Robotics And Economics, Take Two

A couple of years ago, I posted my thoughts about Robotics and Economics. My concern at that time was that economists, as they have historically done, were discounting the possibility that future technology might replace many human jobs with machines.

The conventional answer to that concern is that, since the Luddites, human workers have resisted being replaced by machines, but other jobs have always arisen to replace those taken by machines. But it seemed to me possible that this might not continue to be true.

Not long after my post, even Paul Krugman began to think such thoughts.

Now Kevin Drum takes the argument a step further and explains why the digital revolution won't be a replay of the industrial revolution. This is serious stuff.

I strongly believe that in the short to medium run we can put many people back to work using economic stimulus to generate aggregate demand. But this may not be enough to rebuild the hollowed out loss of jobs in the middle and even upper part of the income scale. We could try to rebuild unions, change the tax structure to correct the recent redistribution of income from workers to the wealthy. But if we hope to have jobs and income for most people and general prosperity for all, now is the time (if it is not already too late) to think through the problem.

In another article, Kevin Drum offers more detail about the coming robot revolution. The article raises Lenin's old question: "who - whom." In other words, who will be in charge - humans or robots? That question has interested science fiction writers since Czech writer Karel Capek raised it in his drama, "Rossum's Universal Robots." Similar questions were raised in his novel, "War With The Newts." It is time to take a serious look at the problem.

Economist Karl Smith, writing in Forbes Magazine, takes a look at inequality in the robotic future.

A thought that comes to mind is that while we think about robots, we might seriously examine population control. "Zero Growth" is too modest a goal.