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The original was posted on /r/singularity by /u/Anenome5 on 2024-01-11 08:36:08+00:00.
Too many people think X number of jobs that exist now in the economy is all that's available, they then realize automation can easily do 3X and conclude that humans will be out of a job entirely.
This is incorrect because the amount of work that CAN be done productively is closer to 1 billion X than to 3X, so human beings will always be able to find work using automation to do productive labor.
The reason this is true is because human desire for want fulfillment is infinite.
You can always live at a higher standard of living, this is why this is true. You can always imagine something that might make your life a little better. And the future will continue to invent things that make it even better that you will want as well. You probably would eat lobster more often if you could, for instance. What about organic Wagyu, that's a rare treat. You can't have a massage as often as you'd like. Or this or that or the other thing. You want more life, you want more family, etc., etc., whatever it is. You can always want more, and people do. Since the industrial revolution, as wages have risen dramatically, people have always chosen to live at a higher standard of living than work less.
So how do we obtain income in an automation economy where AI and androids can work better than we can?
By owning the robots that work for us. Why? Because robots WILL be creating value, and that value will flow to the owner of that robot.
But you say, won't rich people try to capture all that value through buying many robots?
Yes, but return back to work being effectively infinite, and that work is niche and requires special knowledge on the part of the owner of the robot.
Example: if you're a CPA, sure you can hire as many robots and AI as you want to do a million books of accounting, whatever. But how will you certify results with your license on the line? You may be able to automate the work, but you still have to certify the results yourself. Robots can and do make mistakes, your job will be to catch those mistakes and put your stamp of credibility on the outcome.
If you're a doctor, you will begin using AI to help you diagnose symptoms and turn your attention to relevant medical papers and rare syndromes you didn't recall, resulting in much better outcomes for patients. But when it comes to prescribing meds and choosing a course of treatment, you're the final word on that. You will have to use your judgment and wisdom, as trained in that specialty, and that's not something a rich person can replace.
Even if a rich person wants to create a factory, he might replace a division of workers with robots, but he needs a man on site who both knows the specialty and the machines. The tricks of the trade are not captured by the theoreticals, they are captured by the doing, by labor.
People began to view automation as a labor saving device, this has misled people into thinking automation will destroy jobs. Economically speaking, automation is a labor multiplying device that extends the productivity of a single person, and androids and AI will do the same to a much greater degree now in every field.
If you want to know why the USA has some of the best incomes in the world, it's because of the capital brought to bear on production in combination with those workers. Poor wages exist primarily in places without much capital invested to work with. AI and robots will extend this process, leading to greater productivity per worker and thus much greater income as well.
And by this I mean income in terms of access to goods. We are likely to see price deflation along with expanding automation. There are two ways for your income to double, either your wages double or the cost of living halves, etc.
The ideal economy is one where we do no physical labor at all yet get to consume everything we could possibly want. That is a future being brought much closer by the coming automation revolution. The rich will own many robots, the poor will own fewer, but both will live much better than we do.
And no, we will never need UBI or anything like it.
