corporation, funded initially with federal money, which will help to provide the capital for businessmen to obtain robots and bring them into industry.
“The robot leasing corporation is based somewhat on the existing Farm Credit Administration and Comsat Corporation,” Fuqua says. “It will be a quasi-government corporation. Its role will be to stimulate the demand for robots, and therefore the production of robots.”
Fuqua sees federal funding of $20 million per year, to provide low-interest loans to businesses, as “seed” money for the leasing corporation. Private investment will be encouraged, and will provide the bulk of the corporation’s funds. Eventually the corporation will pay back the government’s original loans with interest. Thus robots may begin to put money into the national treasury.
The robot leasing corporation, according to Fuqua, can “make it attractive for people to install certain types of robots, depending on the needs of their companies. It can be a source of capital to finance the lease [or purchase] of robots.”
Fuqua’s legislation, which is also backed by Cong. Albert Gore, Jr. of Tennessee and George Brown of California, among others, can help to provide investment capital for the transition to robotics while also cushioning the unemployment this transition is bound to cause.
Fuqua sees robots gradually entering the workplace, and being most valuable in jobs that are too dangerous or difficult for humans to attempt: cleaning up radioactive nuclear powerplants, for example, or fighting fires.
“I see robots moving in everywhere,” says Albus, who has spent the past ten years designing robots for the National Bureau of Standards. “Some places sooner than others, but practically everywhere sooner or later.”
He points out, “Robots create wealth. That makes the society that builds them and uses them able to maintain a much higher standard of living. This creates demand for expanded numbers of products and makes it possible to afford to hire the people to supply those products.”
This leads to a contradiction. On the one hand, thinkers such as Albus see robots creating wealth and a demand for more goods and thus more jobs. On the other hand, they also foresee new robots eventually taking over those jobs.
Albus argues, however, that “the main restriction to employment is not the amount of work to be done in the world. The amount of work that needs to be done is virtually infinite. The question is, can you afford to hire people to do the work?”
Considering all the tasks that can be done in a society, from repairing roads and picking up trash to bringing expert medical care to the poor and exploring outer space, Albus says, “The real fallacy is thinking that there’s a fixed amount of work to be done, and if robots do some of it there won’t be enough work to go around for humans. God, the world is filled with things that need to be done— just walk around your neighborhood and you can make a list of three hundred things that need to be done and can occupy a whole army of people to do them.”
But these things are not done, not only because society cannot afford to have them done, but because the people who make up society learn that they can get along without doing them.
“Basically, I think it’s because we can’t afford them,” Albus insists. “Getting along without means scaling back your living standards.”
Taking a wider view, Albus says, “The world is filled with poverty, hunger, poor housing, poor education... there’s plenty of things that need to be done. The question is really, can we afford to do all these things?” Only to a very limited extent today are these problems being dealt with, mainly because poor nations and poor people cannot afford to solve them. Albus believes that if robots and their high productivity begin to create vast new sources of wealth for their owners, some of this wealth can be used to attack poverty and hunger
“The robot leasing corporation is based somewhat on the existing Farm Credit Administration and Comsat Corporation,” Fuqua says. “It will be a quasi-government corporation. Its role will be to stimulate the demand for robots, and therefore the production of robots.”
Fuqua sees federal funding of $20 million per year, to provide low-interest loans to businesses, as “seed” money for the leasing corporation. Private investment will be encouraged, and will provide the bulk of the corporation’s funds. Eventually the corporation will pay back the government’s original loans with interest. Thus robots may begin to put money into the national treasury.
The robot leasing corporation, according to Fuqua, can “make it attractive for people to install certain types of robots, depending on the needs of their companies. It can be a source of capital to finance the lease [or purchase] of robots.”
Fuqua’s legislation, which is also backed by Cong. Albert Gore, Jr. of Tennessee and George Brown of California, among others, can help to provide investment capital for the transition to robotics while also cushioning the unemployment this transition is bound to cause.
Fuqua sees robots gradually entering the workplace, and being most valuable in jobs that are too dangerous or difficult for humans to attempt: cleaning up radioactive nuclear powerplants, for example, or fighting fires.
“I see robots moving in everywhere,” says Albus, who has spent the past ten years designing robots for the National Bureau of Standards. “Some places sooner than others, but practically everywhere sooner or later.”
He points out, “Robots create wealth. That makes the society that builds them and uses them able to maintain a much higher standard of living. This creates demand for expanded numbers of products and makes it possible to afford to hire the people to supply those products.”
This leads to a contradiction. On the one hand, thinkers such as Albus see robots creating wealth and a demand for more goods and thus more jobs. On the other hand, they also foresee new robots eventually taking over those jobs.
Albus argues, however, that “the main restriction to employment is not the amount of work to be done in the world. The amount of work that needs to be done is virtually infinite. The question is, can you afford to hire people to do the work?”
Considering all the tasks that can be done in a society, from repairing roads and picking up trash to bringing expert medical care to the poor and exploring outer space, Albus says, “The real fallacy is thinking that there’s a fixed amount of work to be done, and if robots do some of it there won’t be enough work to go around for humans. God, the world is filled with things that need to be done— just walk around your neighborhood and you can make a list of three hundred things that need to be done and can occupy a whole army of people to do them.”
But these things are not done, not only because society cannot afford to have them done, but because the people who make up society learn that they can get along without doing them.
“Basically, I think it’s because we can’t afford them,” Albus insists. “Getting along without means scaling back your living standards.”
Taking a wider view, Albus says, “The world is filled with poverty, hunger, poor housing, poor education... there’s plenty of things that need to be done. The question is really, can we afford to do all these things?” Only to a very limited extent today are these problems being dealt with, mainly because poor nations and poor people cannot afford to solve them. Albus believes that if robots and their high productivity begin to create vast new sources of wealth for their owners, some of this wealth can be used to attack poverty and hunger
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