There are a huge number of things people can do to meaningfully make the world a better place outside of traditional jobs. And a non-trivial number of people work at jobs that aren't aligned with producing value or helping people in the first place.
Value on the market in specific is not the be-all end-all measure of whether work can be personally fulfilling and validating. A market job can be meaningful, yes. But it's not the entire category. If I never had to work for income I would still "work", but what I worked on would be very different and would probably focus a lot more on non-scalable non-commercial smaller projects and volunteering.
There are things that are valuable and meaningful to do that don't involve working specifically for a company and don't involve looking at that work primarily through the lens of "how can I make money off of this?"
What if nobody actually wants your “help”? What if your labor is not only worthless in the job market, but also in general, where people prefer assistance from AI instead of from a live human person? What if no matter what you do, some AI does it better? How will humanity find our own value and meaning when that happens?
But regardless, people throughout history have found happiness and meaning in their life completely separately from what they did to put food on the table.
If the incentive is "here is basic income, you can afford flat on outskirts of the town or in some small town and basic necessities", there is still plenty motivation to do better and get better stuff (whether just for living, or for your hoobbies or interest), just not a pressure of taking first job you can find just to afford being alive.
So average person have option of just going on 6 month hiatus to learn some life skill, or artist have time to develop their skill enough to make art or music that gets enough interest to make it into income.
But what I would question if you want to get a little existential -- do people value being helpful or do they value feeling helpful, because those are two different things. And I think that if the idea of "people need help and what if an AI can help them better than I can" is actually terrifying to people, that should maybe prompt a small amount of reflection about our motivations for helping others.
But the shorter answer is that there is just so much stuff to do in the world right now.
> Don't worry about it, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done
> pretty far off
> chess grandmasters are ok
We are on an exponential curve of being able to create agents on demand that can essentially act in human ways, at least digitally/online. If you're working on a computer (aka all white collar jobs or anything that can be done remotely), it will soon enough be trivial to create an agent and task it with "Unqueue tasks from the backlog and implement fixes in the codebase. Ask questions if you need help." and it will do it. And you can create as many of these agents as you like.
As many as you like! On demand! How the hell are humans supposed to compete with that?
That's bleak af, how old are you ? where do you live ? what do you do ? do you have a family ? do you have friends ? hobbies ?
I can guarantee you the vast majority of min wage workers would absolutely find a meaning in things other than flipping burgers or triaging the shit people buy on Amazon
#1 There will always be jobs requiring humans - jobs that require human interaction. The supply will be much smaller, but so will be the demand.
#2 By the time AI replaces all jobs, we will most likely have a very realistic VR with multiplayer capabilities. I think that many people will live adventures in such world and spend most of their waking hours in it. Metaverse sucks but it's only because it's so artificial. If you could have tech that could integrate with your senses directly, giving experiences on par with the sharpest lucid dream... that's going to be much different and for better or worse, a lot of people will get sucked into it. Of course, it's going suck - life is about yin-yang, endless pleasure is not good. People who will end up spending the majority of their time in such VR will not be unlike drug addicts, unless they will also be doing activities that require mental & "physical" engagement (I think one of the coolest thing that could arise out of it are new sports that would not be possible in the real world), however, that yin-yang balance would be hard to achieve when there's no evolutionary pressure combined with overabundance of simple pleasure that's just available all the time.
#3 Walking the path to mastery in some pursuit - i.e. artistic, athletic, a craft. There's pure joy in just getting better at something and enjoying every day of practice and most importantly - feeling challenged which is a primal need. It may be competitive as heck to get some recognition or play in the big leagues (which would be more like #1), but that would be just a bonus from that perspective.
If AI leaves us nothing to do, then #3 will always be available. AI will not take away our own engagement but engagement requires effort and so, I would bet that a significant majority will overindulge in #2 to their unconscious doom - I guess it will still be a pretty cool experience though and it's not like those people will not have a choice to get out.
