This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Will money and economies still exist, if all jobs get automated? If all jobs are automated, what will people work to earn money? If all jobs are automated, will people receive everything they want and need, for free, without having to work?”
Within a fully automated society, people will have their needs taken care of.
Wants are an entirely different beast.
If you want money to travel around the globe, you’ll still need to earn money to afford that.
If you want to buy a sportscar instead of using public transit, you’ll still need to earn money to afford that.
How you make money will be more a choice for you rather than a necessity made of compromise by a perpetual lowering of your expectations.
You won’t be forced to take a job you hate because you’re afraid of being made homeless. You’ll be able to hold out until you find a vocation you like and that brings meaning to you and your life.
You’ll have many more options for being self-employed than now in ways only emerging today as viable systems to help you bring your imagination to life.
I’ve recently discovered an entirely new concept for doing just that. Check it out:
The site is called “Makeship.” What makes it unique is that you can design your character, and if your design is accepted, it will be made into a plush toy that you can sell for a profit. They handle all the “heavy lifting” from converting your design into a 3D plush toy, its production process, and, to a large extent, a lot of your marketing through crowd-funded campaigns.
Many new initiatives are sprouting up everywhere that approach manufacturing, sales, and distribution from a service-oriented perspective.
You’ve probably already heard about dropshipping, where you can essentially choose products from a distribution catalogue and assemble them in a store where you handle all the sales for those products. They handle all the packaging and shipping for you.
This is just the beginning of the new world of automation.
Large entities will capitalize on individual ingenuity, innovation, and effort by empowering the little people to go out and carve their niches in the commercial world.
With the assistance of AI, we’ll be able to produce full-scale movies for distribution simply by the prompts and tweaks we make to flesh out our creative visions in ways that others would want to consume.
Life won’t cater to people without ambition or desire to work, but it will become a panoply of options and opportunities everyone can exploit.
With these tools at our disposal, we’ll finally enter an age where merit is not lip service disguising favouritism. Whatever you imagine will stand or fall on the strength of your effort without being buffeted about by the day’s politics.
Instead of fearing automation, we should be learning to embrace it and leaning into it to begin pushing our governments to adapt to a new world without waiting for widespread suffering through the transition process to compel them to solve problems that can be avoided.
UBI will save millions of lives if we begin implementing it now. If we wait until millions of jobs are lost, then we will lose a lot more than millions of lives, and we’ll end up coping with the daily chaos of ongoing riots and widespread destruction of property.
This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Why do people opt for get rich schemes when they could just turn a hobby into a business by doing something they actually like doing?”
Hobbies take time to develop into viable businesses.
People often overlook how much time, effort, and resources are required to make a new business break into a new market before it begins turning a profit.
Massive enterprises like the social media giants were roundly criticized in their early years for operating without turning a profit for years before they became viable and self-sustaining entities.
People often fail to comprehend how much of an investment is required, from manpower to infrastructure to market development, to go from concept to generating revenue on a break-even basis.
When people are struggling to make ends meet every month, their choices become limited and long-term endeavours are sacrificed to fill their hungry bellies today.
This is the worst consequence of the historic levels of income inequity we are experiencing today. This is, by far, the worst consequence of the $60 trillion stolen from the working class in the U.S. in the last several decades alone.
We have had our opportunities stripped from us while being thrown into the middle of an ocean and told to dog paddle for our survival while getting thrown plastic-laden chum to feed on until we drown and being mocked for our inability to survive the challenges created for us by the exploitative class.
A person who has time, energy, and resources to capitalize on a hobby they love can succeed based on privileges denied to a majority who struggle with inescapable poverty for life.
This is why we need UBI.
When people are free to pursue what they love, they stop chasing wild geese and become less prone to falling for grifters and making bad decisions out of desperation.
Eliminating the threat of homelessness and destitution frees people up to achieve their potential, but even more so, it’s an insurance against being victimized by one’s desperation that otherwise translates into numerous costs to society, ranging from crime to toxic coping mechanisms and domestic disruptions.
UBI both saves on social costs and grants a massive boost to economic growth through individual motivations, contributing innovative solutions that carry the potential of becoming massive engines of economic growth.
Anyone wishing to engage in a dialogue on UBI is invited to participate in an open space on Quora dedicated to the issue. You may need to register for a Quora account — It’s free, and I don’t get any kickbacks from it. This space is intended purely for stimulating discussion on the topic — there are no hidden surprises beyond possibly needing to join Quora if you want to post comments. Visitors to the site can read the content without registration hassles.
