>
Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?You don't necessarily need jobs because you don't need money. What you need is wealth. I am going to leave it to PG to explain the difference [1]: Wealth is not money. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.
In the next 10 years, AI/robots will generate wealth at an unprecedented scale. Food, clothing and shelter will be plentiful. The industrial revolution didn't make human lives miserable, it made it better. AI/robots will be the same. Because of productivity gains humans will work very little, and yet live comfortably.
As a practical example of how this works, look to Alaska. If you lived in Alaska last year and had a pulse you received $3,284 just for living there. Where does the state get money for this? Oil. Oil is not the only possible source of wealth. AI & robots will generate wealth at unprecedented scale, and humans will reap the benefits, the same way Alaskans reap the benefits of their natural resources.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
You don't necessarily need jobs because you don't need money. What you need is wealth. I am going to leave it to PG to explain the difference [1]: Wealth is not money. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.
In the next 10 years, AI/robots will generate wealth at an unprecedented scale. Food, clothing and shelter will be plentiful. The industrial revolution didn't make human lives miserable, it made it better. AI/robots will be the same. Because of productivity gains humans will work very little, and yet live comfortably.
As a practical example of how this works, look to Alaska. If you lived in Alaska last year and had a pulse you received $3,284 just for living there. Where does the state get money for this? Oil. Oil is not the only possible source of wealth. AI & robots will generate wealth at unprecedented scale, and humans will reap the benefits, the same way Alaskans reap the benefits of their natural resources.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html