Comment by GMoromisato
1 day ago
This article acknowledges that "human-made" objects will have value in an AI-does-everything economy, but it then dismisses it as too small a part of the economy. But that's like dismissing non-farm labor as too small a part of the economy 200 years ago.
If AI does everything, then the price of everything drops down to its energy cost; the bulk of the economy will be human-made objects and other human-provided labor.
The key factor here is rate of change. If all jobs disappear tomorrow, we're going to be in serious trouble. If it takes 100 years for all jobs to be done by AI we'll have plenty of time to adapt.
If history is any guide, we will have time. Remember electricity: it took decades for cities to be wired with electricity and even more time for electric gadgets to replace human power (e.g., electric toothbrushes).
Current AI is already at the point where I don't think a human needs to type code ever again. Human architecture is necessary; human taste is necessary; human direction is necessary; humans reading code at some level is still necessary. But writing code? No.
Even then, ten years from now there will still be jobs where humans type code. There won't be many, just as there aren't many elevator operator jobs, but it takes a long time for things like that to change.
Yes, eventually, AI will be able to do all jobs. But it will take decades for the shift to happen, and that will be enough time for the economy to change and adapt.
OTOH US manufacturing employment declined by ~30% in less than a decade starting in 2000 and the country is still reeling from the fallout. I suspect it will be several decades still until the social problems caused by that economic shift are resolved, if they ever are.
In the UK, many families who were plunged into poverty during the 1980s have yet to recover.
So if history is any guide, I don't think it's a sure thing at all that everyone will have time to adjust.
Those jobs didn't disappear, they moved.
Manufacturing jobs peaked in the US in 1978 at ~20 million, down to ~12 million currently.
Current manufacturing jobs in China are now ~85 million.
If you were a human working in US manufacturing the 90s what's the difference?
And yet, US median wages have gone up from 2000 to 2023: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html
In 2000, median wages were ~$21,000. In 2023, it was ~$43,000 (adjusted for inflation, that's ~$24,000 in year 2000 dollars).
Yes, of course, some people will not be able to adapt (through no fault of their own). But as a whole, the economy is better now than it was in 2000.
Who cares about the economy if you're one of the folks who got left behind, is my point. Aggregate wages being higher hasn't solved the social problems in the Rust Belt.
> If it takes 100 years for all jobs to be done by AI we'll have plenty of time to adapt.
How do we adapt an economy in which humans are economically worthless?
The world will just become sub-Saharan Africa. Humans could choose to end world hunger but we much rather selfishly consume. Most people can't even be bothered to look those begging on the streets in the eyes.
I hope you're right, but it would be unusual for humanity to care so much for such economically useless people.
How much do you think it will cost to provide for "economically useless people"?
If AI does all the work, then the cost of everything drops down to energy cost. And if robots are generating energy (via solar power or whatever) then that's free too.
That means it won't cost any human labor to provide food, water, even medicine. It will be effectively free. You might say, "but the people who own the robots will charge money." But why? What do the people who own robots need money for? And remember that if we're assuming all jobs are gone, robots are building other robots. The government (or even a philanthropic rich person) could just give everyone a robot (or two or ten).
There will still be an economy, because people will charge each other for unique, human-specific art/services/whatever. But that money will only be spent on human art/services/whatever. You won't need money for anything robots can create.
> What do the people who own robots need money for?
For the same reason they currently “need” more money than they require.
This is straight-up Mr. Rogers political economy. This whole thing assumes primates aren’t gonna primate.
I do agree with this in some sense. I personally don't think we'll make it to the AI utopia era, but assuming we do, I agree there will be relative resource abundance.
The problem is we're already in an era of relative resource abundance and hunger is still problem, and the super wealthy who have almost unfathomable levels of resource abundance are still doing everything they can to pay as little tax as possible. And this isn't just an issue with the super-rich I myself am no better, and if you're honest, nor are yo. I am relatively very well off, but do relatively very little to help kids starving to death around the world. Somehow I rather take my family on holiday.
But okay, let's ignore this too. Let's just assume we'll be less selfish in the future or something.
Well now, we have another issue – AI has a cure for aging and populations are now exploding. Every beach and tourist attraction has a decade long waiting list. Huge amounts of green land are being built on to accommodate all the unemployed humans who have nothing better to do than have kids. People start to see that the human race resembles something more like a parasite, endlessly spreading and consuming while contributing nothing.
So now what? I'd argue the incentives to provide infinite resources to the economically useless human race doesn't make sense for the AIs or humans in charge. Absence of poverty and disease you simply have to do something to keep the numbers of human parasites under control and/or limit their consumption.
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> If AI does everything, then the price of everything drops down to its energy cost;
The nominal prices of goods don't mean anything when the wages are 0. Oligarchs will own the AI and the robots so you'll be left to starve unless you can find a way to excite what little humanity remains inside them. You're also going to have a few billion competitors willing to go the extra mile.
We could build a utopian society, in principle, but the people leading this charge (and capitalism in general) are by and large megalomaniac sociopaths who will make damn sure to crown themselves kings of an exploitative, dehumanizing dystopia.