[Nevermark]

Owners of capital and machine labor can continue making bank and driving demand, even if there are no more human laborers making any money.

Humans are not necessary for an economy. It’s an easily missed assumption, because until now we are the only intelligent units of labor, capital ownership and demand.

But corporations long ago become units of all three, and AIs effectively become citizens simply by acting through an umbrella corporation. Corporations are (in)famously already first class political participates, via their money.

As long as AIs/corporations are motivated to compete and survive, demand from humans won’t be necessary for the economy to keep growing.

If anything, the ease with which AI/robotics will adapt to space habitats, and the vast resources untapped in the solar system, will enable a potentially human-independent economic explosion.