Do AI Bots Dream Of Electric Trucks?

Well, a tad lifted from Philip K. Dick, but it's become a lamestream media Hot Story.

So, let's ponder the tale's trail, shall we?? The left wingnuts have been braying every day since the emergence of the industrial revolution, that said revolution would kill more jobs at each stage than the new jobs created and, in particular that the new jobs can't be available to old job workers; skill mismatch and all that. By and large, that's been true. The only reason total collapse of economies hasn't happened yet (or, may be, it has but the lamestream media has kept silent?) is that economies have relied on exponential population growth to keep demand for widgets in line with automation's ever increasing productivity. (Well, and hammering nails into sticks to make houses isn't rocket science.) Which increases in productivity accrue almost entirely to the wealthier classes; not insignificantly due to the fact that the RRW continue to live (and vote) as if it's still 1829 and fewer and fewer of them have the skill sets needed for the 'New Economic Order' (not to be confused with the New World Order Run By And For The Jews).

The sort of economy and society we used to know were the result of most of the people having most of the moolah (and thus buying power) most of the time to drive growth. And, for the record, only lasted from the end of WWII (when the Powers That Be still operated with a "We're all in this together" mantra) to the first OPEC oil crisis. As is 'intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer' (Dr. McElhone said that a lot) we've entered (perhaps for fucking ever) a period of monopoly capitalism, with the few having most of the moolah. That condition can't have a happy ending. Monopoly capital will collapse if it can't sell all of that burgeoning output, and who will buy? The Tyranny of Average Cost guarantees it. There's less and less labour to cut from the BoM of said widgets and suck into the bidnezz coffers. Eventually, the BoM consists of just paying for the capital and keeping the machines running. They'll have machines that do that part, too; cut the last humans from the process. Some pretty much already do. One might wonder how many unskilled, semi-skilled, and high-skilled humans this capitalist has managed to make redundant?

Does anyone really believe that replacing 100 assembly line workers with a robot designed, engineered, and built by 10 other people is a win-win? Moreover, those assembly line uneducated Rednecks could never, ever qualify for one of New Tech's better jobs. "Wanted: 1,000 uneducated Rednecks to design AI control programs for ditch digging machine." Ya think? That simple fact has been true since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution as well, and is exemplified by the RRW's desire (I'm talkin' to you Gov. Ron DeMented) to turn the clock back to 1829. "Ya'll don't need no book larnin' to walk behind a plow mule or make babies. Just shut up and read your Bible. And, never ever have a kind word to say about or to a Darkie. They's beneath ya'll and always will be. Gov. Ron DeMented will see to it." Just keep in mind what LBJ said; still true today.

But, if that's where we go, who'll have the moolah to buy up all that automated output? Hmmm?? Certainly not all them thar no book larnin' Florida Rednecks. The slave-wage exporter's dilemma: it can't survive without a (or, more realistically, many) high-wage importer(s); that's the only way the arithmetic can work. But if you can convince the uneducated Rednecks that, though they're getting screwed by the monopoly capitalists, the Darkies are getting screwed worse, the uneducated Rednecks will continue to support the power structure.

It is just a tad odd that Henry Ford, anti-Semite and White Supremacist and other not so wonderful qualities, was also infamous amongst his peers for paying his low-skilled assembly workers enough that they could buy a Model T. Legend has it that they did. He wasn't being kind; he just knew who buttered his toast.

This tying of economic growth, and thus jobs (may be we'll get more?), to growing population is of a piece with the slash-and-burn agriculture of Brazil as an exemplar and the mindfuck of folks like Musk who dream of colonizing Mars as an exemplar of Real Progress. No water. No air. No soil. No nuthin. Even if would could build chemical rockets with enough oomph just to get there, how about getting back? We can just about make it to the moon and back with, if we're lucky, six humans aboard (not all will touch the moon, of course).

It's an axiom of any trained economist, Right/Left/Keynes/Smith/whatever, that demand for goods and services is infinite, even at the individual level. It's just that, until Ehrlich revealed the truth about resources, it seemed that global population growth (even with the feeding frenzy of the 'civilized' West) could support the approach. (The 'Green Revolution' came from millions of pounds of chemical fertilizers, not smarter farming.) But with the resources, land and water (clean ones, of course), needed for basic existence in ever shorter supply, it makes exactly zero sense to encourage an economic system dependent on per capita growth in those goods and services. The housing sector is a prime example, and not just here in the USofA but fur shur China. The housing sector is some combination of Pyramid and Ponzi; it doesn't look good.

We need the Damn Gummint to be smart enough to herd cats. That is to say, tilt the playing field such that your average greed obsessed bidnezzman will do what promotes long term survival of most of us, at least, not just the 1%. No, I can't offer the One True Answer in this missive. The dark side of that: the idiots and charlatans very nearly turned Covid-19 into a massive disaster. Xi's egoistic bungling may well yet; China's manufacturing has been far more dependent on hands than machines than much of Western manufacturing. That appears to be changing.

The simple fact is, making physical widgets is rapidly approaching a no humans need apply condition. When it hits, and it will by God, it will likely be too late to figure out an income distribution regime to keep the whole mess humming along as if nothing bad had happened. Good luck.

We know that lower level animal populations have grown themselves to extinction. Humans are no different, thanks to the likes of Gov. Ron DeMented.

The mention of Brazilian slash-and-burn is just a particularly egregious example of, at the least, Western 'Civilation's' answer to trouble: just get outa Dodge and find somewhere else to reduce to cinders. Rather than use the ever diminishing resource endowment of Mother Earth to solve the problems we face, burn up (and that's literal) ever more of said resources in pointless treks to places that are not habitable by humans, without said humans bringing all necessary resources with them and other humans sending replenishment for fucking ever. Now that's a grand plan.

We know, with a more than fair amount of certainty, that Earth 2.0 doesn't exist as far as we can see in any direction. And certainly not reachable with chemical rockets and within the remaining life-span of an adult human. And, likely, even with near-light-speed ships. Assuming, of course, that there's another Einstein in our midst to show us how to build one. For myself, I'd settle for Mr. Fusion engines available at WalMart for $100.

Humans tackle the problems they find fun and profitable to solve, not the problems that really matter beyond the immediate term and to species survival. Mostly. WWII being a significant exception; I can't think of another exception since. We don't yet know how the West will ultimately deal with Putin and his American buffoons. Or climate change. Or rampant autocracy everywhere on the planet.

A tad too harsh? Just keep up with the crap coming out of the mouths of RRW.