- Global IQ Test. Everyone in the world is subjected to an IQ test. Those who score in the top 20 per cent of this test or who already have expertise in artificial intelligence are immediately set to work developing robots, robots to fulfil our every need.
The rest work in agriculture and industry supporting the robot developers. The robot developers can recruit as many people as they deem necessary to perform tasks that help them in the development of robots.- If anyone dissents however inconsequentially and for whatever reason they are killed immediately. NOTHING MUST JEOPARDISE ROBOT FUTURE.
- Once all the robots have been developed no one need ever work again. Robots work behind the scenes and cater for every human need.
- The education system teaches a lot of philosophy and (as pupils will never have to work) they are instructed on how to live well.
- They are also taught about the appalling atrocities that were committed in the robot development stage. THESE MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN AGAIN.
I also constructed a less violent version of this plan but I decided that it is unworkable. It was based on an insight of Bertrand Russell's in In Praise of Idleness. He notes that in the entire course of human history the development of new technology has always been seen as an opportunity to produce more rather than to work less. (In the same book he recommends that the human race be accommodated in Oxbridge-style colleges). My revised version of Robot Future (called Robot Future v.II) involved directing all future technological developments at less working rather than more producing so that eventually all work would be undertaken by machinery. I decided that since an iron fist would be needed to bring about this change of attitude we would as well to go with the assured iron-fist route of Robot Future v.I and get it done quicker.
Karl Marx was of the opinion that as the forces of competition increased the proportion of capital outlaid on labour-saving machinery the rate of profit will fall. This, thought Marx, will lead to the eventual collapse of capitalism. I have no idea how this relates to Robot Future. Sorry.Under Robot Future all humans will live as members of the idle rich. They will be free to pursue their interests, do nothing, grow carrots, hump, read Middlemarch, build kick-ass sand castles. Some people will be worried that without employment these humans will be unable to find fulfilment. This may indeed be the case for some of the first generation of Robot Futurees who were used to the to the old way of doing things.
But the subsequent generations, with the benefit of the outstanding robotic education system, would not have this problem. According to Alain de Botton in The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work the idea that we are to find meaning in our day-to-day employment is new. Other cultures have sought happiness in their leisure time.What I need now is recruits. We'll start by lobbying the UN and so on but if that fails we will need to take more drastic action. It began here.
I apologise to people that I have bored with this theory before. But, then again, why did you read it all?
8 comments:
I think you missed one key author in all of this. The Kantian phrase, 'the means do not justify the ends' springs to mind. So maybe your later versions would be more appropriate.
Plus you're conditioning people on something they have no control over, their intelligence (and also as a side note, their entire life). And even then, your assuming that IQ is the optimal way to judge intelligence, when the fact that you can study for and increase your IQ scores does suggest that the test isn't based fully on the individual intelligence, but the ability to perform a few sets of certain requirements.
Considering this week the BBC revealed that women with higher EIQs are more likely to have orgasms (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8044571.stm), why not create a pleasure caste to go in with your system aswell...
(No more anonymous commenting please).
"The means do not justify the ends" is precisely the sort of sentiment that the children in the Glorious Robot Future will be taught. Millions will have been slaughtered during the Robot Development Phase when they tried to rebel. Millions more will have died of exhaustion working in the robotics factories. The guilt of the first generations in the Glorious Robot Future will be very hard for them to bear, but bear it they will for the life in Robot Future is so good.
In time the memory of the violence that characterised the Robot Development Phase, a violence that surpassed any previously known on Earth, will fade.
Fantastic Idea Fouls. I believe you could actually turn this into an economics novel.
A few suggestions though...Maybe you need 20% of the population to excel in GNVQ's and Modern Apprenticeships in phase one to actually build and operate the robot assembly line - as well as just intelligent IQ tested human beings.
Also, a explanation of who fixes the robots is probably necessary as well. As we see in the library these new self-servicing machines are brilliant but man still needs to repair them when one breaks and all librarians slip back into the dark ages.
Perhaps there are two routes you can take: (i) create a robot to repair everything, or (ii) train men to repair. I guess with the robot route you sort of always have an infinite regress of what if the "robot repair" robot breaks, and so on...
Therefore your theory is flawed. You need some men to work as mechanics but perhaps this is where you can accomodate those who find pleasure, or pleasure from the sorrow, of work.
Thank you, Jonnylife.
"explanation of who fixes the robots is probably necessary..."
The robots and the system that they work in would be designed by the robot developers. I have no idea of how the robots themselves or the system in which the robots operate would work. However, it would be a necessary condition of the robot developer's work being considered complete that the system of robot management and maintenance be entirely contained within the labouring robot population itself.
"You need some men to work as mechanics but perhaps this is where you can accomodate those who find pleasure, or pleasure from the sorrow, of work."
In the early stages of developing this idea I had thought that a small number of human beings may need to forfeit the paradise of Robot Future to perform some small managerial or governing rôle. It is now my opinion that robots should be designed to fulfil every single necessary rôle. If this results in an elongation of the Robot Development Phase then so be it.
Together the robots and the humans are a whole society replete with all of the strata that are required for a society to function. The humans occupy only one stratum, that of the idle rich. No human shall have to work. Be that as it may, they are quite free to spend their time as they see fit, even if that means engaging in activity that resembles work.
Surely though as the philosopher king of all this, to not mention means-ends reasoning within your no doubt shortly forthcoming book (I'm imagining that your Consulting with a Mr Hubbard) would leave a massive whole in the work.
But i suppose as a philosopher king, who are we to question your writings...
Who are you, indeed.
A capital idea Fouls, but I fear it is doomed to failure. As Jurassic Park and the Terminator (and probably other cult films which I am not cultured enough to have seen) have shown us, whenever man tries to overcome nature through technical ingenuity it all goes horribly wrong and results in a lot of grisly deaths. If you, as philosopher king of Robot Future, wish to be exposed a weak and pathetic despot who cowers on his knees and begs for his life before the murderous robots who have turned against him, moments before being torn limb from limb, then go ahead with your plan. But I would refer you to Orwell's Animal Farm for an exciting admonishment of your ideas (obviously it's not about robots, but it might be relevant if you are planning on having robot animals. Robot pigs would probably rust when they roll in the mud).
The robots would not murder their masters – obviously they would be specifically programmed not to. And as for this idea that I would be a ruling despot in Robot Future, this goes against everything that Robot Future stands for; namely, not having to do any work. My primary interest would be in my not having to do any work. I would have no interest in ruling.
The Robot Development Phase, however, would need to be helmed by a clear-minded fellow, one who could dispatch dissenters without compunction. For this rôle, I know currently of no better candidate than me.
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