[ExI] Post-labor economics: Will capitalism work once we don't need to?

[efc at swisscows.email]

On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, BillK via extropy-chat wrote:

> Post-labor economics: Will capitalism work once we don't need to?
> By Loz Blain  March 08, 2024
>
> <https://newatlas.com/technology/post-labor-economics-shapiro/>
> Quotes:
> There's a non-zero chance that human labor and intelligence could be
> surplus to requirements in the mid-to-near future. That would entail a
> seismic shift in the balance of power and the way societies and
> economies function. Let's discuss some ideas.
>
> For the first time in human history, there's a non-zero chance, and
> maybe even a probability, that the vast majority of human work might
> simply not be needed within a decade or two – and a real pathway to
> get there, that multiple multi-billion dollar companies are pushing
> toward with all their resources.
>
> If AI does what it says on the tin, this won't be like the
> agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, or the information
> revolution, where we'll just move to different jobs. The promise of
> embodied AGI is that it'll simply be better at us at whatever there is
> to do, as well as much faster, cheaper and more reliable. The value of
> both intelligence and physical work could well drop to nearly zero.
>
> This fundamentally changes society – but how?

I think it depends on what it does say on the tin. Are we talking
godlike AI all bets are off.

If we're talking AI good enough and autonomous enough to replace humans
(that is at or slightly above human intelligence, and that there's no
"bootstrap" that would yield godlike AI by feeing results back to it and
iterating) I think we'll see a golden age.

Markets and capitalism are great tools at dealing with scarce resources.
If resources are no longer scarce, we don't need them.

In terms of society, I think there will always be a demand for things as
long as humans have desires. Having AI replacing all production I think
we'll see the following activities for humans:

* Sports
* Pleasure/Hospitality/Leisure industry
* Culture (human created culture, plays, concerts will get premium value
   much like we can today buy factory produced items at a fraction of the
   price of handmade items.)
* Science (we'll do science with the help of AI, if they do not reach
   god-like status.)
* Teaching/education (having a human teacher will become a value-add
   even though everything would be available online and through AI:s)
* Raising children/family time
* Philosophy 
* Space exploration (Yes, we can send robots, but given a society rich
   enough I think the human will to explore and to "be there" will come
   into play. 
* Religion/psychology/therapy

So no matter how powerful AI becomes I think the above are examples of
areas where humans will still play a role and add value just by being
humans.

Best regards, 
Daniel