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SvennoJ on 20 June 2026
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Mnementh said:
SvennoJ said:

Is the world ready for a Star Trek utopia (Starfleet is pretty fascist as well, but the chosen ones live well)

If robots and AI are doing all the work, will people still be motivated to learn any skills? Or are we all going to be spoiled children with robot nannies in this Utopian fantasy. How many robots are needed to serve 8.3 billion people, global workforce is about 3.7 billion people. How much power do 4 billion robots need on top of 8.3 billion people living in leasure.

8.3 billion people just looking to entertain themselves travelling to already overcrowded tourist destinations, nothing else to do. Besides that, human biology thrives on routine, which is school -> work right now. What is going to replace that structure. Human routines were based on farming / gathering before that. How will the human pshyche cope with nothing to do. Rise of pedophiles? Billionaires don't seem very stable people to me, but that's the lifestyle this 'Utopia' promises.

Anyway there's a coming food crisis to solve first, water crisis, energy crisis, all linked with climate change. Hoping AI will solve it all in time sounds defeatist to me. Don't want to tackle these problems head on, just keep building data centers and hope AI will solve our problems while only making them worse in the short term.

When my mother got pensioned, she engaged in local community clubs and projects. I think people can create meaning in their life, even if you remove the obligation.

Sure some can. My mother could not handle retirement, she kept working until dementia stopped her, then declined fast without the routine.

I'm doing fine not working. I've created my own routines and live of savings. One of the 'benefits' for me of being Autistic is, I don't know the meaning of boredom, I'm easily entertained, not thrill seeking (the opposite) and very low maintenance. Maybe Autistic people can teach the rest how to live without work :)

Yet there's the saying "they have too much time on their hands" to explain bad behavior.

However society needs to fundamentally change to support a post scarcity / non 'working for a living' society. And those in power aren't interested in such a world. @haxxiy Why aren't we covering 1% of the Earth with solar panels now? Instead of dumping 1.6 trillion dollars into AI so far, we could have already solved the energy and food crisis instead. Well maybe not, here's what AI has to say about that :/ Covering 1% of the Earth's surface with solar panels would cost roughly $200 trillion USD just for materials. With installation, land preparation, and grid infrastructure, the cost would exceed $600 trillion to $1 quadrillion. To put that in perspective, the total global GDP is about $100 trillion.

However just $13 billion has been invested in Nuclear Fusion last year, it's going up, yet compared to 1.6 trillion in AI... Plus another 1.5 trillion war budget...

To get to a post scarcity world we need nuclear fusion to work to power the road to covering the Sahara desert in solar panels. Desalination plants and water pipelines to solve the clean water shortage. HDVC transmission lines to distribute power from where the sun is currently shining to where it's needed. Hydrogen fuel cell technology for transport. More efficient farming, not wasting farmland on bio ethanol. Promotion of healthier, less destructive proteins, get people off beef. 1.58 billion cows (and bulls) are a huge driver of climate change.

Agriculture is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter (12.3%) after energy (76.7%)
https://www.wri.org/insights/4-charts-explain-greenhouse-gas-emissions-countries-and-sectors

The tasks are all clear, we don't need AI to tell us what needs to be done. So why are we wasting all that capital on AI which is only making problems worse in the short run. One thing that doesn't have an answer yet is where are we going to put all the excess heat from more electricity use. Unless it's solar power, electricity use dumps more heat into the environment.

Plenty mega projects civilization desperately needs, AI isn't one them.