Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where ‘machines can make all the food and stuff’ isn’t a bad idea::“A society where you only have to work three days a week, that’s probably OK,” Bill Gates said.
it will NEVER happen as long as we live in an oligarchy in which the rich are dependent on the lower classes not only for their labor but they also need us to exist for their feelings of superiority. They need people below them to feel good about themselves, they will NEVER let us escape the wage-slave to profit vacuumer dichotomy.
I disagree, I think it’s always just about money. Power hungry-ness comes from the fear of losing your current position, the fear of not advancing and getting left behind. With power they secure the position they have. And it’s not just exclusive to the rich. You can see the exact same pattern in a random fucking McDonald’s.
If it was more profitable (and possible) to automate 40% of work at any given company (the ratio Gates said in this article), everyone would do it in a heartbeat.
Exactly.
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The easy solutiont o that is getting rid of the oligarchs then.
We’re already at the point where don’t have to work 4 days a week tho.
Sometimes I wonder what they would do if you could make endless perfect copies of objects like you can mp3s.
Dududdo you wouldn’t copy a car. You wouldn’t copy a cheeseburger Copying is a crime.
Like remember it’s only been recently that it became possible to make endless copies of media at effectively no cost.
They would figure it out some way to enforce artificial scarcity. Can’t have poor people getting free stuff without being worthy.
Can I introduce you to Star Trek?
In The Orville (Seth MacFarlane Star Trek-like show) they actually have a brief discussion about how if that technology was plonked into a world like we have today, it would not be used to make life better for everyone. It would be capitalised on.
Imagine if you could create food at no cost. You think everyone is getting fed, or do you think one company is going to have massive profit margins selling food that it costs nothing to produce?
I don’t remember that bit but I think I only watched the first season of the Orville and that was years ago.
But yeah really depends on how difficult the equipment itself is to replicate.
If it’s some massive machine the size of a room it’s going to make some company extremely rich, they’d sell product for slightly less than normal market value taking over the market with perfectly consistent product and insane margins allowing legal capture.
Why feed everyone when you can almost literally print money?
If it’s something small that can be easily transported and duplicated? Piracy. Nobody will give AF about patents and everyone will have them within a couple years no matter what laws they try to implement or how they try and prevent it.
This has actually already happened with media and this is exactly how it has played out and a lot of people still seem to be in denial.
They can complain and sick lawyers on as many people as they want but they can still make a million copies of something that cost 400 million to make for less than than the cost of a gumball.
The law surrounding it is completely broken and it’s crazy that so many industries are trying to continue on like nothing has changed.
I think it was a 30 second part of the last episode in season 3, I watched it (for the first time) recently so remember it.
I guess it depends who develops it. If Apple invent it then you can be sure they aren’t selling them to anyone else, it will just be secretly used to print iPhones and no one else will have access to one, so no piracy of iPhones.
If a third party company invents it then starts trying to sell them to other companies, then maybe that outcome will be better.
If it’s room sized and sold to other companies it will rapidly be in multiple countries.
There wouldn’t be any way to keep it to one company with it being public knowledge.
Like realistically I’d think any country would ignore whatever laws on the books and just outright sieze the tech as a matter of national security and duplicate it for their own use if they found out a company was hiding such a thing.
From there it’d again leak to all other major countries in short order.
If it’s small and easy to duplicate, (can it replicate itself?) It would spread like wildfire and would like piracy be completely uncontainable.
I don’t think there is anyway the tech could be either contained or kept secret any real length of time.
Hmm you make a good point. I was assuming Apple would just claim a sort of trade secret, I hadn’t thought that governments may seize it.
The other thing is that technology doesn’t really go nothing->machine that replicates anything
Most likely it will start with a machine that can 3d print edible apples from shelf stable source material or something like that. Then someone improves it to be able to do any fruit from the same source material. Then someone improves it so if you feed in a range of different source materials (say, a bunch of metals, glass, and plastic) you can print usable electronics or something. Then someone improves it so it can do the same thing but with one mix of materials instead of separate ones. And so one and so one until you can make almost anything.
At the print 3d apples stage, it will probably get sold to the army for supply rations. Then the maker will look for other places to sell it, then when technology advances people will get updated versions. There probably wouldn’t be a benefit to a company hiding it because at any point the difference from the publically available one is not that big.
