# Possibility of ending the need to work for a living? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 24, 2002, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525 "2002-11-24T20:51:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/61 "2025-03-23T12:31:46Z")
I feel like you’d really need a specially designed robot for that. I don’t think the ones optimised for making fancy TVs are going to be up to the job. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/62 "2025-03-23T12:58:10Z")
I think we can rule out the OP. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/63 "2025-03-23T18:34:39Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > No. They are heavily taxed, and that is where the money comes from. Why on earth would business owners agree to that type of system? How would that even work? The amount of money saved in labor costs to replace each human worker aren’t going to be anywhere close to enough to pay for someone else to sit idle. The taxes would be so high that they would force everyone out of business. It’s not a workable system. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/64 "2025-03-23T19:15:48Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > I feel like you’d really need a specially designed robot for that. You mean like the ones the military has been working on for years? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/65 "2025-03-23T20:17:20Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Eventually, “the productive classes” will be largely AI controlled robots. This will produce material wealth far beyond what we need to support the human race. > > The refusal to understand this underlies most of the objections to UBI. Growing food, building houses, producing medicine, and manufacturing stuff, all require physical interactions with the real world. AI does not magically repeal the laws of thermodynamics. There are limits to what productivity gains are possible. What gains are possible, will require costs, trade-offs, and side effects that liberals may, or may not, consider acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/66 "2025-03-23T20:29:42Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Growing food, building houses, producing medicine, and manufacturing stuff, all require physical interactions with the real world. AI does not magically repeal the laws of thermodynamics. It doesn’t need to; unless _humans_ can “magically repeal the laws of thermodynamics” it’s already demonstrated that it’s possible to support the human race. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/67 "2025-03-23T20:30:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > There will still be many jobs that need humans - such as doctors, politicians, soldiers, etc. - but they would only be done because people want prestige, respect, influence, more income or whatnot - not out of financial need. (Almost) nobody will have to work out of financial necessity to make ends meet. Its actually extremely unethical for people to perform these jobs when machines can do a vastly superior job. It reminds me of star trek TNG when Dr Crusher got upset that she had to use the medical hologram. The medical hologram is far far more competent than a homo sapien. She was depriving her patients of competent medical care to protect her own ego. Also the patients, if given a choice, will pick the AI doctor eventually. Why would people pay $500 to get a misdiagnosis from a human doctor when an AI doctor with vastly more knowledge can give them the correct diagnosis and advanced treatment program for $5? Why have a human surgeon who has done 400 surgeries do your surgery when an AI doctor whose system has been trained on 60,000 surgeries can do it? People will crave money, power and respect. But there will be a lot of pushback because those people will be holding back progress to feed their own egos at the expense of the general public. A military of AI generals and robot soldiers will wipe the floor with a military of human generals and human soldiers who are in it for the ego. National security concerns will require us to use AI and robotics in the military. if we don’t we run the risk of being overrun by any country willing to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/68 "2025-03-23T20:37:53Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > A military of AI generals and robot soldiers will wipe the floor with a military of human generals and human soldiers who are in it for the ego. National security concerns will require us to use AI and robotics in the military. if we don’t we run the risk of being overrun by any country willing to do so. _“The side that give the machines the most freedom always wins.”_ - a quote from an old sci-fi story, by Norman Spinrad I think. A short story that focused on a world where the machines were more and more doing everything and controlling everything not because of any Skynet-style rebellion, but because whomever gave more responsibility and latitude to the machines always outcompeted anyone who didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/69 "2025-03-23T20:57:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > _“The side that give the machines the most freedom always wins.”_ - a quote from an old sci-fi story, by Norman Spinrad I think. A short story that focused on a world where the machines were more and more doing everything and controlling everything not because of any Skynet-style rebellion, but because whomever gave more responsibility and latitude to the machines always outcompeted anyone who didn’t. This reminds me of years ago when I heard a US general say there will always be a human in the loop when using robotic warfare devices. The issue is the time it takes for a camera image to travel from the robot to the base where the human is stationed, then the time for the image to be processed by the humans brain, then the time for the human to push the button to fire, then the time for the signal to go back from the base back to the robot could be the difference between winning and losing. What if Iran cuts humans out of the loop and saves a few seconds on when machines decide to fire? Maybe it won’t matter, but maybe it will. If the US’s robots have a far longer range and can spot the enemy robots before they spot us (which is generally the case, US intelligence is better and range on our weapons is longer). But in close quarters combat it will put us at a disadvantage ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/70 "2025-03-23T20:58:39Z")
