than Google.
Well, really, you don't have to be that good to be better, smarter, faster, or more accessible than google. A lot of the time, it's not what you know, but what you know about what you know, or even what you know about what you know about what you know about google. anyone can find the information eventually, but the more complicated your job, the longer it will take them, and time is money. So don't rely upon other people not being able to know stuff. Just rely upon the depth of your knowledge. They can get it eventually, but that's a lot of effort, and people often don't care to learn. I still have people who don't know the difference between a router, a modem, a server, or the internet.
@churdtzu
Indeed many people don't notice how far we have come as humanity over the last 3 centuries. I am sure some guys in the industrial era must have been pretty pissed with the steam machine but eventually new jobs were created —jobs that no one could have imagined in their wildest dreams.
Something similar happens today. I mean, who would have thought back in the 1950's that there would be a thing today called "social media manager".
This is fantastic. I looked forward to the day when automation has taken over the production of most goods and services we consume on a daily basis. Many people I've broached this subject with fall into the same refrain about jobs disappearing, but new jobs will be produced. As with any other good or service, one has to make their labor competitive with others. Retarding innovation and improvement to save someone's job is incredibly short-sighted and selfish, in my opinion.
Yes. You've probably seen this video:
It's a great video with a lot of information about emerging technology... but then he gets to the conclusion and says horses became obsolete in the economy, why won't we? Well... horses don't buy ketchup or motorcycles. We can have an economy with zero horses, but it's very difficult for us to have an economy with zero humans, at least for now.
I can't see everybody losing their jobs for now, but if it really does happen, then that will probably mean that the society is so productive, that nobody has any reason to work, except in the capacity that they find enjoyable - maybe like posting on Steemit.
Incredible article. I read about baxter recently. Not only a cheap robot but he can be programmed very easily to do many different tasks that currently cost quite a lot in the form of employees. I do wonder however what impact this will have on those who are not fully aware the age of automation is upon us. Will they continue to make money from jobs that will soon be replaced by robots ? Will they prosper ?
Thank you for the article. A very enjoyable read.
I'm often amazed at how difficult people find it to see into the future or into the past, to get an idea of what will happen based on current trends, but then I realise how much time I've spent learning to do those things, and how esoteric they really are. Most people don't spend their time trying to piece together facts, to infer trends, to project those trends, and then combine those trends to see how they will interact. Unfortunately, that may mean many people will suffer, being shocked into the new reality instead of easing themselves into it.
I'm sure most of these people will prosper eventually, but the future is always going to be a lot easier for the people who can see it coming.
@churdtzu, I agree... many don't and won't see this exponential future coming... that may mean many people will suffer, but that's where all of us come in ... guys, we can and must do our best to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering to so many people. I probably sound like Captain Planet here, "with our powers combined", lol -, but, seriously - thank you for sharing and writing this stuff with us all and making more of us aware. I do believe that it is up to us to create a future that is one in which we will be proud of... I think that it's our responsibility now, guys and gals, to help do everything that we can together to make the future bright for everyone, not just those of us who are aware...
I just made my first post about how I was feeling with regards to stuff like this. I look forward to seeing what we can all come up with to take massive action.
peace
Successful companies have therefore relied on continuous automation, because it offers advantages such as time and cost saving
Automation is a great tool for a lot of industries and jobs, especially dangerous ones where people were losing their lives. but this whole self driving car thing? not sure I would feel too comfortable giving up total control to a machine or AI
Yes, I think a lot of people feel that way, so car companies will have to work that much harder to make these products really safe. Anyway, at least we will have the choice of choosing human drivers or machine drivers - providing governments don't outlaw human drivers.
Great post!
I love these futurist thinking ideas. I really do think this is the most amazing time to be alive.
Cheers Luke
Hey @churdtzu, I just saw this post on automation and also was checking out ...THE GAME... that @andrarchy posted. I think you dudes are onto something.
I posted a quick response with my own thoughts about how THE GAME can help us all create a real world of abundance 4 everyone. THE GAME... I love it.
Here's my post (don't laugh at me, lol): https://steemit.com/steemit/@fast2future/together-let-s-build-the-fastest-growing-company-ever
The Steemit Community is going to change the world many times over.
I look forward to helping!!!
Great post @churdtzu!
Thanks Adil