If you look back at any major invention, lightbulb, radio, etc. You find that in fact these things predated their supposed invention, there was just some small change that made it commercially viable from the previous version.
I’ve always envisioned this type of utopia to be robot based, with a few machines thrown in for sure. I’ve thought if you can robots plant, grow and harvest the raw food. Then have autonomous trucks drive that food to processing plants that then have robots and machines processing it. You then again have autonomous trucks drive it to the grocery “store” that then have robots placing the product you could in theory make all food free*. (add a billion asterisks to that last statement) Making the food free would probably require the entire economy to migrate to robot workers as much as possible or at least have it be where the robots make other robots so at least they are low cost/free to make. It’ll never happen, we’re totally destined for a Cyberpunk future instead of Star Trek future, but it’s at least fun to think about.
We do if we want to pay the rent.
From the employee perspective yes, we have to work 4 days a week, but from the employer perspective, there’s no need to work 4 days a week. In fact, it’s even less productive than working 5 days a week.
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Capitalism and automation cannot coexist. Fallout 76 players know it very well.
What a stupid ass… yeah we’re just gonna magically erase all the inequality that YOU HELPED CREATE because robots can make us sandwiches. Sure. That’ll totally work out.
How are we going to get there, Mr Philanthropist?
Assuming the owners of those machines don’t restrict the people’s access to that “food and stuff”
People who sell things that are in high demand and necessary for survival generally are not in the practice of denying people access to those things.
Also, What mind bending drugs are you on? Healthcare is riddled with examples of denied insurance claims for treatments.
Um healthcare?
Health care providers are not in the habit of denying care. Health insurers are because they have a perverse incentives to do so - this is why they should not exist
Exactly the people who sell the thing in high demand the issurers are in the business of denying care to people by raising prices on healthcare. I feel like your mind is in the right place I agree insurance companies shouldn’t exist but what you said in your first comment is false large companies who sell high demand products absolutely gouge on prices all of the time.
That’s literally not true though. They compete with each other over offering the lowest price.
That’s funny. In reality they compete on increasing shareholder profits by colluding on prices and paying their employees as little as possible. And to be crystal clear “they” are the CEOS/boards of most major companies.
This is not at all how businesses operate lol
In what world? Outside of government exchanges, you’re limited to the plan your employer offers you.
We were discussing large corps that aren’t insurance companies
if you won’t deny a thing to someone it’s pretty hard to sell it to anyone
Then i have got a bridge to sell you. Its quite necessary you see…
You think Bill Gates of all people don’t know that? He’s just trying to gaslight us into thinking the stupid-rich gigacorporation owners like him are the solution and not the problem.
I don’t know about that. Young ruthless Bill Gates was another person, older and wiser Bill Gates has already achieved richest person in the world, Forbes #1, etc etc - all that’s in the rearview mirror - I believe he has awakened and realized it takes a village and he wants his legacy to reflect that
What’s more likely, a complete reversal of his world view, or a good PR team and some coaching. I’m not buying the first, especially considering that his Jeffrey Epstein association came after he left MS and started running his charitable foundation.
Bill Gates hasn’t really changed dude. He’s just developed a thicker veneer. He’s the largest landowner in the US now, because he’s been buying up as much arable land as possible. He can say its BAU all he wants, it’s incredibly sketchy af. Now in conjunction with this statement, its easy to see where once he cornered the software market, you could infer he’s aspiring to do the same with food with full automation.
Michael Burry (guy from the big short) has been doing the same. We all know climate change is going to fuck us, we all know we are headed towards serious water shortages, etc - these guys also know and have money to position themselves - for what final gameplan I don’t know, but at least with Gates his recent history has shown a care for the greater good for humanity at least. Can’t say the same for other billionaires.
I know Bills history pretty well, I just see a difference between him now and how he was a ruthless businessman in his prior life. Maybe he has me fooled, but I don’t really see it other than people’s conspiracy theory stuff. Guys like Elon are another story though
Just goes to show how you can change your public image with shit loads of money. He just laundered his image real good and you just ate it up.
He has not “awakened” to anything. He’s just very good at selling his BS. What’s even worse is that now if you bring up his shitty ways, you are associated with the anti vax idiots.
Utopia would be one where humans can focus on art and science to advance our race while the mundane work of running a society is all automated. Stuff like this is not enough, but it seems like a step in the right direction where income remains the same to maintain a standard of living while still producing the same output
He’s ok with it as long as the machines are all running Windows, and he gets his fair share.
