• I like sushi
    4.8k
    I’d like to explore an idea. Given that more jobs are disappearing due to technological advances - assuming this is akin to the mechanization of farming; historically speaking - what new jobs become available?

    I am taking UBI off the table for the sake of exploring other avenues society could take (for good or bad).

    One thing that is apparent enough is the growing need for ‘entertainment’ - games, movies, music, podcasts etc.,. This would seem to create a potential society where our lives are our products on the market rather than anything we do (we’d merely turn into groups defined by the billboard we attach ourselves to). What that would do or how exactly it would be monetized - given the products are produced without manual labour - would likely come down popularity contests and competitions leading to a more ‘celebrity-driven’ society.

    Another thing that spring to mind is a kind of ‘hedonistic’ society - meaning driven by the pursuit of personal pleasure - in which poorer people become enticed into a self-made slavery of sorts. Giving themselves to people to survive almost like a pet - ‘charity’ turned sour!

    Ask yourself now. If almost everyone where you lived has no income and there were no jobs involving basic manual labour and hospitality had been reduced to such a degree that those job opportunities were filled already what is left other than a form of slavery; perhaps called being a ‘personal assistant’? No need for office workers, call centres, manufacturing, sales teams - beyond a few programmers and designers - management would be reduced due to no ‘man’ to manage, no HR or Health and Safety classes, etc.,. Such a paradise starts to look very dull very quickly once we move beyond the joy of having so much leisure time as people, a great many, don’t actually have the slightest inkling what to do with their free-time other than party or lie on a beach. Once that is done what is left other than the welcoming oblivion in any shape or form we can grasp at - drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll.

    My actual rough-shod prediction is that once human society hits such a point the main fungible commodity will be ‘human potential’ and that society will - no idea how - move beyond ‘material’ wealth and instead beyond a group of competing ‘educational organisations’ where innovation, creativity and originality will become the number one prize; which people will ‘follow’ (clicks or whatever future equivalent) based in entertainment.

    By this I mean we’ll see something similar to - but not equivalent to - people as ‘pets’. We don’t NEED dogs or cats, yet many people have such affection, love and devotion for these creatures that they are not simply ‘possessions’. I think most of us will, and to some degree always have been, ‘pets’ of some grander design we attach to superficially.

    It may even be that AI will be our master - assuming this isn’t already partially the reality of the world today and AI technologies won’t expand far beyond a minimalist ‘creativity’ in production of art and political schemata - we’d still be left with demographics based on fashions, trends and popularity, yet in a magnified level.

    For myself in is about intellect and art. What puzzles me is what those who have little to interest in such things would do with themselves? Forced into a corner will everyone turn to the artistic and intellectual development for the sake of development or stagnate? By stagnate I’d expect a huge epidemic of psychologically unhinged people wailing against a wall of existential dread.
  • Brett
    3k
    Well, I think everyone will become an artist, we’re on the way to that anyway, art being impossible to define, and the idea that ‘you can be anything you want’. There’s evidence to me on Instagram, for instance, that you can even be a small business, even if you don’t actually make money, because ‘that’s not what it’s about’.

    You can become a ‘life-peformer’, someone who enacts dreams and hopes of those who dream about becoming ‘someone’.

    So you can chose to be whatever you want, even gender and race. This will mean committing yourself to a particular identity group that has managed to get funds from government. It’s not important, for instance, that you create art, you just need to identify as an artist. From that you find your support group, or your tribe.

    Income is earned by appearances online and contributions you receive. These are not jobs. Jobs are slave labour. Real work is done by immigrants, who have been given ‘opportunities’, the chance to ‘grow’.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    I was talking about a global scale so they’ll be no ‘immigrants’ to speak of that would in any way effect this ‘economy’.

    But yeah, what you say bears some truth to it. I’m not necessarily looking at this as a ‘decline’ or ‘progression’, merely as the direction things have shifted in the past.

