Where are we Going?

 

The technological tidalwave:

Let me give a simple picture. When you pick up a cup of coffee on your desk, you likely do it automatically. But when the cup is structurally weird and placed in an off location, the feeling then tells your brain to focus on the cup and perform conscious override to pick it up, so picking up the coffee becomes less automatic as you then consciously do it.

This is exactly how mobile robotics will work. The robot will perform a function automatically until something out of uniform order comes up. The robot then immediately presents a visual feed of the task to a human online, and the human then actively controls the robot through the irregularity.

The human does this efficiently, because 5G internet reduces the digital latency between human-command and robot-reaction to about a hundredth of a second. As well, mobile robots use boundary-detection which makes it essentially impossible for human override to be clumsy and damage a boundary. The robot will only interface with its environment to perform an action, when the online controller gives the executive command for it to do so.

With this kind of operation, we will see that modern robots can do almost any job a human can do. 

Robots will become ever more efficient, because once an action is performed it is then recorded. Files are uploaded online, with GPS-tags for easy searching. The human controller will, over time, only have to press the 'repeat' icon on his screen in many cases. Hence, the online controllers create cloud-based operational maps for the robots.

Another vital supporting technology is driverless cars, providing driverless platforms for mobile robots to reach their work points over significant distances. This technology is essentially here, today.

The economics:

It's not about the technology anymore, which is present and demonstrated. It's about deployment. Robots will not be deployed until they make economic sense. What we're waiting for is ubiquitous 5G and driverless platforms, because this is what we need for the economics to become clear.

Even if a standard, multi-purpose robot costs $1m (it won't), if it then replaces one human contractor and works 24/7, it will be employed. Competitive forces will dictate it because it's the most economical option.

There's no real risk in the investment, because usually the robots will be hired by any given company, not bought. This ensures they are utilised constantly, which is key to ensuring uptake.

So what does this mean?

It means you've created a world where there's no need for anyone to leave their home, except for recreation. Nearly all practical operations can be online-based.

Once everything is online, future movements in automation will only require a software upgrade (as such), so progressive automation will happen quickly. Of course, automation moves slowly when you have to develop hardware along with the software.

Also respect that human resource giants, such as India and China, are pushing out masses of computer programmers who will leave us with a programming army, that will make sophisticated software upgrades move forward rapidly.

Add to this machine learning, where we run simulations for robots to find the best way to action given movements, in any given context. Like animals, robots will experimentally simulate actions before they perform them, to maximise speed and efficiency. These simulations can be run online.

Software upgrades, driving rapid automation, applies to administrative automation as well. Again, it's about doing everything online. We will see the development of platforms that remove the need for today's relentless information-duplication, which will likewise drive ever more automation. Once we're all working from standardised apps, operational streamlining can become almost total.

For example: Before you go the café to get your coffee, you can make a purchase from your phone app. Once you hit 'enter' the coffee machine in the café is then immediately programmed to make your custom coffee, with complete automation. That's ultimate streamlining. You can't get more efficient than that until you hook up your brain to a machine-to-brain interface, allowing you to order your coffee via a 'will' impulse alone (one of Klaus Schwab's geek fantasies...but we won't go there).

The social impact:

With this level of automation, you increase productive efficiency to such a degree that you can soon take a wage of, say, $50,000 per-year today, and presume it will be more like $500,000 per-year in one or two decades - that is, relating to real purchasing power. We will be very rich as a society via our bounty of robot 'slaves' and extreme streamlining efficiencies.

Unemployment will be an issue for those who are not creative and exploratory, but ultimately I think this will prove to be a trivial concern. Recreational clubs of all different kinds will develop to help people pass their time. For most people, being isolated from work stress, and work boredom, will prove to be a welcome relief. Mobile robots means the removal of robotic jobs.

My presumption is we will need to develop some kind of universal basic income. In New Zealand, and many industrialised countries, we already have this in effect with a welfare system that is comprehensive and vast.

The politics:

There's going to be a 'great reset' no matter what. When half the planet's a millionaire and can work online, from anywhere in the world, then that can only be completely disruptive to traditional systems. 

The things that allow us to make reasonable predictions, that otherwise keeps politics boring, will be turned on their heads. Everything will change. Does the World Economic Forum understand this? Of course, but I will speak out this later.

