ROBOT WARS: THE AUTOMATED ULTIMATUM
By Clyde Lewis
Two years ago, I gave a warning to my listeners about an impending change in the way we do things in the United States. While change is a constant in all things, the changes that are coming will render many people into an economic future shock.
At this moment, I am not going to tell you that the economy is going to go bust, or that the cashless society is going to be inevitable, or what I think about the hollow platitude of putting Harriet Tubman on a twenty dollar bill that will become obsolete.
I am about to roll out the new plans the “Technocracy” will employ which shall put some people out of jobs.
Within 4 years, you can expect a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, characterized by unprecedented developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and biotechnology.
Throughout history, we have known that previous industrial revolutions have catapulted the human workforce forward - the next one is going the slow us down and it may even set us back.
Robots are poised to eliminate millions of jobs over the coming decades. We have to address the coming epidemic of “technological unemployment” if we’re to avoid crippling levels of poverty and societal collapse.
Five million jobs that are usually carried out by humans will be eliminated by some of our greatest innovations.
Technology has started to destroy employment faster than it creates it.
This is the future for the transhumanist technocracy. Once again, this issue will not be discussed by anyone in the political arena, and there will be no dialogue about it provided by mainstream commentators that seem to lack the ability to talk about the future and how to plan for the Robot War.
While political rhetoric is still mired in 20th century issues and our foreign relations are still lost somewhere in the 13th, century it is about time for the people to become concerned about the future, a future that no one seems to care about.
The trends in automation is slowly changing our habits as bank tellers are encouraging customers to do online banking and using ATM’s. Automated restaurants are reducing the need for service workers and scanners have reduced the need for cashiers at grocery stores.
The automation of the global workplace is spreading and, a Pew survey recently found that 65% of Americans now believe their job will inevitably be done by robots.
During the latest minimum wage protest by fast food workers, a machine was then unveiled that would soon put most of them out of a job it was called the Momentum Machines burger maker.
Momentum Machine
It is a robot automated burger maker hat occupies 24 square feet of space, and is much smaller and efficient than most assembly-line fast-food operations. It provides "gourmet cooking methods never before used in a fast food restaurant" and will deposit the completed burger into a bag. It does all of this without a trace of attitude.
According to public data, the company's robot can "slice toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible." Unlike human workers, the robot is "more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce 360 hamburgers per hour" or a burger every 10 seconds.
Furthermore, future generations of the device "will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer and burger designs that fit any palate.”
CNN recently reported that machines might take over 80 million American and 15 million British jobs over the next 10 to 20 years, or 50% of the workforce in each of the two countries.
Clerical and production workers might be the first to be replaced by robots in the coming years. That’s not to say unemployment will suddenly rise. Humans will adapt their skills to the tasks where they continue to have a comparative advantage over machines.
A recent Oxford University study quoted by Yahoo news says that the jobs at risk of being replaced by robots include loan officers, receptionists, paralegals, salespeople, drivers, security guards, fast food cooks, and bartenders.
Other jobs including marketers, journalists and lawyers might also be added to the list in the future.
The more intelligent machines would be able to take over mid-skilled jobs, leaving low-skilled or very high-skilled jobs for humans.
A convoy of self-driving trucks recently drove across Europe and arrived at the Port of Rotterdam. No technology will automate away more jobs than the driverless truck.
Shipping a full truckload from L.A. to New York costs around $4,500 today, with labor representing 75 percent of that cost. But those labor savings aren’t the only gains to be had from the adoption of driverless trucks.
Where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours per day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day. That means the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost.
Trucking represents a considerable portion of the cost of all the goods we buy. The technocrats are saying that consumers everywhere will experience some changes as we are told that we will see lower prices and higher standards of living.
This driverless technology will have tremendous adverse effects as well. There are currently more than 1.6 million Americans working as truck drivers, making it the most common job in 29 states.
