Re: Economics

"Duncan Rose" <duncan.rose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 26 Jul 2006 13:1:
As a thought experiment, perhaps we could consider where we'll be
assuming that AI is a solved problem, and robots with capabilities
exceeding our own actually exist -- who then will own the wealth?
[...]
Will we have the will and the ability to change the way we distribute and
measure wealth in our societies at such a time, once all 'work' is
performed by automatons?
[...]
at some point it seems likely we'll have to totally reevaluate our ideas of
what has worth and what does not

Economics is about allocation of scarce resources, where more people want a
thing than there is of that thing. (It's also about incentives, and how they
change human "free will" behavior.) Economics doesn't really deal with goods
that aren't scarce, like sunlight or breathable air.

If robots can grow all the food that anyone wants, and supply all the power,
then those things will no longer have a cost (just like sunlight and air), and
anyone can use as much as they want of any of it.

If we can do that in the future there's no reason we can't be putting the
framework in place for doing it NOW (i.e. starting a process of redefining
what society considers to be worth rewarding).

The reason we can't do it now is that those items today DO have a cost, and
more people desire them than human society can provide. That's why the field
of economics exists in the first place: because there must be SOME methodology
to assign people to the things they want, if there isn't enough for everyone
to have all that they dream of.

-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ don@xxxxxxxxxx
One of the most attractive features of a Connection Machine is the array of
blinking lights on the faces of its cabinet.
-- CM Paris Ref. Manual, v6.0, p48.
.

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