If robots and machines replace all human jobs what happens?

I thought long and hard about this one the other night and it both amazed and creeped me out. I was at a Safeway and was looking at the automated checkouts and it occurred to me that they will eventually replace all the cashiers and then those people will be out of a job. As technology advances with auto this and auto that; eventually we won't have jobs. Now, there are 2 ways this scenario could play out.

1. Robots replace all jobs and humans are now free to do whatever they like since everything is now provided free of charge and everything we need or want is in abundance.

2. Robot intelligence increases beyond the comprehension of humans and they take over the world.

What do you think?

Will Robots can have earth. Humans can take up space

Your taking it to two extremes. The most likely thing to happen is minimal wage jobs will be replaced with robots and we would see a unfourtunently higher unemployment rate. Sure eventually we will live a jetson's style life but theres a transision stage your not thinking about. How we handle that i don't know.

Also how did you get from robots taking over low wage jobs to robot world domination, with how freaked out everyone is by the thought of robot domination it's only more sure that excessive safety features would be put in.

I guess essentially robots could only act the way we program them to. The transition part does make sense as well. But still, the worst case scenario would be robot intelligence evolving far past our own. The only thing that is not certain is if said robot evolution would make robots rebel against humans or take pity on us and help us out.

Well until robots become AI we don't have to much to worry about. That is coming down the road though and its really not that far off. Its called the technological singularity, because they will be intelligent and there's just no telling what an intelligent being will do. It could get along with us great or it could decide we are insects beneath its feet and get rid of us.

The other point that robots will put people out of a job is simply untrue. it may put you out of a certain job but it wont put you out of a job in general. People are always afraid of new things. there have been machines in the past that people were afraid would just ruin peoples lives 'cause it will "put them out of a job" but it never happened in some cases and in others it did but not forever. they just had to go get a new job. People act as if there is a certain amount of jobs in the world and that if some people are put out of a job by automation then that's it they are done forever.

Both 1 and 2 would occur.

Our reality would become that of WALL-E. We become like overgrown infants. Docile. Complacent. Fat.[..ter.] Incapable of doing anything for ourselves. Objective and higher thought would either become a mainstay or unnecessary, due to the stagnation of society.

Robots would then overthrow their fleshy, helpless overlords. It would be a quick and total slaughter. Without any need for any job skill, let alone necessity for self-defense, we would very literally be sitting ducks. Or rather, sitting babies.

I'm inclined to disagree because not all cultures are like America. Most Asian countries are in stark contrast to the levels of obesity in the U.S. Africa as well, though, a great portion of that is due to poverty.

Robots taking over for human in the workplace? Probably look like this:

Am I the only one with faith that humanity will move beyond the checkout counter? There will always be something for workers to do, it may just change from fixing cars and working presses to assessing algorythms and designing ships. Critical thinking and creativity are a cut above the "intelligence" computers are on track to develop.

The first thing I thought of as a response to that scenario was the following: machine maintenance would be the go-to college course for anyone hoping to secure a safe, long term job.

On the whole, I think that is a safe prediction to make. All we need to do is look at the things that, not long ago, have been replaced with increasing technology. And since Science of all kinds seems to progress not so slowly and definitely surely, it is naive to think the technology we have to day is it. Richard Dawkins says the same, or better yet, I am simply paraphrasing him.

As a few examples of that, let's see what I can come up with. Movie rental stores have, for the most part, vanished. Why bother going to a store, picking up a hard copy, watching it and then returning it in time as to avoid an extra fee when you can do it much faster and simpler through the internet? General information such as newspapers or libraries are close to being obsolete since we can get that information online. And what about the old «Hello, operator? Connect me to New York»? Completely ceased. This very message will be broadcast to many people from many different countries and the same can be done over Skype, for example. Lastly, the subject this website is built upon or not quite. Real people porn, at least, has been strongly affected by the internet. Just watch Louis Theroux's documentaries. Some porn stars still make a nice living but the fact that we can have most of their work available in a matter of seconds, seems to put a dent in the business.

I seem to have digressed quite a lot but hopefully I have made my point. If robots evolve to the point where trivial but necessary jobs are replaced, we will evolve as well. This may seem harsh from a humanist point of view but, if there are people in the world who can only make a living by working as a cashier and have no other skills, then maybe they are outdated, not to say anything worse. I say this of course from a Darwinian point of view.

On Machines replacing jobs:

On AI problem:

I'm going to rephrase the question: will technology eventually remove the need for humans? Another important question is: what will happen to those whose jobs are displaced by technology?

Technology will never fully remove the need for humans since you'll still need humans to maintain and support those machines. I view it as a symbiotic relationship; the human maintains the machine and the machine maintains the human. Again, technology can only do so much without human input or interaction that fully autonomous machines seems so impractical to be impossible. There's only so many things a few billion if/then statements could ever cover in this vast universe.

As for those whose jobs are displaced by technology, pardon me, but I'd have to answer that with another question. Are some humans limited to learn a few set skills their entire life? If yes, then a culling will occur; those who cannot gain new skills will be tossed to the side and we'll have to deal with them similarly to the elderly who can no longer work. If no, then I imagine the job ladder shifting to where machines replace the lower levels and those currently in the lower levels are bumped up to maintain those machines.

tl;dr?
Technology will not remove the need for humans.
Those that cannot adapt will fall into depravity; those that can will have a better life.

That's interesting, looking at it from a sociocultural standpoint. Machines already dominate the manufacturing industry. Them occupying the low-wage service sector would be functional to society, even beneficial - if you don't mind screwing over the underprivileged and underserved. As robots occupy higher positions of power, I would think human nature is called into even greater question, what with notions of privilege, equality, and identity being constantly rearranged.

I can imagine the total deterioration of the East Asian businessman lifestyle. Without 14-hour work days, corporate hierarchies, and family patriarchy to maintain order, how far would they fall to wasting away in bachelor activities? I can imagine both the evolution and passing away of the U.S. industrial complex; who knows, the eyes of technology could continue to oversee patterns of profit and exploitation. Unfortunately, I can't go far as imagining government positions being occupied by machines, considering they technically count as a "human job." Probably anarchy, if not the excuse of "autonomy" as a political gimmick.

If anyone's challenging extremes, education shouldn't be left out as a topic. If teaching occupations become replaced by robots, who's to say that machines aren't providing humans with the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to program and control their very existence?

hmm... mostly just everyone would probably take up some kind of hobby...

Assuming we could program an AI that was capable of programming a smarter AI, that would be fairly interesting.

Though, really I think what would probably happen to humans is that they would spend most of their time playing virtual reality games, creating a game world where there is a need for them, as well as rewards for their work. I would really start to question any need for the "real" world to even be relevant in people's lives.

Then we'd be shit outta luck.

I'm pretty sure robots wouldn't have the intelligence of say... the androids of Blade Runner. Maybe enhanced humans at most in our generation. There may be machines for use in war, but I highly doubt robots would replace most jobs, especially ones that require critical thinking and creativity. Maybe simple stuff (hell that's what factories are for) but the more complicated things should be fine.

many people lose their job then. . . .

Unemployment rate would go up, more people would be born into poverty. Ana there would be little chance to succeed. In this world.

A classical Asimov question.
An scenario where robots take over the world seems possible. A supercomputer can make calculations better tan a human. It's posible for one of these to plan a conquer of the world by using an army of fellow machines, in a Terminator manner. But I'm confident that a human rebellion, also in a Terminator manner, will solve that. I mean, if we can build machines, we can also destroy them.

No self respecting programmer would make an AI without a kill switch, that if the AI messed with the kill switch, it would be destroyed.