Artificial Intelligence, Consumption Tokens, the End of Poverty, Unemployment and Work(and a Fantastic Future for Humans).

In the not too distant future it is highly likely that our Grandchildren will be horrified that human beings sat for hours in front of computer screens, worked in hazardous conditions to produce products, picked up garbage by hand, conformed their bodies to chairs and desks, and rang up customers at the check out line. They will wonder why humans would waste their precious life on such activities. Artificial Intelligence and automation will have replaced all these activities and, in my opinion, the world will be a much better place.

There’s a lot of hand wringing around AI and the potential loss of jobs. Why? It’s as if we somehow believe that jobs are somehow necessary to human fulfillment. Jobs are a creation of Humans to feed a system called Capitalism, from a time when workers were needed by Capitalists to build cars, plow fields and work in factories. It is entirely possible that jobs and working are not an optimal human endeavor. However, the messaging that humans have been indoctrinated with by the media, government and corporations is that “jobs” are essential to happiness and survival. A perfect message for a society that requires cheap labor to fund wealth in the stock market and corporate profit streams.

The same questions keep being bandied about as if somehow the basics of economics escape us all. How will we pay for it? How will we make money? How will we buy things? These questions are the results of the simple illusion that money is the reward for work and that the ascent of AI and the disappearance of jobs will destroy the ability to sustain existence. Let’s look at a couple of facts:

1. Corporate profits will balloon when employment costs are removed.
2. Corporations can’t make money without consumption.
3. Prices are a function of input costs meaning a drastic reduction in input costs will create a drastic reduction in prices.
4. Corporations need humans to consume their products or they become irrelevant and useless.

So how do we pay for these: Consumption Tokens. Corporations and governments redirect a portion of the derived savings from labor automation value into the consumption token fund. This fund is then distributed to humans much like Universal Basic Income. In addition, the government suddenly is much less expensive to operate and much less necessary and these funds are redirected to the Consumption Token Pool. “Jobs” and “Income” are human inventions necessitated by the requirement for labor and frankly to benefit the holders of “capital”.

The elimination of greed, wealth and the facade of achievement as a way to riches will give way to a society where worth is not measured by bank accounts, dollars accumulated, and other vapid metrics. A new way of thinking will allow society to move forward where value and status are not measured and instead equal respect and income is given to all citizens. The fallacy of achievement and “uniqueness” or “knowledge” will give way to the reality that we are all part of the whole and creating a peaceful, happy, equally prosperous place on earth is the most important goal of every “human”.

The potential of AI is to free humans from the drudgery of the capitalistic system where capital holders conform human beings to their needs to produce products. Once this liberation occurs concepts such as “poverty”, “unemployment”, “productivity” and “income” will cease to exist. After all, these constructs were created by humans when “labor” was in the eyes of some necessary to create what has become possibly a toxic existence where humans are relegated to a dreary existence in front of a computer screen producing products that feed a vapid system of consumerism while harming the planet.