Robotics and Population Decline

Posted by VetteGuy 3 days ago to Technology
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I've noticed a lot of "news" reporting on these two topics lately. Am I the only one who sees that these two phenomena could be complimentary? Population declines, but at the same time, we need fewer workers because robots are doing more jobs. I have not seen any reports that link these two issues. Could they offset each other? What would that look like? Is Asimov's Solaria [From The Naked Sun] the future of humanity?


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  • Posted by freedomforall 2 days, 11 hours ago
    As long as the robots have to pay into social security and medicare. ;^)
    US was a much more pleasant place when the population was less than 200 million.
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    • Posted by 2 days ago
      That would have been sometime in the mid-60's if my brief research is right. And I agree, things seemed to be much more pleasant.

      Had an interesting discussion with a health care provider a couple months back: How different life would be if everyone asked "What would Andy Griffith Do?" I know life was not perfect in those days, but it seems there was not the animosity that runs rampant now.

      It's one of the reasons I like driving on the small-town sections of Route 66. People are helpful, friendly and polite.
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  • Posted by pamzt 2 days, 3 hours ago
    Thank you for saying what I’m thinking. Why is negative population growth a bad thing? Automation requires less workers. More folks can live in better first world conditions. I think the third world problems will continue until they expel the corruption, dictatorships and embrace open markets and capitalism. Africa has a huge amount of human capital but the above has prevented any significant change in their lives and economic growth.
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    • Posted by jack1776 2 hours, 31 minutes ago
      “Why is negative population growth a bad thing?” – Well, we need a larger younger population to assume the responsibilities of the older generation; all of our systems are built to account for growth. So your argument is that automation will fill in the gaps with abundance, I can see that on the face argument but you and me know damn well that human nature doesn’t work that way. As soon as they roll out UBI, they will be looking for ways to reduce the expenditures, cull the heard as you may call it. Population decline due to a lack of resources is called a famine but a population decline because of a conscious decision is called a genocide.
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  • Posted by LarryHeart 4 minutes ago
    In a word YES. It in a way is already happening with online "romance" where the participants never meet IRL.

    Devaluing the US debt based currency has kept women from having children due to not having enough to support a family. The lower the value of money the more crime and killing too. That plus all the other manipulations are reducing the population. Hopefully not a long term trend.

    Half the population are already robots in a way. lol Imagine if the same programming and propaganda is instituted in actual robots. For now AI is their brain. Better hope Grok and other companies creating AI make Asimov required reading about the three laws of Robotics and its implications.
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  • Posted by rhfinle 4 minutes ago
    If machines are going to do all of the work, we had better have some population reduction, elst we'll all end up as unemployable salesmen.
    Look up the "Shoe Event Horizon" economic theory that Douglas Adams described in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 1 hour, 19 minutes ago
    How long should the Homo Sapiens race last?

    When we arrived on Earth around 500,000 years ago, we joined our fellows Homo Erectus, Neanderthals, Nelardi, Denisovan, Heidlbergis, and more. The longest survived species, Erectus, lasted maybe 1.1 million years.

    They are all now extinct save for us. Maybe we are on an evolutionary path to extinction.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 2 days, 1 hour ago
    What population is declining? It seems to me "first world" is declining while third world is increasing, especially third world living within the first world territories. First world robotics may be assisting first world decline while also assisting third world increase. It just seems first world is nurturing third world with a flood of free stuff while turning a blind eye to its own people. Just thinking out loud here with only demographic observations of Europe, North America, and Australia.
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    • Posted by freedomforall 1 day, 23 hours ago
      Agree completely. 👍
      Except for the arguable issue of our population eventually being overrun by the 3rd world over-populated
      shit-hole invaders, reducing the US population is not a problem, its an improvement.
      (No, don't kill anyone, just make the 135,000,000 invaders and their progeny leave.)
      This assumes that the robots doing the work have to pay double or triple (or whatever is necessary) to
      support those over 55 (who paid in all their working lives and) who were promised that social security
      would provide enough to live above poverty in retirement after 66 years old.
      For everyone under 55, pay their 'contributions' into a "Trump retirement account" and hire the best
      available to invest it for them to provide for their "golden years."
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    • Posted by jack1776 2 hours, 4 minutes ago
      I think its all by design, if you knew that automation was coming and its was going to displace the first world population, would you want to keep them around. The first world population takes action and expects more while the third world is grateful you didn’t shit on them today. A population dependent on UNI that accepts third world status is much easier to control.

      COVID vaccines – population control, multiple sources but the quite part out loud was spoken by Bill Gates.
      Fentanyl – Family decline – you can’t have health children if your high all of the time
      Schools – indoctrination – I personally have lost two of my four daughters to the redrick being drilled into their heads. They think our society deserves to die, they don’t want children in this world.
      Dollar collapse – seems to be accelerating, impossible to have families

      I could go on but why?

      I think the people in the know, know and they think we don’t see it. All of the craziness are intentional decisions, not accidents.
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