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RichardKennaway comments on The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is soliciting ideas - Less Wrong
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Regarding the second point, here is my 2p on "The Lights in the Tunnel":
"The Lights in the Tunnel" is a whole book about a topic I am interested in: the effects of automation. However, there is a serious flaw that pervades the book's whole analysis:
Martin argues that the economy will crash - as machines take the jobs of consumers, they no longer have any money to spend on things - and cash flows spiral downwards.
Martin says: "Another way of expressing this is to say that although machines may take over people’s jobs, the machines - unless we are really going to jump into the stuff of science fiction - do not participate in the market as consumers" - page 24.
However, machines still participate in the market indirectly - via people. Humans buy fuel, spare parts, add-ons and "consumables" for their machines. Machines still "consume" - even if they don't have bank accounts and can't go to the shops. The resulting effect on the economy is much the same as if the machines were themselves consumers.
This seemingly-simple point destroys much of the book's DOOM-mongering analysis. There are some other good things in the book - but IMO, the author damages the reader's view of his competence by making this kind of mistake.
The argument of the book looked to me on a brief eyeballing like a woolly mass of words, but the question it asks seems fair enough: If the material needs and desires of the whole population can be met by the labour of a small fraction, how do the rest of the population get the stuff they want? But this question has been asked since mass production was invented, and the scenario has still not come to pass. Somehow, the work has always expanded to use most of the population of working age.
Even if this time, massive technological unemployment really is going to happen, I'm not convinced by the book's answers. From the blurb:
Planning fallacy? We've had rapidly advancing technology for at least 200 years. What dangers of our rapidly advancing technology have in the past been avoided by planning? If automation does get to near-AGI levels, and a small fraction of the population can produce everything, the resulting society will look very different from today's, but I don't expect government planning to have much to do with the process of change.
Re: "Somehow, the work has always expanded to use most of the population of working age."
Machines are still very stupid in many work-related domains - relative to humans. The issue of what on earth the unemployed will do is likely to arise with greater acuity once machine capabilities shoot past our own in most industry-related domains - retail, farming, distribution, mining, etc.
I go into these issues on: http://alife.co.uk/essays/will_machines_take_our_jobs/