    More and more leisure time means people have to make something of their time ... I’m not sure if everyone is cut out for ‘leisure time’; meaning many will probably rot without enforced direction due to lack of intrigue, artistic prowess and/or intellectual pursuits ... then again there is always athletics!
  • Brett
    3k
    Okay, no immigrants. .

    I do remember serious conversations in the media years ago about what people would do with all their ‘leisure time’, partly as a result of job sharing and the wealth of the future.

    Did that happen? People are busy today, but is it only with work or is just to be ‘busy’? But, assuming there is more ‘leisure time’, then it needs to be filled with something ‘meaningful’. So far work seems to have been the only activity to fill this void on the scale required. The only effective alternative I see is drugs.

    Edit: I forgot human intrigue as distraction.
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    I talked about this with a friend economist, and the conclusion we arrived at is that prostitutes will become a highly demanded good in our post-AI future.
  • ssu
    8.6k
    Social workers taking care of elder people. That's the new reality.

    We are still ages away from AI cyborgs doing all that stuff. Especially when older people living alone will genuinely want that at least they see some human beings that you can interact with them.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    Yep, ages away on the scale I’m talking about. This was more of a thought experiment not rigid description of what is or will happen.
  • BC
    13.6k
    people as ‘pets’I like sushi

    I'm shocked that you could make a suggestion like this. People make TERRIBLE pets. They cost way too much to feed, clothe, house, and in general take care of. They have all these independent demands. They wander around, finding other caretakers who might offer a better deal, leaving you suddenly petless. As pet owners, humans are also deficient. They often lose interest in you as a pet, and throw you out of the house. You can't sue pet owners for losing interest in you.

    Humans and dogs are made for each other.
  • BC
    13.6k
    There is a simple enough solution to the problem of the AI-managed automated world of the future where we are all watched over by machines of loving grace: DON'T DO IT.

    I've had a number of office-type jobs where I thought, "Really, a computer should be doing this boring, tedious, complicated crap." But there are people who actually like doing those kinds of work I found too tedious for words. In reverse, the jobs I really liked are not everyone's cup of tea.

    Human existence, whether hunter-gatherer or "advanced" civilisation, was, is, and will be entirely dependent on material goods. We have not, do not, and will not transcend our needs for food, clothing shelter, clean water, breathable air, heat, cooling, and energy (which comes from material sources.

    The option of drifting off into a perpetual game/TV room and consuming entertainment as a way of life is not only a a bad idea, it isn't feasible. 7 or 8 billion people can not live sustainably on earth no matter how they live. But even if we reduced the population to 4 billion, or 3 billion, long-term sustainability is not going to be possible without increased labor inputs. We are using a lot of resources and materials to reduce personal work and produce convenience, and convenience products are fouling our land, waterways, and air--making it all less sustainable. The alternative is increased personal labor input to replace impersonal convenience.
  • Brett
    3k
    As pet owners, humans are also deficient. They often lose interest in you as a pet, and throw you out of the house. You can't sue pet owners for losing interest in you.Bitter Crank

    Not if people-pets were really expensive. If there was a big financial investment in people-pets then it’s in the owners interests to care for it. Maybe even create some sort of add-on value by educating it, teaching it new skills, then reselling.
  • Brett
    3k
    Probably of interest in terms of the future workforce is whether the rich: Gates, Beto, Zuckerberg, Buffett, Arnault, Slim, etc. hold onto their wealth and dominate how business is done and consequently what jobs are created: few as possible from their point of view. But they always need customers.

    Their collapse is the only way I see of change in the workforce. I don’t see that happening.

    That means less jobs. It also means more government spending on welfare. If corporations are taxed more (where else would the money come from) then they may agree, on the basis that they have some say where the money is spent.

    Where would they want it spent? Obviously to their advantage, or according to their beliefs, not just about business, but society, what it should be.

    China’s Social Credit system seems foreseeable under such conditions. Business wants a return on its dollars and taxable dollars: good citizens. But what use are they from there on if they’re not workers or customers? Maybe a reduction in numbers is necessary, an ideal population.
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