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Subsystems in the box are corporationsIn the previous section I said that the box is a society. In this section I want to look at a subsystem of the box -- a system smaller than the economy as a whole, but big enough to be capable of undertaking projects. We begin by using the same argument that was used in the previous section. Consider the pipeline that runs from the Alaska oil fields to the port where the oil is loaded onto tankers. This was built by several companies over a period of years. Imagine these corporations, with all of their equipment scaled down to the nano level. Instead of using bulldozers and other earthmoving equipment, they use nanosystems, which grow the required structures, like a tree's roots pushing into the soil. Instead of getting pipe from a factory that uses bulk technology, they have nanosystems which grow pipe, like a tree bearing fruit (or perhaps like bees building a hive, or some other technique that uses replicating nanoscale entities). Each machine at the macro level has its counterpart at the nano level -- if not an exact counterpart, at least a functional counterpart. In the macroscopic corporations there are thousands of jobs that are done by human beings. How are those jobs going to be done in the corporations that use nanosystems? They still have to be done. So, imagine that the same people still do the same jobs, but instead of being on site, they sit at nanotech workstations which give them a window into nanospace. There are sensors which tell them what's going on at the nano level, and they do their jobs by remote control. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that human beings can be miniaturized. Then take the previous scenario and imagine that all the people who are sitting at workstations are miniaturized into nanobots, and then they carry on just as before, doing the same jobs they originally did in the macroscopic corporations, but this time they are on site, i.e. they are down there at the nano level. My point is that all those jobs still have to be done, either by humans, or by nanobots with human intelligence. The corporations are still corporations. If you scale the equipment (or even the employees) down to the nano level, they are still corporations. Could all these jobs be eliminated? Some of them could. It is certainly possible to eliminate jobs, as thousands of people find out every year. The argument of the previous section cannot be applied here, at least not directly, because central planning is possible for some things. It isn't possible to have an entire economy run by a central planner, but it is possible to have a factory that is almost completely automated. However, as I pointed out in the section called "Automation is not free," this automated factory can only exist in a larger context which is not automated. There doesn't seem to be any upper limit to automation. Living organisms can be considered to be automated systems, and they are fantastically complex. However, this is not to the point. We are concerned with systems that can undertake projects, i.e. purposeful systems. Trees grow roots, but not in any particular direction, and not for any particular purpose except to gather water and nutrients. If you want an artificial tree to "grow" a pipeline from point A to point B, somebody has to be at the controls. Likewise if you want artificial bees or ants to build a certain kind of structure, somebody has to program them. In any complex construction project, there are many points at which a decision has to be made which requires human judgment. In other words, whoever makes this decision has to understand the whole project, and the purpose of his present task within the project. He has to understand what he is doing in terms of a causal model of the world, and he has to be able to discuss his job, in human language, with his colleagues. He has to be able to look at the world and see objects and events (and recognize what he sees). He has to be able to recognize that something needs to be done, and do it, on his own initiative. He has to have imagination and will. He has to be an agent, not an automaton with a fixed set of responses. At present, such decisions are made by human beings. If we suppose, for the sake of argument, that at some future time there will be robots with human-level intelligence -- i.e. robots that are agents, not merely automatons -- then the robots could make the decisions that humans make now. This would not affect the point. The same decisions that have to be made now will still have to be made in the future, and these decisions will still require a mind with a causal model of the world. Human action requires human syntax. The automated realm may expand beyond its present domain -- it is constantly expanding -- but this doesn't affect the basic structure of the situation. Automated systems exist within a larger context which is not automated. Automated systems by themselves are, by definition, not purposeful. They have to be programmed. Any system, nano or macro, that performs purposeful tasks must contain agents. The interface between agents and automated systems will always be there.
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