It's astonishing how seemingly everyone is so brainwashed or unthinking. In particular, when it comes to the subject of artificial intelligence (AI).
One of the fears I've heard people say they have about the future is that this increasingly potent technology will take everyone's jobs away. With no job, they say, no money. And no money, no eat.
But that's absolute poppycock.
Because we don't need an economic system. At all. Not even barter.
The only reason things cost money is because everyone insists on charging each other for them.
Let that sink in for a bit.
At the most fundamental level, life—which, of course, includes human beings—has evolved to be selfishly greedy. It's in everyone's DNA. We could choose to override this but it's a tough task, given we've lived with this forever. We're born into a selfishly greedy world, so we just go along with it, without question. But even if anyone were to want to behave differently, they'd be up against everyone else, still doing things as they've always been done. It would take collective change.
But, thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, we have a great opportunity to do things differently. Indeed, we may overwhelmingly feel we have to.
A future is looming in which artificially intelligent entities, including robots that can not only do anything a human can do but do it faster and better. Are humans to thus become redundant, jobless and starving?
Not at all.
Others have come up with some suggestions. One of them is that robots should be taxed. In that way, humans would remain competitive with the bots in terms of employment. But that's just plain stupid. If taxes were to be imposed on the technology, it would stifle progress in it. Humanity has come on in leaps and bounds thanks to the development of tech. Progress. Do we really want to hold back AI? AI that can be used to find treatments and cures for illness and disease, to name just one field of endeavour? Seriously?
Another suggestion is that everyone be given a universal basic income (UBI), a wage, paid by the government, regardless of whether one works for a living, or does anything else, for that matter, or not. It's even been suggested that this be a high wage. A similar scheme would be reverse income tax: paying the unemployed a wage through the income tax system. The problem with those ideas is that, if anyone should want paid employment for themself to add to what UBI, or similar, payment they get anyway, there's still the problem of having to compete in the jobs market with the bots.
There's only one right and proper way to solve the AI-jobs-economy problem: simply don't have an economy at all.
Without an economic system, which, by definition, is a system of inequitable rationing of resources, intrinsically and hopelessly unfair, there is no worrying to be done about having money to pay for things, because everything would be free of charge, goods, services and people's labour. And anyone who did want to work—earning money is not the only reason most people show up at the office or wherever—despite the availability of bots who could do everything, would be free to do so. And if, the next day, they changed their mind and wanted to indulge themselves in pleasure and leisure, so be it: put the bot that had been doing that job back in place.
But we could have gone economy-free sooner. At any time in the past, in fact; it doesn't take the existence of AI for it to happen.
What do you think? (And kudos for actually thinking about it at all.)