The other part of the dystopia: What will the jobless freed from the need to work be doing with the sudden spare time?
It's not good for many people (who are less lucky with thinking) to have too much spare time.
Everyone brings up this as a possible roadblock to a work-less utopia, but I think it's a specious idea.
We already have millions of people with no jobs, at leisure, receiving public benefits or with even more money at their disposal, and they are not causing too much trouble - many (not all) of them are pretty stupid and ignorant - we call them retirees.
Just think about it like this, everyone is allowed to retire early. Doesn't sound that bad when you put it that way.
And just because nobody will pay you to do something AI does better, doesn't mean you have to stop doing it, in this scenario. If you enjoy stamping papers in an office and need that to remain sane... by all means keep doing it. You'll just get paid the same as someone who stays home drinking beer in a hammock, hope that's OK.
You always hear concerns like "people derive self-worth from work" but once we are able to separate "work" from "need money to provide for myself and my family" I think we'll see the problem solve itself. People with enough money to not work don't seem to struggle with self-worth as a rule.
People want to be useful to their families and communities, but AI taking over just means you can do that without worrying about making it profitable.
That's exactly how you get big wars. Too many frustrated, jobless young people without perspective. Only slightly exaggerated (if any), we already have a whole young generation right now who have no hopes of times getting better anytime soon, only worse. What happens when it reaches critical mass?
If jobs continue to be eliminated without spreading the wealth around, I think it could get really bad.
If we get the utopian version, and simply no longer need to work, I don't predict as much trouble. The ski resorts and beaches will be pretty crowded, but maybe that will be the worst of it.
Those "brainrot" memes are nothing and harmless. The real brainrot happening right now, before our eyes, is too many people blindly relying on AI assistance and slowly losing critical thinking ability. What will another generation look like that never really learned it in the first place? Nothing good can come from that.
This is a real, parallel problem. I just had a kid and I'm going to discourage AI use as much as I can when she's older, except as a sort of casual search engine or something. If it's an intellectual vampire, at least I won't invite it in.
In the future I think there's a possibility of a very dramatic 3-tier class system taking shape: Top tier: People descended from today's oligarchs, born rich. 2nd tier: The few people who manage to do enough thinking and learning for themselves to be trusted to manage the AI. Not rich compared to top tier, but motivated to avoid the fate of the: 3rd tier: Brain rotted masses who are totally economically obviated by AI. Similar to the stratification and inequality we have today, but more intense. Sounds bad to me.
