Convenient Idiots?

Scholarly dunces? Grinning muttonheads? Mind-numbed robots? The stock from which will be someday drawn our leaders ...

Quotable Quote

Analogies are much like robots taking the place of humans. — Anon.

Save Us!

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

Politicians’ ability to talk a good game is too often inversely proportional to their performance in office. A case in point:

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City went on Tucker Carlson’s show last night to try to resurrect his presidential campaign by warning of how so many people will be thrown out of work by the growth of automation. Like a typical politician, de Blasio had only tepid suggestions on how to counteract this trope. And he had no real answer when Tucker asked, if so many jobs are soon going to disappear, why we are letting so many low-skilled workers enter our country illegally every year?

Now, calling de Blasio an idiot is easy, but somehow experience tells us that this constructed panic over robots taking our jobs is not the lesson we should be taking from history. Robots have been around for 65 years, yet despite this, we have foolishly exported millions of jobs to Mexico and China. Still, the United States unemployment is near the lowest in history ... 3.7%. And this low rate would be even lower if Trump could persuade US manufacturers to return home.

Precisely what will occur to take up the possible employment slack due to automation I can’t exactly predict. But I am fairly certain that accommodations will occur — work week changes, work day duration reductions, more people working from home, service expectation changes. e.g.s, package delivery services, Uber, better healthcare services, leisure-time services, Grubhub, etc,) ... all of which improve our quality of life ... while providing jobs.

So, Mayor de Blasio, I  doubt that your hail-Mary pass will save your campaign and your attempt to ruin the United States like you are ruining the Big Apple.

Dubious Augury

Martian Levittown

I have major doubts whether the following popular forecasts will come to pass ... at least in our lifetimes ...

-  Go-everywhere self-driving vehicles

- Serious global warming caused by increases in carbon dioxide

- Electric vehicles/airplanes totally replacing internal-combustion ones

- Widespread G-5 communications

- Colonization of Mars

- Artificial intelligence/robots controlling humans

- Nuclear-powered missiles

- Vegetarian “meat” replacing real meat

- Total elimination of nuclear and hydrocarbon-based power plants

- Nuclear fusion power generation

- Quantum computers

- Plastic products disappearing altogether

The DMV Solution?

Oracles are in a quandary about the projected effect of automation on future employment levels. One dire prediction concludes that 50% of all current jobs will disappear. It has become an accepted theme that robots and AI are going to create massive unemployment around the world resulting in social dislocations and disruption. One obvious answer is what I will call the DMV solution. When you go to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a driver's license, you wait in one line to get a form, then in another to  submit it, then in another possibly for a photograph, then in another to take an eye test, then in another possibly to take a written test, and finally go to someone else to take a road test.

This means that it takes six (or more) DMV employees to serve just one function, getting your license ... and there are many other functions of this agency ... a formula for full employment at the DMV. Yes, the DMV is a government agency and government agencies are notorious for make-work jobs for the relatives of politicians. And as distasteful as this process is, it is a fact of life.

I suspect that, if robots and AI are going to deplete the number of current productive jobs, that the world will eventually move toward a DMV-like world. All kinds of new service jobs will pop up.... like today's personal trainers and dog walkers ... that will help compensate for the jobs lost to automation. I don't think we will turn off our A/Cs and have Nubian boys fanning us, but there will be lots of new job categories created to fill the voids. But, of course, the really good jobs will be the robot builders and repairers.

Musk Melon

I have been a reluctant skeptic when it comes to the enigmatic Elon Musk ... particularly when one recognized his string of successes. But, of late, these successes seem to have gone to his head as he is sounding more and more eccentric ... we are all part of a giant computer simulation ... robots are going to take over from man ... humans will be inhabiting Mars by 2020 ... and now a new company to hook our brains (melons) directly to computers within four years. He is using his eclat and easy funding to pursue his highly personal but questionable quests. Some of these things may come about but I do think Musk has become smitten by his own genius.