I think this is plain wrong. There are plenty of pursuits that are “work” on the mental or physical side, but do not produce economic value. Developing artistry by mastering a medium or an instrument, climbing mountains, running ultra marathons, tending to a garden or bonsai, modifying a vehicle… These are things could produce economic or social credit, but are largely solo “work” which can be (and often is) self satisfying without external motivation.
I disagree with this entirely. If this was true, the main question we would ask in a business is whether or not the output was useful. We don't ask that, we ask if it's "sustainable", "profitable", etc... We ask what the moat is around it.
There are many useful things you can do that you won't be able to make money off of. I don't think it's uncommon either. Business is a great way of extracting value, I like business as a value extractor. But it's a specific way of extracting value. There are lots of things that are valuable that don't happen because it's not clear how they would be profitable.
I mean, the simplest example here is you can build things for people who don't have money. It's not the only example, but it's a pretty obvious one. And you are not going to make a lot of money doing that unless you build a predatory or exploitative business.
> or somebody else will "make money off of this" using what you have created
I will also point out that if other people making money off of the things you do is a turn-off, it's not clear to me what value you think you're creating. I would argue that "meaningful work" very often benefits other people, that's... that's the point. If you're not giving people more value than you're taking from them, you probably aren't doing useful work. Are you arguing that it's less valuable if people are extracting extra value from the things we do?
The comment I was replying to argued that we were talking about abolishing all meaningful human activity, and I pointed out that "meaningful human activity" and "gainful economic employment" are not the exact same category.
I don't really think that warrants having an extended debate about whether or not decoupling income from "work" is fair or not. And it's kind of a weird sequitur anyway, because all of the jobs you're talking about are paid noticeably less than white-collar jobs even though they are arguably way more essential than any of the programming work that we do. So for this to suddenly be a conversation about fairness... I mean, what conversation do you want to have, do you want to have a conversation about AI or about the entire history of wages and about how human beings value blue-collar jobs?
It's not a problem, it's just... people read way too much into comments like this. I'm just pointing out that "meaningful work" can happen outside of an economy, something that I think is a pretty obvious, uncontroversial point to state.
This doesn't just apply to software development. There are a lot of garbage jobs, dead end positions, where the people are effectively not doing anything. That is a weight on our economy but we can't just cut them out. What would those people do if they didn't have to waste so much of their time to live? Sure there are going to be people that go all in on becoming puddles on the couch, but I'd argue more people have passions they would actually have the energy to pursue.
People could spend more time with their families without being stressed out and burned out by everything else in the world. I'd argue that would most likely lead to healthier childhoods for kids, likely with better supplemental education as well leading to a smarter society in the long run.
People get tired of partying, and the people that don't make good examples for the next generation of what not to do. You can see that in our current society as the younger generation is drinking significantly less and doing fewer drugs to the point major alcohol manufacturers are concerned about their bottom lines.
There will always be degenerates, but people want the fulfillment that comes with actually doing things like you said. They will find that one way or another.
They are also functionally in a prison...
My hypothesis is your drive to work is a product of your education and environmental conditions. When education and environmental conditions are different, you may not have that drive.
Yes, there is a tremendous amount of waste in the global economy, but if we want to improve quality of life then we should focus on the mechanisms which cause that waste in the first place (e.g. targeting GDP growth.) If we solved those excesses (a very tall order), then why would it be fair for one group to be over-consume at the cost of another groups over-production?
When almost no one had to work economics became ridiculous, people were paying $40 for a $15 meal to be delivered to them, fiscal policy became clinically insane, tech stocks minted a new bubble. Are you proposing that bubble should be more permanent? The real economics of 'figure it out or lose your lunch' is much better policing than 'figure it out or go back to UBI'.
Burning an entire generation so the next one will be better isn't good policy.
Agreed. I just spent a week volunteering. (At the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, repairing machines.) It actually cost me money to do, but it was incredibly satisfying to just go and do a concrete thing that made the world better and was immediately beneficial to people. Especially in the company of other good people doing the same.
But I think a lot of people have had only terrible jobs (valuable work in inhumane conditions) or bullshit jobs (meaningless work in whatever conditions), so I get how so many people have been conditioned out of seeing the personal, emotional, very human value in work.
