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rich.ess[s85,jmc]	Let's all be rich - for vts

	The proposals discussed in these lectures amount mainly
to an increase in standard of living.  Many people worry about
this with more or less the following question.
Won't people's lives lose meaning if they have it too easy?
Curiously, I have never seen it phrased as, "My life would
lose meaning if I had it too easy".

	We can't know what the precise effect would be of
the various technological improvements we have proposed.  However,
we do know a lot about the effect on people of an increased
standard of living, because there have always been rich people,
and we have only to look at them.  Moreover, there are even
a large number of rich people who were formerly poor and a
fair number of poor people who were formerly rich.  The consensus
is reasonably clear.  Both ways of life have their troubles,
but rich is better.

Robot Servants

	A major aspect of substantial riches is having servants.  At
present one has to be very rich to employ full time servants, a
consequence of both increased opportunities, social customs, the
availability of household appliances and, last but not least, the tax laws
that put a premium on doing it yourself.

	Robot servants that can do what servants have traditionally
done will require major advances in technology, and it can't be
predicted when we will have them.  However, it is interesting to
speculate on their social effects.  Perhaps from lack of imagination,
I'm supposing that we'll use them to do similar tasks to those done
today by domestic servants.  However, robots will be available for
work 24 hours a day, and will be designed without any human-like
psychological characteristics that would make sympathy appropriate
or even possible.  How to do this is one of the problems that will
have to be solved, but people should treat them as gadgets, i.e.
the way we treat cars, houses, TV sets and computers.

	Competition among the robot makers and programmers will
lead to their doing more and more.  Standards of cleanliness
and order in homes and dress will increase and go far beyond the
level of a Victorian lady of the house.