I don’t think ol’ Billy cares much about Windows anymore, I’ll be honest.
Given that he has flirted heavily with Samsung as of recently.
It’s not a bad idea, but it also can’t exist without a complete re-haul of what it means to live in modern society. Right now, replacing workers and cutting hours means people don’t have enough money to live. That is not an acceptable result of automation. I’m not qualified enough to have a reasonable solution to this, but I know it needs to be addressed before we get to that point.
Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing now
Some of you [all rich folks] may cry but its a sacrifice I am willing to make
Look at this guy who doesn’t have billions he made from the 90s and 2000s to rely on!
In 2010 Bill Gates was worth 50 Billion. He is now worth 117 Billion.
He ain’t exactly coasting. He just has a higher PR budget than he did back in the 90s.
The machine doesn’t require a salary but instead of sending the money it saves to the workers it replaces it is added to the yearly profits, a three day work week with more automatisation can’t happen before that last part is reversed or there’s extreme deflation happening to compensate for lower wages.
I do wonder if this is even a money thing as even OpenAI has warned investors that money in the future is not certain. Maybe we are going to be forced to look to alternatives other than money as the means of value?
Isn’t this the primary argument for universal basic income? If you’re keeping unnecessary jobs around just to give people something to do, you’re not actually keeping them for contributions to society… In the long run ubi could probably even be cheaper than paying to prop up obsolete and wholly unnecessary industries.
While true, UBI would have to be funded by corporate tax.
“We no longer need people to be able to sell and deliver our products”
^ Win for the corporations
“Virtually no (low-income) property is unoccupied now. And my middle class tenants are making more from UBI, so I raised rent”
^ Win for landlords (which are mostly corporations)
“We can now demographically target ads to UBI payouts to get people to spend their money”
^ Win for corporations
It continues, but the general idea is that, while the populace could benefit from UBI, if it just comes from their taxes it’s not going to shrink class division in any way, but increase it
Yes, funding UBI with raised corporate taxes is absolutely not optional, I agree completely.
At the end of the day, simplified, UBI means: massive cuts to the workforce, in lieu of technology that can perform the exact same tasks more efficiently, for less; all the while paying people money at the same or similar levels of what they earned before.
It would be insane to assume the former would just grow wealthier over night while the latter is relegated to being financed by - in this example - wishful thinking. The money’s gotta come from somewhere, and it makes sense it be the same place it’s (supposed to be) coming from now.
If everyone gets UBI, I assume it is still optional to work. Otherwise no one would produce goods and services that we consume in order to live. Or at least fixing the robots.
I assume the incentive for that is additional income.
Wouldn’t this then create an even larger gap in income inequality? And further dilute the spending power of those who are only able to collect UBI?
It would, yes. But, the argument is that a person who wants a higher quality of life than “simply living” would be expected to work.
The right to life is, this way, protected - the right to a quality life, similar to today, would still have to be earned. This is in addition to the social pressure to work.
Also, one idea is that UBI would give people the financial space to pursue their own interests which in turn could easily --at least in some cases-- be turned into productive businesses of their own.
Until machines get real AI and humanity get fucked up. 🤣🤣
Real talking: I believe what the majority of people need are better payment and wealth redistribution.
Great. Now tell us about your flights on Epstein’s plane.
As an end goal, with something like UBI and rescaled salaries etc … yes, this obviously true.
The catch is that there’d be a transition period, with uncertainties and states of incomplete capacity either from the AI or the implementation of the rearrangements of salaries etc.
In that phase, there will be opportunities for people or companies to acquire power and wealth over this new future. Who will make and sell the AIs? Who will decide what gets automated and how and with what supervision. That’s where the danger lies. It’s a whole new field of power to grab.
that’s not a problem because I plan on rising to power soon and will not let that happen
Woah there LeroyJenkins, we don’t need you rushing in too soon now
We need to have a plan in place first
oh my God he just ran in…
God dammit leroy
Nah, Bill said where the machines make the food. So, we’re good. Least we got chicken.
I disagree, I vote for Leroy Jenkins to have all the power! All hail our new randomly selected overlord! 😁
Great, that can be his next project after making sure the COVID vaccine was subject to patent law.
Fuck Bill gates
“I mean, it’s sure been great for me folks!”
