I think it's broadly reasonable that you would only be paid for doing something someone else needs doing.
Maybe you wouldn't, but you definitely should. Knowledge workers aren't paid for their labor (in the form of me trading my time and effort for wages), knowledge workers are paid for impact. I'm trading my ability to reason, decide, and create value for the company.
I'm valuable not because I sit at a desk and type for 8 hours. I'm valuable because the outputs of my thinking help move the company forward. My employer isn't buying 8 hours of my time , they're buying the outputs that come from expertise and judgement.
So if I automate something, the company still receives the same value the pay me for whether I perform the task manually or build something that automates it. I work in ops, so if I use ansible and a script to automate patching 100 servers instead of doing it by hand, my employers gets the same result: patched systems. The automation didn't diminish my contribution, it proved it. I get paid the same either way.
In essence, my salary is a retainer. It's payment to keep my expertise availalbe, and working for my employers instead of someone else. It's not payment for activity or time.
>In essence, my salary is a retainer. It's payment to keep my expertise availalbe, and working for my employers instead of someone else.
>It's not payment for activity or time.
If the latter statement is true, then you must not have any mandatory hours to be present.
If you do have mandatory hours to be present, then the latter statement is not true.
I'm pretty sure your typical managers don't think so.
Social/economic stratification (to a certain degree) makes sense as long as there is a reasonable amount of social mobility. AGI paired with advanced robotics seems as though it would all but eliminate social mobility. What would your options be? Politics, celebrity, or a small number of jobs where the human element is essential? I think the economic system needs to dramatically change if/when we reach that point (and ideally before, so people don't suffer in the transition).
Also, almost everyone is a shareholder, directly or indirectly by being a taxpayer and shouldering the cost of pensions, which are invested in businesses.
They will be less excited about the second order - a steady loss of revenue as whole professions are automated and people can't find a well paying job.
The third order will be even worse when no one has a job or money to buy anything.
People always point to the industrial revolution. But that created millions of jobs before it obsoleted millions of jobs - you needed workers to create tractors. This wave seems to be shaping up much more like what happened to the rust belt in the late 20th century, regions which still haven't recovered. However this time it'll hit pretty much everyone, everywhere.
Good luck with that capitalism.
Right, like drinking coffee at the kitchen in the office.
