At the moment machines have no volition, they do what they are told by those who own or operate them. They may or may not develop volition in the future, I suspect they will but machines do not actually have any will right now.

A worker creates economic value and in turn receives a wage. With his wage, the worker spends a fraction of this economic value and keeps trade circulating.

A machine/slave creates economic value but doesn't receive a wage. This economic value it has created, someone else has to take care to keep that value circulating. Machines aren't paying customers.

I've been studying 3D printing lately and it's definitely a game changer for manufacturing. I can upload a 3D model to a website and have the physical object in a surprising variety of materials come in the mail a few days later. There are free modeling tools available that will definitely make useful printable 3D models.

As always it's a race between our ability to destroy ourselves and our ability to save ourselves from our own worst impulses.

Let's say, a worker produces a fraction of a car each day in a factory and receives a wage in return.
The factory gives the worker money.
Add up enough days and the worker buys a car.
The worker gives the factory money.

Let's say, a machine produces a fraction of a car each day in a factory, but receives no wage.
The factory loses a tiny amount of money on the production-costs.
As the machine has no wage, it will never buy a car.
So, who will compensate the factory for their effort to build something?



In a society where anybody can produce anything, trade would no longer be needed and accordingly money would no longer be needed.

But before we get there, we get a meta-stable state where some people can produce anything and the rest of the people cannot afford to buy it.

We're stuck with it for a long time.

Marshall Brain saw this coming about ten years ahead of most everyone else. Smart guy.

When a manufacturing plant relocates to Mexico or contracts their production to east Asia, it has zero to do with automation.

There are two trends going on: jobs moving overseas, and jobs being lost to machines. The two of them don't contradict each other! In fact, their combined effect makes matters worse.

A machine still needs an operator, maintenance person, and programmer. They may be more efficient than a manual operation but currently still have humans supporting them.

Relocating a plant eliminates all the jobs.

so he has something to blame Hillary and Obama for. Lots of jobs were being ELIMINATED or going to Mexico BEFORE NAFTA. It's scary because machines are not going away.

Our jobs that are going to other humans being paid slave wages so the uber wealthy get even wealthier.

It may very well be a problem in the future, but we aren't there yet.

...making women their boogyman economically.

my business to a place like Walmart or Home Depot that insist you check yourself out. If they can't pay a person to greet you, answer questions, and run a cash register, then I'm not contributing to their stock holders.