Comment by astrange

> One interesting scenario I've heard is that of the "ascended economy", where more and more economic activity is simply to provide inputs into things that other businesses need, rather than what humans need.

That's silly. That's a typical "what if everything was different but somehow everything was also exactly the same" bad SF scenario.

The only reason the economy exists is that people want things. (An AGI that wanted to stay alive would be "people" in this case. An AGI that made no effort to keep itself turned on wouldn't be ending the world.)