Ford didn’t support a 40 hour work week out of the kindness of his heart. He wanted his workers to have time off for buying things (like his cars).
I wonder if our AGI industrialist overlords will do something similar for revenue sharing or UBI.
I don't think so. I agree the push for AGI will kill the modern consumer product economy, but I think it's quite possible for the economy to evolve into a new form (that will probably be terrible for most humans) that keep pushes "work replacement."
Imagine, an AGI billionare buying up land, mines, and power plants as the consumer economy dies, then shifting those resources away from the consumer economy into self-aggrandizing pet projects (e.g. ziggurats, penthouses on Mars, space yachts, life extension, and stuff like that). He might still employ a small community of servants, AGI researchers, and other specialists; but all the rest of the population will be irrelevant to him.
And individual autarky probably isn't necessary, consumption will be redirected towards the massive pet production I mentioned, with vestigial markets for power, minerals, etc.
In reality, if there really is mass unemployment, AI driven automation will make consumables so cheap that anyone will be able to buy it.
This isn't possible if you want to pay sales taxes - those are what keep transactions being done in the official currency. Of course in a world of 99% unemployment presumably we don't care about this.
But yes, this world of 99% unemployment isn't possible, eg because as soon as you have two people and they trade things, they're employed again.
Ultimately, it all comes down to raw materials and similar resources, and all those will be claimed by people with lots of real money. Your "invented ... other money" will be useless to buy that fundamental stuff. At best, it will be useful for trading scrap and other junk among the unemployed.
> In reality, if there really is mass unemployment, AI driven automation will make consumables so cheap that anyone will be able to buy it.
No. Why would the people who own that automation want to waste their resources producing consumer goods for people with nothing to give them in return?
Uh, this picture doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone value this randomly invented money?
Because they can use it to pay for goods?
Your notion is that almost everyone is going to be out of a job and thus have nothing. Okay, so I'm one of those people and I need this house built. But I'm not making any money because of AI or whatever. Maybe someone else needs someone to drive their aging relative around and they're a good builder.
If 1. neither of those people have jobs or income because of AI 2. AI isn't provisioning services for basically free,
then it makes sense for them to do an exchange of labor - even with AI (if that AI is not providing services to everyone). The original reason for having money and exchanging it still exists.
The fact unemployment was 25% during the great depression would seem to suggest that at a minimum, a 25% unemployment rate is possible during a disruptive event.
Yes if we recreate society some form of money would likely emerge.
Where are you getting gas/house materials from? No hand waves please. Show all work.