You think people get meaning and fulfilment from flipping burgers at McDonalds ? Talk about naive. Frankly, it's quite elitist to assume that a majority of people are performing meaningful and fulfilling jobs, a lot of people do jobs they absolutely hate.
> Not working is a sucking void of boredom, nihilism, hedonism, and despair
You're presenting a false dichotomy. I'm not talking about not doing any work, I'm talking about not a having a job. There is a huge difference between doing something because you enjoy it and it gives you meaning, and doing something because you need the money to survive.
Not having a job doesn't mean you have to sit on your ass all day, it means that you get to decide what to do with your time. You can do any number of things that are meaningful to you. It's about having the freedom to decide how you spend your time on this earth. It's quite condescending to assume that people can't find a meaningful and fulfilling way to spend their time if there isn't someone who tells them what to do.
There are just so many jobs that need to be done and there's nobody that likes them. Who would pick the garbage up? Who would unclog the sewer? Who would drill for petrol or mine for coal? If I got my regular salary without needing to do anything, then I wouldn't go into any of these jobs for sure. Would you?
Look at the kind of people who do not have to work. Do they still work? No. Some sit on a beach and never lift a finger again, some become creatives and some try to recreate their successes again. None work what would be an engaging and productful job at a take-away joint.
A small one is my dad. He was a software developer, but thanks to Y2K consulting, he made bank and retired early. After, he spent half the year in Mexico. One of the friends he made there was a teacher. My dad ended up volunteering in the school. He had a part-time-job-like schedule and did teacher's aide things. He loved it.
On a bigger scale: In Michigan there is an arcade chain, Pinball Pete's. It was founded by Tim Arnold in 1976. I grew up there gave them a lot of quarters over years. He sold it in 1990 and retired to Las Vegas, bringing his extensive collection of arcade machines.
For a while he was doing an open house; once a month he'd let people in to play some of his collection. By 2009, he had started the Pinball Hall of Fame, a nonprofit arcade. A couple years back they moved to the Strip and expanded significantly. I was there recently and he spends hours a day there. Opening up. Collecting the quarters. Fixing machines. Telling kids to stop running.
The guy is circa 70 and he can do whatever he wants. What he wants to do is work at an arcade. He'll keep doing it until he dies.
Also, you’re posting on a forum made by hand by a person who didn’t have to work.
And the whole OpenAI thing is being run by a person who is a retiree as well.
While you are at it, the toilet in the basement is clogged, there is shit water all over the place. You could find meaning there too.
I guess god doesn't care for shit water all over the floor.
Whether the French viewpoint or the American viewpoint is healthier can be found in the mortality rates.
If quitting a job leaves you with no apparent valuable work to do in your life, that's probably a sign of being only engaged with the world through your job. There are never-ending lists of useful things to for family, for friends, for groups/organizations/churches you're part of, for the neighborhood you live in... and that's before even thinking about personal projects that are useful to yourself.
Sorry, I really bristled at this comment. People who are engaged in the world and have accepted responsibility in areas that aren't solely their job don't have to summon valuable ideas and tasks from the ether. You won't find the bottom of the to-do list. Not bullshitting.
You can do that without it being a job. I enjoy making things out of epoxy resin. It's fun, creative, hard work. I'd do it a lot more if we had universal basic income. It's not my job.
Yes, you can, but his argument is that most people don't -- and he's right.
I swear, it's like nobody here actually worked hard for any extended period in their life..
Is this really true? It's absolutely not a personal problem for me. I haven't worried about boredom or lack of purpose in decades. My worry is that I'd need a hundred lifetimes to give proper attention to everything I find interesting or meaningful, and the problem gets worse the older I get, the more I learn, the more I find interesting.
Only because it’s the only thing they know. If “work” wasn’t a constant in human life you’d see people adapt to finding meaning and fulfillment in something else.
> Many people claim their lives would be better if they never had to work, but they are bullshitting themselves with childhood naivete. Not working is a sucking void of boredom, nihilism, hedonism, and despair
I’ve taken multiple year hiatuses from work (living very cheaply) and they are the best years of my life. Wake up, go for a run/walk, go to the gym, read a book, go to the coffeeshop, make lunch, go to the movies, go on dates, use the internet. Absolutely incredible.
