When it comes to AI, philosophical people often ask "What will happen to people if they lack work? Will they find it hard to find meaning in such a world of abundance?"

But there is a darker side to the question, which people intuit more than they say aloud.

In all prior technological history, new technologies changed the nature of human work but did not displace the need for human work. The fearful rightly ask: what happens if we make robots, utterly servile, that can outperform the majority of humans at most tasks with lower costs? Suppose they displace 70% or 80% of human labor to such an extent that 70% or 80% of humans cannot find another type of economic work relative to those bots.

Now, the way I see it, it's a lot harder to replace humans than most expect. Datacenter AI is not the same as mobile AI; it takes a couple more decades of Moore's law to put a datacenter supercomputer into a low-energy local robot, or it would otherwise rely on a sketchy and limited-bandwidth connection to a datacenter. And it takes extensive physical design and programming which is harder than VC bros tend to suppose. And humans are self-repairing for the most part, which is a rather fantastic trait for a robot. A human cell outcompetes all current human technology in terms of complexity. People massively over-index what robots are capable of within a given timeframe, in my view. We're nowhere near human-level robots for all tasks, even as we're close to them for some tasks.

But, the concept is close enough to be on our radar. We can envision it in a lifetime rather than in fantasy or far-off science fiction.

So back to my prior point, the darker side of the question is to ask how humans will treat other humans if they don't need them for anything. All of our empathetic instincts were developed in a world where we needed each other; needed our tribe. And the difference between the 20% most capable and 20% least capable in a tribe wasn't that huge.

But imagine our technology makes the bottom 20% economic contributes irrelevant. And then the next 20%. And then the next 20%, slowly moving up the spectrum.

What people fear, often subconsciously rather than being able to articulate the full idea, is that humanity will reach a point where robots can replace many people in any economic sense; they can do nothing that economicall outcomes a bot and earns an income other than through charity.

And specifically, they wonder what happens at the phase when this happens regarding those who own capital vs those that rely on their labor within their lifetimes. Scarce capital remains valuable for a period of time, so long as it can be held legally or otherwise, while labor becomes demonetized within that period. And as time progresses, weak holders of capital who spend more than they consume, also diminish due to lack of labor, and many imperfect forms of capital diminish. It might even be the case that those who own the robots are themselves insufficient, but at least they might own the codes that control them.

Thus, people ultimately fear extinction, or being collected into non-economic open-air prisons and given diminishing scraps, resulting in a slow extinction. And they fear it not from the robots themselves, but from the minority of humans who wield the robots.

Meditation (it’s long)

When you notice your mind wandering what is your thought about it?

Do you get upset, like you’ll never be able to stay focused, like training an alligator would be easier than controlling your own attention?

Do the judgments come with assumptions:

I’ll never be able to have a blank mind!

I’m wasting my time!

This practice is too hard!

When is this hour over so I can go back to thinking?

Or

Are you gentle and compassionate?

“Ah mind, you’ve gotten distracted again, how about we take this opportunity to come back to the (breath, mantra, or whatever the chosen focus for this meditation)

Are you soft and encouraging, do you appreciate the chance to show yourself patience?

The act of noticing, acknowledging, then redirecting one’s attention back to the focus,

That is the heart of meditation,

That is the ‘muscle’ or skill you’re conditioning so,

What is the mood of your dojo?

Learning to observe the process that happens almost instantaneously:

1. sensation

2. Comparisons to how things ‘should be’

3. Asking ‘WHY?’ Questions

4. Jumping to past and future thoughts.

All this can happen so fast, it’s easy to miss and then get distracted with the emotions that come with the judgement,

‘I’m bad at this’

‘I’ll never get a blank mind’

Etc.

Releasing those judgments and then gently returning the attention to the focus of the meditation is the

Rumination is in a sense, an unintentional meditation, so what happens when we give our ruminations our full attention?

What happens when we invite in, disturbance, frustration even rage or morning…

Life if full of peaks and valleys and if avoidance ensures this negative experience will remain dormant and likely return when we least want it, what happens when if instead of pushing it away, we give it our full attention?

This upsetting thought is… making me feel these emotions:

which emotions-

how many can I listI list?

Which are the most accurate to describe what I’m feeling?

Which are close but not as accurate as possible?

How many different emotions and I experiencing from this rumination?

What happens when we give our attention to the body?

If we accept that we’re upset, what are those feelings causing internally?

Is it tightness in the chest?

What about the neck and shoulders?

Is there a frog in the throat?

Pinching between the eye brows?

Once we find the feelings, what happens when we just acknowledge them?

What happens when we just honor and allow, whatever is, the space and attention it needs, just to exist in this moment?

Am I upset? Yes…

Where do I feel it?

My heart feels heavy, it’s hard to breathe and my chest and diaphragm are really tense making it painful to breathe…

Where else am i experiencing a sensation?

Are my eyes heavy, does my forehead hurt because I’m pinching my eyebrows together?

If it’s here, what happens when I, instead of getting more upset and say, this ‘should’ be that…!

What happens if instead I just say, what’s here now, is exactly what I’m experiencing, which is completely ok because this is my experience…

This is exactly how I feel about what’s going on in my life…

Now what happens to those spots of tension when I actually speak those feelings aloud?

What happens if I repeated speak them aloud?

Does the pain and discomfort grow?

Or does the acknowledgement of the discomfort do something else?

If avoiding and suppressing ensure that which was avoided will surely return…

What happens if instead, I give it my best shot to accept all of the ways and things, to experience and express all the emotions in currently experiencing…

What happens inside me when I instead…

honor what it is that, to the best of my ability, to gently and lovingly allow me to feel, everything and anything that is currently here

like really chill, welcome to a wonderful place