The more interesting question is what happens once we replace manual labor with artificially intelligent robots and we arrive at a place where 99 % of human labor got eliminated. How do you maintain civil order? Every country is built on the premise that you have to “earn your keep” but what when that’s no longer true? Think about it, no labor, only capital. What will the people owning the capital demand of people that don’t own any? They won’t be useful to them in any way. I expect something like forced reduction of fertility for regulars to depopulate countries, while hyper rich individuals will extend their life spans and become immortal. And I don’t mean they will really survive but someone like Elon Musk will have their consciousness mapped to an AI and will instate that AI as their official heir. That sounds crazy but they will totally go for it just listen at what Peter Thiel is spouting in terms of immortality and becoming godlike. Hope people will have enough left to say to prevent that but right now it feels we’re going hardcore towards that scenario.
There have been transitions like that before, but they were slow. It took about two centuries for the US to go from 90% farmers to 2% farmers. Some countries deliberately put on the brakes. India has done this. India is still about 50% farmers. India uses subsidies and discourages farm mechanization to prevent massive unemployment.
There have been fast single-industry transitions. But not that fast. It took about 20 years for printing to go from a large craft with a long history to a minor employer.
Not everybody got out in time, but there was warning. Same for longshoremen when containers came in. Computing in general took about 50 years to totally replace the clerical plants of the 1950s. Railroads in Britain took a few decades to really get rolling, and in the US, they made it possible to use the vast interior of the US.
The AI transition looks to be both broad and fast. That's harder for society to digest.
Underlying assumptions of politics and economics break.
> Elon Musk will have their consciousness mapped to an AI and will instate that AI as their official heir
My guess is that sort thing will become common. We'll probably need some lefty policies to distribute the wealth. To each according to their needs and that.
It remains to be seen how the experience of “the aroma of coffee” works but I expect there will be progress there. That stuff probably came about through evolution as a kind of situation summary so we can make decisions critical to survival and replication like whether to grab coffee.
>we don’t mind that we weren’t here in 1737 BC
This is true. Probably just an evolved instinct not to die. Even so I think it would be cool to live on in some form.
They will settle for what’s available at the time, I dont think it makes sense either but they will come up with something that is good enough for their purposes and as long as the copy parrots the original well enough it will pass.
