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Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

Even if we do build fully-automated and autonomous means to grow/build/create everything we need, identity in this era is still overwhelmingly rooted in our jobs. I am a Developer, she is a farmer, he is a doctor. If all the jobs go to robots, what are we?

Ask any jobless person for whom no job exists how they feel about life.

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Jobless people, eg retirees, who have their needs met but choose to "work" seem often happy. My father was a teacher, his pension is sufficient, he spends his days working with a teaching union.

A friend who was a construction engineer builds extensions and does building work for relatives.

My mother when she was able lent her extensive knowledge of countryside planning to the local council, helped on patients fora for hospitals, cared for more elderly members of the community.

They all do "jobs" that can be paid for, none of them needed to financially. They all seem content in their roles.

Being penniless and being jobless are different things. Moreover, not all people choose to find identity in the jobs they do for survival.

In Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series, set in the 2400's, most people work 20 hour weeks with the rest of their time spent on hobbies. A minority of people, whose jobs are their passions, work significantly more than 20 hours, this is termed Voking (as in, to be a vocateur) and is considered kinda unusual.

Reading between the lines, I think full automation is entirely possible in the setting but the world naturally settled on a 20 hour week to give everyone the benefits of purpose etc.

I'd also like to plug Iain M Banks' Culture series as an example of post-scarcity living. There is no shortage of ways to spend one's time or define one's identity without it being coupled to income generation.

You can still be a developer, a farmer, or a doctor even if you find that you don't require those activities in order to eat.

Agreed. However, if you drive a tractor and write code to drive tractors, say, are you a coder or a farmer (or a software engineering or a soil scientist ...).

Perhaps you see yourself primarily as a mother, or an artist, or ...

I see myself as a human. What I do for money or for hobby doesn't define me all by itself. I'm interested in music production as well as in B2B sales. I'm a software engineer as well as someone who spends weeks at a time in the nature without any electronics at all. You can't say that I'm a software engineer or a DJ or a salesman. I'm all of these.

I supposed limited to owns imagination. While I agree it will be a fundamental shift in thinking, especially for current and older generations, kids who are born and grow with this mindset will have no problem finding something else to do. How about doing science for fun - trying to discover new things. The drive for money and power can be replaced with the drive of prestige and recognition? It is not so hard to imagine.

I am by all means as capitalist as I would imagine are the majority of the audience on this forum but I cannot deny the fact that there are disadvantages to our way of life and without exploring other ways it is hard to conclude which one is better.

Here is another provoking thought. Imagine that we expand the human lifespan well over 500 years. Would you be still doing what you are doing today at the same age? While there will be certainly wealthy people if we live in a capitalistic society, we can also imagine that some people may decide to do a lot of different things in their first 100 years and many other things in the second 100 years and so on. But that system may not be viable. What if 1 in 5 people get to be rich and live wealthy? I would not say that this will work but in your 500 years, you will have 100 that the society will allow you just "because" to be very wealthy and live a wealthy lifestyle. These ideas sound crazy for sure but who knows.

Thats because ur the product of your generation.

your son and son's will not have the same perspective

I've been jobless for a bit. It's really depressing. That's because I'm supposed to have a job. Socially and financially, I am less of a person for not having a job.

If I wasn't required to have a job? If I could live a full life without one? I wouldn't mind on bit.

The question will change. In your scenario, it will be an outdated thing to ask. Language change all the time following social changes.

It might be like:

- What's your recent?

- How's your hobjob?

- How's your AI farm?

this is assuming that new industries shall not develop once complete automation (of those possible) is achieved. engineering jobs - for example - should branch out to many more folds of specializations compared to where they are now.

Won't those, once complete automation is achieved, be automated?

you are being restricted by - I am making assumptions here - a lack of creativity and a desire to be sarcastic. We may also differ in our interpretation of what "engineering" is. There are numerous jobs already in existence that are likely a thousand years away from being able to reach automation. However, should economy proceed normally after achieving full automation of what is possible within this century - my statement may become clearer.

Distance between our respective positions on this topic is enough that I have to spend considerably more effort to communicate using words a more complete explanation.

p.s. I love to edit as much as I am able to, and dislike those that are prejudiced otherwise.

This is my thought: once true AI is achieved, everything we know can be automated, because true AI will be able to do all things humans can do. I believe true AI will be achieved this century. These claims are my personal thoughts and due to the unpredictable nature inventions occurn these thoughts are not based on any research.

that is quite a pessimistic view on human capability (justified in current context because of shitbags) while equally bullish on human-developed AI capabilities. Sure, machine learning — blah — self-improving machines — blah - but I say, improving within bounds but cannot provide mathematical proof of the necessity of existence of such bounds blah.

machines have us beat on speed. however, let us not be blinded by this singularly awesome edge machines provide.

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