Will capitalism survive after the revolution of robots?

This publication is a free translation of the article by Zoltan Istvan on the development of automation, robotics and the place of people in the near future.

Experts in the field of economics are trying to answer a question that just two decades ago seemed ridiculous: if in the next 50 years 90% of jobs are occupied by robots, which is already considered plausible, will capitalism remain an ideal economic system?

After the collapse of the USSR, most of the world considers capitalism to be the best system based on economics and democracy. For many decades, few people doubted that capitalism was the cause of prosperous globalization and the rapid growth of global net worth. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, there were 198 billionaires in the world. Now, according to Forbes, at the beginning of 2016 there are already 1,826 of them.

Note from the translator: I do not agree with the position of the author on the topic that "the world has become richer due to the fact that the number of billionaires has grown 10 times." Rather, the poor simply become poorer, and the rich richer.
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Despite the growth of wealth, in 2007, during the Great Recession, the world stepped back and wondered if a more subtle approach to economic progress was needed. These doubts of the 21st century helped lay the foundation for an emerging economic paradigm — fewer jobs for people, and some simply disappear from the face of the earth. The culprit of this can be considered as robots and software.

In the end, the economy and companies thrive on modernization, which includes the use of new technologies, which helps save money. But last year was a turning point - in the future tens of millions of jobs may be lost in the shortest possible time (5-10 years) - more than lost during the Great Recession.

Already today there are countries that use autonomous trucks to deliver goods. A truck driver is one of the most common jobs in America (about 3.5 million). What will happen in five years if they are replaced with vehicles that do not need human intervention?

This is the nature of a competitive economy. However, those people who are replaced by robots are unlikely to find another job. Some are likely to live at the expense of the state, otherwise adult men and women will take petrol bombs and tell the world something about workers' revolutions.

The only difference between this and other historical revolutions is that they will not be alone. This time the problem is not the rich versus the poor. After 20 years, everyone’s work will be at stake, even my wife, who graduated from college, to become a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and still has $ 100,000 in tuition fees. The machines will give birth and remove cervical cancer better. than people. And the software will take taxes more efficiently than accountants. And the articles will be processed better by software than by a living, breathing journalist.

Everyone, even the president, is at risk of losing in front of the car - and may eventually become unemployed.

So now we know that we are all going to lose work. Will people still be happy and live better without her?

Some believe that the era of fully automated communism will come as soon as robots take all the jobs. Communism for many is a very weighty argument, including for me.

We are confined to society and social services, and our human individuality, our ability to think, looks like a mockery. The 21st century has made people feel freer than ever, and, frankly, with so many amazing technologies and innovations around, they think they deserve it. And I think that we deserve the right to enjoy the fruits of technological progress. Do not think about survival, politics and society, if we are not interested in it, strive for more, higher, instead of trying our best to earn a couple of bucks to survive.

In fact, I doubt that money will live to the end of the century. In any case, in the future, only knowledge will have value - knowledge to create better machines or software. Around the same time, for sure, it will be possible to connect yourself to artificial intelligence and disappear into the sea of ​​information. And one can only guess what will happen to the world then.

However, back to reality, in 2016. Whatever economic system prevails in the next 25 years, the future will not be the same as we saw it before.

Whatever happens, it is better to be open to new economic models. Many of us work in finance, trying to get promoted and realize the American dream of wealth and a good life. But in the future, the essence of this dream may be the desire to open up transhuman opportunities using technologies. And I think I can live in such a world.