Assuming the absolutely best case scenario. The most likely outcome in a World of AI driven abundance. A certain basic level of existence becomes more or less guaranteed. Whether through Government intervention or by simple virtue of the fact everything becomes so cheap as to be achievable by anyone with two brain cells to rub together.
To the Authors point. An Economy and therefore money, whatever form it may take, would likely still exist. By simple virtue of the fact we’d start assigning a value. However arbitrary it may be to various items. Such as he so succinctly notes. Verified and certified Human created Collectibles. Possessing human created goods could also become a status symbol. In a world of mass produced IKEA bookshelves. Bookshelves made by an actual Human Carpenter could become a status symbol. General Luxury Goods or goods perceived as being luxurious would also be a major draw.
The only mistake I can see the Author making is the mistake of assuming there might be some measure of rationality or logic towards people deciding what’s valuable in this theoretical future. That isn’t necessarily a guarantee. Especially in the era of memes and general internet stupidity.
But aside from that. I don’t see a flaw in his logic that an economy and money of some sort will likely continue existing. Regardless of what AI and technology does or does not do.
I think its not AI driven Abundance, but rather Abundance driven AI.
Think about it - in a world of Abundance, who will do all the menial jobs? In the past it used to be slaves - either serfs, or colonization or slave labour etc. But in future where Abundance is for everyone, someone has to do the menial jobs.
Thats where AI becomes relevant. AI is not the master that humanity will server a many here are afraid. AI is the servant that serves humanity.
Humanity never had scarcity. We have always been blessed with abundance. However, the real scarcity was being able to extract, process and ship resources to keep up with the pace of global growth.
This apparent scarcity was enough to give rise to free market capitalism. However, with the American System, it was soon apparent that very quickly this free market capitalism not only made US prosper, but it was converting the whole world into this system making the whole world prosper.
That was the golden age of late 1800s. People literally believed that they were at the cusp of utopia, that there would be no more wars and no more hunger or poverty. This threatened those who felt they were the masters of the US and the world - the City of London that had carefully orchestrated the creation of America, which was now losing control of its own creation.
Thats when the need for artificial scarcity came about quickly. Whats the best way to create scarcity? By choking energy supply. That eventually gave rise to the petrodollar system of world control, very carefully balanced act of keeping the Oil supply restricted, using the USD dollar for financial control of the world, and American military to enforce this system, while the masters sat in their thrones counting money that came flowing everytime any country anywhere converted USD, or purchased using USD, or sold using USD.
USD was American in name only, the real flow was always through the City of London.
So the real question is not whether AI will make money obsolete. but what happens when all these articial systems of control are dismantled ?
Answer is, no one knows because we have never done this before. But whatever comes next, it will show us why God said "I now give you everything" and "Go forth and multiply"
Covid was just the flu and AI is just a chat bot.
Assuming the absolutely best case scenario. The most likely outcome in a World of AI driven abundance. A certain basic level of existence becomes more or less guaranteed. Whether through Government intervention or by simple virtue of the fact everything becomes so cheap as to be achievable by anyone with two brain cells to rub together.
To the Authors point. An Economy and therefore money, whatever form it may take, would likely still exist. By simple virtue of the fact we’d start assigning a value. However arbitrary it may be to various items. Such as he so succinctly notes. Verified and certified Human created Collectibles. Possessing human created goods could also become a status symbol. In a world of mass produced IKEA bookshelves. Bookshelves made by an actual Human Carpenter could become a status symbol. General Luxury Goods or goods perceived as being luxurious would also be a major draw.
The only mistake I can see the Author making is the mistake of assuming there might be some measure of rationality or logic towards people deciding what’s valuable in this theoretical future. That isn’t necessarily a guarantee. Especially in the era of memes and general internet stupidity.
But aside from that. I don’t see a flaw in his logic that an economy and money of some sort will likely continue existing. Regardless of what AI and technology does or does not do.
I think its not AI driven Abundance, but rather Abundance driven AI.
Think about it - in a world of Abundance, who will do all the menial jobs? In the past it used to be slaves - either serfs, or colonization or slave labour etc. But in future where Abundance is for everyone, someone has to do the menial jobs.
Thats where AI becomes relevant. AI is not the master that humanity will server a many here are afraid. AI is the servant that serves humanity.
Humanity never had scarcity. We have always been blessed with abundance. However, the real scarcity was being able to extract, process and ship resources to keep up with the pace of global growth.
This apparent scarcity was enough to give rise to free market capitalism. However, with the American System, it was soon apparent that very quickly this free market capitalism not only made US prosper, but it was converting the whole world into this system making the whole world prosper.
That was the golden age of late 1800s. People literally believed that they were at the cusp of utopia, that there would be no more wars and no more hunger or poverty. This threatened those who felt they were the masters of the US and the world - the City of London that had carefully orchestrated the creation of America, which was now losing control of its own creation.
Thats when the need for artificial scarcity came about quickly. Whats the best way to create scarcity? By choking energy supply. That eventually gave rise to the petrodollar system of world control, very carefully balanced act of keeping the Oil supply restricted, using the USD dollar for financial control of the world, and American military to enforce this system, while the masters sat in their thrones counting money that came flowing everytime any country anywhere converted USD, or purchased using USD, or sold using USD.
USD was American in name only, the real flow was always through the City of London.
So the real question is not whether AI will make money obsolete. but what happens when all these articial systems of control are dismantled ?
Answer is, no one knows because we have never done this before. But whatever comes next, it will show us why God said "I now give you everything" and "Go forth and multiply"