WHere are the robots? - The Expanse (2015) Discussion

All this lame and ignorant excuses:

A.I. is advanced, we just don't see it because it's not what story is about.

Or

Robots are Expensive!!

Doesn't make any sense if you want to portrait the humanity in centuries ahead. Technology is so important now and will be critical in the future. Things like:

* The UN (united nations) of the space, doesn't make any sense, this kind of schema is tribal, archaic, suited for fights between small societies ruled by the human violent behavior.
* Transparent IPHONEs?? FFS!! is this Apple marketing?? Samsung hello?!!. That takes the show to the year 2020!! Prehistoric!! ... There is already helmets with AR (augmented reality) in 2017, in 100 years you are supposed to BORN and be binded to a computer or AI in mental ways more advanced than a Apple style obsolete interface.
* Artificial Intelligence and Robots, are supposed to take over jobs the next years... in 100 years... you must be a *beep* dumbasss to send expensive and inept human astronauts to aid a lost spaceship full of ... Astronaut Workers??? with guns?? are we that stupids to buy this crap??

Those space drones will be handled by AI and loaded with Organic Robots doing this tasks, not humans.

But for the sake of stupidity and marketing... yes we must believe in hundred of years... humans will be traveling to *beep* transport water!! YAY NETFLIX!!

and the list goes on... shall I continue??...

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[–] borchers34 7 years ago

Stop watching. Obviously this show is not for you.

No f@cking sh`t lady does it sound like I'm ordering a pizza!

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[–] Nethlem 7 years ago

Why would they use humans for mining when robots would be cheaper, and far more efficient?

It is a common misconception that "automation is always cheaper than human labor" because this ain't always the case. Whether robots or human labor are cheaper depends on how human labor is valued.

Nowadays this calculation is heavily skewed in the direction of "automation being cheaper" because even emerging economies, like China, are starting to build a "middle class" that needs a decent income aka they need to be paid "proper wages" and have safe working conditions, in short: Workers rights are valued and enforced more and more around Earth.

That's why human labor tends to get more expensive, at some point it's reaching a break-even point where even expensive robots/automation becomes "cheaper" than using human labor because we decided to value "humane working conditions and proper wages" much more than we ever did before in human history.

On the other hand robots/automation need certain rare resources to be build and maintained, they also need a vast support network of well-educated people to keep them running, from programmers to engineers and so on, the majority of these "human labor" positions are "high skilled" and as such would be expensive.

Now imagine a future where humanity has regressed back a bit, where we once again have a "slave labor class" of humans that we don't consider worthy of healthy working conditions and proper wages because that's exactly what the Belters are.

At that point, the whole balance shifts back in favor of "human labor" because if you don't need to treat your human labor "humanely" and you can have them living in *beep* living conditions with *beep* pay (or no pay at all, except for giving them food and housing), then they end up being cheaper than automation.

Remember: Automation/robots need certain resources (minerals and metals) that are rather rare and can't be easily reproduced.

In contrast to that humans, treated as slave labor, are rather easy to maintain and replenish, there's also no need for fancy high-skill education that human labor in an automated environment would need. Humans don't need much to survive and reproduce, give them some air and give them fuel (calories, which can be easily grown/farmed) and they are good to go. If some of them get hurt/sick you can simply replace them with others from your vast pool of "slave labor humans" because they are plenty and reproduce easily.

In the end it boils down to the very same supply and demand mechanics that pretty much all economies are based on: If the supply of human labor is vast and it's cost become cheap (because we stopped caring about workers rights), then at one point it will be again cheaper than (rather expensive) automation. Especially if we as humanity decide to go back to the old ways of having a "slave labor class" (like the Belters) that we don't deem "worthy" of humane treatment, at that point human labor becomes just another resource that needs to be produced and maintained as cheaply as possible.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Mars actually has robots/lots of automation, that we simply haven't seen yet because unlike the Belters/Earth they didn't have a massive population spike.

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[–] Dejay 7 years ago

In space the formula is totally different though. Even free slaves would be orders of magnitude more expensive than robots. Humans need much more maintenance than robots do. Life support, air, food, medicine, education, heat, waste etc.

I strongly believe that human labour will become more and more expensive relative to robotics. My personal theory on this goes something like this:

Assumption 1: At one point in time we will be able to simulate a human brain or create an equivalent artificial intelligence equal to or surpassing average human intelligence.

Assumption 2: The energy / resource costs for running such an artificial mind are cheaper than the energy / resource costs for a human being during it's lifetime.

Conclusion 1: At that point in time, it's easy to see that the value of human labour essentially becomes zero. Any job a human can do, a robot could do, but using less resources. Even if you still had labour that requires humans for various reasons (maybe even just aesthetic reasons, maybe you want a human waiter at the restaurant) there will be so many people looking for jobs that supply and demand will depress wages to the minimum. Holding jobs will become a luxury because people actually have the psychological need to be productive.

Conclusion 2: So until we reach that point, technology will slowly match what a certain segment of a population can contribute. Assume that 20% of the population can only be farmers or do manual labour, but that is automated. The labour this segment of the population can contribute with have a value of zero. The percentage of the population who cannot offer labour competitively will grow slowly over time, creating more and more technological unemployment.

If both assumptions are true, then there is no avoiding this. It will happen. Libertarian capitalism will simply no longer serve humanities interest. The problem is, robots don't buy products either, the marketplace needs consumers. We are going to have to make adjustments.

In The Expanse 50% of earth population live of "basic" which is a pretty *beep* life. Better than belters, but not great. And there is clearly an ethos, a kind of unwritten rule that a robot shall not do a humans job if possible.

Another way would be to create jobs not based on profitability, but how it affects our happiness. A kind of alternative "hippie" currency.

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[–] mgl-92037 7 years ago

Interesting question, and it has sparked a lively discussion.
Too bad the threads are dying in a few days.

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[–] venanttout 7 years ago

Maybe robots are so expansive on rare ressources that they are not available for the comon public.

Or that they have been seen as a major liability after XXX terrorists attacks

But, probably, when human life is cheap (belters), 'sacred' (earth) or 'exalted' (Mars), there is no ideological and economical need for expansive
robots.

By the way, you have to face a major problem if you put bots in such a society: what would you do with the unemployed ?

In short term, you would have civil unrest, and probably wars.

"Ok earters, your machine take our jobs, so we can't feed our families ... So eat our rocks. We have millions of them, and throwing them to your direction is cheap."

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[–] Cookie.L.A. (2117) 7 years ago

Maybe the robots grew consciousness and rebelled (as other series keep telling us they will) and took off for another solar system?

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[–] tanyalawrence (352) 7 years ago

Star Trek manages fine without robots - Data being the exception.

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[–] keithmovies (627) 7 years ago

It seems a theme in the series that people over the decades have been leaving Earth for better opportunities (or indeed any work), and it became standard to have people do hard labor jobs with a large pool of willing people. Robots are then less necessary for the activities of offworld settlements.

That said, robots would be a much better option given the social and health issues many "Belters" experience in the show.

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