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[ResurrectedContrarian]

I think automation and AI will reduce more and more labor, leading to fewer jobs but also giving a stagnant live of semi-pleasantness that leads to physical isolation and a big drop in birth rate. Automation compensates for the inverted population pyramid and breaks the "future masses pay for current benefits" paradigm. The wealthy elites, now that they don't need masses to make and buy their shit, are free of needing us AT ALL outside of ceremonial display servant humans, so they retreat to walled compounds of luxury and we all regress to a subsistence level existence on the fringes of the nice and scenic spots.

I think global population will fall to under a billion by 2100 with a total collapse of many countries without advanced industries.

you've officially exceeded even my greatest doom levels

Since I have a vested interest (...my family, both in terms of me being the sole income, and thinking of the future for our children), I'm inclined to make some counterarguments that are hopefully more than cope.

First, the spread of AI impact so far has actually been fairly slow, hasn't it? That could change (we reach "inflection points" in various abilities of the AI where suddenly it can do entirely new levels of jobs; eg recently with Claude Code basically changing the whole game of software) -- but for now, it seems like industries shift and adapt their investments rather than seeing entire areas fall. (Then again... think of how "translator" was a real career not long ago, now AI translations are not just simple machines but are nuanced, aware of cultural context and connotations, everything; so some careers could simply vanish overnight)

Second, in the tech domain, it still feels like AI changes what we can do, so that the work moves onto a new plateau. This was a debate earlier in the thread, but again: maybe it's not like there is a fixed quantity of work to be done, which can be automated, but more that the "work to be done" is a moving target so we're building entirely new things on a higher level now that the low work is gradually becomes quick / zero cost.

Third, I just believe that the widespread human desire to build and innovate (to compete... to gain status no matter what) means new things will start to emerge everywhere, new ventures across entire economy, if AI starts eating up existing ones. In other words, the same pattern as tech, but on a broader scale.

 

[MaestroMike]