I think the difficulty for many people is not imagining a path to post-scarcity, per se, but instead that they have been given no commitments by their government or business leaders that they will get to benefit from it, after it is achieved.
It’s one thing to say something like: AI will enable lights out manufacturing and replace virtually all employees in that sector.
To which those employees respond: What will happen to us?
And they are told: things will be great, you won’t need to work in the factories any longer, and we will have no shortage of goods.
Do you see the missing link there? They might ask: “What happens to those goods? What happens to me? Do I get given the goods? Are the goods sold and then I am paid a stipend? I’m hungry. Will I still need to buy things? Okay, if so, but I have no money because I was fired.”
It’s one thing to say something like: AI will enable lights out manufacturing and replace virtually all employees in that sector.
To which those employees respond: What will happen to us?
And they are told: things will be great, you won’t need to work in the factories any longer, and we will have no shortage of goods.
Do you see the missing link there? They might ask: “What happens to those goods? What happens to me? Do I get given the goods? Are the goods sold and then I am paid a stipend? I’m hungry. Will I still need to buy things? Okay, if so, but I have no money because I was fired.”