Even that is underselling it; jobs are a necessary evil that should be minimised. If we can have more stuff with fewer people needing to spend their lives providing it, why would we NOT want that?
This is already hyperbolic; in most countries where software engineers or similar knowledge workers are widely employed there are welfare programmes.
To add to that, if there is such mass unemployment in this scenario it will be because fewer people are needed to produce and therefore everything will become cheaper... This is the best kind of unemployment.
So at best: none of us have to work again and will get everything we need for free. At worst, certain professions will need a career switch which I appreciate is not ideal for those people but is a significantly weaker argument for why we should hold back new technology.
Even that is underselling it; jobs are a necessary evil that should be minimised. If we can have more stuff with fewer people needing to spend their lives providing it, why would we NOT want that?
Because we've built a system where if you don't have a job, you die.
This is already hyperbolic; in most countries where software engineers or similar knowledge workers are widely employed there are welfare programmes.
To add to that, if there is such mass unemployment in this scenario it will be because fewer people are needed to produce and therefore everything will become cheaper... This is the best kind of unemployment.
So at best: none of us have to work again and will get everything we need for free. At worst, certain professions will need a career switch which I appreciate is not ideal for those people but is a significantly weaker argument for why we should hold back new technology.
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Did we build it or did nature?
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