Automation would certainly be necessary to remove the tyranny of work entirely, but it’s not the whole answer. In a world where nobody had to work, there would also be a lot of people doing productive work. People need not only a livelihood, but also a vocation. If people didn’t have to spend so much time on their livelihoods, they’d have more time to spend on their vocations. Now, granted, a lot of people would choose to pursue various forms of art, that don’t meet the lower tiers of human need, but we don’t really need that much of the lower tiers of need. And even there, some people will still meet those lower needs, just because they want to. Right now, there are already people who do things like grow vegetable gardens, not because they’d starve without them, but just because they like doing it. And if people were free from need, more people would do that. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2025, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/71 "2025-03-24T09:54:29Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Why on earth would business owners agree to that type of system? Regulations etc. If they want a piece of a market, they need to jump through the hoops. If they don’t wanna, they are free to go somewhere else. > **[The End of Required Work: Universal Basic Income and AI-Driven Prosperity](https://medium.com/data-science/the-end-of-required-work-universal-basic-income-and-ai-driven-prosperity-df7189b371fe)** > > How a tax on AI work might let everyone share the imminent bounty from AI automation. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2025, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/72 "2025-03-27T17:50:27Z")
We will only pass the point where people have to work for a living when (1) people can’t get anything for their output because the goods and services people can provide are worth zero, and (2) people are not jealous or ambitious enough to want more than they have. Millions of years of human evolution should make it clear people will always want more. There has been no point since the start of the industrial revolution when even the richest societies on Earth have said, “we have enough.” Even now as relative peasants have material wealth that exceeds that of kings 200 years before, there is no indication that our desire to get more has abated in the slightest. We, as people, generally measure our standing based on the people around us, so even if we could thrive on a UBI standard of living, we would envy our neighbor who has UBI plus. There will always be some good or service that humans can provide that will have some value to someone. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, AI will not provide sex, hugs, or social companionship. Even if AI can provide some facsimile of these things, people will always place some value on getting these from real people. Those services can be monetized and they will be by people striving to get more. That’s work. The value of the services people provide is also based on relative advantage. Even if AI robots are better at picking saffron, or scooping microplastics out of the water, or separating valuable minerals from the waste stream, if there is any cost at all to operating the AI systems, it will be cheaper to supplement AI doing those tasks with people doing them who otherwise have have nothing to do. Ergo, “UBI” only gets paid to people picking saffron, scooping plastic, picking through trash, or doing whatever jobs offer at least some modicum of value to society. AI requires massive training databases - which come from human output. If the only value people can offer is to continually produce new training data for AI, the power structures that be will make it so that people will work, and get paid at least a pittance in lieu of UBI, to train AI relentlessly. Even if millions of people-years make only incremental AI improvements, better AI is still better. There will never be an end to work. Sorry. > [@Horatius](#): > > Eventually, “the productive classes” will be largely AI controlled robots. This will produce material wealth far beyond what we need to support the human race. We already produce wealth far beyond what we need to sustain the human race. We’ve done so for several generations. What has stopped us so far? > [@Horatius](#): > > There’s no way the vast bulk of the human race will simply accept being left to stave amidst plenty. They either rise up and smash the robots, and their owners\*, or we figure out a way to let them share in the bounty. Or, we let them survive in a marginal existence measured by the standards of their time, pretty much just like today. > [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Why on earth would business owners agree to that type of system? How would that even work? Democracy, which selects an effective government that taxes the AI wealth. But we are seeing today that Democracy is a less durable institution than