[newsoftheday]

How will people be able to afford to pay for blue collar labor though, when AI will potentially have decimated all white collar and many blue collar jobs; that's what I worry about.

For example, if someone decides to stop being a software engineer and become an automobile mechanic, but few people can afford an automobile; they demand for their services will also greatly diminish.

[msabalau]

Either AI causes a collapse in aggerate demand, or it doesn't.

If it doesn't, you still have your blue collar career.

If it it does, you still have your skills at things that are hard to automate, and don't seem to be any worse of than anyone else, even if collectively, we are all worse off.

At an individual level, this still seems worth pursuing. You don't get to control your macro environment.

Of course, one could still use the political and persuasive tools you have towards the aim of ensuring the benefits of AI are broadly shared. It's reasonable to fear that is hard and uncertain work, but you don't get do decide if you live in hard and uncertain times or not.

[Empact]

Affordability is a combination of individual productivity and the economy’s productivity. A substantial increase in the economy’s productivity through AI and robotics should result in greater overall production, which should tend to result in abundance, and thus a lower cost of living, which can even overwhelm a decline in your individual productivity.

[nilamo]

But cars will be 50% of their current cost, once all those useless managers and c-suite folks are replaced by ai. Right? Right??