Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Articles on Robots

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/robot-geometry-very-wonkish/?_r=1


http://douglaslcampbell.blogspot.com/2017/03/robots-and-inequality-skeptics-take.html

I'm not sure what to think.  I doubt the implicitly cornucopian ideas Economists seem to have, the ones which don't take into account physical limits and claim essentially infinite substitution possibilities.  OTOH, a lot of people don't see that material intensity is not necessarily an essential part of spending, there are endless immaterial possibilities.

In anything like the still essentially consumer economy we have, robots would appear to be a plus.  It's only when we get to deeply unequal falangist societies, even more unequal than today, that robots take the place of, and don't add to the need for, more human labor, and there isn't a support system for the non-rich.

Sadly, we generally seem to be taking the latter route.



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