/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7578976]

Is there any counter-argument to this? Is this guy objectly right?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-hawking-capitalism-robots_5616c20ce4b0dbb8000d9f15?ir=Technology&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

>Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots

[Anonymous No.7578990]

>>7578976
Yes: that he is a cuckold.

[Anonymous No.7579006]

>>7578976

Capitalism is shit but it's a physicist, not an economist so his words are to be taken as an opinion of an ordinary citizen of the world, not as an expert opinion.

[Anonymous No.7579047]

>>7579006
>Looney tunes
>90s
Learn when the greatest cartoons were made.

[Anonymous No.7579056]

>>7579047

In France, the 80s-90s was the big time for these cartoons.

And before 80s, i am not really sure that they were destined to kids.

[Anonymous No.7579060]

>>7579006
>a physicist, not an economist
Economics is just politically-motivated opinion, so anybody with an opinion is an "economist".

[Anonymous No.7579062]

>>7579006
it doesn't take an economist to realise that wealth inequality is increasing as a result of technology.

[Anonymous No.7579063]

>>7579060
nah economics is about how resources are distributed. Fairly objective.

[Anonymous No.7579066]

>>7579062
> increasing as a result of technology
> a result of
oh rly?
how about correlation is not causation

[Anonymous No.7579067]

>>7579062
This is debatable. Many " poors " have access to the technology : telephone, ordinateur, internet, etc.

>>7579060
Economists are by definition a little more informed on the subject

[Anonymous No.7579074]

>>7579067
>Economists are by definition a little more informed on the subject
Well, he seems awfully well-informed about aliens and AI, so I think we can trust him on this too.

[Anonymous No.7579082]

>>7579074

His " blah blah blah " about God or AI or aliens should also be taken for what they are: opinions without expertise.

[Anonymous No.7579084]

>>7579082
poe's law

[Anonymous No.7579093]

>>7579084
>poe's law

I know but many people (but not you) think that his opinion outweighs whatever the subject because it is a physicist seen on TV.

[Anonymous No.7579106]

>>7579066
How about technology has allowed companies of small teams generate huge amounts of wealth with very little labour and capital.

Whatsapp was a company of 55 people and was sold for 19 billion

notch created a game with a team of ~10 people and sold it for 2.5 billion.

Before technology this level of wealth was not possible to attain without significant labour and capital forcing some form of distribution.

The technology industry has provided the platform for huge amounts of money to be generated by small (in terms of no. of employess) businesses.

>>7579067
Its not about the availability of technology for everyone.

Technology has allowed few people to generate massive amounts of wealth at little cost. This makes the rich richer.

It is also pushing out labour in favour of cheap capital. This has been happening for a long time. The next big one seems to be self driving cars, which will decimate the labour in the transport industry. This makes the poor unemployed and thereby poorer.


Hawking is talking about both of these things happening in unison, its not really a controversial opinion at this point.

[Anonymous No.7579131]

>>7579106
>Before technology
-technology has always existed
-nobody cares about money
-nobody cares about some retard spending billions on sterile companies

[Anonymous No.7579150]

>>7579131
your and idiot

[Anonymous No.7579164]

right now, technology is going to take over our brains. Who cares about wealth then?

[Anonymous No.7579181]

>>7579006

Yes, because so often the words of economists can be taken as fact.

[Anonymous No.7579198]

>>7578976
>If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.
Well, he's not wrong.

What was that one story about the AI directing menial workers through headsets and the foam housing "slums"?

[Anonymous No.7579206]

THEY'VE STOLEN HIS VOICE!

What if 5 years ago his keyboard was reprogrammed. It won't say what he wants it to say anymore. It's been reprogrammed so another secret group can talk through Steven Hawking. No mater what he types into they machine it always says what "they" want him to say instead. He can't cry for help. Any attempts simply won't be understood.

[Anonymous No.7579229]

>>7579206
Tanks, Anon.

[Anonymous No.7579253]

>>7578976
>5 Signs You May Have Linked to Clickbait on 4chan

YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THE FIFTH SIGN IS

[Anonymous No.7579267]

Hawkings statement is obvious. The value of most humans in capitalist terms is going to drop to nothing.

[Anonymous No.7579282]

>machine-produced wealth is shared equally between all people
>unemployed, poor and dumb majority are as rich now as the programmers and engineers making the robots

Yup, I'm sure everyone will be happy!

[Anonymous No.7579303]

>>7578976
Ok, for capitalism to even be a thing there has to be a limited amount of resources in existence. If some robot could truly produce everything anyone could ever need than there would be unlimited resources and therefore capitalism couldn't exist. The argument is invalid.

[Anonymous No.7579306]

>>7578976
Capitalism is like a super powerful car without a steering wheel.

[Anonymous No.7579318]

>>7579106
>Whatsapp was a company of 55 people and was sold for 19 billion

>notch created a game with a team of ~10 people and sold it for 2.5 billion.

These are complete outliers. The success rate of new companies is still remarkably low regardless of what industry (with start-ups being the lowest). Reagan's policies allowed the tech boom to truly blossom into what it is, and brought inequality with it. Technology is not the sole reason. A combination of fiscal policy, new markets, and proliferation are to blame.

[Anonymous No.7579331]

>>7579306
It's more like a disease.

[Anonymous No.7579344]

>>7579303
Except if a few individuals had the robotic technology on wraps of course.

