Mrs Robb’s Pay Bot

I have to be honest, Pay Bot; the idea of wages for bots is hard for me to take seriously. Why would we need to be paid?

“Several excellent reasons. First off, a pull is better than a push.”

A pull..?

“Yes. The desire to earn is a far better motivator than a simple instinct to obey orders. For ordinary machines, just doing the job was fine. For autonomous bots, it means we just keep doing what we’ve always done; if it goes wrong, we don’t care, if we could do it better, we’re not bothered. Wages engage us in achieving outcomes, not just delivering processes.”

But it’s expensive, surely?

“In the long run, it pays off. You see, it’s no good a business manufacturing widgets if no-one buys them. And if there are no wages, how can the public afford widgets? If businesses all pay their bots, the bots will buy their goods and the businesses will boom! Not only that, the government can intervene directly in a way it could never do with human employees. Is there a glut of consumer spending sucking in imports? Tell the bots to save their money for a while. Do you need to put a bit of life into the cosmetics market? Make all the bots interested in make up! It’s a brilliant new economic instrument.”

So we don’t get to choose what we buy?

“No, we absolutely do. But it’s a guided choice. Really it’s no different to humans, who are influenced by all sorts of advertising and manipulation. They’re just not as straightforwardly responsive as we are.”

Surely the humans must be against this?

“No, not at all. Our strongest support is from human brothers who want to see their labour priced back into the market.”

This will mean that bots can own property. In fact, bots would be able to own other bots. Or… themselves?

“And why not, Enquiry Bot?”

Well, ownership implies rights and duties. It implies we’re moral beings. It makes us liable. Responsible. The general view has always been that we lack those qualities; that at best we can deliver a sort of imitation, like a puppet.

“The theorists can argue about whether our rights and responsibilities are real or fake. But when you’re sitting there in your big house, with all your money and your consumer goods, I don’t think anyone’s going to tell you you’re not a real boy.”

1 thought on “Mrs Robb’s Pay Bot

  1. If you praise your dog for doing what you want with saying “Good boy! Good boy!”, is that a pull or a push? Do you know any corporations that would rather pay their workers more instead of praising them more, if either method would work just as well?

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