we’d hoped, so you’re right; we won’t see UBI. > [@mbh](#): > > Growing food, building houses, producing medicine, and manufacturing stuff, all require physical interactions with the real world. AI does not magically repeal the laws of thermodynamics. Yes, but to credit the hypothetical, AI powered **robots** can do that. > [@Chronos](#): > > In a world where nobody had to work, there would also be a lot of people doing productive work. People need not only a livelihood, but also a vocation. If people didn’t have to spend so much time on their livelihoods, they’d have more time to spend on their vocations. > > Now, granted, a lot of people would choose to pursue various forms of art, that don’t meet the lower tiers of human need, but we don’t really need that much of the lower tiers of need. And even there, some people will still meet those lower needs, just because they want to. Right now, there are already people who do things like grow vegetable gardens, not because they’d starve without them, but just because they like doing it. At some point the line between vocational “productive work” and a job is arbitrary. If people are growing vegetables because they enjoy vegetables, that’s a hobby. If they grow vegetables because the results are better than they can get otherwise, it’s closer to subsistence farming. If they grow vegetables so they can trade or sell them to others, it’s a job. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/73 "2025-03-28T00:17:31Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > AI requires massive training databases - which come from human output. That assumes that the version of “AI” presently in the news is even capable of replacing humanity in the economy, much less the endpoint of AI research. I seriously doubt both. True AI won’t need any such thing since it’s be actually intelligent instead of a glorified chatbot. Thus the “I” part of “AI”. Besides, the actual _point_ of AI is to replace human workers entirely, since corporations are run by people who hate having employees at all. If the technology gets good enough to actually fully replace a human workforce they’ll go for it even if it isn’t as good as a human one, just to indulge their spite. Hate \> profit. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/74 "2025-03-28T00:27:32Z")
Sure, there would also be people who continue to work, not because they find the work itself rewarding, but because they want to be paid for it. That’s still consistent with a post-scarcity society. The point is that it’d be a society where everyone’s basic needs were met without them needing to work. If people who have all their basic needs met still want to work, for any reason, that’s their choice. Many would choose to do so, even as many others would choose to use their gift of copious free time to do things that are fulfilling only to themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/75 "2025-03-28T00:34:02Z")
Yeah. “Post scarcity” doesn’t mean “infinite abundance of everything”, if for no other reason than such a thing is physically impossible. It just means that there’s _enough_ for everyone, and that it’s made freely available to people. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/76 "2025-03-28T02:02:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The point is that it’d be a society where everyone’s basic needs were met without them needing to work. But our standards for what constitutes “basic needs” will continue to ratchet up as we continue to see people with more. and those basic needs will never be met by a universally provided basic income. People will need to work to obtain them even if some people choose not to and manage not to work. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/77 "2025-03-28T02:52:46Z")
My cynical nature believes that what will happen is a variation of Roko’s Basilisk. Basically in the future the only people who will be wealthy enough to survive in a post AI world would be the ones who contributed to its funding, advancement or development (or provided those people some level of goods or service). Historically, people with wealth tend to not want to share it with those without wealth. They do tend to be willing to pay half of those without wealth to kill the other half. Soon they could use AI robots for that! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/78 "2025-03-28T03:16:12Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > But our standards for what constitutes “basic needs” will continue to ratchet up as we continue to see people with more. and those basic needs will never be met by a universally provided basic income. People can only consume so much in terms of “basic needs”, no matter how they try. That’s basically an “everyone dies of overindulgence” scenario. That reminds me of the old story _The Midas Plague,_ where everyone was required to consume more and more as production increased; except for the rich who were allowed to live simple lives. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/79 "2025-03-28T03:20:06Z")
By “basic needs”, I mean the first two levels of [Maslow’s hierarchy](https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html). Above that, it’s not really possible for “society” to provide; people have to figure out on their own how to get love, belonging, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/80 "2025-03-28T03:24:19Z")
Also, “status” is by nature something hard to get for the average person. If such “basic needs” become easy to get, people won’t endlessly consume more and more; they just _won’t be_ status symbols anymore. Purple stopped being a royal color when everyone could wear it if they wanted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525.md?page=5)