The Perennial Robot Question
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alex_greene said:
Because unless we make our AIs to be just like us we'll never be content with them being our ambassadors. I personally believe that things like getting bored of repetitive tasks, fractious opinions, and so on are actually survival traits. No "AI" without these traits will ever be truly intelligent and so they might be entitled to some sort of legal protection, but they'll always be dependent on human "managers" until we're willing to go all the way, which will ironically remove a lot of the benefit of having AIs, at least for space exploration.
In IMTU, I take the tack that Vilani technological conservatism was their solution to these problems. The Vilani realized their machines were literally automating them out of relevance. They realized that these ideal "creative" industries couldn't employ an entire population while human service industries had severe problems with worker stress and lack of fulfillment. They also realized that no welfare society of "self-fulfilling philosopher-kings" would ever work - humans are covetous and greedy as part of our nature and naturally desire to have "haves" and "have-nots" to fulfill our basic non-rational animal desires.
The Vilani solution was to step back from that point. They deliberately passed laws, created customs, and changed their thinking. Technological innovation was unnecessary. Humans were reintroduced to many jobs, with the full knowledge machines could do them better and more cheaply - the inefficiency was something that could be planned for. The desires that might lead Vilani scientists towards improving automation were instead channeled to other ends, such as social advancement.
The Solomani didn't see the point to all of this. Their rapid technological innovation allowed them to overcome the Vilani. However, the price of this "freedom" was steadily the steady eroding of the human condition. The wealthiest Solomani controlled their society by controlling the forces of automation and through them all of the resources. The desire to leave such a dead-end world propelled Solomani emigration and colonization where human work still had value because it was simply too expensive to automate humans out of everything; given time the same cycle would repeat itself endlessly on every Solomani world, but this was considered acceptable as it'd create an ever-expanding human sphere.
The Imperium more or less blended the two methods. The Imperium would adopt slow, measured technological progress. The Imperial family (and therefore the Imperium) held large stakes in every meagcorporation. Through the megacorporations, the Imperium ruled. The price of automation was kept artificially high through the use of cartels and megacorporate product dumping to push those who didn't play by the rules out of business while still providing an illusion of lassiez-faire economics that is the unrealistic utopia of the official 3I materials. As a result of this cost, in many industries the cost of automation was so high that it simply wasn't worth automating, allowing the "average citizen" to find some sort of meaningful employment.
Nathan Brazil
Banded Mongoose
Institutionalized cultural fear can be a factor. Has anyone forgotten Mentats in Dune? What was the Butlerian Jihad about?
In the OTU, the Vilani suffered from the Ancient's War Machines going bumpity, bumpity, bump in Vland's earliest recorded history. The Agent of the Imperium novel notes their existence as public Knowledge, not as myth. Thousands of years of fleeing battling machines might cause one to have a social stigma against robots.
In the OTU, the Vilani suffered from the Ancient's War Machines going bumpity, bumpity, bump in Vland's earliest recorded history. The Agent of the Imperium novel notes their existence as public Knowledge, not as myth. Thousands of years of fleeing battling machines might cause one to have a social stigma against robots.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Then they managed to get hold of a Terran film library; zombies may have been an alien concept to them, but terminators were not.
alex_greene
Guest
Never mind zombies. Try and imagine explaining talking cartoon ducks and rabbits to them.Condottiere said:
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
An employee on a starship costs 1000 Credits a month in life support costs, plus salary. So a mechanic costs 24 000 Credits a year. A robot does not cost the life support.
Let's look at an Astro Mech Droid. It costs a million credits. What is the payback on this thing?
Astrogation 3: So saves 5000 a month. 60 000 a year
It can pilot: 6000 a month, 72 000 a year
It can engineer: 4000 a month, 48 000 a year.
So which jobs to replace? Suppose you replace 1 shift a day of astrogator and save 60 000 a year, and 2 shifts a day as an engineer and save 96 000 a year. You keep your pilot organic.
This save 156 000 Credits a year in salaries and 36 000 a year in life support cost, 192 000 a year in savings. This means a million credit mech pays for itself in just over 5 years. That's not a bad payback.
The robot skill set at rank 3 is excellent and a human rank 3 may want more than the salary listed on pg 21 of Highguard. The small ship's best friend is the description of the robot. I could see them being on as many small trading craft as the owners could afford.
Let's look at an Astro Mech Droid. It costs a million credits. What is the payback on this thing?
Astrogation 3: So saves 5000 a month. 60 000 a year
It can pilot: 6000 a month, 72 000 a year
It can engineer: 4000 a month, 48 000 a year.
So which jobs to replace? Suppose you replace 1 shift a day of astrogator and save 60 000 a year, and 2 shifts a day as an engineer and save 96 000 a year. You keep your pilot organic.
