I’ve been thinking about this problem for many days.
I used to think an AI driven future was a good idea: AI and robots would do everything for us, and we would just be free: creating art, wasting time, socialising, and having orgies.
*One thing I’ve realised is that anyone who has money generally wants to give away as little of it as possible - Let me explain how this connects.
The reason regular people (not business owners or politicians) earn good money today is because of the value they provide to those business owners and politicians.
For example, if I provide $100,000 worth of value to my boss, he might pay me around $80,000 a year to keep me. If he pays only $50,000, I would leave and work elsewhere, and he would lose the $100,000 value I generate, along with his $20,000 profit. (also he might not be able to find any quality candidates for 50k price who will give him 100k value)
This is a basic explanation, although in reality some people provide more indirect value, and some are valuable for status or other non financial reasons. But the fundamental idea still holds.
Now in a world where AI replaces almost all human labor and we stay at home. The only group left to pay us would effectively be governments.
They would not have to compete for our labor like employers do today. There would be no rival companies trying to “buy” our work for slightly more, because human labor would no longer be necessary.
In that case, we are left depending on political systems, and hoping that every four years an opposition party’s unavoidable promise of increased universal basic income is actually fulfilled and not delayed or weakened over time (basically inflation 2.0).
I don’t like the idea of living on hope in four year cycles, becoming increasingly dependent on political promises.
So what do you think about this? Looking at it now, it seems like almost no professions would remain. Maybe only sports (only athletes, i can see how coaches, judges and referees will get replaced in a blink) and art, and even those would be heavily reduced.
And for my last trick, I’ll state that this whole thing was written with AI. And… bye.