This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “I don’t want my jobs to be automated. What can I do? Will there be a chance to get it?”
Hi again Furquan. 🙂
You have asked me several questions on automation in the last few months, and I appreciate that you find value in my words. Thank you.
I have to say that it is essential to understand the automation revolution is inevitable and unstoppable.
The decisions for automation are being made not by us lowly citizens but by those who have the power to implement what they view as solutions to their needs — such as cutting back on labour costs.
The career one chooses for oneself does not matter to the ownership class because their perspective is based on what they are willing to pay to produce the revenue they seek for themselves.
This is the fundamental flaw of capitalism.
Capitalism, as it stands, has been permitted to flourish in ways that disregard the needs of the many in favour of the whims of the few. I say “permitted” because we have always had the power, as a people, to restrain corruption, but we have been mollified by messaging and the “luxurious” benefits of modern technologies.
We used to be much better at restraining greed, and our societies flourished. The ownership class, however, has invested hundreds of billions over the last half-century in lobbying the government, installing government puppets, and creating propaganda machines often referred to as “Think Tanks,” like the Heritage Foundation. Their goals are clear: to re-establish dynastic rule over the people. They made that abundantly clear when they released Project 2025 and issued a threat against anyone who resisted.
They have become so comfortable in their misanthropic regard for citizens that they no longer hide their agenda.
As individuals trying to navigate and survive the nightmare of this transformation into fully automated societies, we have two personal mandates to adopt.
The first mandate we have to ourselves is to equip ourselves with as much knowledge of the transformations as we are able. You have shown yourself eager and well underway on your first step by simply asking questions. The only way to anticipate the changes coming and avoid any potential disruptions to your life is by asking questions.
The second mandate we have for ourselves is to accept the fundamental premise of capitalism, which is that every human being is a business entity. We have no choice now because the era of life-long jobs and straight-up career ladders has vanished. That means even a stable job one is employed within today will be temporary, not necessarily by malice, but because the world is changing rapidly. The capitalist owners of that business also have to adapt to the changes or go bankrupt.
We are, in essence, in a surreal state of every person for themselves, and it’s taking a toll on us as individuals and creating cracks in the social contract.
This leads us to a second set of mandates we have to ourselves by serving our fellow citizens.
The first of these “community mandates” is to stand against lies and disinformation. Call out the lies and counter them with facts. Refuse to support individuals and institutions that disseminate lies. Take action, like boycotting Fox, and make your decision public. Let other people know there is a line to be drawn between decency and depravity in society that we must all be in solidarity with if we want to re-establish ourselves as humans worthy of the distinctions we revere when referring to our collective selves as “humanity.”
Greed is not good. Greed hurts us all, and we must support each other, or we will not survive the challenges ahead without great calamity and horrific losses of life that will scar whatever remains of humanity for whatever future may manifest for us as a species.
The second of these “community mandates” is to do what you can to support actions intended to restore decency. For example, I can do little with my resources beyond shooting my mouth off at every opportunity and creating memes to challenge the bullshit. I also actively sign petitions and help out in ways that are available to me.
Register with this organization — Change dot org — get on their list and peruse the many ways in which people are taking action worldwide:
Choose from whatever causes matter to you and support them by signing a petition. If you can afford to donate even small amounts, that helps. Please don’t underestimate the power of a single voice when it comes together in harmony with millions.
Anyone can start up a petition on this site. If you have something that you specifically want people to support, such as protecting jobs in a particular industry or role — something tangible in which people can take action by speaking up, then you can contribute toward the issue of ongoing automation.
The third social mandate may be construed as primarily a personal bias. It is an inevitable necessity precisely because of automation and because capitalism forces us all to be capitalists on some level.
Each of us needs some support to survive the challenges of meeting our basic needs.
Society, as a whole, produces more than our basic needs.
The success of capitalism is predicated upon innovation and productivity.
These three fundamental presumptions are what have led me to understand this fourth premise:
As I look back on my life and consider the thousands of hours spent on resume development and submitting tens of thousands of applications to employers that either mostly ignore and mistreat their applicants or allow the ignorance that defines many of the decision-makers among them to result in abominations like this:
I think that this entire system is broken.
Had I not wasted so much time and energy trying to fit into a system that has largely rejected me, I would have had plenty of time to develop my skills and voice to carve out my unique place of success in this world and the capitalist system we operate within.
For all the benefits that capitalism proffers to society, what it robs from us as we are herded through dehumanizing machinery to be regarded as commodities is a horrendous evil and a blight on humanity.