The loss of jobs representing 1 percent of the U.S. workforce will be a devastating blow to the economy. And the adverse consequences won’t end there. Gas stations, highway diners, rest stops, motels and other businesses catering to drivers will struggle to survive without them.
Another place where this outsourcing to robots has famously already taken place is Amazon. As Wired reports, the world’s largest online retailer has said it has tens of thousands of bots working across 10 of its US warehouses. According to Amazon, the advantages of offloading more of that work onto machines is an easy decision. Robots don’t slow. They don’t tire. They don’t get injured or distracted or sick. They don’t require paychecks or try to unionize.
The latest 'fast food' outlet to snub humans and their annoying demands and unreliability is Domino's Pizza, which just unveiled its robot-pizza-delivery plans.
The DRU Robot, Domino’s first-ever automated pizza delivery bot that brings your pizza order directly to your door.
The DRU, short for Domino’s Robotic Unit has already been unveiled in several countries across the globe last month, including Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and New Zealand.
As Forbes reports, DRU is reportedly fully autonomous, and sports a water-tight, weather-proof acrylic plastic exterior and aluminum and mild steel interior for keeping orders at their best.
Like self-driving cars, it uses LIDAR laser-light sensory technology to detect and navigate around obstacles along its journey, and also has a back-up system of traditional sensors (such as you’d find on home cleaning-bots) to ensure it reaches its destination safely.
So far, DRU has been tested on approved pathways and roads all over the test markets.
So far, the technology will have to be tweaked a bit before it is approved for delivery in the United States.
Americans will eventually have to realize that their system has evolved into a technocracy and the more they think they are informed about an issue, the more they realize that the opinion was part of a digital illusion. Something as disposable as an idea that has been excised from their mental network with the pushing of delete button.
If and when robots eliminate millions of jobs over the coming decades, we have to address the coming epidemic of “technological unemployment” if we’re to avoid crippling levels of poverty and societal collapse.
Ground Zero reported two years ago that other countries which are now being hit hard by technological unemployment are now giving a single basic income to provide for a comfortable living whether they choose to work or not.
Needless to say, it’s only intended to be enough for a person to survive on.
This of course is a social welfare plan that may have to be provided by the government or some other public institution, in addition to funds or income received from other sources. It could be taxable, or non-taxable, and divided up on a continual basis, monthly, or annually.
Advocates argue that a basic income is essential to a comprehensive strategy for reducing poverty because it offers extra income with no strings attached.
But looking ahead to the future, we may have little choice but to implement it. Given the ever-increasing concentration of wealth and the frightening prospect of technological unemployment, it will be required to prevent complete social and economic collapse. It’s not a question of if, but how soon.
But is a wage floor or guaranteed income needed or is it desirable in order to provide a technocratic utopia?
Technological utopianism refers to any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology will eventually bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal. A techno-utopia is therefore a hypothetical ideal society, in which laws, government, and social conditions are solely operating for the benefit and well-being of all its citizens.
In a future world, like worlds provided by science fiction writers like Gene Roddenberry, there was no need for money in the “Star Trek” universe. In the movie, Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Jean Luc Picard explains that economics of the future are somewhat different. Picard explains that ether is no money in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth was no longer a driving force in the future. In the civilizations of the future humans worked to better themselves and the rest of humanity.
Of course, they worked with machines, and some of those machines carried out functions far more efficiently than humans.
The age of robots has been anticipated since the beginning of the last century. Fritz Lang fantasized about it in his 1927 film "Metropolis." In the 1940s and 50s, robots were often portrayed as household help.
And by the time "Star Wars" trilogy arrived, robots with their computerized brains and nerve systems had been fully integrated into our imagination. Now they're finally here, but instead of serving us, we realize that they will be competing for our jobs.
Even the oldest profession will suffer technological employment as prostitution will be replaced by virtual reality pods that will be used for sexual gratification and with the advent of sophisticated sexual robots there will be an eventual displacement of human prostitutes.
