Will the coming robot revolution put everyone out of a job? That's basically the thesis of Marshall Brain, an EE, and founder of How Stuff Works, who sees "devastating" effects on all of us within the next 20 to 30 years from an increasingly automated economy.

Brain presented recently at the Singularity Summit in San Jose, where, according to Wired (see "Brainy Robots To Lead To Longer Unemployment Lines?"), he claimed that unlike the industrial revolution of 150 years ago, in which similar fears of mass unemployment never materialized, the coming robotic revolution will be different. For the first time, he says, technologists could be creating a "second intelligent species" in robots.

While this may sound at first like the alarmist warnings of an anti-technology neo-Luddite, Brain is actually pro technology, and arguing instead for a restructuring of the economy in order to best realize the benefits of an increasingly automation-based society. Among his suggested solutions - as described in his Robotic Nation series of essays - is to "distribute the benefits" of the robotic revolution to every citizen with a $25,000 per year stipend, giving everyone a basic level of economic freedom for the first time in history.

Brain doesn't stop there. His "Robotic Freedom" essay goes into great detail describing his economic goals and proposed solutions for removing the current "dysfunctional elements from the capitalistic system." Leave it to an engineer to develop a systematic approach to a problem!

Nevertheless, while some of his ideas are interesting and worth exploring, others - like taxing "extreme profits" and "extreme income" - are standard wealth redistribution plans. And the basis of his whole theory - that a robotic revolution is destined to dramatically increase unemployment - has to be viewed with skepticism based on history.

As shown in essays like "The Curse of Machinery" by economist Henry Hazlitt, the idea that labor-saving machines increase overall unemployment has been around since Adam Smith and has proven to be unfounded for just as long. Will it be different this time? Who knows, but in any event it's certainly a topic worthy of further discussion.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Email me at rich.pell@verizon.net.

Related links:
Real-life robots obey Asimov's laws
Industrial engineers: Future world overlords?
10 good reasons to invest in robots
10 things you don't know about robots