In the past, we did not live in a society where everyone could just do what they wanted and have life still be good for everyone. So “You need to provide value in return for the resources you consume” was valid in a “the alternative is that nobody is creating value and are only consuming, so society would not work” way.
If we’re heading to a society where AI can create so much value that most people don’t need to be working, then perhaps we’ll be able to transition to “everyone just does what they want and life is still good for everyone.”
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the post, I’m thinking the post is focusing on how it’s BS that people moralize about the value of “hard work,” and it’s playing with the concept of “having no life outside of work” being seen as good vs bad for the individual and high status vs low status. I agree that, from the individual lens, “no life outside of work” is bad for us and we shouldn’t pretend it’s not, and it’s not such an ideal state that it should always get rewarded by high status while “having a life outside of work” is punished by being comparatively low status.
But if we focus on the lens of society functioning, yeah, society probably will not function if the actually “good” ideal of “doing whatever you want” is realized before necessary systems of value automation are in place (separate from the degree of “having a life outside of work” at all, which is obviously good, but just because everyone is LARPing that the % of this being 0% is good, doesn’t imply that the alternative of 100% is better)
Yeah I guess I’m wanting to contribute this lens/interested in seeing discussion on, separate from the “work gives the individual meaning/prevents existential horror” argument (because yeah, that genuinely isn’t the point), it’s “how much work is right for every individual to be doing in order for society to function.”
“Work is necessary to produce the things we need.”—yes
“Work is necessary to give meaning to life.”—no (at least not for me)
What is have now is an adaptation to the current situation. When the work is necessary, it makes sense to give higher status to the people who work, and to find some meaning in your work.
(But even today, some people find some meaning or status outside work.)
If human work even becomes unnecessary because a machine can do everything much faster, better, and cheaper than a human would… well, those who will own the machines will decide whether to exterminate the rest, or give them some welfare. They might even decide to torture them for fun, because there is nothing they could do about it anyway.
Giving people bullshit jobs would be somewhere on the scale between “welfare” and “torturing them for fun”, if the work no longer makes sense economically. Where exactly on that scale, that depends on the specific work environments, how much time and energy it takes, how much the people need to be afraid of losing the bullshit job if they fail to perform well enough on its bullshit metrics, etc.
I think “at what point should work be considered unnecessary by the individual” is an interesting question. I think I would go a step further than whether it makes sense economically—if many people’s lives are still not very good beyond basic survival, I imagine a society of people that see moral value in working to improve the overall experience for everyone would be a better society than one where everyone just taps out when their own life becomes sustainable/meaningful without additional work required. I see no value in bullshit jobs that don’t actually produce anything useful, but I think there will always be ways to help improve the human experience of life even if the jobs of today become outdated.
(Ignoring the consideration of an aligned ASI that understands all our problems and solves them for us because of course there’s much to be done before we have a shot at getting there)
I think there will always be ways to help improve the human experience of life even if the jobs of today become outdated. (Ignoring the consideration of an aligned ASI [...])
I agree.
Problem is that “useful things” seem not much aligned with “profitable things”. For example helping other people is less profitable than finding new ways to get them addicted. So there is a risk that we will use helping people as a justification for making people work more, but in reality the extra work will be spent doing something else.
In the past, we did not live in a society where everyone could just do what they wanted and have life still be good for everyone. So “You need to provide value in return for the resources you consume” was valid in a “the alternative is that nobody is creating value and are only consuming, so society would not work” way.
If we’re heading to a society where AI can create so much value that most people don’t need to be working, then perhaps we’ll be able to transition to “everyone just does what they want and life is still good for everyone.”
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the post, I’m thinking the post is focusing on how it’s BS that people moralize about the value of “hard work,” and it’s playing with the concept of “having no life outside of work” being seen as good vs bad for the individual and high status vs low status. I agree that, from the individual lens, “no life outside of work” is bad for us and we shouldn’t pretend it’s not, and it’s not such an ideal state that it should always get rewarded by high status while “having a life outside of work” is punished by being comparatively low status.
But if we focus on the lens of society functioning, yeah, society probably will not function if the actually “good” ideal of “doing whatever you want” is realized before necessary systems of value automation are in place (separate from the degree of “having a life outside of work” at all, which is obviously good, but just because everyone is LARPing that the % of this being 0% is good, doesn’t imply that the alternative of 100% is better)
Yeah I guess I’m wanting to contribute this lens/interested in seeing discussion on, separate from the “work gives the individual meaning/prevents existential horror” argument (because yeah, that genuinely isn’t the point), it’s “how much work is right for every individual to be doing in order for society to function.”
I think we mostly agree.
“Work is necessary to produce the things we need.”—yes
“Work is necessary to give meaning to life.”—no (at least not for me)
What is have now is an adaptation to the current situation. When the work is necessary, it makes sense to give higher status to the people who work, and to find some meaning in your work.
(But even today, some people find some meaning or status outside work.)
If human work even becomes unnecessary because a machine can do everything much faster, better, and cheaper than a human would… well, those who will own the machines will decide whether to exterminate the rest, or give them some welfare. They might even decide to torture them for fun, because there is nothing they could do about it anyway.
Giving people bullshit jobs would be somewhere on the scale between “welfare” and “torturing them for fun”, if the work no longer makes sense economically. Where exactly on that scale, that depends on the specific work environments, how much time and energy it takes, how much the people need to be afraid of losing the bullshit job if they fail to perform well enough on its bullshit metrics, etc.
I think “at what point should work be considered unnecessary by the individual” is an interesting question. I think I would go a step further than whether it makes sense economically—if many people’s lives are still not very good beyond basic survival, I imagine a society of people that see moral value in working to improve the overall experience for everyone would be a better society than one where everyone just taps out when their own life becomes sustainable/meaningful without additional work required. I see no value in bullshit jobs that don’t actually produce anything useful, but I think there will always be ways to help improve the human experience of life even if the jobs of today become outdated.
(Ignoring the consideration of an aligned ASI that understands all our problems and solves them for us because of course there’s much to be done before we have a shot at getting there)
I agree.
Problem is that “useful things” seem not much aligned with “profitable things”. For example helping other people is less profitable than finding new ways to get them addicted. So there is a risk that we will use helping people as a justification for making people work more, but in reality the extra work will be spent doing something else.