Look COVID proved that humans REALLY do not need to work. Like seriously, if everyone stopped working tomorrow it would be FINE. However, humans with copious free time leads to civil unrest. No matter how capable automated systems become, even to the point of human labor being far inferior, people will still be WORKING. People in power have a vested interest in keeping people working because it prevent social and governmental change. Note, I am not talking about super intelligence simply a relatively solid AGI, which can operate at top 1% of humans in every domain. I think super intelligence, which has it's own goals will disempower even the social systems which current power structures are intended to protect. This really might lead to the end all of anything we currently perceive as "work".
> Look COVID proved that humans REALLY do not need to work. Like seriously, if everyone stopped working tomorrow it would be FINE.
I know you're probably being exaggerative in this statement but to add some clarity: COVID proved that most people's jobs are pointless (more or less), however, there's maybe like 10-15% of the workforce that if they didn't work, everything would come crumbling down and society would fall apart. Examples we saw during COVID: Medical staff (nurses, doctors, EMTs), truck drivers, train operators, agricultural workers, electricians & energy workers at power plants, waste management workers, construction workers, various retail employees (grocery store, pharmacies).
As to your point, humans with copious free time leads to civil unrest - so the fact that 80+% of people's jobs aren't critical to the functioning of the country is quite concerning - especially now with the recent advances in AI. Another concerning thing is that countries with high unemployment rates (20%+) typically have revolutions or similar. We've also never seen what 80% unemployment (or even 50%) looks like in a country not during a time of war or during a natural disaster. During those times extreme unemployment rates are seen as temporary by the population, whereas, with unemployment caused by AI - it won't be viewed as temporary so I think it'll spark a revolution pretty quickly because people won't see a light at the end of the tunnel and immediately call for change.
Perhaps the loss of 80% of jobs for a few months didn’t immediately cause society to fall into anarchy, but putting people out of work did considerable damage to the economy. In almost every developed country, we spent the last year doing a controlled burn of the banking system to prevent hyperinflation. So far it’s cost trillions of dollars in productivity, the national debt of US and EU countries have skyrocketed, and we’re riding a very thin line between tightened lending and economic collapse that some people still don’t seem to take seriously.
In the very best possible scenario we will be left paying off debt for these decisions for decades, have lost several years of economic growth, and will have decreased the quality of life for millions of working class people via inflation of food, services, and so on. This is the exact opposite of proof that everything will be fine if everyone stops working.
When did people stop working during Covid (unless you equate "work" with "commuting to an office to sit in front of a screen all day while you could have done just the same from home or your own office")?
- More software will be consumed (Jevons paradox)
- Therefore more demand for skilled engineers
- And the LLMs will not be able to build things end to end
- Salaries at the top end will rise, since an AI augmented senior engineer can deliver more value
Far future: no more software engineers, but also no more human work of any kind. Post scarcity society.