We had a thread a while ago discussing the future and part of that was automation. Now that we are even closer to the impending doom and it is becoming a major talking point, what are your thoughts?
How will it happen and how do we handle it?
Long term, we need to accept that the vast majority of humans will have zero economical worth. Machines will be better than humans at almost every task and far far cheaper. Resource extraction can be mostly automated, transportation can be mostly automated, production can be mostly automated, management can be mostly automated, health care can be mostly automated, consumer interactions can be mostly automated, etc.
In the past, increases in productivity scaled with increases in quality of life. Sure a single person at the turn of the century could do the work of 100 people compared to the millenia before, but I'd argue that the average life at the time used 100 times as many resources to balance it out. That doesn't seem possible going forward. Spending/resource use might need to increase by 100,000% to keep up yet we are collectively focused on frugality and minimizing our environmental impact. These two ideologies are at war with one another and I really doubt "extravagance" will win within the next decade.
As such, we will probably reach a "utopia" like state with more energy and more production ability than we are interested in using. Even if a person has the correct skills to be a robot manager, there will be limited jobs. The vast vast vast majority of humans will not be needed by the economy.
From this perspective, there are two things that need to be solved. #1, how do people find self worth? #2, how do people pay for things.
#1 is somewhat straightforward. People will need to find clubs, do dream jobs like running a bakery for the fun of it, pursue artistic/abstract ventures, and find value in human interactions. Video games are a great example of this (although they have a long way to go). There is zero "value" in playing the game but people still enjoy doing it anyway.
#2 is a lot harder. Even though this potential future society could have the means to give everyone a fricking lot of stuff, there would still obviously be restrictions. In many ways I view it as food in modern America for middle class families. There is zero risk of a middle class family starving and they could buy 100 McDonald's hamburgers a day without going broke, food is post scarcity for them, but it's still not an all you can eat buffet. Food becomes "expensive for the sake of being expensive" so that it can culturally match the situation. A $100 hamburger is flipping amazing but not worth the price if you're short on cash.
I think the rest of society's goods and services will end up in a similar situation. Take for example cars. Every car would become a super great car. Every human could cheaply own a car. That wouldn't stop society from producing more expensive cars that are only better in abstract ways. Say for example something dumb like gold plating the unseen car internals.
So because humans would have rich things and cheap things, there would still need to be money. At this point it might as well work out to just give every human an equal salary and let them decide what to spend it on.
This would be a bad outcome. It would naturally result in people wishing they had an increased salary so they could get the rich versions of everything. Going back to economic expansion vs economic frugality, I kinda feel like the only good option is rapid expansion. Keep the goal post moving so that people can eventually have everything they want but by the time they get it, they want even more. What are your thoughts?
How will it happen and how do we handle it?
Long term, we need to accept that the vast majority of humans will have zero economical worth. Machines will be better than humans at almost every task and far far cheaper. Resource extraction can be mostly automated, transportation can be mostly automated, production can be mostly automated, management can be mostly automated, health care can be mostly automated, consumer interactions can be mostly automated, etc.
In the past, increases in productivity scaled with increases in quality of life. Sure a single person at the turn of the century could do the work of 100 people compared to the millenia before, but I'd argue that the average life at the time used 100 times as many resources to balance it out. That doesn't seem possible going forward. Spending/resource use might need to increase by 100,000% to keep up yet we are collectively focused on frugality and minimizing our environmental impact. These two ideologies are at war with one another and I really doubt "extravagance" will win within the next decade.
As such, we will probably reach a "utopia" like state with more energy and more production ability than we are interested in using. Even if a person has the correct skills to be a robot manager, there will be limited jobs. The vast vast vast majority of humans will not be needed by the economy.
From this perspective, there are two things that need to be solved. #1, how do people find self worth? #2, how do people pay for things.
#1 is somewhat straightforward. People will need to find clubs, do dream jobs like running a bakery for the fun of it, pursue artistic/abstract ventures, and find value in human interactions. Video games are a great example of this (although they have a long way to go). There is zero "value" in playing the game but people still enjoy doing it anyway.
#2 is a lot harder. Even though this potential future society could have the means to give everyone a fricking lot of stuff, there would still obviously be restrictions. In many ways I view it as food in modern America for middle class families. There is zero risk of a middle class family starving and they could buy 100 McDonald's hamburgers a day without going broke, food is post scarcity for them, but it's still not an all you can eat buffet. Food becomes "expensive for the sake of being expensive" so that it can culturally match the situation. A $100 hamburger is flipping amazing but not worth the price if you're short on cash.
I think the rest of society's goods and services will end up in a similar situation. Take for example cars. Every car would become a super great car. Every human could cheaply own a car. That wouldn't stop society from producing more expensive cars that are only better in abstract ways. Say for example something dumb like gold plating the unseen car internals.
So because humans would have rich things and cheap things, there would still need to be money. At this point it might as well work out to just give every human an equal salary and let them decide what to spend it on.
This would be a bad outcome. It would naturally result in people wishing they had an increased salary so they could get the rich versions of everything. Going back to economic expansion vs economic frugality, I kinda feel like the only good option is rapid expansion. Keep the goal post moving so that people can eventually have everything they want but by the time they get it, they want even more. What are your thoughts?