I would prefer if you expressed your disagreement without denigrating GP like this.
You can't really just throw money at the demand side of the equation and expect everything else to stay the same. Supply side will raise their prices because they can (when everyone's got $10M in the bank, why not charge $50, $500 or even $5,000 for a loaf of artisan bread? And eventually other producers of bread follow suit because the consumer has become less price sensitive).
If you want to improve everyone's standard of living, what has repeatedly worked throughout history is to lower the cost of production through technology, and ensure there's lots of competition on the supply side. With enough competition, producers are unable to behave like a cartel. Eventually someone cracks and sacrifices part of their margin to attract more customers, and then a price war ensues. A textbook example is salt, which for most of human history was quite expensive, but after mechanized mining techniques were developed it became so cheap that for the average household it's practically free.
Technology + competition. At this moment in history we're quite good at the technology part of the equation but we have allowed many monopolies and oligopolies to form, so we're struggling at the competition part.
Money is the measure of the productive capacity of an economy. If you increase the money without increasing the capacity then you get inflation. But let's be charitable and assume that "Gud" was talking about increasing the capacity commensurately. Because that's what's happening. AI, robots and almost zero marginal cost green energy are going to increase the productive capacity of economies dramatically over the next decade or two.
...and what will happen when every single person goes and tries to buy a 50" TV? Hm? Did we suddenly invent a magical TV making machine?
Come on... this is Real Life, not Magical Fairy Land.
We're not talking about a magical cornucopia that generates an endless amount of physical goods that can be used to accommodate the needs of every person.
We're very specifically talking here about technological shift that will eliminate a large pool of skilled jobs.
People will still need jobs, or they will become homeless / starve / have to leave the country.
AI is not going to feed the world any time soon.
Naturally this is purely hypothetical, parent argued that work gives meaning to life(which I generally agree with). I argued you can still be working, even if less efficiently than the machines.
Maybe it will be a gradual change. Agriculture and manufacturing is already highly automated, for better or worse.
I mean ... we already have 3D printing, and car making robots, and electronics making robots. Most of the TV is robots.
All that's needed is the equivalent of 3D printing that adds an extra step of "TV-making-robot"-making robots. One reason we don't have that is that it turns out the robot making robot costs more than certain as-yet non-globalized labor markets.
It's not that we can't, it's that the ROE is bad.
That’s the point. Working for money is only tangentially related to purpose insofar as your job matches your particular style of “purpose”. If you are free, truly free, would you work in some soulless corporate?
Sure they do. But "value" is not simple one dimensional "I get money for food and rent".
If value of your work is just money, you have to mostly do the things that work toward money
Not making other people's life better or more interesting. Not something that you find fulfilling. But things that make money first, are any of the above second.
Having the basics (let's say "food, money, internet + some spare change to get what you need want") allows individual to pursue things that are risky and might not be profitable in the end without stress of not being able to pay rent next month. You can be a musician that "only" have 10k listeners. You can make niche little gadget that earns maybe $500 a month in sales but enriches other people's lives.
And now corporations would have to offer something substantial (whether in term of being interesting, or profitable enough) to find someone to hire. Less "bullshit jobs", or soul-crushing work that barely affords you a living just because your skills don't align with what is profitable.
> Many people claim their lives would be better if they never had to work, but they are bullshitting themselves with childhood naivete.
Did you never had an interesting hobby in your life ? I have enough that if money was not an issue I'd keep my brain and body involved for years to come.
Additionally, people who hold this belief fail to realize that “I don’t want to work.” ACTUALLY means “I want others to work so I don’t have to.”
For example, how are you going to eat? You are either going to grow, cultivate, and harvest your own food (i.e. work) or you’re expecting others to do that work for you.
Oh, you say it can be “automated”? Well, who’s going to design, build, and maintain the automating machine? That’s all work too!
