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Comment by yard2010 | Hacker News Reader

yard2010

I think so too - the latest AI changes mark the new "automate everything" era. When everything is automated, everything costs basically zero, as this will eliminate the most expensive part of every business - human labor. No one will make money from all the automated stuff, but no one would need the money anyway. This will create a society in which money is not the only value pursued. Instead of trying to chase papers, people would do what they are intended to - create art and celebrate life. And maybe fight each other for no reason.

I'm flying, ofc, this is just a weird theory I had in the back of my head for the past 20 years, and it seems like we're getting there.

Antirez you are the best

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You are forgetting that there is actually scarcity built into the planet. We are already very from being sustainable, we're eating into reserves that will never come back. There are only so many nice places to go on holiday. Only so much space to grow food etc. Economics isn't about money, it's about scarcity.

Are humans meant to create art and celebrate life. That just seems like something people into automation tell people.

Really as a human I’ve physically evolved to move and think in a dynamic way. But automation has reduced the need for me to work and think.

Do you not know the earth is saturated with artists already? There’s whole class of people that consider themselves technically minded and not really artists. Will they just roll over and die?

Everything basically costs zero is a pipe dream where there is no social order or economic system. Even in your basically zero system there is a lot of cost being hand waved away.

I think you need a rethink on your 20 year thought.

> people would do what they are intended to - create art and celebrate life

We could have the same argument right now with UBI. But have you ever met the average human being?

It will only be zero as long as we don't allow rent seeking behaviour. If the technology has gatekeepers, if energy is not provided at a practically infinite capacity and if people don't wake themselves from the master/slave relationships we seem to so often desire and create, then I'm skeptical.

The latter one is probably the most intellectually interesting and potentially intractable...

I completely disagree with idea that money is currently the only driver of human endeavour, frankly it's demonstrably not true, at least not in it's direct use value, it maybe used as a proxy for power but it's also not directly correlatable.

Looking at it intellectually from a Hegelian lens of master/slave dialectic might provide some interesting insights. I think both sides are in some way usurped. The slaves position of actualisation through productive creation is taken via automation, but if that automation is also widely and freely available the masters position of status via subjection is also made common and therefore without status.

What does it all mean in the long run? Damned if I know...

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