by David A. Dietzler
The first thing we need is a cheap, abundant, non-polluting energy source to run all the machines like fusion or space solar power. Then, when AI robots do all the factory, cannery, steel mill, mining, textile mill, garment factory and much agricultural work and mass produced goods in enormous volume to supply the planet with cheap products results, people will be IT specialists, engineers, technicians, teachers, scientists, psychologists, child care specialists, security/law enforcement personnel, policemen, doctors, dentists, nurses, lawyers, judges, writers, artists, entertainers,actors, filmmakers, waiters, hotel keepers, tour guides, travel agents, pilots, chauffeurs, taxi drivers, bar tenders, carpenters, brick masons, electricians, plumbers, etc. Cars, clothes, computers, fuel, odds and ends, building materials, medicines, trucks, trains, airplanes, metals, foods, appliances, furniture, etc. will be so cheap that people will have more money to spend on:
1) Their kids. All schools will have one teacher per ten kids, assistants, psychologists and nurses with excellent food service and an administrative system and counseling staff capable of tailoring a kid's classes to his abilities sort of like in high school or college. Since building materials from robotic factories will be cheap and we will have more money to spend on school buildings we will be able to afford bigger better schools with good heat and AC, carpeted floors, etc. A better crop of kids should result and more jobs will be created in education from pre-school to college.
People will be able to afford better doctors and better foods for their kids and even nicer vacations with the kids along.
2) Their parents. Cheaper goods, money saved, more to spend on good nursing homes with good well paid staff and good security teams to prevent elderly abuses. More jobs will exist in caring for the elderly that should be done by humans. .
3) Education for themselves. More jobs for professors who teach adults. A more enlightened voting populace.
4) Bigger, better homes. Cheap building materials from robotic factories, saw mills, brickyards, quarries, steel mills, even robotic bulldozers that log forests and cheaper everything else means people will have more to spend on their homes. More jobs in home building and repair/remodeling-carpenters, masons, plumbers, etc. I sincerely doubt that androids capable of doing everything humans do will replace construction workers.
5) More for recreation like eating out, movies, sporting events, jet travel, cruise lines, resorts all over the free world. More jobs for waiters, live musicians, athletes, actors and filmmakers, pilots, ship crews, resort workers like cooks, room service, clerks, tour guides, etc. Working in a tropical resort beats a factory job in Detroit any time if the pay is good enough.
6) Fancier cars and luxuries like diamond rings, golden earrings, roses, fine wine, etc. And of course more jobs in the production of hand made luxuries and sales of these items. Let's not forget art. With more money to spend thanks to cheap products made by robot slaves rather than foreign sweat shop slaves at even lower prices, people will spend more on art, music and sculpture, and more people will work as artists, musicians and sculptors rather than factory drudges and mill workers.
7) SPACE TOURISM When people are working all these mostly human service and skilled trades jobs for high wages instead of being factory droids and things from toothbrushes to airplanes are cranked out by robots for low prices so people have money to spend on things besides cars, food, and all sorts of junk, they will even be able to save up or borrow money for space travel. This means jobs as rocket scientists, space pilots, space construction workers and teleoperated robot technicians, etc. Rockets will be produced en masse in AI automated factories along with other hardware. No more custom made hardware for every single mission. Standard rocketships for hauling people and standard rocketships for hauling cargo will be cranked out by robots. Boosters recovered from the sea will be refurbished on robotic assembly lines. The cost of space travel will be reasonable.
8) ROBOTICS Where will all the robots come from? At first, humans will make the robots, then humans will make robots that make robots and just kick back and let 'em rip. IT specialists will write software. Technicians will be needed to maintain and repair the robots. A factory that once employed 3000 will employ about 30 people and the price of things will fall accordingly because the cost of anything is mostly payroll with some profit, taxes, interest on debt, royalties, land lease or purchase costs tacked on.
9) BUSINESS Many products are made for doing business from computers to desks to office buildings to raw materials from mines to delivery trucks. With cheaper capital goods businesses will save money, avoid debt, and be able to sell cheaper products at a higher profit margin even. It will be easier for individuals, partners and small companies to start up businesses.
We will be freed from factory, mine, farm, etc. drudge work and dangers and do more interesting jobs. Fast food restaurants will be largely automated with robotic french fry makers and robot arms that yank out beef patties according to orders from the cash register and throw them on the grill, flip them, and slip them on to the assembly line where teenagers will add lettuce, pickles, buns, etc. Pharmacies have similar robots in the works that yank out pill bottles with mechanical arms according to directions from the cash register. Former fast food workers could go to schools of culinary art and become real chefs at fine restaurants or become mixologists...
