The jobs will never be gone because we will always want more
Discussion
You don’t feel there will be massive displacement of labor due to ai productivity gains? The replacement rate of new jobs will keep up with displacement?
I think abundance is relative. We live like kings compared to people from 1000 years ago but we still feel poor because there are people more powerful and more rich than us. When AI takes over, that dynamic will still exist, so there will still be the incentive for people to climb the ladder, however that looks. We can reach levels of unprecedented abundance, but it won’t matter because people dont just want to dominate their environment, they want to dominate each other. AI doesn’t change human nature.
How does that tie into employment if the employer no longer needs your labor?
If other people don’t need your labor, you will find a way to make your own. It’s not all negative, it could lead to unprecedented levels of human creativity.
I know for a fact I can make my own labor 😆 but that doesn’t mean people will want it. One scenario that might be a case is where people just want things made by other people - but it’s not clear to me whether this would be making a living scenario
Yeah genuine creativity could be valuable, assuming humans are able to create things that AI can’t, but that’s still an open question.
Another thing to consider is that AI has to *work*. And for it to work, it needs two things: energy and data. And we could be a long way from AI being able to gather those resources on its own. So those will be jobs for the time being.
Abundance is only felt when the mind is free, and for most people our mind is not free most of the week, including me.
I’m an engineer and like many, our job relies on someone else milking our cognitive engine as much as they can.
So it seems that abundance that you actually feel is a balance between technological upgrades, freeing up time and space for us humans, but also maintaining a sense of self worth through a role in society, your family, or even your own self sovereignty
You have too much faith in what AI will be able to do. But even if it really is amazing, I have lots of wants that are not even close to being brought to market yet. For example, I would really like to take a day trip to a neighboring solar system. There is so many innovations that have to happen first. So much for humans to work on to fulfill all our wants!
We haven’t even gone to mars and you want to go outside the solar system? Bold.
Some of the brightest minds are working on long distance space travel. If you think any average Joe displaced by a weak AI will walk on over to spacex or nasa and get a job, then I’m not sure what to say..
The transition is gradual, people losing jobs but also raising the bar for what humans spend labor on.
I don’t agree. Many many jobs today are a form of UBI. In my world, 75% of people are easily replaceable. Easily. Banking, sales,software dev, customer support, marketing, etc etc.
The same is true in Japan. Elderly are often hired just for the sake of paying them. I see a ton of people doing completely unnecessary jobs all around me.
I work with a few of those UBI NPCs. You know the “good news” they keep creating government jobs!
Exactly. There is no end to wants. We can’t know all the things we want when they have t been created yet. For example, I would like to take a day trip to a neighboring solar system but it’s not available yet so there’s lots to do until then.