Future Skills: Fully Automated AI Luxury

Robots do most of our work, scarcities are a thing of the past. This is a scenario from the GDI study "Future Skills". What skills will humans need? How will we live together in the future?
3 September, 2020 by
Future Skills: Vollautomatisierter KI-Luxus
GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute
 

The following text is based on an extract from the study "Future Skills", which you can obtain from our website.

The Fully Automated AI Luxury scenario describes a world in which machines have taken over much of the work. But the fruits of this labour are not restricted to a small elite but are available to all. Consequently, there is no material scarcity in this world and existing freedoms are not restricted.

In the world of the AI Luxury scenario, only little obligations remain. Nobody needs to work for money because data, energy and resources are abundant. Foodstuffs can be grown by robots: Fresh produce in vertical gardens on building facades, meat in laboratories, grain on permaculture fields. Healthcare likewise can be provided by robots. These robots ensure a basic supply that often is not even needed. The reason for this is that many people enjoy tending to gardens and only use robots to mechanically remove weeds in order to avoid spraying pesticides. Others find their calling in the care for ill people, or in teaching children.

At first glance, there are no problems in this world. People can do anything, but they do not have to. There are no compelling authorities that prescribe what is important and what is not, what is good and what is bad; there are no mandatory tasks and values serving as orientation. Ideals, motivation and creating meaning and purpose in one’s life are things people need to achieve for themselves as well as in a community.

Which skills are essential in such a future?

Defining long-term goals
People need to be able to define both short-term and long-term goals. This requires acting of one’s own accord and personal responsibility as well as the ability to think in the long term.

Trust in others
The world of abundance requires a commitment to community where the people share their products with one another. Only then can the full potential be achieved. The readiness for abundance requires trusting others, the ability to handle freedom and being able to function not only through imposed discipline and coercion.

Group action
Since communal projects can give meaning to one’s life, one has to be capable to make decisions in the group and coordinate within the group in order to make the joint ideas become reality. This can turn out to be difficult in practice, when all participants are volunteers and there are almost no hierarchies. For this reason, patience and endurance are also important in this context.

Besides the Fully Automated AI Luxury, there are other scenarios that prepare us for various possible futures. What else might we need to be able to do in the future? Download "Future Skills" now free of charge!

Future Skills Study

Study, 2020 (free download)

Languages: German, English, French
Format: PDF
Commissioned by: Jacobs Foundation

Future skills: the Net Zero scenarionetzero_nettonull

A world in abundance, where its inhabitants will still have to do without in order to save the planet. Humanities overall goal is carbon neutrality. This is a future scenario from the GDI study "Future Skills".

Stephanie Kelton: “Every deficit is good for someone”Stephanie Kelton

US economist Stephanie Kelton dispels old myths: “Everything that we've been led to believe about deficits and the role of money and government spending in the economy is wrong, especially the fear that deficits will endanger our long-term prosperity.” The bestselling author of The Deficit Myth is convinced that deficits are not a bad thing. Here, in a video interview, and in a GDI livestream on 10 September 2020, Stephanie Kelton provides solutions for a post-Covid economy.

Future Skills: The "Collapse" scenarioFuture Skills Collapse web

What if the known society is gone in the year 2050? What should we be capable of?

Share this post
Archive