[philwelch]

I’ve spent a long time thinking about this, and I actually think that most of the dangers are somewhat overblown and the corrective actions are already in progress. People are already willing to pay a premium for artisanal goods specifically because they are made by a human being, and this provides a growing economic niche for artisans. In and of itself, this isn’t exactly sufficient, since artisans don’t usually make a whole lot of money, but the flip side is that automated goods and services are going to become cheaper and cheaper over time, bringing them within reach.

A post-AI economy could easily be an economy of artisans, one where it’s easier to afford the more basic necessities of life but where human work and effort still has value.

[pmoriarty]

"A quarter of all working visual artists earn no money from their art, and another quarter earn less than $1,000 a year. Almost 90% earn less than $5,000 a year. Similarly disturbing figures can be quoted for poets, short-story writers, playwrights, novelists, independent filmmakers, pop singers, potters, jazz musicians, rock musicians, classical composers, art photographers -- for all groups of creative and performing artists."

"According to a Rockefeller Panel report commissioned to take an in-depth look at the financial realities of the performer's life:

"The miserable income of the majority of performing artists reflects both a shortage of jobs and the brief duration of employment that is available. In all except the small handful of our major and metropolitan orchestras, musicians earn an average of only a few hundred dollars a year from their professional labors. During an average week in the winter season, only about one-fifth of the active members of Actors' Equity Association, the theatrical performers union, are employed in the profession. Of the actors who do find jobs, well over half are employed for only ten weeks -- less than one-fifth of the year. For most opera compnies the season lasts only a few weeks. The livelihood of the dancer is perhaps the most meager of all."[1]

Now, that's today, with relatively few artists. Imagine a future where there's a flood of artists from all the people who lost their jobs to AI (assuming they all have some desire, ability, and dedication to actually try to make a living as an artist.. very unlikely, but such is supposedly the main hope for a future for these people). Now the wages of artists will be even further depressed as there will be a glut of supply (much like the glut of "photographers" now that everyone has a camera in their cell phone).

Then it has to be asked: who will be buying all of these artisonal products and services from the newly unemployed masses? There's only so much art the relatively well-off are going to want to buy, only so many plays they'll pay to see, and so on. Demand would have to rise tremendously to absorb all the additional supply if the already meager wages that artists earn aren't going to fall to virtually zero. Where is all that extra demand going to come from? The US is already not a place where art is particularly valued. There's no indication that that's going to improve with the advent of job-replacing AI.

[1] - From "Staying Sane in the Arts" by Eric Maisel

[philwelch]

I said “artisans”, not “artists”. Not art, but things that people already buy, and already pay a premium for small-scale band production, like furniture and jewelry and ice cream.

A poorer home in the future might have a cheap AI-made TV, cheap AI-made cookware, a fridge full of groceries delivered either by drone or self-driving car, cheap mass-produced IKEA furniture assembled by a robot, all of these things “cheap” by cost but still higher quality than the mass-produced goods of today, but maybe the one luxury might be a handmade rocking chair from a local woodworker, who lives in similarly comfortable standards and spends his days building and selling chairs and canoes and cabinetry and whatnot, none of which is necessarily materially better than the stuff manufactured in drone factories and shipped across the world in drone ships and drone trucks, but people will pay extra for the small luxury of having their own special handmade things sometimes.

Also, because the necessities of life are so cheap, the woodworker can invest a big chunk of his woodworking income in index funds and have a share of the AI-generated wealth.

[pmoriarty]

Much of what I said above applies equally to artisans as it does to artists.

People might be paying a premium for hand-made trinkets now, but if there's a glut of supply from all the new artisans, those prices will plummet unless a huge amount of new demand for these artisonal goods materializes.

Sure, these newly unemployed people might themselves occasionally be able to splurge on some hand made trinket, but it's very unlikely that they themselves will be providing enough income to sustain each other. As now, the vast majority of purchasers of artisonal goods are likely to be the relatively well off, and there's just not that much demand among them to absorb the new glut of supply, so artisonal wages will necessarily plummet.

That's all assuming that the newly unemployed will will want to and somehow magically be trained to make furniture, jewelry, hand-made ice cream or what have you. Doing that to a high enough quality that people will actually buy and value what you make to outcompete all the other artisans making similar stuff is not going to be easy.

Also, it's far from clear that the cheapness of manufacture of AI-made goods will result in lower prices for the consumer. Prices consumers pay might remain the same and the extra profit be pocketed by the manufacturers.

To your final point about investing in index funds, it's far from a certainty that the index will continue to rise in the future. It could fall for any number of reasons, in which case even those fortunate enough to be able to afford to invest in the market will suffer.

[philwelch]

Sure, lots of worst case scenarios are possible, and if you’re worried about it, you should stockpile some canned food in your basement because there’s no guarantee against a dystopian future.