For this reason, I welcome our transition to a fully automated society because at the end of this painful transition is the freedom to live our lives as we choose.
The only thing that’s missing right now from our global support to a universal basic income is the awareness and acknowledgement we need from the wealthy class that this is THE best solution for almost all of our social ills — and it is much more than simply a solution, it’s an opportunity for them to capitalize on the repressed ingenuity of billions of people worldwide.
Once they realize the amount of untapped potential within the human race, in which they are shortchanging themselves with a master/slave relationship as employers/employees, they will broadly endorse UBI. Sadly, many are too short-term focused to want anything more than the quick buck that Donald Trump and sociopathic exploiters among the ownership class embody.
None of them are capable of innovation. They are capable of parasitic forms of self-enrichment. Elon Musk has clearly shown us that material wealth is not derived from personal innovation but by bleeding the benefits of the innovations of others.
My suggestion for you, Furquan, is to not buy into the myth that you will need a job to ensure long-term security for yourself because that’s a lie. Your long-term security is guaranteed only by your skills, capacity to provide value (mainly through any innovations you can devise), and the community supporting your efforts.
There are many different ways to perceive one’s challenges, and in this case, it appears to me the best way to represent this and the challenges we face today are embodied with an ancient curse:
I wish you all the best of luck in your future during this exceptionally unique period in human history that we have had the “great fortune” of being born into.
Anyone wishing to engage in a dialogue on UBI is invited to participate in an open space on Quora dedicated to the issue. You may need to register for a Quora account — It’s free, and I don’t get any kickbacks from it. This space is intended purely for stimulating discussion on the topic — there are no hidden surprises beyond possibly needing to join Quora if you want to post comments. Visitors to the site can read the content without registration hassles.
This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Considering you’ll die without a job, why is being employed not a right? Can society really just ensure someone dies by refusing to hire them anywhere?”
As the world of work becomes increasingly automated, the workplace dehumanization issue rapidly grows into a sociopathic dismissal of our essential qualities as living, breathing, thinking, and evolving beings. This pressing concern will affect more and more people in the future with increasing rapidity as workplace automation continues to adopt and incorporate an increasing rate of technological advancements into their operations.
Meet the Humanoid Robot Working at a Spanx Factory (18 minutes)
To be clear, the dehumanization of the workforce isn’t a consequence of automation but of aggregation into ever larger corporate entities now spanning the globe in their operational reach. Automation is merely a step toward increased efficiency and reduced operating costs. Automation is simply the formalized acknowledgement of transforming labour into a dehumanized function that benefits capital-infused decision-makers chasing profit. What was once an entity supporting community development within the “Mom-and-Pop entrepreneurial environment” has become industrialized economics.
Entrepreneurs of today are the artists of yesteryear who sought out patrons to support their initiatives and receive benefits in return for their support in a parasitic relationship that both drains value from the creative individual and shapes their creative output in their narrowly defined image to fit an increasingly homogenized production system.
The dehumanization of the workforce began when people became deemed commodities, and “Human Resources” departments were created as legal defence linebackers to protect corporations from the consequences of exposed liabilities.
The world of employment has become less about identifying skills and more about choosing appealing aesthetics and fetishes. One is no longer in a position of being hired to function in a role with an expected standard of performance in fulfilling the requirements of that role inasmuch as they’re selected like an attractive product on a shelf that will complement the rest of the pieces on a mantle.
The disconnect between the function one is intended to fulfill, the decision-maker determining the need, the department composing the requirements list, and the agency tasked to identify appropriate candidates has become so much of a production line that they cannot help but to regard all their people as narrowly defined replaceable cogs with limited capacity and range in an expense paradigm rather than as an investment and a partner in the enterprise. The only success an individual can contribute to a dehumanized function is to meet predetermined expectations in a static environment with an expected and finite lifespan.
Corporations may be deemed people, but they’re more machine than human. Unlike humans, they can only change course and be adaptive to evolution when the small number of myopically focused humans operating them can implement global changes that often involve complete retooling and rebranding or being incorporated into another corporate system.
Once that occurs, however, whatever unique nature or personality that may have existed in the original entity is subsumed into the more enormous beast.
The issue of jobs and employment is a critical metric only for those whose role in society is to diagnose the overall health of the “super beast” referred to as “the economy.” Individuals are irrelevant to their equations. Humans are no longer humans but cattle to be herded in a dehumanizing system that renders everyone only as valuable as accords the desirability of their functionality in a narrowly defined capacity within an inhuman entity.