The Wall Street Journal has summarized Elon's recent dreams in a brighter light than he might have liked ... see: WSJ Article (may be behind a pay wall).

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites. Guess which ones came from Politico?

Busted: West Point cadet convicted of drug dealing ...

Trump's $1T[rillion] infrastructure plan could wind up in a ditch

US Special Forces take out entire ISIS team, assaulting Syrian base that trains rebels

Trump: USA ready to solve N. Korea problem without China

Chinese firm halves employment costs by hiring army of robots ...

Fitton: Documents confirm Obama IRS targeted conservatives

Washington Post's Trump coverage among Pulitzer winners

Judge rules Texas voter law is discriminatory

Slavery returns to Africa: Migrants sold on open marker in Libya ...

Trump vexed by Assad's motivation for chemical attack

Tillerson: Russia must chose between Assad and the U.S.

Report: Foreigners now account for 61% of federal arrests

Shades of Cold Fusion

Golamaphobia -- fear of robots

Periodically visionaries appear in the news with proposals that appeal to the public's WOW element ... a public usually composed of those younger people who have not seen it all before ... and who don't bring a healthy skepticism into such dreams. I distinctly remember many years ago how the world was all aflutter about the possibility of unlimited cheap energy from "cold fusion" ... essentially capturing a hydrogen bomb in a bottle. Here we are over 25 years later and this dream is yet to become a reality.

Enter stage left, Elon Musk, the world's latest technical visionary who has just announced his intent to link our brains directly with computers ... or Neuralink as he has dubbed it. This new company would create a helmet that fits over one's head to transmit and receive directly from a computer in order to eliminate the middleman and increase the bandwidth ... see: LA Times Article. Musk's intent to use to Neuralink to defeat robots. Not to be outdone by this loopiness, Musk is also promising space travelers a trip around the moon next year ... and a flight to Mars by 2024 using his company, SpaceX's technology ... see: Daily Caller Article.c

Musk seems to be transfixed with the survival of mankind using the Mars colonization scheme to prevent an Apocalypse ... the subjudigation of humans by robots. If Musk had not already had his share of successes with Tesla and SpaceX, I expect that the authorities would be after him with a net ... shades of cold fusion. But he has had impressive wins and people are therefore reluctant to criticism his visions.

But I am a doubter ... reluctantly ...

Pie in the Sky

Color me skeptical ... but there are a number of assumed developments that somehow appear to me to be more wishful thinking than real possibilities. Call me a Luddite if you wish, but somehow pouring emotion or resources into these chimeras seems to be somewhat futile ... at least for the next few hundred years. Here are my top ten candidates:

1) Colonizing of Mars or other planets (or even commercial space travel)

2) Effective world government

3) Our current existence being just a simulation in some giant future computer

4) Human head transplants

5) Being able to control our climate

6) Humans defying death ... or at least living for many hundreds of years

7) Ubiquity of self-driving cars, trucks and buses

8) Resurrecting of frozen corpses

9) Even close to sufficient sustainable energy production from wind and solar

10) Robots taking over from humans (or killing us off)

The Future

"Forecasting the future is a tricky thing ... obvious events take forever ... unexpected things happen overnight." -- Anon.

Elon Musk, the charismatic leader of the Tesla, Solar City and SpaceX companies has donned his tinfoil hat to make some interesting predictions about mankind's future. In particular he believes that robots eventually will do just about everything and people will just sit around doing whatever they like ... no jobs, just plenty of leisure time. In an interview with CNBC, he also touted the idea of an universal basic income ... supplied by the government since few would be working for pay ... see: CNBC Story.

Yes, I suppose that someday in the far distant future robots and AI will have altered our lives to a considerable degree, but I somehow doubt that it will be to the degree and in the way Musk envisions. Most humans have a trope that seems to compel them to "work" toward improving their living space. I somehow doubt that armies of robots will diminish this instinct.

