| > I wonder what the eventual end game is The end game for the US is a small group of people(approx 36M) having fun. It's not too different from how it is now, but rather than be supported by human labor, it's supported by the labor of machines. If all wage labor is automated, and ignoring the issue of the social and political implications of a mass of people with nothing else to do, the remaining professions will be SME business owners, investors, and landlords[1]. We can estimate the size of this population. There are approximately 28 million American SMEs[2]. SMEs can have owner-employees or hired labor, all of which will be automated. Considering SMEs as financial black boxes, the inputs, and outputs remain the same with the exception that salaries are replaced by a presumably smaller figure representing either the purchase or rental of automated labor. An estimated 7 million[3] high-net-worth individuals(HNWI) reside in the US. These are people with large investment portfolios who can live off gains indefinitely. It's difficult to estimate the number of full-time investors, but some estimate range from 200k-1million, and arguably, and these are folks who are doing potentially automatable work anyways. The upperbound of US landlords is 10.6 million people[4], or 7.1%. There are 5.9 million[5] commercial buildings in the US, compared to 44 million[6] residential rental properties. Let's estimate the number of commercial landlords to be around 1 million people in the US. We can also presume that maintenance and repair is automatable labor. The common features these groups share is the ability to generate income without labor. Presumably, this leaves them plenty of time to engage in leisure activities. Looking toward HNWI individuals as an indicator, they spend much more of their time engaged in "active" leisure, that is to say praying, socializing, exercising, hobbies, and volunteering[7]. 1. I'm assuming self-employed people are automated away. 2. https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran... 3. https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/world-we... 4. https://www.doorloop.com/blog/landlord-statistics-by-categor... 5. https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/built-environm... 6. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187577/housing-units-occ... 7. https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2019/07/13/how-do-t... |