What AI is supposed to unfold for human society may eventually get lost: there are only a few purposes that most humans can currently fit, and more people to a few purposes makes it seem like there are already too many people
People are expected to [get trained or] go to school, get work, get old, and retire. There are not a lot of things to do aside from this, for most people around the world. Some may skip school, but everyone still has to work—in one form or another. There used to be a lot to do, and there used to be fewer people because surviving birth or childhood was hard.
Science advanced, providing a foundation for technology—for tools to do most work—and better health care, for survival. Although tools changed the nature of work and more people were able to switch, it was still within the dominant—train and work—model.
How many more things exist to do without going to school and working? For a lot of eras, as tools came, people found other roles, but this model has continued to thin out. The era in which automatic elevators or traffic lights replaced people is not the same as this era. There were other things to do within that range and beyond.
AI
There are two main gaps: people need things to do and people need to earn. There is also perception, by the human mind, that may shape experiences with both.
There are several things available to do now, where people earn money, but find it boring. There are several people who wish to do other things—aside from what they’re doing. There are also people who are unable to be efficient in what they do.
Some jobs seem more desirable than others. Some are harder than others. Some jobs pay less. Jobs are roughly defined in economics by value added, then demand and supply, with variations across seasons, trends, and locations.
What would a person prefer to do, if given the choice, with the value options available to the individual? How long enough can a person do an unwanted job before changing to another unwanted job—with a slightly better outlook?
Must the reason to go to school be to find a job? Now that AI can match many of what a graduate knows and some of the value that can be provided, what other roles should an education play for people, aside from the labor market?
Purposes
The most important question this century for society has to be purposes. What are the purposes for people to at least do something and then earn a minimum for life? How can these purposes be fair enough, or perceptibly bearable?
There probably needs to be an understanding that the world is currently short on purposes, such that the one purpose [school and work] that is existentially center stage is wilting off. It is possible to have countries explore new purposes for people, especially in some of their non-major cities.
There have to be some options that society can make, that are minimums of doings and earnings, where some people can just go and fit. There could be huge reforestation programs that pay some minimums for some kind of people who are comfortable with that life. There could be more libraries, where people flip books and note interesting points to become summaries of knowledge in a new repository. There could be models for clearance of plastics, as they have become a problem, as well as several others, that can be fairly humane to do and pay some minimums. There also has to be a lot of sports and an unlimited build of art.
Migration can never be a problem if purposes become extended. Policies that focus on new purposes for people would likely be more impactful than deck shuffling on the same rung.
Countries that will win the future will not just be those with technological advance, but countries that are able to construct new purposes for their people in ways that guarantee better meaning to life—than at present, beyond the simple option of universal basic income, which, without new purposes, would crinkle.
There is a recent analysis in The NYTimes, Should You Still Learn to Code in an A.I. World?, stating that, “Coding boot camps once looked like the golden ticket to an economically secure future. But as that promise fades, what should you do? Keep learning, until further notice. About 135,000 start-up and tech industry workers were laid off from their jobs, according to one count. At the same time, new artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, an online chatbot from OpenAI, which could be used as coding assistants, were quickly becoming mainstream, and the outlook for coding jobs was shifting. Compared with five years ago, the number of active job postings for software developers has dropped 56 percent, according to data compiled by CompTIA. For inexperienced developers, the plunge is an even worse 67 percent.”
There is a recent story on CNBC, Business spending on AI surged 500% this year to $13.8 billion, says Menlo Ventures, stating that, “Business spending on generative AI surged 500% this year, from $2.3 billion in 2023 to $13.8 billion, according to data released by Menlo Ventures on Wednesday. The report also found that OpenAI ceded market share in enterprise AI, declining from 50% to 34%. Anthropic doubled its market share from 12% to 24%. The results came from a survey of 600 enterprise IT decision-makers from companies with 50 or more employees, per the report. Meta ’s market share stayed at 16% and Cohere’s share remained at 3%. Google’s rose from 7% to 12%, and Mistral’s lost one percentage point, declining to 5% in 2024. Foundation models — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude and others — still dominated enterprise spend, the report found, with large language models receiving $6.5 billion in enterprise investment.”
There is a recent report by the AP, Denmark will plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest, stating that, “Danish lawmakers on Monday agreed on a deal to plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest and natural habitats over the next two decades in an effort to reduce fertilizer usage. The government called the agreement “the biggest change to the Danish landscape in over 100 years. Under the agreement, 43 billion kroner ($6.1 billion) have been earmarked to acquire land from farmers over the next two decades, the government said. Danish forests would grow on an additional 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres), and another 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres), which are currently cultivated on climate-damaging low-lying soils, must be converted to nature. Currently, 14.6% of land is covered by forests. The deal was reached by the three-party Danish government — made up of the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the center Moderates — and the Socialist People’s Party, the Conservatives, Liberal Alliance and the Social Liberal Party. “
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