A few more points:

- If few people are actually working, how will governments get the money to pay an universal basic income? Tax accumulated capital? If so, what happens when all accumulated capital is depleted? Or could they tax robots? Effectively taxing businesses twice.

- Musk's notion of a fully robotic world would eliminate "cheap labor" economies ... which, in turn, would obviate the need to transport finished goods around the world. All that would be moved from distant place to place would be raw materials and possibly foodstuffs. Might this make for a more insular world ... with resulting tensions? I suppose it might.

- As raw materials on this Earth are depleted I also suppose that Musk's notion of a space travel imperative makes some sense. However, colonizing other inhospitable planets is a challenge that boggles the imagination. Using current science, the cost-benefit analyses of such efforts seems to me futile. Most futurists and science fiction writers conveniently dismiss many of these hurdles. Too many. This future dream might well just be that. A challenge that may prove the limit to humankind's ambitions.

- All this assumes that civilization will not suffer another random shock ... say another plague or ice age ... which plunges us back into another regressive period.  (Global warming would be much easier to deal with.)

Futurists, such as Musk, tend to forecast along a straight-line into our tomorrows ... it is because it is the most obvious. But assembling all the possible variables and accounting for them is almost impossible. Therefore the future is almost always a surprise ... as it should be.

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

'Support monkey' runs loose on flight to Vegas

1 in 4 Puerto Ricans will have Zika by end of year

Steiner murder trial delayed until after the election

DOJ blocks Clinton Foundation probe

96% of Hillary's 2015 charitable donations went to the Clinton Foundation

BOOM: Yankees will end up paying A-Rod $317 million

Robots wash clothes, clean homes

7 robots replacing farm workers around the world

Summer chill: Malia Obama caught on camera smoking joint

Arianna Huffington to leave Huffington Post

  Newspapers rethink paywalls as digital efforts sputter

,Birthday bash: Fidel rips Obama

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites:

Robot-powered burger joint threatens fast-food workers

July 4 message from Putin to Obama: Let's have better ties

Tim, the Kenyan elephant, seeks human help after being hurt by spear

Divided Poland mulls total abortion ban ...

Scientists FlipFlop back to Global Cooling?

Fido forever: dog cloning clinic

Those [in Dhaka mass killings] who could recite the Quran, spared

Huma admits Clinton burned daily schedules

U.S. Surpasses Saudi [Arabia] in oil reserves

Dems drop platform requirement that illegals learn English for amnesty

[National] debt jumps $100 billion ... in one day!

About 1.6 million people didn't make their Obamacare payments

Headlines

Michelle O: "I wake up in a house built by slaves"

Human organs grown in pig

FEC Commissioner: Obamaphones fraud approaching $500 million

Two  inches [of snow] forecast [in June] for Adirondacks

San Fran pushing for illegals to vote

Monkey knocks out Kenya's entire power grid

Latino support for Trump on rise at 37%

Bobby Brown claims he had sex ... with a ghost

Law firm and judge associated with Trump U. case both associated with La Raza

Claim: Robots will take HALF the world's jobs by 2045

Trans students beat girls in HS sports

Social media app usage falling significantly

PLAYBOY mansion sold

One-third of Vermont refugees test positive for TB

O.J. Simpson may confess to murders

Hillary Clinton wore a $12,495 Armani jacket to a speech about inequality

Bodyrights

A man in Hong Kong has built a robot that looks and acts a lot like Scarlett Johansson ... see: Mirror Story. Why do I post this reference? Because I would like to raise a new issue driven by this evolving technology -- does not an individual own one's own persona? Can a robot builder steal our looks, our voice, our personality, our body image without consequences? These questions will take on a greater significance as this technology of humanoids proceeds apace. Can we register our bodyrights with the government to keep these obsessive image stalkers from effectively stealing ourselves for themselves?