That will only happen if fetishes are willing to cross into the uncanny valley. Sex toys were just the beginning, now full body toys and full body suites with ocular enhancements can give you the experience and the frequency you desire.
In Japan, a robot theme park about to open in July in a hotel there. Operators of the Dutch-themed “Huis Ten Bosch” plan to open the new “Robot Kingdom” with 200 automatons obeying human commands.
Androids will be cooking meals, making cocktails, and cleaning up in this section of the park, whose name translates to “The House in the Woods.”
Park president Hideo Sawada hyped his new “Robot Kingdom” by saying robots will be everywhere soon, so get used to it, according to Asian Nikkei Review.
“Robots will arrive in this kingdom one after another, and the time will come when those technologies will be in use worldwide,” Sawada said. The robot kingdom expands on the theme park’s smart hotel which opened last year with robot staff checking in guests and moving luggage to their rooms.
The new HBO series, Westworld, will be debuting on HBO this year revisisting the Robot amusement park horror written by Michael Crichton. Westworld is a story set in the not-too-distant future where a virtual western adventure goes horribly wrong when a gun slinging robot becomes self aware and starts hunting down and killing amusement park customers.
Can we even fathom the idea of robot technology providing us with entertainment and simulations that are distinguishable form reality? Technological unemployment will provide us with plenty of free time to visit these facilities provided you buy tickets with the minimum required wage paid to you though the new government welfare plan.
Isn’t it frightening to think that the Technocrats will get their Socialist government in the future because no one wishes to address in the present the issue of technology run amuck?
We often discuss the displacement of jobs by artificial intelligence and robots in the abstract, as something that we’ll have to eventually tackle in the far distant future. But the recent successful demonstration of the self-driving truck, the automated hamburger maker, store cashier, secretary and Pizza delivery system shows that we can’t afford to put off the conversation on how we’re going to adapt to this new reality.
By Clyde Lewis
Two years ago, I gave a warning to my listeners about an impending change in the way we do things in the United States. While change is a constant in all things, the changes that are coming will render many people into an economic future shock.
At this moment, I am not going to tell you that the economy is going to go bust, or that the cashless society is going to be inevitable, or what I think about the hollow platitude of putting Harriet Tubman on a twenty dollar bill that will become obsolete.
I am about to roll out the new plans the “Technocracy” will employ which shall put some people out of jobs.
Within 4 years, you can expect a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, characterized by unprecedented developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and biotechnology.
Throughout history, we have known that previous industrial revolutions have catapulted the human workforce forward - the next one is going the slow us down and it may even set us back.
Robots are poised to eliminate millions of jobs over the coming decades. We have to address the coming epidemic of “technological unemployment” if we’re to avoid crippling levels of poverty and societal collapse.
Five million jobs that are usually carried out by humans will be eliminated by some of our greatest innovations.
Technology has started to destroy employment faster than it creates it.
This is the future for the transhumanist technocracy. Once again, this issue will not be discussed by anyone in the political arena, and there will be no dialogue about it provided by mainstream commentators that seem to lack the ability to talk about the future and how to plan for the Robot War.
While political rhetoric is still mired in 20th century issues and our foreign relations are still lost somewhere in the 13th, century it is about time for the people to become concerned about the future, a future that no one seems to care about.
The trends in automation is slowly changing our habits as bank tellers are encouraging customers to do online banking and using ATM’s. Automated restaurants are reducing the need for service workers and scanners have reduced the need for cashiers at grocery stores.
The automation of the global workplace is spreading and, a Pew survey recently found that 65% of Americans now believe their job will inevitably be done by robots.
During the latest minimum wage protest by fast food workers, a machine was then unveiled that would soon put most of them out of a job it was called the Momentum Machines burger maker.
