lifestyles of the rich and high-tech
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It would depend on the type of society and the distribution of wealth.
There could be billions living in squalor while the rich occupy themselves with overseeing their makers and fusion+ plants, or the same technology could be used to share the wealth among all.
People could be free to pursue the arts and sciences without being fettered to the need to pay off debts owed to those above them. They could spend their days socialising, engaging in sporting pastimes, furthering their education.
Or they could be living hand to mouth trying desperately to find the next meal and avoiding the gangs...
and there is always World of Warcraft in full VR
There could be billions living in squalor while the rich occupy themselves with overseeing their makers and fusion+ plants, or the same technology could be used to share the wealth among all.
People could be free to pursue the arts and sciences without being fettered to the need to pay off debts owed to those above them. They could spend their days socialising, engaging in sporting pastimes, furthering their education.
Or they could be living hand to mouth trying desperately to find the next meal and avoiding the gangs...
and there is always World of Warcraft in full VR
The fact most physical work is performed by robots does not mean there's no work to be done. True AI does not exist, so most intelectual work still needs people to perform it, as robot supervision, schooling, and most interpersonal tasks. Also, art, ressearch, politics and phylosophy (all out of robots' capabilities) may well be quite valued on those worlds.
I'd compare them with classical Greece or Rome societies, where slaves performed most menial (or hazardous, hard physical or disgusting) labours, while true citizend performed what was seen as higher works (of course, that's a gross simplification).
Of course, that would give a society quite different to ours, with the government securing most peoples basic needs (what does not mean there would not be inequities, as there were in Rome, despite most citizens having their basic needs cared for) and work occupying less time tan in our own society.
like the coliseum of rome ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMuCpnSy_EM
pretty sure 90%+ of "schooling" can be accomplished with automated trainers at 9+ tech levels. might still need teachers to provide a little direction.
Fully disagreeing. Schooling needs empathy, and that is just what automatic trainers may not have (at least until true sophont AI appears, so not before TL 17 in CT/MT).
Automated training may give knowledge, and even practice in some fields, but not real schooling in a broader sense.
Of course, that may simply be a disagreement on what schooling means...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Everything can be googled or youtubed, if your robo-butler is undergoing annual maintenance.
What do you consider within the realm of robot capabilities?
(I am not an industrial engineer, however), is there anything within the realm of manufacturing that a robot could not do? Create product idea, perhaps not, but how much robot AI can be used in the actual design of the product, from standards compliance, material selection, component design. We already have "Computer Aided Design", so I imagine non-sentient AI can make that even better.
Planning the production floor? the assembly line? I don't think that's outside of the realm of non-sentient AI. Human over site, of course.
I imagine an AI can design an assembly building quite readily, and see no reason why robots can not build one.
Can robots mine ore? Bulk mining, i.e. a strip mine, that's seems straight forward. Can they follow a vein of ore? Maybe, following pre-determined tunnel guidelines for expansion.
And all of this with an out, where the AI is also sophisticated enough to know "it doesn't know" and call for help.
Consider more and more sophisticated "tech support" systems (like your cable modem is broken, and having to call the cable company). The fundamental issue there is language recognition. After understanding the problem, the diagnostic portion is pretty rote.
The same can be said for mainstream medicine. Once a robot can have the deft touch to be able to take a blood sample, without creeping out the child patient, skies the limit. And that's a "simple" control function.
So, anyway, just curious what your vision of robot limitation is. Are we talking basically creativity (art, music, writing)?
That assumes that you're an autodidact that learns by reading and experimenting.
Now, I've worked as a tutor in a CS department while I was doing my degree, and from experience I can quite confidently tell you that most people don't learn that way. They like to be shown, told and then have someone to ask questions when they get stuck.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I am... Anyway, there's a number of things robots wouldn't be a good choice for. There are some jobs where hand work is cheaper such as laying out cable harnesses. Small run production batches often cost more to program than the cost of labor to just make them.
In fact, today many manufacturers have a minimum run size that often is in the thousands because making anything less is uneconomical for them.
Prototype and specialty tooling is another area. Prototypes often require multiple modifications during the production process.
Quality control is another area. If something might require a judgement call, a human inspector has to intervene in the process.