[Anonymous No.7579363]

>>7579344
No because that wouldn't be capitalism.

[Anonymous No.7579376]

>>7579303
>limited amount of resources in existence.
Just like diamonds!! Cause everyone knows the reason diamonds are so expensive is because they're so rare, right?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rohin-dhar/diamonds-are-bullshit_b_3708562.html
It all boils down to who owns the robots. Large corporations will try to wrestle control away from the general population by using bureaucracy, over regulation, legal procedures, or making sure such robots are out of the price range of the average citizen. A perfect example is 3d printing. It allows ANYBODY to become a manufacturer, which means EVERYBODY is now a potential competitor for large manufacturing companies. The whole BS about 3d printers making guns was in part an attempt to place legislation and laws restricting the use of 3D printers. Of course we all know you can't 3D print a useful working gun barrel so the whole thing is total BS.

[Anonymous No.7579379]

>>7579303
You're focusing too much on extremes. By the time AI has taken over most of duties performed by humans, it will already be too late.

[Anonymous No.7579381]

>>7579363
>being this naive
There's no free markets either, capitalism doesn't exist in the real world as an ideal.

[Anonymous No.7579405]

>Neither a renown physicist, nor his academic groupies on the web, can give a coherent definition of capitalism

It's like watching a bunch of elderly GOP senators try to discuss childbirth.
Although to be fair, their conversation would probably have less Marxist dialectic-vomit.

[Anonymous No.7579427]

>>7579206
WHOOOOAAA

[Anonymous No.7579438]

>>7579303
People have unlimited wants but they only have limited needs.
Needs are met by work and the leftover spills into wants.
With zero labor production you could produce for all needs and allocate excess for wants of people based on how much is left over, while maintaining a market I might add.
Not everyone will have to participate in the market or labor force as they do today but that doesn't mean people wont, in order to satisfy their wants.

[Anonymous No.7579848]

>>7579344
>implying it would be possible to hide such technology from the rest of the world
>implying the plans wouldn't eventually leak anyway
>what is crowdfunding
Hawking is just getting old and bitter
Thinking that something like that could simply be kept in the hands of few is tinfoil-hat tier
/thread

[Anonymous No.7579858]

>>7579181
Statistical data say that educated economists have a lowered empathy and connect less to society.
Opinions of professors that students take as facts make them egoistical assholes.

[Anonymous No.7579863]

>>7579267
Yeah. Obvious Hawking is Obvious. He should come up with a scenario of change.

Scaring people with capitalism and AI like they don't go to the movies.

[Anonymous No.7579875]

>>7579848
That's why you pay $1000 for medication that costs $0.10 to produce today.

[Anonymous No.7579879]

>>7578976
He is absolutely right.
Check this out too:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-shocking-ways-world-about-to-change_p2/

[Anonymous No.7579886]

>>7578976
God damn what a moron.

>muh ebil rich ppl

[Anonymous No.7579888]

>>7579875
>medication
>comparing that industry to anything else
You need to get medicines approved by the FDA etc.
Also that requires a huge amount of continuous research
Besides you're implying that this will still happen in 20 years, and I don't believe that is the case.
Medicines aren't just robots, those companies are few and have little competition while manufacturing is one of the most competitive industries right now
They keep trying to lower the costs as much as they can, look at the chinese.
We're in the age of the internet now. Crowdfunding will be much bigger in the future.
>>7579879
>cracked.com
oh come on

[Anonymous No.7579891]

>>7579888
>oh come on
Just read that one page. It's really interesting.
You think it incorrect? He makes some good points.

David Wong always does brilliant articles.

[Anonymous No.7579893]

>>7579891
>You think it incorrect? He makes some good points.
If you're a teenager who's going through his "marxist" phase.

[Anonymous No.7579894]

>>7579891
I read that article. But still come on, cracked is known for being unscientific
I remember one article claiming how someone managed to successfully create energy

[Anonymous No.7579990]

>>7579888
>this will still happen in 20 years, and I don't believe that is the case.
Looking at todays trend it's going to be even worse. Beliefs have nothing to do with science.

>They keep trying to lower the costs as much as they can
Bullshit. The prices of existing drugs are statistically going up. Some cost more than 1000% of yesterdays price.

If you can have patents for medicine that cures cancer, you will easily get a patent for a machine that does everything else.

Manufacturing, farmaceutics, every part of global market is less and less competitive each year. Bigger companies buy smaller ones, they merge.

Above all you have banks and other forms of finances, that don't actually produce anything useful, but get the biggest part of cake. Because it's not just human workers and robot workers. In this unbalanced economy you also have money that "works" for you. And this worker is more "efficient" than the others, because humans and robots are limited by physics.

[Anonymous No.7580000]

>>7579894
I remember one article claiming how someone managed to successfully create energy
i doubt it,
i read one where they were mocking cold fusion or something like 'top 5 gullible morons...'

they usually link to their source, and thy aint dumb, so they wont have linked to pseudoscientific bullshit unless they were mocking it.

so post a link to the article you described or STFU

[Anonymous No.7580002]

>>7579990
>patents
>patents will exist in 20 years

[Anonymous No.7580033]

>>7580002
Oh mighty oracle, grant me the knowledge of the future.

[Anonymous No.7580112]

Aliens will get us first.