We will have more to spend on scientific research, even if it comes out of our taxes to support the NIH and NIMH and CDC, and we will find more, better, faster, less painful, cheaper cures to all disease. This will help the economy tremendously. Mentally ill people will no longer endure multiple expensive hospitalizations and go back to work. Cancer victims will be cured without enduring the side effects of present day chemotherapy and spend less time off the job. Stem cells will cure diabetes and money now spent on insulin and other things for diabetics will be spent on better things. Lost and damaged organs will be regenerated with stem cells. The blind may see again and the brain damaged restored and the paralyzed spinal cord injury victims walk again thanks to stem cells. Genetic therapy could rid the human race of inherited disease and deformity.
We will have more to spend on law enforcement, fire departments and ambulances. More cops will spell lower crime rates and better life quality and less economic loss which will mean of course more jobs. AI electronic surveillance systems will also prevent crime. There will be more fire houses for quicker response to house fires and teleoperated rescue robots. We will spend more money on sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers and fire insurance when we don't have to spend so much on cars, fuel, clothes, and other things churned out of the robotic factories. We will have expensive flying ambulances that can land anywhere, unlike helicopters, and fly over traffic to hospitals where emergency surgery and treatment is applied to stroke, heart attack and accident victims.
There will also be jobs for financial planners, accountants, bankers, salesman and high level administrators whose productivity is increased by computers and cheaper business trips. Somebody will own the robotic factories and get fabulously rich, but nobody will care because they will get cheap products made consistently by inerrant machines, so there won't be any lemons made by tired or overworked laborers who fail to do the job right and lower costs to the factory owners will mean that they can invest more in quality control. More could be invested in product design and development also not just for the sake of superior products but also that recalls and law suits don't occur, as long as executives remain honest and don't rush defective products into the market. Advertising will still exist and extravagant claims will be backed up by real products that meet up to those claims (let's hope). Of course, government regulators and the Free Press will have to play "watchdog" on industry. Lower manufacturing costs due to robotic mass production will make it easier for industry to afford meeting up to safety regulations. With an abundance of cheap environmentally safe energy, at first from fission and later from fusion and space solar energy, industry won't have to worry about or invest money in energy efficiency and fuel economy as they must today with our dependency on foreign oil, greenhouse gas emitting coal fired electricity and expensive natural gas.
Cheaper products means more money will be spent in other sectors of the economy like child care, medicine, education, recreation, construction, etc. and that's where all the jobs will go. As factory workers are laid off due to the robots they will need good unemployment benefits, loan deferments, medical coverage and money for education to take new jobs. As people spend money in other sectors of the economy new jobs will emerge and the laid off workers will be re-absorbed by the new economy based on human service, skilled trades and high tech work. There will still be janitors and waiters until human like androids are created, which might never happen, and they will want good wages. Fortunately, the new economy will be able to afford to pay them good wages and most products from telephones to new homes will be cheap; cheaper than anything produced by slaves in overseas sweat shops. Pure capitalism would recklessly abandon laborers and this would lead to social upheaval, strikes, blocking of progress and even revolution. Social responsibility is the only way we can achieve the robot revolution. Social stratification will still exist with business owners, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. making high salaries and truck drivers, carpenters, cooks and janitors making less, but overall everybody will become wealthier and a better quality of life will result. The rich could still oppress the low level workers by paying them slave's wages and denying them vacation time. Labor unions that fight for and achieve living wages, good benefits and vacation packages for workers may still be necessary. Without cooks and waiters there can be no nice restaurants to enjoy and without janitors things become impossibly messy. Offices need trash cans emptied. We must live in a world where all work is respected, because all jobs are necessary for a functioning society. An unfair hierarchy with space traveling super-rich people and poor dishwashers is not what we want to create in the robot revolutionized future. Let the weak survive and reproduce. Let the strong do the same and protect the weak. Damn all nazis.
As the robots take over the factories and workers go into the construction trades their jobs will become more secure. We aren't going to import houses from Japan or China now are we? Even if we import pre-fabbed modules from Japan we will need American workers to assemble them as well as maintain and repair homes and buildings. You can't build a skyscraper out of pre-fabbed modules. And I really doubt that nano-technology is going to lead to intelligent little tetse flies that grow jet fighters, cars, buildings and bridges. A bar tender in China can't mix you a drink in the USA, unless some kind of VR set up and teleoperated robot via long distance phone lines is set up, and who would want that? It's so impersonal.