This save 156 000 Credits a year in salaries and 36 000 a year in life support cost, 192 000 a year in savings. This means a million credit mech pays for itself in just over 5 years. That's not a bad payback.
The robot skill set at rank 3 is excellent and a human rank 3 may want more than the salary listed on pg 21 of Highguard. The small ship's best friend is the description of the robot. I could see them being on as many small trading craft as the owners could afford.
alex_greene
Guest
Consider older free traders whose mostly robot automated crew had mostly been paid off, and the only crew positions which needed filling by organics would be the human captain, pilot and a couple of stewards for passengers.PsiTraveller said:
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
This increases the income of the ship, pays for repairs etc.
Of course if a naughty person hacks the robots and turns them into thieves that pilfer things from other passengers, or catalogue good gear in the cargo hold etc, well that would be an adventure.
Robots can be hacked, turned off, zapped into repair mode and re-programmed. Humans can be bribed, threatened, blackmailed and suborned. Even Suk school conditioning has been overcome.
Of course if a naughty person hacks the robots and turns them into thieves that pilfer things from other passengers, or catalogue good gear in the cargo hold etc, well that would be an adventure.
Robots can be hacked, turned off, zapped into repair mode and re-programmed. Humans can be bribed, threatened, blackmailed and suborned. Even Suk school conditioning has been overcome.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
The ongoing logic being used here says there is a robot that must replace the stewards and pilot too. The captain could also be replaced if it's not the owner. In a robot automated world, no one is needed except the person(s) at the top and the only people who can afford to use the products and services are the wealthy at the top who are the only ones left on the economic pyramid. All other positions and labor are automated. All other organics are wasteful and unnecessary. Robotic factories build robots to build robots to perform all tasks other than wealth accumulation. Those Free Traders and Subsidized Liners will be Ubers solely for the rich.
But at least money was saved. I guess everyone here would be willing to give up ever working again to save all that money. But remember the people at the top solely benefitting from a fully automated society will not stand for a welfare state taking their money. Sounds more and more like today. Does that sound like a really fun game?
But at least money was saved. I guess everyone here would be willing to give up ever working again to save all that money. But remember the people at the top solely benefitting from a fully automated society will not stand for a welfare state taking their money. Sounds more and more like today. Does that sound like a really fun game?
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Well this is the struggle facing us today, and for the future. The idea of work in exchange for money to buy things. So what happens when we can produce everything people need with fewer workers. What happens to the surplus people?
I had it explained this way. The United States has 350 million people, Canada has 35 million people. Assuming all else is equal the U.S. could produce everything Canada produces by increasing output by 10 percent. So if the work week was 40 hours, if everyone in the U,S, worked a Saturday morning shift Canada could shut down its factories. That is a really rough analogy but it gets the point across. We do not need everyone to work in the countries now. Productivity has gone up tremendously. Farmers feed more people now with fewer farmers. Factories produce more steel per employee then ever before. Automation is changing the very nature of work.
So what will the future look like? Star Trek with no money and people striving to be the best they can be because they can. They've eliminated want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp3OhC3NoMk
This is of course contrasted with the need for Voyager to trade for dilithum crystals and paying for things with mined and refined ore. Barter makes a comeback at certain points in the series.
I do not think there is an answer for this. Each GM will adjust things for their game and ignore efficiencies that robots represent. Or they go full Virus and have legions of TL 14 Terminators stomping folks across the remains of the Imperium.
I had it explained this way. The United States has 350 million people, Canada has 35 million people. Assuming all else is equal the U.S. could produce everything Canada produces by increasing output by 10 percent. So if the work week was 40 hours, if everyone in the U,S, worked a Saturday morning shift Canada could shut down its factories. That is a really rough analogy but it gets the point across. We do not need everyone to work in the countries now. Productivity has gone up tremendously. Farmers feed more people now with fewer farmers. Factories produce more steel per employee then ever before. Automation is changing the very nature of work.
So what will the future look like? Star Trek with no money and people striving to be the best they can be because they can. They've eliminated want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp3OhC3NoMk
This is of course contrasted with the need for Voyager to trade for dilithum crystals and paying for things with mined and refined ore. Barter makes a comeback at certain points in the series.
I do not think there is an answer for this. Each GM will adjust things for their game and ignore efficiencies that robots represent. Or they go full Virus and have legions of TL 14 Terminators stomping folks across the remains of the Imperium.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
What happened to the "surplus people" when agriculture was mechanised? What happened to all the "surplus people" when manufacturing was mechanised? What happened to all the "surplus people" when factories were automated?PsiTraveller said:
People have imagined that demand for labour was limited for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
There is a simple explanation for why it's not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
PsiTraveller said:
What happens to them now? Economics changes over time, this has always been true. Fundamentally, welfare is cheaper, giving someone $20,000 to live is cheaper than warehousing them in a jail for $80,000. In the future, say something like "post scarcity" (vs the artificial scarcity we have now), is to hedge a bet that your top producers, such as Einstein, add more value than the surplus can absorb. "A rising tide raises all boats" as it were, plus people can add value is other ways beyond just labor, intangibles, such as IP or knowledge capital. As things rise and converge they become more efficient as well, no more countries and no more borders as barriers to commerce, reduced military, law enforcement, and general social control structures. It is interesting in that it is where libertarian and anarchist philosophies converge.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
We hit ten billion pop, or A.
