... and yet you communicate via computer ... How is that possible?
("Again, so many stories that illustrate how terrible people are at giving machines instructions.")

We live like that now compared to even 150 years ago, certainly to 300 years ago. We spend an ever-smaller fraction of our incomes in basic food, clothing, and shelter. In addition, we have things not dreamed of then.

We "pay" for them all with cinema, entertainment, and music as well as the electronic media that deliver them. Them, and the roads, the jet aircraft (robotic with two humans for failsafes), and, of course, all of our computers that let us chat like this.

Great point, robotic components are ubiquitous. In a sense they are like the very many fractional horsepower motors that we take for granted. How about that programmable coffee maker?

Who programs the robots? If the robots are self-programming, then they are people. You need to think this through.

There will always be new ideas to explore and invent. The problem is that there is a (growing?) percentage of the people on this planet who are not capable of doing anything more challenging than flipping burgers, packing boxes, cleaning bathrooms, etc. It doesn't matter how much education they get, they just lack the intellectual capacity to accomplish anything other than honest, mundane, manual labor. We've already covered the fully automated McDonalds in this forum. Hoax or not, the technology does exist to do that today. A self-cleaning bathroom is not out of our reach, it's just cost prohibitive for the moment. It will not take long for us to make the robots fit for everyday use. The complexity in the computer programs that we are using all of the time today are far beyond what a programmer from 20 years ago would have thought possible. It's just a matter of continuing to build on what we did yesterday.

Well, certainly inventing a warp drive is still open as well as an amazing array of things. I agree with you as to the importance of invention.

My point, though, is related to work that people can do, particularly in the software area. One person can create a program that the entire world can use. This is a level of effort leverage that is unprecedented in human history. It does limit the number of people who get to play in a particular sandbox.

As you say, there's lots of sand.

robots make the robots, and do the mining and machining and make all the machines.

I'm beginning to take offense at your repeated attributions of opinions I don't have. Attempting to lump me in with 'others' is to not know me. If you ever happen to become capable of having a conversation where you address thing that I actually have said, I might be interested in participating. As it is now, your ignorance of my positions and insistent on looting my time an energy are not something I will be complicit in any longer. I wish you the best for your personal development.

What do you do with a stroke, heart attack, spilled coffee, cell call, text.

Google cars beat humans all day long, and they have only been driving 3 years, with one accident to their fault (I think). I get the Star Trek arguments and Asimov Laws, but Azimov's Laws work, and computers are not infinitely simpler than Vulcans, and people are not as cool as we'd like to think. Half of them would be 400 lbs and completely ignorant if fed well and taken care of.

You are spouting Marxist/Keynesian nonsense. There is no limit to the amount of work to be done. It is only limited by people's imagination.

I said nothing about price, just about value to an individual. No transaction was implied.
The post was about whether man produces value. Values exist only in minds and not in products. Prices will vary depend upon the value judgments of individuals. Of Course Rand defined a noun 'value' as something that one acts to gain and or keep, which is a much wider concept which includes both tangible and intangible aspects of objective reality. But it remains that a value is a measurement in individual minds.

Not a fan of google cars...whatchya gona do when the lights go out...unless there is a level of protection from electromagnetic events, natural or man made...everyone on the road will be toast. I am surprised few have even thought about it. Even in a perfect world there should always be a physical back up system...wires don't cut it and digital ain't forever. Protection should of been no 1 on their list.

Value is a measurement and not something produced. Perhaps wealth or products and services would be better. Value is an individual's estimate of worth to the individual and not determined by others in a trade or purchase.

What are 'the majority jobs'?

Robots are mundane, but not as mundane as you think. Have a conversation with Watson sometime, or compare Google Cars to humans. The Turing Test does work.

This would go like Japan and Taiwan wiping out fat, lazy, unions with narcoleptic management in the US. If we'd listened to Deming, we'd have washed the floor with Japan; however...

A majority of people I've met are not going to "branch out and integrate" anything useful. Darwin may step in and we'll find those that do, but none...none...without grave incentives.

