Theoretically with intelligent enough AI and robots the only limit is energy since you can perfectly recycle everything. Reverse entropy by using abundant solar or wind power. Imagine robots digging up and sifting through and sorting and “mining” all our landfills. Theoretically you could organize this so that it also emits very little CO2.
We just don’t do it because it’s cheaper to dig up new stuff and it would be a lot more work. So under capitalism it’s practically impossible. We could today already drastically improve quality of life and use only 30% of energy and resources.
I’m writing this because I believe technology is not the issue, and no amount of growth or technological advancement will save us without improving our culture.
It reminds me of Kurt Vonneguts “Player Piano” where workers want to smash the machines for taking their jobs. It’s not the machines, it’s the people who they work for and benefit who are holding us all back from building Utopia.
If a factory replaces 100 workers with robots it doesn’t necessarily make any less widgets. Just keep paying everyone and take turns monitoring, repairing, and rebooting the robot when it breaks.
In a world where technology can fully satisfy the needs of humanity, there is no need for human production of anything but art. We should share in this as equals, not as oligarchs and the unwanted extras on whose backs it was all built.
Yeah if we pulled most programmers off of producing competing and duplicate software or frivolous apps, we could put them to program robots and advanced CAM / computer aided manufacturing to manufacture or recycle appliances and materials. Not just robots building robots.
Theoretically with intelligent enough AI and robots the only limit is energy since you can perfectly recycle everything. Reverse entropy by using abundant solar or wind power. Imagine robots digging up and sifting through and sorting and “mining” all our landfills. Theoretically you could organize this so that it also emits very little CO2.
We just don’t do it because it’s cheaper to dig up new stuff and it would be a lot more work. So under capitalism it’s practically impossible. We could today already drastically improve quality of life and use only 30% of energy and resources.
I’m writing this because I believe technology is not the issue, and no amount of growth or technological advancement will save us without improving our culture.
It reminds me of Kurt Vonneguts “Player Piano” where workers want to smash the machines for taking their jobs. It’s not the machines, it’s the people who they work for and benefit who are holding us all back from building Utopia.
If a factory replaces 100 workers with robots it doesn’t necessarily make any less widgets. Just keep paying everyone and take turns monitoring, repairing, and rebooting the robot when it breaks.
In a world where technology can fully satisfy the needs of humanity, there is no need for human production of anything but art. We should share in this as equals, not as oligarchs and the unwanted extras on whose backs it was all built.
Manna is a short story describing the dystopia or (unlikely) utopia we’re headed towards very well.
You don’t even need AI to do this, although it would help. A von Neumann machine and an excess of energy would go a long way to making that happen.
Yeah if we pulled most programmers off of producing competing and duplicate software or frivolous apps, we could put them to program robots and advanced CAM / computer aided manufacturing to manufacture or recycle appliances and materials. Not just robots building robots.