For years, robots in industry have ensured that simple work can be automated. So far this has not led to higher unemployment, but that is expected to change.
With the arrival of drones and self-driving cars, the entire transport sector, police and army will also be robotized. At the same time, GenAI and artificial intelligence in general will slowly but surely make the jobs of all highly educated people redundant. Normally, additional prosperity will lead to the creation of new jobs higher up in the added value chain. Artificial Intelligence will work against this process because AI can also provide value here.
The extra prosperity will therefore end up with a few, the owners and managers of (large) companies. Initially, the difference between rich and poor will continue to increase. First, the less educated will lose their jobs and there will be no replacements for them. In the Netherlands, they will end up in the safety net of unemployment benefit and social assistance. In other countries such as the USA this will lead to abject poverty much more quickly. It is therefore not difficult to imagine that this could lead to enormous discontent and perhaps even revolutions. But that is only an interim period, but one that can strongly influence the outcome of this development.
But ultimately this development cannot be stopped, simply because it is possible and a lot of money and power can be achieved with robotization.
Redistribution of wealth
If, ultimately, the highly educated are also forced into unemployment by artificial intelligence, the government will be forced to intervene. This can be done by redistributing prosperity between the (by then) super-rich and the unemployed. Because the national government will no longer have sufficient influence over multinationals, this requires cooperation. Let's assume the positive and they will eventually manage to get this done. We will then live with a lot of freedom, free time and prosperity until the last job is replaced by smarter robots. At that moment or just before, the economy as we know it disappears and everything is free. Robots make everything including the extraction of raw materials and because they do not demand anything in return, they do this free of charge, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The prices of products and services therefore fall further and further until they ultimately reach zero.
What then?
The economy has disappeared, being rich is no longer useful because everything is free.
Will a shadow economy arise, as now exists between the underworld and the upper world, or will we try to distinguish ourselves in other ways? At the moment I don't know, what I do know is that the above scenario is realistic and that we must be prepared for the period between now and the disappearance of the economy as well as the period afterwards.
