Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Stephen Hawking: Fear Capitalists, Not the Robots
From Huffpost's Business Section: Stephen Hawking Says We Should Be Scared of Capitalism Not Robots:
Machines won't bring about the economic robot apocalypse -- but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.
Quoting Dr. Hawking:
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
The Huffpost author responds:
Essentially, machine owners will become the bourgeoisie of a new era, in which the corporations they own won't provide jobs to actual human workers.
As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital -- such as stocks or property -- accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up.
As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital -- such as stocks or property -- accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up.
For decades, futurists have been talking about how the world of work will change due to the impact of automation. I remember reading articles on this back in the 1960s, when 'automation' meant numerically-controlled machines running off paper tapes and computers had (a lot) less power than your smartphone.
Much of the speculation was on how workers would deal with all the leisure time they would have. But, instead of people working 20 hours a week at steadily rising incomes, we have people working 2 or 3 jobs and still not making it.
This is an issue that the next president, and those who come after, will have to address. I don't think it can be addressed by the economic systems we have now; both capitalism and socialism as we know them are being made obsolete.
Edited to add: Sorry, didn't realize this was a dupe: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027246523
