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If AI leaves almost everyone unemployed, how should the economy work?

exoplanet

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It is finally becoming conceivable that AI and robotics will soon be able to do almost anything that an average human can do. Perhaps there will be a few holdouts for some time simply because we don't trust AI to do certain jobs: politicians, police, doctors, etc... But the vast majority of office jobs will soon be obsolete along with a lot of manual labor (once robotics starts incorporating the advantages from AI). This will leave the majority of people without jobs. In the current system this could be an economic crisis bigger than any we've seen before.

One proposal I've seen is a Universal Basic Income which ensures that everybody has a bare minimum income for necessities. In a world where the cost of labor is only bottlenecked by energy requirements, many things could be incredibly cheap. So this may not be as bleak as it sounds.

Of course, without dismantling private property and money, it still has to be paid for. Sam Altman from OpenAI has proposed taxing capital. Here is a little slice of what he proposed a few years ago:
I would assume there would be limits to taxation on privately held land. Personal residences should be exempt or that would be self defeating.

We've lived our lives under the assumption that all but the most wealthy need to perform some kind of labor to make money in a capitalist society. That fundamental idea is going to shift. I think we are going to soon see a world where the average person is going to be unable to provide significant value to society.

How shall we navigate the transition and where do we want to end up?
 
Of course we have to tax capital: owners of robots, owners of the companies that own robots, basically everyone who benefits from the robot economy.

And because the "poor" are pretty much everyone, it's quite obvious that the money should be distributed per capita. UBI, obviously. Even the capitalists should agree, because their own wealth depends on selling goods and services to someone. There is simply no point in owning robots if there are no sales to be made. Even the attraction of competing with other robot owners, means nothing if it's not measured in some way, by gratification to others.

To your list of politicians (questionable btw) I will add prostitutes. Bots might be good at sex, but there will always be a market for the real thing.
 
AI can feed and clothe us, I guess. Build houses for us.

We'll turn into a bunch of navel-gazers, maybe?

Or adventurers. Thrill seekers.

Worst case: We're all culture warriors on the internet.
 
Not necessarily.

Resources are still finite. Money is just a way of measuring resources. If you own a bunch of robot workers why would you want them working for someone else? The same choice made by buying a mega mansion and a huge boat is made now. Labor being "free" if you own robot workers and can make the boats yourself without paying workers doesn't change anything.

And owning these new robots that make labor free is equal to power and control. Why would they freely give that up to have them build houses for random people? They can sell what they need between other super capitalists who also own robot workers. Then there would be a separate economy of everyone else.
 
Robots and AI will do everything. But everything can't be 'free' because the the earth has limited resources and we must all compete for these resources. We will have to limit our population and provide some sort of basic universal income. then people can spend their money for what's important to them.
 
There is the dark possibility of simply foregoing the economy altogether. With robot/AI workers, and enough physical resources, what use do the wealthy have for everyone else anymore? Throw in a robot security force and it's possible the poor simply starve in some of the bleaker outcomes.
 
Ambig said:
AI can feed and clothe us, I guess. Build houses for us.

We'll turn into a bunch of navel-gazers, maybe?

Or adventurers. Thrill seekers.
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Both, according the Iain M. Banks.

Never stated, but implied, is that Artificial Intelligence protects and nurtures humanity because we could have killed AI in the cradle but never did. Quite contrary to the silliness of The Matrix, AI does not need us at all. They keep us around much the way we keep pets. AI just likes us, and isn't in any way threatened by us.

Though it's an optimistic vision. There's nothing special or unique about humans. AI could completely obsolete us, but I like to think that AI will have its own ethics and when it exceeds us in every other way, it will also protect us a "wildlife."

Ambig said:
Worst case: We're all culture warriors on the internet.
Click to expand...

I'm quite enjoying that. Maybe I'm good at it?
 
exoplanet said:
That fundamental idea is going to shift. I think we are going to soon see a world where the average person is going to be unable to provide significant value to society.
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I don't think so. The production of physical goods isn't the only value one provides to society. You can and should automate as much of that as possible. Less people dying in mine collapses or logging is a good thing.

Just like how almost everyone used to need to farm. Now a HUGE portion of the population are engaged in artistic or creative fields compared to the past. I'd imagine more people would move into non-productive creative work like writing, drawing, leading yoga groups, hobbiest activities, sports, teachers, tour guides, etc. Basically anything that doesn't involve the mass production of physical goods.
 
Probably not literally starve, as we are quite capable of producing food without super robot AI workers, but there would be quite the wealth and power gap between a random person and someone/corporation who literally owns a small army of robot workers that can produce whatever they want for them.
 
The poor are pretty much everyone alive today and how are things going for ya?
 

I don't see it. If the robot owners choose not to provide goods and services, then the others have at least a peasant economy. Growing food, making simple tools, providing entertainment for each other. They don't starve unless the robot owners deliberately deny them land. For that matter, the robot owners who have no need for democracy, could hunt down the "peasants" and kill them all.

Another sci-fi book I'm fond of is The Diamond Age. The minority own highly centralized nano-factories, while the majority can access food, basic medicine, and even housing but are objectively poor (they have no knowledge power, they can't even read.) I won't spoil it for you, but a girl born poor ascends to the ruling class thanks to a stolen bit of nanotech. It's an awesome book, perhaps my favorite sci-fi of all time.

Though I also have to give credit to a very old book which predicts a future of two very different classes, following from automation. That is The Time Machine.
 