Momentum Machine
It is a robot automated burger maker hat occupies 24 square feet of space, and is much smaller and efficient than most assembly-line fast-food operations. It provides "gourmet cooking methods never before used in a fast food restaurant" and will deposit the completed burger into a bag. It does all of this without a trace of attitude.
According to public data, the company's robot can "slice toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible." Unlike human workers, the robot is "more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce 360 hamburgers per hour" or a burger every 10 seconds.
Furthermore, future generations of the device "will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer and burger designs that fit any palate.”
CNN recently reported that machines might take over 80 million American and 15 million British jobs over the next 10 to 20 years, or 50% of the workforce in each of the two countries.
Clerical and production workers might be the first to be replaced by robots in the coming years. That’s not to say unemployment will suddenly rise. Humans will adapt their skills to the tasks where they continue to have a comparative advantage over machines.
A recent Oxford University study quoted by Yahoo news says that the jobs at risk of being replaced by robots include loan officers, receptionists, paralegals, salespeople, drivers, security guards, fast food cooks, and bartenders.
Other jobs including marketers, journalists and lawyers might also be added to the list in the future.
The more intelligent machines would be able to take over mid-skilled jobs, leaving low-skilled or very high-skilled jobs for humans.
A convoy of self-driving trucks recently drove across Europe and arrived at the Port of Rotterdam. No technology will automate away more jobs than the driverless truck.
Shipping a full truckload from L.A. to New York costs around $4,500 today, with labor representing 75 percent of that cost. But those labor savings aren’t the only gains to be had from the adoption of driverless trucks.
Where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours per day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day. That means the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost.
Trucking represents a considerable portion of the cost of all the goods we buy. The technocrats are saying that consumers everywhere will experience some changes as we are told that we will see lower prices and higher standards of living.
This driverless technology will have tremendous adverse effects as well. There are currently more than 1.6 million Americans working as truck drivers, making it the most common job in 29 states.
The loss of jobs representing 1 percent of the U.S. workforce will be a devastating blow to the economy. And the adverse consequences won’t end there. Gas stations, highway diners, rest stops, motels and other businesses catering to drivers will struggle to survive without them.
Another place where this outsourcing to robots has famously already taken place is Amazon. As Wired reports, the world’s largest online retailer has said it has tens of thousands of bots working across 10 of its US warehouses. According to Amazon, the advantages of offloading more of that work onto machines is an easy decision. Robots don’t slow. They don’t tire. They don’t get injured or distracted or sick. They don’t require paychecks or try to unionize.
The latest 'fast food' outlet to snub humans and their annoying demands and unreliability is Domino's Pizza, which just unveiled its robot-pizza-delivery plans.
The DRU Robot, Domino’s first-ever automated pizza delivery bot that brings your pizza order directly to your door.
The DRU, short for Domino’s Robotic Unit has already been unveiled in several countries across the globe last month, including Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and New Zealand.
As Forbes reports, DRU is reportedly fully autonomous, and sports a water-tight, weather-proof acrylic plastic exterior and aluminum and mild steel interior for keeping orders at their best.
Like self-driving cars, it uses LIDAR laser-light sensory technology to detect and navigate around obstacles along its journey, and also has a back-up system of traditional sensors (such as you’d find on home cleaning-bots) to ensure it reaches its destination safely.
So far, DRU has been tested on approved pathways and roads all over the test markets.
So far, the technology will have to be tweaked a bit before it is approved for delivery in the United States.
Americans will eventually have to realize that their system has evolved into a technocracy and the more they think they are informed about an issue, the more they realize that the opinion was part of a digital illusion. Something as disposable as an idea that has been excised from their mental network with the pushing of delete button.
If and when robots eliminate millions of jobs over the coming decades, we have to address the coming epidemic of “technological unemployment” if we’re to avoid crippling levels of poverty and societal collapse.
Ground Zero reported two years ago that other countries which are now being hit hard by technological unemployment are now giving a single basic income to provide for a comfortable living whether they choose to work or not.
