typest

This is a question that I feel comes up a lot, and it's not often engaged with seriously. I feel sci-fi doesn't really engage with the concept (you'll get super smart AI, but somehow humans still just have plenty of jobs). Technologists frequently respond that we are very far away from being able to automate all jobs, but this assumption ignores the possibility that we do automate everything -- and also, AI continues to advance faster than even AI researchers predict.

In the past I used to think that with all jobs automated, we would just all devote ourselves to higher pursuits like art, science, math, etc. However, now I think this claim didn't give AI enough credibility -- it's totally within the realm of possibility, and even near future possibility, that AI easily exceeds human performance in art, science, math -- all the things we generally think of as uniquely human and morally valuable pursuits. Recent LLM progress should make this point very clear to everyone.

So. Since I don't see this idea being taken too seriously in society, I thought we on HN could take a stab at thinking through the possibility.

For example, here is one possible outcome I can envision. Pre agricultural revolution, all humans were hunter gatherers who simply did not have to work that hard (I think estimates I've read said that people spent maybe 15 hours a week hunting/gathering). In this time, as far as I understand, people's lives largely revolved around things like their local community, relationship with others, culture, and leisure (I am not an anthropologist or historian, so I may be totally correct here). Is it possible our lives become more like this? Without jobs to do, without the ability to, say, make meaningful advances to science, with governmental decision making being better handled by AI...do we spend our time building and forming meaningful relationships and communities with others?

Would love your thoughts.