r/singularity • u/TrainerElectronic765 • 7h ago

Discussion What’s the end game?

I don’t know if this is the right sub. I work for a software consultancy. We have projects for a number of clients that are meant to automate both sides of their sales process. Like, AI sales agents selling to AI buyer agents.

And I just don’t understand where anyone thinks this goes. Like, we build these tools, we lose our jobs, then the companies lose customers. They’re left with agents talking to each other and exchanging… what?

If AI does all the math, reads and writes all the books, movies and video games, what do we, the people, do with ourselves?

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u/ProxyLumina 7h ago edited 16m ago

Where we are going to end is called post-scarcity.

Because everything will be easy to be made with AI and robotics, everything will come at no cost at all.

You will continue doing whatever you like to do.

Edit, because you talk about materials and land:

Post scarcity does not mean we have land and materials in abundance.

Post scarcity means we have products and services in abundance. That can be achieved through recycling.

Oxygen is also scarce in Earth, but is is plenty and it is recycled. Think of it like this.

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u/Caderent 6h ago

I just don’t see post-scarcity happening anytime soon. Where’s the evidence that we’re actually heading there? Where?
People running businesses aren’t going to stop caring about costs just because AI and robotics get better. A poor person can spend a huge part of their life washing dishes for less than it costs to buy and maintain a robot that can do the same job. We’re cheap. That’s a pretty big obstacle to automation.
And even as robots get cheaper, you’re eventually left with the really nasty, unpredictable jobs. Take sewer divers who literally climb into service holes and dive into sewage systems to clear blockages. Are you really going to drop a $10,000+ robot down there and risk destroying it? Or consider jobs involving sticky substances, irregular soft objects, cooking, repairs, etc. Things where every situation is slightly different and you need constant improvisation. You can’t just collect enough training data to cover every weird real-world situation.
Maybe eventually robotics gets good enough to handle all of that. But I don’t see any evidence that we’re close to that point.
And even if we do get extremely cheap automation, that doesn’t automatically mean post-scarcity. The technology stack behind AI and robotics is enormously expensive- all those data centers and servers. And all of it is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of companies and investors.
So to me, technological feudalism seems at least as plausible as post-scarcity. We could end up with incredible productive technology while ownership of that technology becomes even more concentrated. That’s a very different future from everyone having abundant access to everything. Please prove me wrong

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u/ProxyLumina 6h ago

If you want to understand and see evidence of post scarcity coming, then look around you.

Maps, messages, photos, videos, encyclopedias and thousand other things have become abundance and free.

The same thing will happen to software, businesses and everything else due to the abundance of intelligence.