[fredrik-j]

Where will your money, which you have to have to buy the incredibly cheap things or services, come from when you do not have a job any more?

We already have a job market where a significant number of people have become permanently unemployable because their competences are not wanted.

Now imagine mass unemployment not only in blue collar work but also in white collar work due to automation. If unemployed white collar workers cannot get jobs and blue collar workers cannot migrate to white collar jobs because both job types are replaced by automation and AI, where will they get an income?

[visarga]

You won't need money, in the long run. Just automation. And automation could self replicate cheaply, especially if it doesn't require rare materials.

[fredrik-j]

That argument is skipping straight to the "Profit!" point. A somewhat distant Star Trek future where resources are distributed evenly among all. I'd like that to happen, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Meanwhile the argument ignores the not so far away reality where automation is available to the people who already have resources and jobs today, leaving even more people who currently have little without jobs and automation.

A job is not a right today, it is a responsibility. Our society assumes that everyone, or at least a large majority of all that can, has a job. How do we prepare for a future where the majority cannot get a job?

The most promising answer currently seems to be Basic Income. Though that leaves me asking too. How will we convince people and corporations that have to give up more of their income and accept taxing their property, to redistribute all resources to a huge mass of people that have not money, nor influence? It seems very easy as long as it isn't your own money. Paying taxes, few say that they enjoy that.

[ZenoArrow]

You will need money if resources and the means of production are concentrated in the hands of the few. For example, there's no guarantee that access to housing will be democratised.

[visarga]

It will be open source versus closed source. Automation lends itself to being computer driven and people will be desperate for a way to share in the benefits, so they will rebuild from scratch and open source their own automation tools. It's already happening with the Fab Lab Network[1].

[1] https://www.fablabs.io/

[ZenoArrow]

You can't 'open source' more land. Whomever controls the natural resources will control how they're used.

[mdpopescu]

The amount of unused land in the world is mind-boggling. The amount of unused land in the most populous countries in the world is mind-boggling.

[ZenoArrow]

Just because it's unused doesn't mean it's not owned by someone. Besides, what happens when all land is owned, what about the generations that follow?