[theopsimist]

If truly 100% automation (including infantry/police) the most likely scenario is not any if the above; most people will be kept on some kind of minimum sustenance enough to keep them from rebelling (“UBI”) and those who disagree will either be coopted into the elite or eliminated.

[skeledrew]

There's no reason to keep anyone on minimal sustenance though. They're absolutely useless alive from an economics perspective, and so would probably be better served ground up into fertilizer or some other actually useful form.

[ben_w]

> There's no reason to keep anyone on minimal sustenance though.

No reason, except their (the rich or the AI) own personal desire to do so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly

> They're absolutely useless alive from an economics perspective, and so would probably be better served ground up into fertilizer or some other actually useful form.

Indeed. "The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else."

But while some may care about disassembling this world and all non-rich-human life on it to make a Dyson swarm of data centres, there's also the possibility each will compete for how many billions of sycophants they can get stoking their respective egos.