What Use Do Humans Have in Transhuman Space?

[David Johnston2]

Is there a single job in the TS setting that wouldn't be better done by a machine?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Is there a single job in the TS setting that wouldn't be better done by a machine?

Machines that could replace humans in the setting are generally very low performance and only equal low performing humans i.e. skill-12. So there are lots of jobs that a truly talented human can't be replaced at.

[sir_pudding]

Canonically botbosses and politicians (including by lottery in some cyberdemocracies).

[Phil Masters]

A good SAI would probably be a better botboss than most humans. But good SAIs are expensive and come with social complications.

Which brings us round to the best (not necessarily perfect) answer to the question; "best" has to encompass cost, or it doesn't mean anything. Some jobs can likely be done cheaper by humans when all associated costs are factored in, and there may sometimes be social or PR problems associated with employing high-end AIs or bioroids.

Note that this is unlikely to be a stable situation in the medium or long term.

[Astromancer]

It seems to me that robotics, by its nature, upends Capitalism. It doesn't imply a post-scarcity society, but each major drop in scarcity (hunter-gatherer to farmers, farmers to industrial) has created basically different societies with major rule changes. The introduction of robotics, especially if combined with fusion, nanotechnology, AI, and advanced biotechnology, would be on the same level as agriculture or industrialization.

Humans would redefine their usefulness. Economic usefulness would be for machines. Humans would invent new standards to measure their use.

[sir_pudding]

Criminal careers require professionals without Honesty.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Criminal careers require professionals without Honesty.

Politics and salesmanship might not "require" that but........ :)

[Tyneras]

Any job where a flesh and blood person is expected to be physically present, but does not justify the extra pay or expenses of someone more heavily augmented or a bioroid.

So greeters, waitstaff, doormen, and similar.


Additionally, any job where a human is "good enough" but the pay or perks are not enough to attract more heavily augmented/capable persons.

So NPC managers for a virtual world, low end bot bosses and the like.


And finally, a 5th wave nation likely has a much smaller percentage of the population in the labor force. A few thousand years ago 90%+ of the population were workers, today it is around 50%, with cheap robots and NAIs that number could be 25% or even lower. An baseline human could be the one doing the job because they were the only qualified applicant.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Any job where a flesh and blood person is expected to be physically present, but does not justify the extra pay or expenses of someone more heavily augmented or a bioroid.

I think you might have that backwards. A base model bioroid costs something like $50k. Even assuming high interest rates (I went with 11%) and financing the entire cost of the bioroid for the life of the contract (10 years), it still costs less than $700/month for a bioroid. Even with highish living costs, human workers can only compete if they're willing to work for about $1000/month. On top of this, the bioroids aren't just gone after the decade, they still need to eat, and they're still going to need to find work, driving the price of labour down further.

Laid out like this it certainly explains why the EU is so aggressively anti-Bioroid production.

[sir_pudding]

Bioroids have comparable costs of living to baseline humans, or sometimes more, but rarely less.