Replaceable but Employed: Automation and the Meaning of Work

Which specific industries are these which currently have a fleet of robots and 0 technicians?

Because every other company has also replaced their 6 warehouse workers with a fleet of robots and 1 technician, and that technician's skills are more rare and specialized than the warehouse workers, so you're competing with every other warehouse-owning company to hire that technician, so that technician can demand a higher salary. In other words, capitalism.

The industrial revolution feels like an imperfect analogy because industrial automation still required human labor to operate the machines. The premise of this paper is a regime where machines could also operate the machines.

Isn't it obvious? Your existence is margin that they leave on the table. And for what reason if you have no real skills or anything to offer? You are a leech. You exist to consume. You create nothing in this new future. You have no value. You aren't even an asset. You are a liability.

And what you think they will fear instability that we will bring upon? We will be armed with sharpened sticks and a smattering of ar15s at best case, while we are targeted from orbit by automated precision ordinance. Imagine a war between two AI controlled nation states. One has to manage a population during this war, the other opted to cull its population early in the war and maximize all its resources into the war effort. Guess who wins that war every time and likely takes control of the planet.

Automatic gun turrets are even cheaper in the long run.

The performance gap between free and paid AI models is massive. The resulting divide between children from low-income and high-income families is quite evident based on my observations in my country. It will only get harder to keep up.

I don't support UBI either. The fact that UBI is even being discussed means the market is broken. The problem is that in the current market, prices for freelance work tied to intellectual labor have been absolutely crushed by AI. Looking at indicators from Booth or the Korean freelance market, "middle-tier" jobs are disappearing. While currently established professionals remain unaffected for now, the volume of work has drastically decreased for developers or writers who are still building their reputations. There are statistics from Japan showing this as well. My workload has also decreased to a ridiculous extent. The so-called barbell structure is becoming entrenched.

The core issue is this: if that happens, how will society handle the dissatisfaction of such a massive number of people? If more than half the population are workers, there is no problem, but if more than half are unemployed, that is a serious issue. Income polarization is continuing to accelerate.

Because there are no aristocrats without slaves, capitalists need workers to elevate themselves. Wealth and power are strictly relative, and they need miserable ornaments to make themselves feel like "awe-inspiring beings." To confirm their own sense of superiority, capitalists require human spectators who look up to them while suffering in misery. Why else did ancient Rome unleash lions and gladiators in the Colosseum?

Later on, things made by humans will become expensive luxuries, while commoners like me will be fed UBI—the bare minimum bread for survival—along with cheap, AIslop.

If making money by learning a skill increasingly requires a longer time investment, you have to endure the period it takes to learn that skill and build a reputation, which is incredibly difficult for the average working class. It requires the financial backing of a wealthy family to afford a college degree, travel to academic conferences, and survive on low wages. And if someone can endure all that to build a reputation, it will naturally lead to a massive concentration of wealth at the very top.