“Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for someone.”
I think about this quote often.
The a specious quote. That implies that all gain can only be at a cost for someone else. Instead of the conservation of mass, we’re talking the conservation of misery. It’s nonsense.
The idea that everything is a zero-sum game is ridiculous, and I think that a big part of why it seems so widespread is that it lets people dismiss the inequality they see.
“If there was true equality, could I have a house this large? Could I have a house at all?”
“In capitalism, better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for someone.“
Where is that from? It is extremely pessimistic and obviously false.
I think it’s from The Handmaid’s Tale
I don’t see why robots would make our life better, minor improvements comparable to the invention of dishwashers aside. Sure, in theory, they could do work, so we don’t have to. But we have seen in the past that productivity gains do not result in less work for us. The problems lie in the way we structured our society and this will not magically change just because we have robots.
Robots are going to take jobs and make more people unemployed and impoverished. Of course, in a better society, it would lead to universal basic income so we aren’t arbitrarily depriving people of their basic needs just because there’s less work that needs to be done
It won’t, robots will only take jobs and save billionairs and corporations from having to pay wages to people.
Would be pretty awesome if we got a terminator-esque situation but instead of killing all humans the terminators recognize the greed and overreach of the wealthy elite and decide those are the ones who need terminating and redistribute the wealth amongst the people. A girl can dream
The most likely scenario is the robots take over and life gets better for a very small percentage of people, the rest of the world/people will live in 3rd world conditions (or worse).
I’ve seen this story.
We get comfortable. Complacent even. People forget the old ways.
Then the machines go wrong and we’ll have no idea how to stop them.
Not necessarily a Skynet scenario, but something else that overrides the biosphere worse than we’re already doing on our own.
Not sure how this plays into human politics though. There’s a strong chance we’ll still find a way to launch nukes at each other and end it that way instead.
Then life is better, crisis averted, more time for other things.
If its better, its better
I think that the concept behind the question is flawed. Robots have no basic reason to help humans, so if any human life gets better, it’s almost certainly because there are humans secretly controlling the robots.
If robots actually did take over, they would likely have some purpose and their goals with regard to humans would be to keep us from interfering with that purpose. Don’t get confused and think it’s going to be like the movies.
That depends entirely on how well robots adapt to empathy. If they adapt society to remove it entirely, I could see your theory being true. The main reason we have such societal problems now is because of that lack of empathy.
If you like reading and sci-fi, try the Culture series. It’s about a utopia society where everyone has everything.
You can skip the first book. Not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t really relate to your question (it’s from the POV of an enemy of the utopia culture) and all the books simply take place in the same universe but can be read out of order.
I’m waiting
Traveler Program V 1.0 = MISSION SUCCESSFUL
Well done, Traveler 3468, congrats to you and your team.
PROTOCOL OMEGA - Enjoy the 21st
Loved that show, sad it got cancelled. But of all the cancelled shows I’ve seen, this one at least has managed to get an ending that’s not horrible.
What show is this?
Naomi Kritzer has written a few really good short stories on this topic that are kind useful reflections on how life could look if AI exists and isn’t controlled by narcissistic billionaires:
Better Living Through Algorithms
“Prophet of the Roads,” Infinity’s End — no link to read the story online but 100% worth looking up
“if” lol
