Most people worry about the economy because it is often in the
news as a measure of a nation’s wealth, and by extension the amount of money
available to individuals or families.
Having money means an ability to purchase food, have a place to live and
of course provide the government with its share once a year in exchange for social
services. This cashflow between earning
money through work and expending to pay for goods and taxes is central to
modern economics.
It is the constant human struggle.
It is expected in a world based on scarcity.
However, in our future, we can build on abundance instead thanks
to advanced technologies. As described
throughout this book, automation and artificial intelligence are technologies
capable of producing all the food we need and transporting it to our homes for
us to consume. The direct resource
expenditure for these automated systems is the energy consumption for the
robots to do the work and the cost of repairing these automated systems (new
parts). Robots can maintain themselves
and run on solar energy, so the only net physical resource needed to keep a
100% automated robotic system alive are the raw materials required to maintain
the robots themselves.
These automated systems will use the energy of the sun, which is
free as well. So, ultimately, in fully automated systems we can already build
today, and deploy in every single industry in our future, the only energy
needed to keep everything going comes from the sun.
We know that the totality of human civilization on Earth consumes
a bit more than 15 terawatts.[1] If we calculate the amount of sunlight that
hits the surface of the state of Texas, it amounts to a total of 696
terawatts. So right now, the potential
total solar energy we could capture from a surface as big as the state of Texas
would be over 46 times more than the total world’s energy consumption. The world is way, way, way bigger than the
state of Texas, so there is a lot of solar energy hitting the surface. Also, remember that solar is not the only appealing
and sustainable source of energy we could use.
The point is, once we manage to create good enough AI to work on
its own, better than humans could, and start using fully automated systems to
produce the basic goods and services humanity needs, the actual societal and
economical cost of these products and services will be near zero.
To illustrate this concept a bit further, let’s look at a fairly
new technology called 3D printing. 3D
printers are like document printers in many ways but instead of using sheets of
paper in the feed, they usually use other materials like resins, molten
plastics, powders and even molten metals.
The information provided to the printer is a 3D model, which is a file
taking up no resources at all. With an
active 3D model file, the 3D printer goes to work, uses up the materials
provided and electricity, and creates the 3D model made up of the materials
provided.
Now the interesting part:
what was the cost of the object produced using the 3D model exactly?
The answer is, exactly the cost of the energy used for the 3D
printer, which is often negligible, and the cost of the materials fed in. It is just like a normal printer. When we think of the costs related to a
document printer, we think about the cost for the ink and the paper. Those are the only major costs to print out a
document. Ink and paper are fed in, electricity
is used, and you have your document ready.
The source file for the documents printed have little to no value since
they can be reused infinitely.
Same applies to 3D printers.
Whether the 3D file we use is extremely complex, artistic and detailed,
or something simple like say a basic cube, the cost of the object is equal to
the amount of material used to create the object. Hence a masterwork sculpture model bust of
Mahatma Ghandi made from resin weighing 10 kilograms will cost the same as a
basic cube weighing 10 kilograms if printed in a 3D printer.
The cost for the 3D file may be somewhat different, but a file can
be printed an infinite amount of times, just like a normal Word or PDF file. So, anything that is created using automated
devices without significant human intervention has a value determined by two
factors only:
- The real cost of the object
- The subjective value given to it from human buyers
Both concepts of value are well understood. Real cost could be based on the abundance of
the materials used to build product according to principles of offer and
demand. The rarer, the harder to store
or more difficult a material is to come by, the more expensive the resource
will be. The subjective value is based
entirely on trends, perceived rarity, emotional attachments and so on. After all, the value of one of your
children’s artistic creations may be much higher than a Rodin statue 3D printed
out of titanium. After all, the piece
made by your child is unique and made by his or her hand, while the Rodin is
only worth it’s weight in titanium.
Titanium is surprisingly inexpensive at $200-$400 per kilogram.
Money is therefore only a way to allow for fair trade between
individuals.
Where today’s costs become inflated is whenever we need to add the
costs of labor. Products requiring more
employees or higher skill levels, or more steps to produce from the raw materials
to the shelves, tend to cost more because more people with more skills are
needed. Robots don’t need to be paid,
don’t become sick, don’t complain. They
only need maintenance, which can be done by other robots. So as our industries replace human labor with
smart robots, the costs of production will eventually reach the cost of the raw
materials once all the human workers are replaced.
Since the government is there to ensure the people are taken care
of and ensure the resources and land below our feet belong to the people, the
economy in the ideal world indeed becomes an economy for the people.
[1]
Maria Trimarchi. How much power does the
world consume? - https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/world-power-consumption.htm
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