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.
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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