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Comment Funding by borrowing from the future (Score 1) 635

"Modernize and strengthen the federal social safety net". Do they imply they are going to just change it, or actually pay more welfare to more people? And like fast food chain leaders have already said "If you raise the minimum wage, we replace the people with robots". I imagine if you are going to actually increase welfare spending, you (the US government) are going to need to just borrow more money. Perhaps a few hundreds of trillions from China to fund it, with a deal that says it's due to start being payed down after 2100. Where the premise is that future technologies will enable massive savings and generate massive incomes, so that by 2100 paying back those trillions over the next decades will be easy enough.

Comment Re:Things to solve (Score 1) 253

First of all, none of the problems that would derive from a cure for aging won't need to be dealt with until the "cure" has becomed a reality. Second, the entire human population won't get access anytime soon after it has arrived, (even if 100 million people gets it, it's still a drop in the ocean). Third, cancer won't be a problem anymore, as there of course will be new ways to deal with by the time you have "cured aging" and of course that is only if the treatments does cause cancer as a sidefect. All of the problems you mention will only be significant WAAAAY into the future AFTER such treatments arrive, Likely something like 50 years after. I would assume you will have something like, if you get periodic treatments and thus rendered biological immortal, you are not allowed to reproduce. And of course preventing total overpopulation and reducing births should be done irregardless of whether aging is dealt with or not. Of course people will colonize the other planets and there are probably shortcuts through space that we can use to colonize other solar systems if needed.

Comment Re:Why Automation Won't Displace Human Workers (Score 1) 540

We know that even with augmented intelligence, a biological intelligence can never outperform a synthtic one due to the biological restraints. Even if you are succesful at increasing the intelligence of humans, the first generation of humans to have been modified with such from birth has still not even been born. Sure the latter will provide a boost in increasing the amount of people capable of doing the future jobs, but it won't provide the kind of mass employment our current economic system is based upon.

Comment Re:Why Automation Won't Displace Human Workers (Score 1) 540

Work at various lower levels is being automated (including low level programming) that is the main reason the average human becomes obsoleted. The only humans that have jobs in the future will be the ones capable of doing advanced work within advanced fields. There won't be low level work for humans left to have. You can train monkeys to do simple things, but all simple things will be done by robots in the coming decades. Plus, robots don't need bananas to operate.

Comment Why Automation Won't Displace Human Workers (Score 1) 540

You automate and robotizise all the jobs that people born with average and lower intelligence can master. Those two groups makes up the majority of the worlds population. A person with an average intelligence can never be educated to become a scientists, programmer, or an engineer. Any future job created, any job we cannot imagine today that an average person could master, a robot will do better. You can argue with future jobs like Mars base construction worker, space tourism pilot, or drone pilot, and then you suddenly realise all those future jobs are going to be done by an artificial intelligence. The only people the future workplace needs are the few and brightest, they make up something like 20 percent of the worlds population. Good luck not providing the rest with basic income.

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