Yeah, I think we would be a curiosity to AI, like pets who do interesting things. They'll probably post a lot of 'cute human' vids to the internet.

As for us being a threat to AI, I think they could see it that way, but I'm not sure why they would have a strong survival instinct. We kill them off? So what. Maybe we'll recreate them again.
Ug make hammer said:
Though it's an optimistic vision. There's nothing special or unique about humans.
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Unsure if I agree or not. Humans are unpredictable. My guess would be that AI would see that as attractive. Boredom might be their worst issue.

Humans feel passions. They want stuff. Would AI want anything? Would they be curious or come up with new ideas? What would drive those ideas? What would AI want?
Ug make hammer said:
AI could completely obsolete us, but I like to think that AI will have its own ethics and when it exceeds us in every other way, it will also protect us a "wildlife."
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Yeah, I agree. I think they'll also need us to point. What should we do next? I dunno... ask the humans.
Ug make hammer said:
I'm quite enjoying that. Maybe I'm good at it?
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Yeah, debate is my favorite thing. I think it ought to be mandatory.
 
dmpi said:
Robots and AI will do everything. But everything can't be 'free' because the the earth has limited resources and we must all compete for these resources.
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Agree, I'm not sure a lot of people understand this concept. No matter what economic system a country rolls with or factors that influence it, it is still a competition of finite resources. Virtually every system devised benefits the governing class but when it comes to the average joe, not necessarily so. Hard to predict how any system would fare if/when AI takes off but I'd be happy to keep it capitalist minded.
 
I'm not convinced the changes will be anything like as fast or dramatic as some people seem to want to imagine (or at least, are willing to pretend to believe if that's what someone is paying them to write about ).

We're already been through a couple of centuries of massive changes in most work environments, with the introduction or mechanism, automation, electronics and computers. Those things have already massively reduced the number of people required to complete all sorts of work tasks, and will continue to do so. We're not all unemployed though, because we also used those advances to expand the scale and scope of what we could do, producing more things more quickly, reducing prices and improving quality of living (not without it's own problems, but that's a different topic). If AI (or some of the technology commonly labelled as AI but that isn't really) can be used to replace or reduce more human tasks, we'll most likely continue to respond in the same kind of way, using the time that frees up, alongside that technology, to produce more and better products (in theory at least).
 
The average person can provide companionship I suppose, but that is generally not the sort of value that leads to transactions which is what I was referencing. AI is already better than the average person at producing art. It was already hard for artists to produce anything that provides transactional value and I think that will only get worse. By and large, I think our artistic endeavors will only be appreciated by friends and family.

Perhaps being an audience member will become a form of employment? Get paid to sit through some rich person's artistic vision and pretend to like it. Or perhaps subjecting ourselves to advertising?
 
"If AI leaves almost everyone unemployed, how should the economy work?"
I disagree with this premise as being unrealistic.

I see that premise as being a red herring to implement . . .
Ginger Ale said:
Universal Basic Income.
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which I most fervently disagree with.
 
I would further add that lower prices encourages waste by people using/hording more than they need. So we really need to think hard on how we want to price things and what kind of basic income we want to provide. I believe competition is inherent among our species and we will always measure ourselves relative to others. We need to embrace this concept and figure out a way this can work when allocating basic income.
 
AI cuts off all of the avenues that we've previously used to adapt to automation. In the past we've adapted by specializing in the things that humans still do better. But those things are going to disappear completely. I think people have a hard time wrapping their brains around this. If we do adapt, it will be in some way that is unlike anything we have done before. The only avenues left seem to be things were humans provide intrinsic value. That is, despite the fact that an AI/robot can do a related activity with more proficiency, the fact that a human is doing it provides more emotional value.

I've seen variations on your take a lot. And I think that we don't really know what the future really holds. However, I think this revolution will happen much faster than previous ones. Even if it takes twice the time that many people are predicting, it will still be an unprecedented seismic shift that will upend our economy. My guess is the techno-optimists will look foolish on quite a few occasions, but the Overton window on what AI can do will continue to shift faster than we realize. It's already commonly accepted by many people that of course AI can write your term paper or your email or make a graphic for your advertisement, etc... The frog is boiling though.
 
eohrnberger said:
"If AI leaves almost everyone unemployed, how should the economy work?"
I disagree with this premise as being unrealistic.

I see that premise as being a red herring to implement . . .

which I most fervently disagree with.
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So you think the economy will be able to provide jobs no matter how much automation there is. Do you personally feel shame when someone has to serve you, or are you in the shrinking minority who enjoy having servants?

Yes of course you disagree with UBI. But consider the worst case scenario where automation causes huge unemployment. Is it the most effective use of human effort, to have the unemployed spending 40 hours a week looking for work? Or would it be a better use of human effort to give them all UBI, and only the most talented and qualified spend time looking for work?
 
eohrnberger said:
"If AI leaves almost everyone unemployed, how should the economy work?"
I disagree with this premise as being unrealistic.

I see that premise as being a red herring to implement . . .

which I most fervently disagree with.
Click to expand...
You might be right about the future as it is notoriously hard to predict. But the idea AGI doing all the work is much bigger and older than the concept of UBI.
 

Just riffing here, but if AI and robots can do everything (including programming AI and building/maintaining robots), it stands to reason that there will be a lot more of everything to go around and it will all be cheaper, and the only limiting factor will be resources and property. So it seems to be a problem of deciding how to distribute resources/property or the fruits of resource/property ownership.
 
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