Or empower the population to branch out and integrate things that have yet to be melded together, creating values where none existed before. The robots just carry out the mundane, repetitive work...that's something that harms creative human beings.

you and others on the forum refuse to acknowledge that the enemy is GOVERNMENT. and as such government thrives on failure or maybe you do not see that. The greatest teacher we have ever had is Ayn Rand. If you read and reread her many observations documented in her essays you will then understand what we are dealing with; a government populated by thieves who want EVERYTHING we have. the flunky producers who cower to the very wish of the politician will eventually see the politician turn on them when they finally give up when the you and I's of the world have Shrugged.

But how many people does it take? My company develops and sells laboratory information systems for medical laboratories. We compete internationally -- in Malaysia we are competing with firms from India and Australia. It's a global marketplace. I have wondered how many companies it supports. How many people in the world can be employed writing this specialized software? Quite a few get to install and support it, but how many people get to write an LIS from scratch as I've spent the last 20+ years doing?

Don't forget to include the robots that build the robots that build AND Repair the robots...
:)

Imagine we lived in a Garden of Eden. The climate is always pleasant and we have no need for clothing or shelter. The trees produce fruit year round that meets our nutritional needs. To eat, you reach up, grab an apple and eat. No one plants or maintains the trees, they plant new ones themselves through the fruit we don't eat.

Without work, how will we get the money to buy the fruit? Obviously we don't need it, we just pick it. We have no one to pay for the fruit.

Imagine, now, a world where the robots make everything we want, the robots make the robots. Some humans made the robots a long time ago but now no one does anymore. What do we need to pay them for the things they make?

Some things, like land, the robots can't make there is a limited quantity that has to be shared, but most other things no human has to work to create, so do we still pay for it?

Look at what automation has done so far.

People had to work from sun up to sun down, and even beyond with light sources just to eat prior to the industrial revolution.

Eventually the industrial revolution lead to the 40 hour work week after some testing by Henry Ford who determined it provided better results.

This in turn resulted in more time for education and leisure. For some people a bit more of the later and not enough spent on the earlier.

Right now I plan some time for my team to "Sharpen the saw" allowing for 1 in 8 hours of work to be spent on educating one self on a new technology or process and then sharing what you learn with the team. This has effectively shortened the work day to 7 hours, but with a requirement to educate self for 1 hour a day.

Technology is going to move faster in a robotic world, the result will be more time requirement for learning and less for doing out of the jobs that are still around, and the new ones that come up.

This trend is 100 years in the making so far, I do not see it changing but rather accelerating. It may evolve to where 2 hours of each day are spent doing the productive work and 8 hours keeping up with the new tech, mathematics, engineering, physics...

I see the division between those who use there mind and those who will not growing, but otherwise I see plenty of work coming for those who wish to think.

You made a number of logical jumps, and attributed opinions I don't have.
I'm not saying a future where no one works makes any sense, and like you say, the inability of people to pay for the goods and services is likely to be the limiting factor in how many jobs the machines can ultimately take over. (never minding a possible future where the machines have gotten to the point of not needing or wanting our money, and instead do what they do for their 'own enjoyment')
On your next point, I never gave opinion on if the world would be better one way or the other. Reread what I wrote, it isn't in there at all. Truth is that I personally feel the opposite of what you stated of me.
I do agree that you are sorry, but not for the reason you claim. I'll go ahead and use my vision of the future that you fail to recognize to continue to invent said future, as I have been doing for decades.

The point is that when socialism exists very few people are willing to continue to create. That does not say that they are not able to do so under other circumstances. Of course they do not hone this skills because there is not point in doing so.

The US was not just populated with people of extraordinary skills, it was that the system allowed these people to benefit from their creativity. As a result the US was the most inventive and therefore the richest country in the history of the world.

You have confused cause and effect in AS.

That's my guess too!

If nobody is working how will they get the money to buy what these robots are making? root1657 I am sorry to say that you are deluding yourself thinking that the world would be a better place once machines are the producers. You I am sorry to say have no vision of the future.