I recently caught part of “I, Robot.” For those who haven’t seen it, the relevant thing to know is that it is set a few decades down the line where society is filled with humanoid robots that are not sentient (with an exception), but are physically capable of doing anything a human can, and are shown doing just about all the “blue collar” jobs: FedEx delivery, bartender, housework, cooking, dog-walking, construction, etc.
Unlike a lot of sci-fi robots (what with feelings and souls and such), this sort of thing I can see happening. Of course, the robots shown here probably miss out on accurate prices… I just can’t see a humanoid robot that can do pretty much anything going for much less than the price of a good car. So your average schmoe very likely won’t be able to afford new robots for a good long while.
But here’s the thing: not only would average schmoes be unable to afford such robots… they’d be *replace* by such robots. One of the sillier aspect of Star Trek: The Next Generation was the notion that “technology had freed humanity,” that now that material needs were met, people were free to explore their potential. Well, no, sorry. Look at lottery winners: how many of them wind up drunk and broke?
But robo-slaves that can do *most* of the jobs humans can do are coming. Hell, this won’t even necessarily be limited to blue collar stuff… surgeons could be easily replaced (robots are doing some pretty advanced operations even now). So… what to do here?
Assume a future America with a population of 350 million people… 200 million of whom are economically redundant. Assuming that a robo-slave costs fifty grand, few people will be able to buy one… but employers will *easily* be able to do so. This will lead to very bad things, I think. A permanently unemployable *large* fraction of the population would lead to violence and revolution and death and destruction.
So how to deal with it?
1) Ban such robots: won’t work. Not only will certain areas of the economy *scream* for such robots… other nations will employ them to economic advantage.
2) Provide full employment-level free income to people who are replaced by robo-slaves. This is also bad. Costs a lot, while subsidizing people to do *nothing.* Perhaps link such payments to sterility treatments?
3) Make robo-slaves available for free, one per working-age adult. Everyone has a robotic doppleganger that you can send out to do work. If the robots are all made to the same basic specification, then anyones robot can do any basic job, which means that all such jobs are economically identical: construction worker or dog walker, they all cost the same, and thus draw the same rate of pay. Alternatively, if the robots are identical, simply rotate them from job to job… one day they’re working as a burger joint for five bucks an how, the next they’re building houses for twenty dollars an hour, the next they’re tort lawyers for fifty cents an hour.
4) Similar: everyone gets a robo-slave. The programming to do everything from janitorial work to brain surgery can be downloaded and installed for free. But… a robots *license* to perform such tasks is based on the owner having proven to have those skills him/herself. Thus if you get your free bot and you promptly decide to devote your life to being a drunk or a chav or a partier or other such “excess population,” your robot is allowed only to do minimum wage jobs. if you want to rake in the big money through your robot, then you need to train up in how to be a brain surgeon, a Navy SEAL, a fighter pilot, a nuclear reactor tech or an SPS construction worker. Something *easy* for robots to do but difficult for humans.
On one hand, a limitation of one robot per human would seem to make sense. But passing laws banning someone from owning a whole army of bots would seem as legally dubious as laws that limit gun purchases or allow you to only have a single book in your library or one car in your garage.
So corporations would either be allowed, or not allowed, to buy their own bots. If they could, they’d staff every single possible job with their own in-house, specially fitted-out bots, and would have little to no need for outside bots. And thus you’d have boatloads of unemployed people with unemployed robots. Feh. But the Constitutional justification for disallowing someone to purchase as many robots as they want seems lacking.
Anybody got any ideas?