I don't get why folks find this depressing. If everything can be done by AI and robots - humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love.
That's the endgame here. It's not like the robots can eat any of the food they'd be growing and delivering, nor would they need to live in the housing they build, or use the sewage systems they'll be maintaining. Etc.
I had a small exit at the beginning of the pandemic and made enough money to last the next 20 years. I decided to take some time off and explore my hobbies (making music).
That 6 month sabbatical turned into 1.5 years of dawdling about and doing nothing much. Honestly, it felt awful. My creative output was trash, I became physically lethargic, and most of my time was wasted watching stupid YouTube videos and arguing with people online (including this place).
My dad retired at 52. He's been officially out of work for the last 27 years. He's a very creative, healthy, and hands-on guy, but even that couldn't save him. He's turned into a shell of the man I used to know - asocial, irascible, prone to idle obsessions (cleaning and organizing things).
It doesn't have to be "work", but I firmly believe we need something to wake up for every day.
It's interesting as I've observed this phenomenon too - some people end up getting what they've dreamed of, the ability to do whatever they like, and the experience seems to bring them to a kind of deep unhappiness.
But, and I think this is important - it doesn't happen with everyone.
There are those who have the opposite experience. They're a joy to be around, and also typically excited/hyper-productive with whatever they're doing.
As I see it, we are all heading for the same future, whether we like it or not. We can't keep perfecting the automation of tasks and abilities and accelerating all of the technology to do so, without reaching a point that there simply is far less actually useful work for people than there are people.
I'd hope that as a whole we're able to figure that out, perhaps with the help of whatever AI will be at the time, such that most of us can end up on the other side of that change in the positive way I described.
I don't see why in and of itself, we couldn't. But I can see why some might take the view that we couldn't. However, in the face of adversity, I prefer to remain optimistic: we're a very resilient species, who've been through all kinds of crazy changes at the various extremes of existence. Surely we're able to collectively handle the comparatively lesser challenge of simply spending each day how we like?
And I wonder if optimism may have something to do with it. Of those I've met who seem genuinely happy, and free to do whatever they like - they're always optimistic about the future and life in general, usually contagiously so. Whereas, I've met people in every kind of financial or working situation who seem imbued with pessimism, and well... they're miserable.
Is there a way out of that negativity, or is it just what some of us are stuck with? Well, optimistically, I take the view that of course there is.
On the whole I think I agree - we do need something to wake up for every day, and I'm sure that we, given a bizarre kind of freedom that leaves us no choice in the matter (find it or get depressed being directionless) - will find out what it is.
And thanks for sharing your experience, I really appreciate it. I hope my (at times, a little crazy) thoughts about the topic find you well.
We definitely need something to “work” on, but most of us don’t have the luck/privilege to work on something they truly find challenging and motivating, what they would genuinely continue without any monetary compensation. With that said, I think most people are just not that motivated for anything, and they also would need something to spend their time on otherwise we would live in very chaotic times.
> humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love.
This is very very naive. We already produce multiple times more food than what we will actually consume, yet I still have to pay quite a lot each day to eat. Why do you think that the elite class won’t just hijack the benefits and not further the already huge gap between us and them? The poor won’t be able to afford these robots.
> We already produce multiple times more food than what we will actually consume
It's funny, your comment seems very naive to me. :)
For example, it misses all of the problems subtleties - and so, its potential solutions.
Eg: Where are we producing more food than is being consumed? Who is benefitting from it, and who is losing out? Which of these misallocations can be easily solved? How?
By examining this issue properly, instead of writing it off as a perennial failure that nothing can be done about, potential modifications appear, ideas form, applications start to be structured.
The optimum distribution of food is a solvable problem, it's a great application of AI/ML, and assuming the easiest-to-solve routes can be cheaply identified first, could be a great startup idea requiring a minimal investment in likely mostly communications-based (very cheap) solutions. In the easiest cases resources only need rerouting. In probably the hardest, regulations need changing.
Yet, I've witnessed local, underfunded grass-roots organisations actually pull this off. One essentially solved homeless hunger in an area (and contained a bunch of other social issues in the process), simply by going to all local restaurants and grocers, collecting everything they throw out each day, and offering it instead to those in need.
Regarding the future, and the potential technological empowerment of such initiatives, AI/ML/automation/robotics - it's all open source, cheap and widely available. I often see interesting projects, or useful learning resources put online by people you might refer to as "the poor".
I don't think the idea they can't afford these things pans out. They might end up a couple of generations behind in tech, but that doesn't equal zero participation in the benefits.
As for the "elite", they are historically only ever a transient force, eventually eliminated by the gross unpalatability of their continuing excess. Relying on their continued dominance doesn't just strike me as exactly what they'd wish us to do, it also - given the endlessly-repeating historical precedent - seems foolish.
> Yet, I've witnessed local, underfunded grass-roots organisations actually pull this off
I would be interested in those, if you have a link to a story or something I would gladly read about those.
Unfortunately where I live these actions would be illegal, there is definitely a need to reform those laws!
But back to the topic, sure enough, logistics are the biggest problem with food availability, but that’s just one example. The inequality between the ultra rich and the “average citizen” has gotten bigger than ever, and we have actually seen this mindset that technology will solve the world problems before fail at the height of the industrial revolution(s).
Sure, we shouldn’t close our eyes to the positives, because sure enough we have never lived in as peaceful times, with this low famine, disease, crime and with this level of freedoms/protections as we have now, but maybe both of us are a bit naive here. What I fail to see here is how would capitalist incentives ever align with such positive changes. If anything, positive change is just a side effect that may or may not follow from the true, profit-incentives.
> humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love.
Unfortunately that's sci-fi utopianism - capitalism doesn't work like that. We've made enormous productivity gains over the past century, and yet we're still all working roughly the same hours (albeit with some additional worker protections) as workers back then, many of us at "bullshit jobs" that don't really need to exist.
When our sectors are automated, guess what - the only people retiring early will be those who own IP or have stock in the corporations who own the automation. Those automated out of jobs will have to find something else to do.
I would argue that the current model of capitalism is already struggling hard, if not failing. Near-zero interest rates have ensured that the evolutionary mechanisms built into capitalism are effectively negated. Zombie companies that produce no real products or cash flow can exist in perpetuity - far from the "survival of the fittest" ethos of capitalism.
> I don't get why folks find this depressing. If everything can be done by AI and robots - humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love
> I don't get why folks find this depressing. If everything can be done by AI and robots - humans won't need to do "work" for all of our needs to be met. Ie, we can all go on perpetual holiday and/or work on things we truly love.
Ideally, yes. In reality, I think it's naive to think it will play out that way. Capitalism won't allow it to work that way.
Someone who has lost their job to a robot doesn't suddenly get to retire. They still have bills to pay. Just because the farms have completely automated their operations won't mean food is free.
From what I see, the people who are most affected by the problems of capitalism are also those most likely to think their vote doesn't matter and stay home.
It would take violent revolution, and I don't think we'll ever see violent revolution in the USA. The media controls the narrative.
That's the endgame here. It's not like the robots can eat any of the food they'd be growing and delivering, nor would they need to live in the housing they build, or use the sewage systems they'll be maintaining. Etc.