This is already possible and being done. More complex assembly lines like for automobiles are "constructed" in VR and tested to see where bottlenecks and problems exist.
Being done already. For example, larger construction companies grading an area for say a subdivision will use a self-driving bulldozer, etc., to grade the lots. There's an operator in the cab to intervene if something goes wrong but they don't really operate the vehicle.
Maintenance and repair often call for judgement and ability to figure out complex problems that don't often fit the "manual" solutions. Most AI like the cable company modem problem mentioned above go through a set routine to eliminate most problems.
That becomes a problem for the caller in many cases as they have to go through this prolonged diagnosis to get to their problem, or the AI cannot help with their specific problem.
Intelligent systems and AI can help with diagnosis and such. But, they tend to fail when the situation is complex or has multiple solutions. They also cannot improvise solutions other than the one(s) they have been programmed with.
Given the nature of the Traveller universe, I'd think as much as half or more of the population on a high tech world would be largely useless. Not everybody can be an artist or design new architecture. The bell curve on intelligence just gets in the way.
I'd think the solution would be to cull the herd periodically by offering those who are in that situation training for lower technology jobs and then sending them off with a minimum set of resources to establish a new lower tech world on the edge of known space. By constantly finding new habitable worlds and colonizing them with low tech populations you avoid population pressure on developed high tech worlds. The low tech worlds would know high tech ones exist and could then strive to develop themselves into one. They fail... meh. There's more where they came from. They succeed? Great!
It gives those unable to really be productive in a high tech world a chance to thrive in a low tech one.
So, anyway, just curious what your vision of robot limitation is. Are we talking basically creativity (art, music, writing)?[/QUOTE]
Basically, anything that requires either creative intelligence or empathy. See that this last part includes most interpersonal tasks...
(as this is the only field you talk about where I have some idea, forgive me if it's the only one I specifically answer)
Taking a blood simple (or inserting an IV catheter) is the easy part. Intrpreting what the patient tells you, trying to understand what he/she means, guessing how much can you tell him and trying to confort them is the dificult one, and I guess robots cannot do that at least until they become self aware (and so can understand a sophont), and in CT/MT this means TL 17.
Remember not all HiTech worlds are also HiPop. In many of them, most population is required even if just to avoid endogamy...
They'd participate in forum-based discussions focused on their favorite pastimes.
Aaaaaaaaaand I'm joking. But not really.
Giving it a more serious pass - my experience here ( on real-life Earth ) with various cultures of differing TL seems to suggest that some things are universal - people work and play. At higher levels of tech, the work isn’t for subsistence; there’s more freedom associated with it, and the playtime can be longer. Let’s extrapolate a little for higher-than-I’ve-experienced TLs…
I’d have a lot of choice in my kind of work - if I were inclined to be artsy or creative, that’s cool. If I wanted over to research and contribute to revealing scientific truths, I could do that as well. Serious changes in work focus would be accommodated by culture and educational systems, as others have described. It seems like the more developed a society gets ( broadly speaking ), the more ability to port over to a different vocation I have. If I’m at all entrepreneurial-minded, there’s serious opportunity.
There’s also religion, sports ( as others have mentioned ) outdoor recreation, learning for pleasure ( book or research groups ), and if the culture is so inclined there’s no end to passive consumption of entertainment - movies, vidgames, social media.
In a higher TL world, I think reputation and social dynamics play a bigger role, a result of the more-free-time and choosing your own work this week kind of thing. Clubs or organizations exploring interests and self-development are common.
The tools to do all of the above are more advanced, which is to say they might be able to encourage learning and sharing. Solving local problems would still be a thing, and people would probably engage in that. “Let’s introduce a new style of food production, let’s redo this system, let’s experiment with this form of local government over here for a while. Research what we need to start, and the present it to us for discussion.”
One common view of higher-tech culture is the Wall*E type, with overweight people sipping slurps in grab chairs while watching movies by the pool all day. But in Higher-tech societies that we can see here ( Tokyo or Singapore for example ) there still seems to be a serious amount of active, worthwhile work being done.
Aaaaaaaaaand I'm joking. But not really.
