Everybody’s role and will get paid for it: Just be a CONSUMER

There has been a lot of talk about jobs and how jobs need to be created for people. There has also been a lot of talk about how AI systems and robots are replacing people in the job market. What does the future have in store for these two juxtaposing forces.

The emergence of a new job for humans. Be a consumer. To consume and participate in the economy.

But, where will a consumer get money? And will there even be money as we know it today?

We talk a lot about human rights. The right to health care, the freedom of speech and many other rights. There has also been plenty of talk about the right of inclusion, economic inclusion.

There is talk about a universal income. An income that is guaranteed to you has a citizen or human in an economic system that is managed by corporations and overseen by a government.

At the same time innovations in food and energy production also reduce the need for much human intervention. Food is basically an organic carbon molecule. Today we can create nutrients through capturing carbon from the atmosphere using the energy from the sun.

This might seem like a long way in the future before this becomes a mainline viable solution for producing food, however, it may not be so far away as we might sit back and scoff.

If people did not have to go to work, did not need to beg, barter or steal in order to survive, what kind of society would it be and how would it impact our daily routines today.

The infrastructure is currently designed for people to go to and fro to work, in factories, offices and the service sector.

What if 90% of all work will be done by AI and robotic systems? What would people do for money?

It would seem that what any economy needs mostly is a people or a business entity who has the power to purchase, to buy and consume goods and services.

Would AI controlled robotic systems as entities buy and sell to each other leaving aside the human factor, or would humans play a role as consumers?

I think the logical answer is that the main 90% of the job people will have is to be consumers. Their other roles will mainly be social roles for which they will receive a stipend, just to be human.

Cryptocurrencies and digital money has shown that we don’t need paper or metal money to do business.

People will be employed as consumers. What they have to do is to be social and not antisocial. They will get paid for this. With this money they will buy goods and services that corporations will compete for. Most likely there will be no small businesses. They won’t be necessary and cannot compete with AI managed nation wide business systems.

Most likely recreational and social activities will be the most important factor in this society. Health and welfare will be guaranteed as well as a the right to resource, which will be another name for a digital stipend.

There will still be professionals in many fields, scientists, explorers, researchers as well a crooks and scammers, but society will be largely driven by automation and AI.

I can see a day where people will be paid to choose a product or service rather than have to pay for it. Their decisions will be based on what is best and the competition will be to gain as many consumers.

Where will money come from? Thin air. All of what is needed to create anything to support human life can come from the sun and the air that we breath. Other elements can come from the earth either as raw materials or recycled.

There are billions of tons of valuable waste that humans have generated over recent history. Big robotic processing system can go through waste sites, rivers and the oceans recuperating much of the organic and non-organic material. They will be able to go places and do things that humans cannot do. They can work in conditions that would be unbearable and unethical for people do work in.

People would earn the more they do, not less. The challenge in such an economy would be how to increase consumption. If inputs can be quickly recycled in a closed loop system the effect would be to turn create a more efficient turnaround.

Companies would be valued not based on what they earn, but what they actually payout. A cryptographic system will have a marginally increasing but seemingly finite level of quantity. The challenge would be to own as many consumers as possible since each transaction is associated with a consumer. That business entity that collected the most number of consumers would be considered the most successful.

Today Forbes publishes the richest people according to their estimated wealth. In the future they may be publishing the richest entities/people according to their known consumer base. No more guessing.

The country could see physical road networks, bridges, parking lots as unnecessary. They will be removed and the materials processed for some other better use. Travel will be very different. Travel will not be so much for work as it will be for pleasure.

The larger part of the population will be very happy to get with their family from point A to point B without having to worry about their safety. Driving might be more recreational and may not even be on roads.

Super high speed transportation in vacuum tunnels will make it possible to traverse a continent in a matter of minutes not hours. Air travel will not be by traditional aircraft as we know it. Trains are known as a slow form of transportation in comparison to airplanes. There will be neither. Above ground you will see less infrastructure and more nature. Not a wild nature, but a controlled and manicured nature managed by gardening robots that turn landscapes into fantasy.

The internet will be replaced by IOT. Devices will be built in with all of the information they need to be independent from network connections. They will be updated from time to time through an interconnected network that works from device to device rather than through a central location. Everything will be distributed and will cascade updating while constant changes are upgraded through a continuous AI operating platform.

Today we have to type, tomorrow we will just need to think about what we want and it will be there. Wearable devices will intercept behaviours from our own nervous system and the environment around us. They will be able to detect medical issues and even release dopamines or depressants depending on our conditions.

There will be outliers who live outside of the system, probably in places designated as retro. Some people will try, but will come back to the life of having it all.

This is a fantastical view of how things can be, but it is not at all impossible at the current pace of development.

Do you think the Wright brothers could have ever imagined that a piece of their invention would be taken to Mars by their aviator progenies?