The one million most powerful people cherry pick the best, brightest and most beautiful hundred million.
The remaining ten billion get to play survival of the fittest in dystopian semi waste lands.
The one million most powerful people cherry pick the best, brightest and most beautiful hundred million.
The remaining ten billion get to play survival of the fittest in dystopian semi waste lands.
alex_greene
Guest
We hit the stars.Condottiere said:
alex_greene
Guest
I posted a vast, intricate post here on how this sort of future is impossible, and it got deleted.
The machine lost it.
This is why robots will never take over: they cannot make mistakes, but then they cannot do anything right either. Accomplishment and failure are what human beings do; robots can only complete a task, partially complete it or not complete it. It is unimportant to the robot if the part it just made comes out as a flawless tool or a misshapen lump of metal. It's all exactly the same to it. It takes a human, with its ability to override the robot, toaccomplish the task - or fail at it.
RUR is a pretty bleak story, but it is no longer an accurate vision of the world. Robots would mean the death of the Victorian work ethic that defines a person in terms of the work they do, and that is it. Once freed from the requirement to work for money to buy the basic means to live, people are free to discover that they can find their own purpose - something robots can never do.
There'll never be a surplus population, because they'll always be consumers who will need to be served, and it is human needs which drive the economy. Humans want things. Robots do not want anything. A shoemaker once boasted that he could replace his entire workforce of one hundred with a robot workforce of ten; his wife replied "That's a hundred and ten workers who won't buy your shoes."
Robots are powerful, sure. But a future ruled by robots is about as likely as the paperless office. Neither is going to happen. Jarvis never created the Iron man suit; it was Tony Stark. Star Trek's food replicators might be able to synthesise a burger, but they can never cook it (and replicated raw ingredients apparently never cook well).
Even with robots being nigh-ubiquitous, there'll always be company owners, and consumers, who prefer their products to be made by organics with robot assistance for tasks like packing, loading and shipping, the routine tasks that can easily be taken care of by automata; and even if they had companies like accountants, where all the actual hard work is done by accountancy droids, customers would still mostly prefer to see human faces deliver the good news, or the bad news, about their accounts.
Same goes for medics, artists, diplomats and so on - the public, the *cough* surplus public, would rather see real people acting. A lifelike android playing a violin on the stage, or a hologram idoru run by an AI, might seem like a marvel at TL 8 or even TL 9; but by TL 10 and higher, they'd go right back to the organic virtuosos.
The machine lost it.
This is why robots will never take over: they cannot make mistakes, but then they cannot do anything right either. Accomplishment and failure are what human beings do; robots can only complete a task, partially complete it or not complete it. It is unimportant to the robot if the part it just made comes out as a flawless tool or a misshapen lump of metal. It's all exactly the same to it. It takes a human, with its ability to override the robot, toaccomplish the task - or fail at it.
RUR is a pretty bleak story, but it is no longer an accurate vision of the world. Robots would mean the death of the Victorian work ethic that defines a person in terms of the work they do, and that is it. Once freed from the requirement to work for money to buy the basic means to live, people are free to discover that they can find their own purpose - something robots can never do.
There'll never be a surplus population, because they'll always be consumers who will need to be served, and it is human needs which drive the economy. Humans want things. Robots do not want anything. A shoemaker once boasted that he could replace his entire workforce of one hundred with a robot workforce of ten; his wife replied "That's a hundred and ten workers who won't buy your shoes."
Robots are powerful, sure. But a future ruled by robots is about as likely as the paperless office. Neither is going to happen. Jarvis never created the Iron man suit; it was Tony Stark. Star Trek's food replicators might be able to synthesise a burger, but they can never cook it (and replicated raw ingredients apparently never cook well).
Even with robots being nigh-ubiquitous, there'll always be company owners, and consumers, who prefer their products to be made by organics with robot assistance for tasks like packing, loading and shipping, the routine tasks that can easily be taken care of by automata; and even if they had companies like accountants, where all the actual hard work is done by accountancy droids, customers would still mostly prefer to see human faces deliver the good news, or the bad news, about their accounts.
Same goes for medics, artists, diplomats and so on - the public, the *cough* surplus public, would rather see real people acting. A lifelike android playing a violin on the stage, or a hologram idoru run by an AI, might seem like a marvel at TL 8 or even TL 9; but by TL 10 and higher, they'd go right back to the organic virtuosos.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
No lift off.