There are so many 'ups' to this evolution, but there are some serious downs as well.

The central problem of a super rich society, is that you can induce gross over-consumption. Especially if people have nothing better to do than 'consume'. Can we tolerate every man buying a mansion and at possibly great environmental impact? 

The other problem with super-prosperity is you may induce a massive fertility spike, as the financial and practical barriers to having as many as 10 children per-woman will be removed. Will we be throwing giant sacks of rice at a rat plague? (so to speak!).

I doubt the middle and upper-working classes will choose to have big families in response to great prosperity, because for the most part they're already prosperous and tend not to go beyond the third child, by choice. However, the lower classes are much more prone to breeding heavily when they can. This is not necessarily for the best, because lower classes in the industrialised world are (sadly) associated with more severe child abuse and child neglect. Child abuse is the central driver behind virtually all transparent social problems that we understand today.

So this opens another question: Do we want to breed the underclass? Should great prosperity allow for the expansion of reckless fertility, even more than it has today? What will the far-reaching impact of this kind of social policy be on our evolving world? Do we need to think about direct fertility management and consumption controls?

Who runs the show?

I make an outsider of myself by talking about fertility management. The conversation is culturally taboo. But making fertility management taboo, as a topic, is ridiculous in principle. It's inescapable that the concerns I speak about must be dealt with. And because of this, those who do long-range planning will of course be looking at fertility. You can't pretend an issue is not an issue, when it is. Accurate long-range modelling dictates this.

Ok, so why haven't leading international organisation, such as the World Economic Forum, been talking about fertility and how it relates to that technological tidalwave on our doorstep? Obviously because they can't. We, the people, will call them Nazi's if they dared speak like I have, and that would in turn be the end of any political movement that associates with them. Political suicide.

This could explain why international politics, and international organisations, have been periodically manipulative. If the public won't accept certain truths that must nonetheless be confronted, then the public must be manipulated. Simply, internationalists will work around us - not with us. That means manipulation. Conspiracy, if you like.

That's all very well, but who then would be at the top of the power hierarchy, driving forward global management? I can only speculate, but the zenith of power is not so much facilitated by wealth, I believe, but ruthlessness. It doesn't matter how much money you have, you're still made of flesh. You will still be subservient to an organisation that can and will ultimately kill you, if you don't play ball. And when you're dealing with serious global problems, lethal force can be easily rationalised...

So what's my best guess? I speculate that global management may well have evolved from military super powers, in response to their extensive modelling relating to long-range global threats, including over-population threats. I would suggest the group that really runs this world is more likely to be found in the Pentagon than the Gates foundation. 

So where are we going?

Again I can only guess, but I would bet we're going to a technologically advanced society with enough authoritarian-override to directly control fertility, block over-consumption, and manage the ever-growing threat of high-tech terrorism (meaning, a surveillance society). I guess this, because that is what the models will be telling us we need. It's logical, and many open signs are already pointing in this direction. 

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Extra note:

I've always been able to empathise with the need for global management, to meet certain ends that must be met. But what worries me, is the fact that the game is dominated by an intellectually isolated group or groups. Outsiders don't get to look at the models and criticise them. What the man on the street has to say is irrelevant. The peons are to be studied - not listened to.

Yet, elites are not elites because they are superior. They win their positions through a basic level of ability, of course, but also because of contacts, hyper-ambition, luck, and too often the ability to play dirty (ruthlessness) to get to the top...

None of those traits, other than basic intellectual competence, have anything to do with the kind of attributes we should want to see in executive leadership. Indeed, the very best potential leaders will almost certainly be people you would have never heard of, nor ever will.

What's more, when an establishment becomes rotten it will filter for its own kind. For example, you can ask why hasn't the CCP internally reformed? The answer, is because it filters in the kind of people that will protect the status quo, and filters out those who could provoke an internal reform. This I believe is how corrupt organisations get steadily worse. The good guys leave in disgust - the bad guys stay and have a party.

Hence, this is why public scrutiny is so important for any public organisation. The latency towards serious corruption is forever prevalent and forever dangerous. This is what people need to wake up to, so we can develop a 'new world order' the way it should be developed. Political apathy, or childish political tribalism, might well one day ruin us.

My model here.