Dear Mr Ainikenov,

sometimes I meditated on questions you ask in your mail and I'd like to write something about this topic.

I think that the way is traced, the human labour will be replaced more and more by automatic workers, it is going to happened in USA as a reaction for low salaries in Asia countries. It implies that the output/profits (as a first step) will be concentrated on the capital side and in the high tech industries. The productivity in such industries will tend to infinity, leaving behind the less automatised industries (such as, perhaps,social care sector). The second step should be a process of redistribution of labour and income towards disadvantaged workers and industries.

Some considerations should be conducted about the "green" implication of all that in terms of resources saving and avoided pollution and also in terms of demography limitation.

Thank you for your very interesting question,

Kind regards,

Alessandro Zeli

PS Sorry for my English.

The changing technologies have always impact on economy, both developed and developing. The one basic thing to be remembered is that all these changes and economic system are man made; the basic purpose of the economy and technology is to satisfy human wants: we cannot create technology and economic system for non-human beings particularly computers and robots. However it is good hypothesis.

There are many merits to the agreement that you have hypothesized but by nature human being are social beings and value that human to human interaction and this will limit the degree to which robotics will replace low paid workers, a classic comparison will be one being happy to accept automated delivery of food at a “drive thru” outlet, but will that person be willing to accept being served by a robot in a restaurant? I doubt it very much.

However that being said there is a valid argument about the shift in the drivers of economic productivity, with knowledge assets replacing the more traditional factors of production as the main drivers of economic activity (see Henry 2013, Bontis 2000 b and Dumay). Unfortunately the capitalist system is an inherently parasitic one where one benefits to the detriment of the other and the wealthy will usually try to protect their status.

So though your utopic view of a more even distribution of wealth is commendable, once the wage deferential exist around the world, companies will continue to take a short term view and will exploit the profitability to be had by engaging production in low wage, under-regulated area as opposed to investing the vast sum is new age technologies that has the potential to generate greater savings in the future.

Unskilled labor has already been replaced by automated systems. The last 20 years, in US, the 100% of productivity growth has been attributed to technological growth. Thus, the future you have described in your question is already here. The effects in labor market, especially in areas where the supply is relatively high (e.g China, etc) are, of course, an additional reduce in wages (and therefore in the cost of products and services). However, as you may have already noticed, global economy has been through a period of low growth rates, a period of reduced consumption (especially in Southern Europe) which is probably the major effect of the declining economic cycle, which could be partially attributed to what you have described as 'well being effect' or in other words, it could be attributed to some kind of increasing "poverty" in relatively rich economies. .

In general the adoption of robotics occurs in certain industries, such as automotive and electronics, but not in all sectors at the same time. In some branches of the service sector information technology replaces vigorously labor, but not in others. One likely effect is the change in the composition of GDP, with the growth of the service sector and the relative decline of industry and agriculture. The effects on income distribution are uncertain, because the jobs created are more qualified than the jobs lost. The participation of small and medium entrepreneurs in national income tends to grow, offsetting the reduction in wage employment. Obviously the end result depends on national institutions, macroeconomic conditions and the country's insertion in the global flows of goods and capital.

I agree with the non-linearity of the process I try to describe. The mechanization of the agricolture in XIXth century (for instance) caused an increasing rate of unemployment and poverty that generated the manpower necessary to the growing manufacturing sector. Only a century later (and after some wars) the average life conditions increased significantly (lower working hours among others). Again the replacement of humans by mechanised procedures in production processes implies (on a medium-long period) the decreasing of the working hours and the redistribution of the output. Differently the new aotuomatised factories could be a non-sense. For which they will produce?

The increasing mechanization process could enable the industrialised Countries to compete with China and other new coming because of the decreasing of the relative importance of the labour factor (and consequently of its price or better of its incidence on total costs).

Today's industrial robots do not resemble human beings; a robot in human form is called an android.However, it causes unemployment in some industrial sectors.

Hope robots will never skilled to take loans and pay interest and mankind will survive :)

It´s imposible that robots could replace people.

The question posed by Mr. Ainikenov is not whether robots will replace people, but workers, and more specifically low skilled workers. I think the question can be translated in terms of the sustainability of the so called fordism, a social arrangement in which productivity gains were redistributed and hence fostered the effective demand. If I correctly understood, Ainekenov's question is more related to Economics than Philosophy.

I agree with you Rubens. Robots will replace high and low skiled workers in some industries. Iam not sure, but in Japan some companies use robots(automotive industry)

Yep, live people will have to compete with robots. Unless government increase social spendings, more and more poor people will die from hunger because of no job, and rich ones will sack people and buy robots. Unless government increase social spending, common people will have no money (because they were sacked), and capitalists will stop orienting on mass market. Instead, they'll close all mass production factories and build big 3D printers to create individual-designed luxuries for few rich people. They will also have to make battle robots to kill those hungry people that try to fight rich ones for place under sunlight.

However, it's unlikely to happen. Robots are overrated. Today, people eat food and robots eat oil. Oil is much more cheaper than food (because a lot of oil is spent to grow food). This is actually a reason that makes robots cheaper than manual labour. As soon as cheap synthetic food will be invented, balance may shift towards manual labour again.

Robots, will not replace people. It could be that in some industries use robots, because they are cheaper, but people is unique.

Better watch this video on what we will have to pay for "low prices".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jazb24Q2s94