2 years ago we would both have agreed that that would be impossible. My belief is that most likely AI will hit another roadblock soon, following a "punctuated equilibrium" model so there will still be a large number of non-automatable jobs. But if I'm wrong and the pace of change of the last 2 years continues for another 10...
Then who designs, builds, and maintains THOSE AI & robots? It can’t be “AI & robots” all the way down.
>My belief is that most likely AI will hit another roadblock soon, following a "punctuated equilibrium" model so there will still be a large number of non-automatable jobs.
I agree (although it may or may not be “soon”). As history has shown us, technology advancements just cause us to reimagine possibilities and start solving problems that were previously impossible.
For example, as computers have gone from a few bytes of RAM to billions of bytes of memory, humans didn’t say, “ok, we’re all set now.” — we invented whole new classes of software that do all kinds of things unimaginable to the early computer scientists.
The same will happen with AI and robots.
No, it means "I am working to generate more wealth which flows predominantly to the owners of capital, who often do no work and sometimes have never done any work at all - can't we do something fairer than this?"
It always starts with this, then the next step is "ohh we can't really tax rich people and corporations ('owners of capital' that you speak of) since they have a lot of ways to move their capital out of our reach so let's just fleece the middle class instead!".
Or maybe it means: "if, thanks to automation, we become 2x as productive, I would like to work half the time, while still being able to pay my bills."
Which requires 10x, or 100x less people. And the "savings" go mostly to company owners, not to making product cheaper.
And, as others have mentioned, not working for living at a subsistence level does not mean not doing rewarding and value-producing things. Quite the contrary.
How many in this world simply have not had the chance to educate them selves, been lucky with timing or knowing the right people to get the nice jobs where they are listened to and even looked up to?
Where they not only get a salary where they can survive off it without working a second or third job, but are also able to save up some buffer.
That they might actually afford to get out from under landloards that continuously increase their rents, and buy a property of their own.
And so on and so forth.
Your comment drips ignorance on the daily hardships huge swaths of the human population on this planet (including a large group in the rich western world as well) have to go through every day, and the propable relative luxury of your situation compared to theirs.
(Early) retirement is an adjustment. It takes time to find them, but there are alternative ways of finding fulfillment and I’m happy to have them. N=1 but my revealed preference seems to be that yes, being financially secure is good, it reduces working, and it’s possible to find better alternatives.
How many people want to experiment and try new ideas but are stopped by economic insecurity? (In arts, crafts, engineering, and science)
How much _very valuable_ non-paid work doesn't get done because no one is paying for that? (Such as maintenance, community building, teaching, etc)
Yes, most people find meaning in some kind of work. That doesn't imply that having a boss and worrying about paying your bills is more meaningful than working without a boss and without worries.
You're straight up projecting your own personal experiences as a generalized truth. Seriously, grow up and learn that there are a lot of differences in people. You might need this, that doesn't make it into an universal truth that everyone needs it or gets it by having a dayjob.
The only thing that you can say, generally is this: humans can gain happiness by getting acceptance from other people when they care about the people that accept them.
Also apart from the “real” disabled, a lot of people are just disabled enough mentally or physically to be deemed fit for Jobs with a capital j but are miserable.
The opposite, actually. Most people, for whom a reasonable fulfilling job exists, do not have the opportunity to work such a job. AI does not promise to increase the availability of fulfilling and contentful jobs, meanwhile the cost of living will continue to rise with no end in site while wage stagnation continues another decade.
This holds if the way you enjoy life is working. Your comment isn't at all at odds with the GP's, yet it calls theirs naive.
the work that gives me most meaning, fulfillment, and contentment in working doesn't pay enough for me to make a living from it.
wish i could get paid an income so i could do that "work".
Good god, corporate America has utterly brainwashed multiple generations. You lost your creativity, your imaginations and your aspirations. Even your entrepreneurial spirit.
"Here's a machine which can automate the intellectual labor of multiple professions, enabling it to simply execute on ideas you come up with." and the only thing any of you can think of is "but would I do with all this free time if I wasn't desperately struggling for food and shelter?"
You can work without having a job, all day everyday
