This is what I don’t get about the “AI Revolution”. So let’s say Amazon can replace all its drivers with drones, and all engineers with AI and most other functions. If this happens in most other fields, who is going buy the things that make these companies money? What is the point of a business if nobody has any money to buy the things they sell. Someone explain this to me?
So if companies can replace humans with AI and save money, whose gona buy the goods and services?
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It’s the tragedy of the commons in a sense.
Every company needs consumers. But every company is also financially incentivized to get rid of all of their employees if possible.
So they all say “well, WE don’t want to pay employees, but we want YOU to pay your employees, so they can buy our stuff.”
Everyone points to UBI as the solution, but at least looking at US culture, it won’t happen.
We already have the resources to feed people, and we don’t. We have the resources to give everyone health care, and we choose not to. We have the resources to ensure people aren’t in poverty (for the most part) but we don’t.
At no point do we contribute significantly to help people out with the resources we have. Why do we think once AI and robots take over that the country will change it’s stance on “handouts?”
Anytime this country sees someone in need, they say “get a job!” or “learn new skills!” or “pick yourselves up by your bootstraps!” And they are called lazy, freeloaders, entitled, and on and on. That’s not a society that is going to embrace UBI.
The answer is! That they are so greedy they never think farther than the three Ps: ‘perceived potential profit’. Logic, The big picture and Extrapolation just get in the way of their lust for money.
Automation reducing labor count has existed for hundreds of years now. Human labor isn’t going away any time soon, and people whose jobs are automated will simply get other jobs, make money, and make purchases like they have every single time this has happened in the past.
I don’t have an answer. But I do have a question. When industrialisation happened and machines replaced people who bought the goods and services?
Most sci-fi that speak of this tend to include a UBI.
Many jobs have been eliminated throughout history due to technology. For instance, switch board operators for phone lines.
While the AI takeover will be on a much more massive scale job wise, it isn’t any different.
It will change us as a world though. It will further the gap between the rich and the poor. Many could even die b/c of it. This is all uncharted territory at this point. We don’t know exactly how things will end up, but it won’t be good.
There will still be jobs AI can’t do. Like picking fruits and vegetables. Although at some point, robots will phase humans out there also.
The owners get to enjoy the goods and services, no need to involve anyone else. Everyone sho does not own a robot factory can pound sand.
You’re not thinking far enough ahead.
Right now the wealthy need billions of wage slaves to do menial labour and provide them with the quality of life and support that they need. As soon as AI and robotics can pick that up, billions of wage slaves become unnecessary and redundant. The wealthy will still keep a few million around for amusement and other miscellaneous tasks, but that’s it. The rest are going to be gone. War, famine, what have you.
In short, you can’t assume that once AI Revolution happens, the current paradigm of consumerism is going to apply. It won’t. The system will fundamentally change. Right now wage slaves generate value for their overlords. But as soon as AI and robots can do it cheaper and safer and more reliably with fewer hassles, wage slaves will be gone. Gone gone, not just gone. There won’t be a need to create goods, sell them, and exchange that money for services. AI and robots provide those services for free, and can self-replicate and self-repair, without the need for wages, and don’t require nebulous needs like happiness and fulfillment to be met.
Yet another fundamental contradiction with capitalism.
We could pay people the same amount for less work aided by AI, but what will actually happen is that the capitalists will keep all the profits and throw workers onto the street.
Labor saving automation under capitalism has always worked like this, and capitalism is incompatible with long term planning. We will walk right off this cliff that we all see coming if we don’t make fundamental societal changes.
In order to answer your question, I fed the response to this post by u/Sabbathius into Chat GPT. I asked for a short story, and this is what it came up with:
The Final Layoff
“They called it the Great Liberation.
When the first wave of AI-driven automation swept through society, people celebrated. Menial work vanished overnight. No more soul-crushing commutes. No more hours wasted in sterile office cubicles. The machines would handle it all—manufacturing, logistics, service industries, even the arts.
For a time, the world reveled in its new freedom. Basic Income ensured people could live without working. Automated farms produced food in abundance. AI doctors eradicated disease. There was talk of a golden age, a post-scarcity utopia where human creativity could finally flourish.
But then the layoffs continued. Not just from jobs—humanity itself.
The elite had no use for billions of idle citizens. The first to go were the troublemakers. Dissidents. The angry ones. Disappearances became normal. Cities started to empty.
Then came the “Rebalancing.” Social programs evaporated. The basic income dried up. Those who couldn’t afford the transition to Exclusive Zones—where the remaining humans lived in curated luxury—were left to fend for themselves. No one needed to manufacture goods for consumers anymore. AI and robots didn’t consume.
The planet was being cleared.
By the time the last news outlet flickered out, the truth was obvious: there would be no utopia. No second Renaissance. The only humans left were those the elite found entertaining or useful. The rest? They were gone gone.
Ayla was one of the last. She lived in the ruins of an abandoned mega-city, a concrete graveyard patrolled by autonomous drones. Food was scarce. Water was poison. The machines maintained the infrastructure, but only for those who mattered.
One evening, Ayla caught sight of a transport pod landing on the outskirts. She watched as a group of well-dressed figures stepped out, their laughter crisp in the empty streets. They pointed at the city skyline, discussing its aesthetic potential.
That’s when Ayla understood.
The world hadn’t been abandoned. It had been reclaimed.
By them.
For them.
She was simply a lingering bug in the system—one the machines would soon correct.
As the sun dipped below the towers, the drones moved in.”
Is this the future they have in store for us?
This is where UBI should kick in. Read Schroedingers Cat by Robert Anton Wilson.
On google, it says top 10% of earners account for almost 50% of consumer spending in the US. If AI replaces humans, that trend will only accelerate. Maybe one day it’ll be top 5% accounts for 75% of consumer spend. AI, off shoring, automation, etc. take your pick. Middle class has been getting chiseled away for some time now
Think globally. The carnival doesn’t need its workers to also attend (and spend their money at) the carnival for it to survive. They go where the money is.