# AI and the "end of humanity". Explain please?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 12, 2026, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021 "2026-09-12T19:29:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 9
### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021/161 "2026-09-24T17:35:50Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> The technology becoming exponentially more productive theoretically could just be how future exponential increase in per capita productivity occurs.
We are getting into Frederik Pohl territory here. In the '50s he had several stories where the problem was that machines produced things so quickly that it was the obligation of people to not work, but consume. The dilemma was resolved (70 year old spoiler) by them having the machines consume also.
I don’t remember if he considered resource constraints.
But it shows the problem - increased productivity is useless unless there are enough consumers who have the time to consume and the money to consume. There are stores already where you can buy the stuff that doesn’t get sold at Costco, etc., maybe that is the growth industry.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2026, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021/162 "2026-09-24T17:55:06Z")
Much of the increase in productivity in recent years has been in services and intellectual property. The productivity increases needed by be having medical and other care services for an increasingly greying population as much as making as much stuff with fewer workers available.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2026, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021/163 "2026-09-24T22:24:26Z")
Medical and care services are two of the few areas where increased employment is expected. Alas, care service workers are not adequately compensated.
One more scary thing. In IEEE Spectrum almost every issue has an article about the latest and greatest humanoid robot. We’re not all that close to one who could provide support services, but even those jobs are at risk.
We’re already worried about people depending on AI instead of people for social interaction, but when the robots get good enough to be sexbots, even the oldest profession might be at risk.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2026, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021/164 "2026-09-24T23:12:48Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> The productivity increases needed by be having medical and other care services for an increasingly greying population
See also
> **[Baumol effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect)**
>
> In economics, the Baumol effect, or Baumol's cost disease, first described by William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen in the 1960s, is the tendency for wages in jobs that have experienced little or no increase in labor productivity to rise in response to rising wages in other jobs that did experience high productivity growth. In turn, these sectors of the economy become more expensive over time, because the input costs increase while productivity does not. Typically, this affects services mo The r...
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ai-and-the-end-of-humanity-explain-please/1033021/165 "2026-09-25T13:36:08Z")
Related thread.
> [@Measuring productivity for cognitive work](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/measuring-productivity-for-cognitive-work/1033372):
>
> Subject inspired by discussion in several threads about AI but not necessarily about AI. It also is a question about how cognitive work productivity is measured, how it actually makes sense measure it, and how productivity and compensation interact, or do not. Some is just factual questioning - getting some with the chops of understanding economics to clearly explain how productivity is measured for cognitive services. And then, since that is likely GDP based, if that adequately captures produc…
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