Needless to say, it’s only intended to be enough for a person to survive on.
This of course is a social welfare plan that may have to be provided by the government or some other public institution, in addition to funds or income received from other sources. It could be taxable, or non-taxable, and divided up on a continual basis, monthly, or annually.
Advocates argue that a basic income is essential to a comprehensive strategy for reducing poverty because it offers extra income with no strings attached.
But looking ahead to the future, we may have little choice but to implement it. Given the ever-increasing concentration of wealth and the frightening prospect of technological unemployment, it will be required to prevent complete social and economic collapse. It’s not a question of if, but how soon.
But is a wage floor or guaranteed income needed or is it desirable in order to provide a technocratic utopia?
Technological utopianism refers to any ideology based on the premise that advances in science and technology will eventually bring about a utopia, or at least help to fulfill one or another utopian ideal. A techno-utopia is therefore a hypothetical ideal society, in which laws, government, and social conditions are solely operating for the benefit and well-being of all its citizens.
In a future world, like worlds provided by science fiction writers like Gene Roddenberry, there was no need for money in the “Star Trek” universe. In the movie, Star Trek: First Contact, Captain Jean Luc Picard explains that economics of the future are somewhat different. Picard explains that ether is no money in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth was no longer a driving force in the future. In the civilizations of the future humans worked to better themselves and the rest of humanity.
Of course, they worked with machines, and some of those machines carried out functions far more efficiently than humans.
The age of robots has been anticipated since the beginning of the last century. Fritz Lang fantasized about it in his 1927 film "Metropolis." In the 1940s and 50s, robots were often portrayed as household help.
And by the time "Star Wars" trilogy arrived, robots with their computerized brains and nerve systems had been fully integrated into our imagination. Now they're finally here, but instead of serving us, we realize that they will be competing for our jobs.
Even the oldest profession will suffer technological employment as prostitution will be replaced by virtual reality pods that will be used for sexual gratification and with the advent of sophisticated sexual robots there will be an eventual displacement of human prostitutes.
That will only happen if fetishes are willing to cross into the uncanny valley. Sex toys were just the beginning, now full body toys and full body suites with ocular enhancements can give you the experience and the frequency you desire.
In Japan, a robot theme park about to open in July in a hotel there. Operators of the Dutch-themed “Huis Ten Bosch” plan to open the new “Robot Kingdom” with 200 automatons obeying human commands.
Androids will be cooking meals, making cocktails, and cleaning up in this section of the park, whose name translates to “The House in the Woods.”
Park president Hideo Sawada hyped his new “Robot Kingdom” by saying robots will be everywhere soon, so get used to it, according to Asian Nikkei Review.
“Robots will arrive in this kingdom one after another, and the time will come when those technologies will be in use worldwide,” Sawada said. The robot kingdom expands on the theme park’s smart hotel which opened last year with robot staff checking in guests and moving luggage to their rooms.
The new HBO series, Westworld, will be debuting on HBO this year revisisting the Robot amusement park horror written by Michael Crichton. Westworld is a story set in the not-too-distant future where a virtual western adventure goes horribly wrong when a gun slinging robot becomes self aware and starts hunting down and killing amusement park customers.
Can we even fathom the idea of robot technology providing us with entertainment and simulations that are distinguishable form reality? Technological unemployment will provide us with plenty of free time to visit these facilities provided you buy tickets with the minimum required wage paid to you though the new government welfare plan.
Isn’t it frightening to think that the Technocrats will get their Socialist government in the future because no one wishes to address in the present the issue of technology run amuck?
We often discuss the displacement of jobs by artificial intelligence and robots in the abstract, as something that we’ll have to eventually tackle in the far distant future. But the recent successful demonstration of the self-driving truck, the automated hamburger maker, store cashier, secretary and Pizza delivery system shows that we can’t afford to put off the conversation on how we’re going to adapt to this new reality.