And what defines a unit of "workforce"? If a single person is replaced by 3 robots, did one unit of workforce get replaced, or do we now have two more "workers"? What if a robot replaces 3 laborers? Compounded by your question of what counts as a robot.

If a postal worker correcting unreadable addresses was replaced by a better OCR algorithm on a server somewhere, were they replaced by a robot or not? Are servers robots?

[–] riskable@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Exactly: A single worker can perform a great variety of "jobs" for their employer but a robot typically only does one thing. If you replace a human's job with three robots it would throw these statistics way off.

Not only that but a bunch of robots could be enhancing or expanding a human's productivity. So a single person could be performing the work of five by using the assistance of robots.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This could be good in the long term. To best benefit from this technology, we will likely need to implement some form of universal income.

!ubi@leminal.space

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True. It's what keeps me optimistic. If we can get through the decay of the old world intact, there's a world of post-scarcity plenty ahead.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm optimistic that we'll get there eventually. But the sooner we play our cards right as a civilization, the sooner we'll be able to enjoy the benefits.

[–] sircac@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Do they pay taxes? Because they should pay taxes