{"id":35005,"date":"2017-03-02T17:05:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T01:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs-theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer"},"modified":"2017-06-04T07:10:43","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:10:43","slug":"robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs-theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs-theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer","title":{"rendered":"Robots won\u2019t just take our jobs \u2013 they\u2019ll make the rich even richer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs-theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>These dystopias may sound like science fiction, but they\u2019re perfectly plausible given our current trajectory. The technology around robotics and artificial intelligence will continue to improve \u2013 but without substantive political change, the outcome will range from bad to apocalyptic for most people. That\u2019s why the recent rumblings about a robot tax are worth taking seriously. They offer an opportunity to develop the political response to mass automation now, before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n<p>When I asked the prominent leftwing thinker Matt Bruenig for his thoughts, he explained that whatever we do, we shouldn\u2019t try to discourage automation. \u201cThe problem with robots is not the manufacturing and application of them \u2013 that\u2019s actually good for productivity,\u201d he told me. \u201cThe problem is that they are owned by the wealthy, which means that the income that flows to the robots go out to a small slice of wealthy people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Job-killing robots are good, in other words, so long as the prosperity they produce is widely distributed. An Oxfam <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfam.org\/sites\/www.oxfam.org\/files\/file_attachments\/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" class=\"\">report<\/a> released earlier this year revealed that the eight richest men in the world own as much wealth as half the human race. Imagine what those numbers will look like if automation accelerates. At some point, a handful of billionaires could control close to one hundred percent of society\u2019s wealth. Then, perhaps, the idea that wealth should be <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@MattBruenig\/nickel-and-dime-socialism-47fcec406295#.oj4nsmor7\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" class=\"\">owned by the many<\/a>, rather than monopolized by the few, won\u2019t seem so radical, and we can undertake a bit of sorely needed redistribution \u2013 before robot capitalism kills us all.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2017\/mar\/02\/robot-tax-job-elimination-livable-wage\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2017\/mar\/02\/robot-tax...vable-wage<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These dystopias may sound like science fiction, but they\u2019re perfectly plausible given our current trajectory. The technology around robotics and artificial intelligence will continue to improve \u2013 but without substantive political change, the outcome will range from bad to apocalyptic for most people. That\u2019s why the recent rumblings about a robot tax are worth taking [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1878,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58527,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35005\/revisions\/58527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}