[Matumio]

I dislike the drift this "need to work for food" phrase that I'm hearing so often. Job automation never reduced our ability to produce food. The harvest is not in any danger, not even if we suddenly produce twice the art with the same amount of work.

[egypturnash]

Hi. I'm a professional artist. I have a lot of friends who are also professional artists.

Most of us live in cities, and go to the store to buy food. We have specialized in being good at making images, which we trade for money, which we can trade for other goods and services such as "food" or "entertainment" or "rent". Some of us are doing well enough to have room for a garden, and the time to tend it. This is by no means the majority.

How many of your peers would know one end of a modern combine harvester from the other? Probably very few, if you live in the city.

[diputsmonro]

It's not about food production, it's about capitalism.

If artists could simply ask for food and be given it from the overflowing cornucopia, then yes, this wouldn't matter and in fact would be a net benefit.

Unfortunately though, artists must sell their art to get money, then exchange that money for food. Now, if a robot produces free art that's almost as good, most of those buyers won't pay those artists anymore, and the artists will starve (or stop being artists).

I do believe that job automation will quickly eliminate scarcity for basic life necessities, while also displacing more and more jobs in our economy, and that therefore UBI or some equivalent will be imminently necessary - but that's a much larger topic