One’s value as a human in society is determined only by the nature of the type of cog they can function as within the parameters of an acknowledged entity that deems them suitable for its overall operation.
Society doesn’t “ensure” anything because society is a collection of humans operating within a cultural framework. The corporate culture we have endorsed for society has, in return for our loyalties, suffused society with an apathetic disinterest in the human condition and the plights of individual humans.
UBI is the only path available to regain our humanity and create an economy that serves humans rather than modern dynasties comprised of a small handful of monarch-like beings. Without it, system-wide collapse is inevitable.
This question was originally answered on Quora and written as is.
I’m not familiar with Devin per se, but I don’t see AI “replacing people” in any capacity it is developed to function within — and I use that description with a caveat because AI IS replacing hundreds of thousands of jobs — if not millions worldwide.
AI has the potential to liberate humans from mundane tasks. It can free up time that would otherwise be spent on repetitive, clearly defined functions while still relying on humans to make decisions and set the parameters for these tasks.
Tasks that require creativity, judgment, and understanding of context will continue to be the domain of humans. These include quality control analyses, determining the scope and context of tasks, and designing the application for which a task is intended.
This is where the waters become muddy because most jobs are mostly drudge work.
Millions of labour hours are spent every year on tasks that can be automated.
Capitalists know how much they can save by eliminating humans from repetitive and clearly defined tasks.
Many may be arrogant enough to believe they can supplant human creativity and intuitive judgment with an artificial solution. Companies like Disney, however, are butting up against an immovable wall in this regard and getting their noses bloody because of their sociopathic disregard for the human equation in the capitalist environment.
We will see many psychopathic capitalists decide they can do without the most expensive of their labouring monkeys, and they will fail because of it.
We are likely to witness a significant loss of jobs due to AI. This is a reality that few people doubt, and those who do will be in for a rude awakening when the replacement rate reaches a critical level.
Yes and no, but yes, jobs will be lost. Developers with initiative, resources, and creativity to imagine solutions will also be empowered to create their own software enterprises. New jobs will be created, and we’ll see an explosion of “individual corporations” replacing a landscape of monolithic enterprises that employ hundreds of thousands, which will be much healthier for our economy in the long run. This change in our corporate landscape will reintroduce the stability we once had before the middle class came under assault in the 80s and eviscerated our unions.
Right now, when a monolithic corporation makes a minor cut in its costs, thousands of jobs are lost. The economy is stunted as a result of a minor bookkeeping adjustment or on the whims of a sociopath who decides they no longer need to pay half of the staff of the enterprise they just purchased and sends them off packing.
In an environment populated mainly by independent entrepreneurs and small “mom-and-pop shops,” any single endeavour can fail, and its failure has no discernable impact on the economy or society at large.
The biggest, most disruptive, and potentially destructive challenge is arriving at this newly recovered and economically defined demographic dynamic through a smoothly managed transition.
The most crucial step to reduce the negative impact and the widespread hardship resulting from the transition to an automated society is to build a solid base upon which people are free to live and pursue the motivations arising from their imaginations and inventiveness.
We must improve liquidity throughout our economic systems, which requires a two-fold process. While the first is to ensure everyone’s basic living needs are met through a universal income floor, the second requires freeing up capitalization for entrepreneurial initiatives.
This second step will be the most difficult to implement because it will require the most powerful among us to relinquish their power. That will happen through reasoned measures or due to entrenched and narcissistic arrogance that will lead us all to widespread chaos.
Hopefully, most will be able to identify entirely new vistas of opportunity for themselves in which they can benefit from the changing landscape in ways that are becoming less and less possible by reaching a saturation level where the only room left for growth is a takeover of smaller enterprises.
As individuals, their creative capacities and economic potential are far more reliant on the support and inspiration they receive from the collaboration synergies than on armies of sycophants telling them what they want to hear.
Some will be wise enough to leverage a massive transition in human society in their favour because they understand and value human ingenuity. Others will fail because their misanthropic disdain toward their servants leads their economic inventiveness to an empty silo devoid of value in the marketplace. If we are to go by the statistics which indicate the prevalence of psychopaths at the boardroom level matches the density of a prison population, I would expect about 20 percent of our plutocrat dynasties will not survive the transition and humanity as a whole will be the beneficiaries of such a surgical culling of our economic dynamics.
Below is a screen of current AI initiatives underway for augmenting the software development process — 24 AI projects for software development alone as of September 2024:
Since deciding which option might be best to explore for one’s projects, here is some further reading on AI tools for software development:
thotbag 