We Were Warned

When our vote-seeking Democrat politicians were pushing for a $15 per hour minimum wage, economists warned that this would speed up the elimination of entry-level jobs ... say in fast-food restaurants ... or burger-flippers as the are derisively known. Now we see that this is beginning to happen. If the CEO of Carl's Jr., Andy Puzder, has his way. all employees at his burger joints will disappear ... to be replaced by automated kiosks and robots ... see: Business Insider Interview.

Yes, these out-of-work millennials might still vote Democrat to keep getting their unemployment benefits and welfare, but who is going to pay for these benefits? You see, robots and kiosks don't pay taxes.

When will we ever learn?

Sophia

Robots, such as Sophia developed at Hanson Robotics, have advanced to the point of realistic eerieness ... see: CNBC Video (sorry about the ad.) After you have watched and marveled at this video, imagine what these humanoids will be like in ten or twenty years ...

Robots

I recently suggested in jest that, because robots are taking over most manufacturing jobs,  they be required to pay taxes ... see: A Disconnect. New predictions now have half of the world unemployed by 2050 due to robots taking our jobs ... see: The Guardian Article. Clearly, if this replacement of humans with machines continues, then these robots will also be required to pay union dues.

On a more serious note, here are a few possible implications if robots do become so ubiquitous:

- A four- or even three-day work week might become a reality
- The industries that should prosper would be entertainment, leisure time, travel and robots/artificial intelligence.
- Some of the ideas and apparatus shown in that old cartoon series, "The Jetsons," might come to pass ... particularly around the home.
- Terrorist threats might upset many of these possibilities

Furthermore, I have another question ... why are countries like Germany, because of their declining populations, opening up their borders to unvetted immigrants to fill out their work force? Why not just build more robots? At least they are unlikely to cut off one's head.

A Disconnect

The straight skinny coming out of the run-up to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is that five million jobs will be lost in the developed world by 2020 due to the rapid advances being made in artificial intelligence and robotics ... see: Breitbart Story. Compound this with the vast migration of cheap labor and hanger-ons from the third world into the developed world ... this creates an employment disconnect that will be very difficult to reconcile both structurally and politically.

One of the reasons that China has had such dramatic economic growth over the last twenty-five years has been its vast supply of cheap and effective labor. Developed nations, in order to counter this economic advantage, have been (possibly somewhat unconsciously) opening their borders to the underdeveloped nations for immigrant labor ... with the result of reducing their national average personal incomes ... striving for wage and productivity parity with China.

Back to the Davos forecast ... a distinction needs to be made in the forces that are being pointed to for these expected employment reductions. Artificial intelligence mainly is of the mind ... allowing quicker and more effective decisions to be made. This does not necessarily remove the need for labor. (except when these decisions make robots or workers more effective.) It just improves the quality of generic decision making. However, robots in fact do replace physical laborers and thus will reduce actual employment (yet improve productivity.)

If in fact these Davos predictions are accurate, what does it mean for the American economy? Well, clearly the current administration will likely not back off its packing this country with immigrants. And if jobs are indeed drying up, this suggests an even higher percentage of these immigrants receiving government assistance ... with even fewer taxpayers funding these doles for the unemployed ... resulting unfortunately in much higher government deficits. Ouch!

There is only one possible solution in my mind ... start collecting taxes from the robots ...

Artificial Invagination

We are obviously in a race to embrace any and all possible hook-ups as a tribute to our worship of diversity. You know the drill ... same sex, multiple partners, siblings, transgenders, children, animals ... and now robots are or should eventually be considered to be valid candidates for holy matrimony ... see: Slate Story. Here we are not talking about blow-up bed mates ... but full service A.I. spouses capable of all the Kama Sutra positions (reread this blog's title).

When this does eventually happen ... and I' m sure it will ... will all the complications of married life also follow ... divorces, spousal batteries, trial separations, child custody battles, etc.? Speaking of children, I can see robot husbands producing issue with female humans, but will female automaton spouses also be full-functioning reproductive partners?

At that point in time, I can imagine that  the only act that might be considered illegal and a crime against nature would be the marriage of two robots.