Giving it a more serious pass - my experience here ( on real-life Earth ) with various cultures of differing TL seems to suggest that some things are universal - people work and play. At higher levels of tech, the work isn’t for subsistence; there’s more freedom associated with it, and the playtime can be longer. Let’s extrapolate a little for higher-than-I’ve-experienced TLs…
I’d have a lot of choice in my kind of work - if I were inclined to be artsy or creative, that’s cool. If I wanted over to research and contribute to revealing scientific truths, I could do that as well. Serious changes in work focus would be accommodated by culture and educational systems, as others have described. It seems like the more developed a society gets ( broadly speaking ), the more ability to port over to a different vocation I have. If I’m at all entrepreneurial-minded, there’s serious opportunity.
There’s also religion, sports ( as others have mentioned ) outdoor recreation, learning for pleasure ( book or research groups ), and if the culture is so inclined there’s no end to passive consumption of entertainment - movies, vidgames, social media.
In a higher TL world, I think reputation and social dynamics play a bigger role, a result of the more-free-time and choosing your own work this week kind of thing. Clubs or organizations exploring interests and self-development are common.
The tools to do all of the above are more advanced, which is to say they might be able to encourage learning and sharing. Solving local problems would still be a thing, and people would probably engage in that. “Let’s introduce a new style of food production, let’s redo this system, let’s experiment with this form of local government over here for a while. Research what we need to start, and the present it to us for discussion.”
One common view of higher-tech culture is the Wall*E type, with overweight people sipping slurps in grab chairs while watching movies by the pool all day. But in Higher-tech societies that we can see here ( Tokyo or Singapore for example ) there still seems to be a serious amount of active, worthwhile work being done.
In RL, this kind of prediction has been prevalent since the turn of the 20th century, at least. However, the opposite has happened. The few(er) who do work, work longer and more stressful hours than ever. The rest scrape by at whatever their society considers a subsistence level, and the rarest few, a similar percentage as found at lower TLs, live a life of idle max-for-their-TL luxury.
Economic control of people, whether through outright slavery, employment terms and conditions, or subsistence dole, is a form of power. The powerful do not surrender power easily; historically it has been taken away from them only by force or the credible threat of force. And the power thus taken eventually winds up in the hands of a similar percentage, just comprised of different membership.
I guess this depends at least in part in how you envision the high TL world in question. I was looking at our real world with its balkanized nations, comparing ( very broadly ) high TL nations with lower, and making some assumptions. If the higher TL world in Traveller we're talking about is fairly homogenous, meaning that the culture isn't as divided, socioeconomics aren't as diverse, etc as they are on our single world here, then I think what I said serves pretty well.
I say this because in higher TL, developed nations, even though there are in some cases class division and disappearing middle class, lots of peeps at the "lower" end of the range still have an amazing life when see through the eyes of people who grew up and live in places that haven't reached as high a TL.
Using our own world to look for examples is not the best, but it's the only way I can think of doing it. And I was making a ( very general ) assumption that nations could be analogous to worlds.
In the end it's all guesswork, and admittedly our knowledge, the descriptions of, and the tools we have for doing an in-depth job of spec-ing out individual worlds aren't that complex. As I travel I find myself wondering about all the things you've mentioned and many more, little aspects, and how they might express on given worlds within the Imperium.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I've considered this question in the past as there's this standard sci fi meme that once the world becomes sufficiently high tech everyone gets to kick back, relax and perfect the leisure arts. Consider though that we live in a high tech era, relatively speaking, and yet still must work. (Granted, all of Earth does not enjoy the fruits of high technology so maybe the model breaks down). I think that even if robots and automation take over more and more of what we do as people, we'll effectively be 'pushed sideways" into fields that didn't exist before. At least until we hit a threshold where the only thing left to do is pursue the leisure arts . . . 
The new Mindjammer product has some really fantastic ideas about what the future looks like for people with access to high tech. I'd recommend peeking at it for ideas. Even if you just grab the setting PDF.
The Traveller port is now available only to KS backers (a pre-final-edit PDF), but I think the main books for Savage Worlds are generally available?
The Traveller port is now available only to KS backers (a pre-final-edit PDF), but I think the main books for Savage Worlds are generally available?
