What could an individual contribute to society other than labor?

Modern education teaches citizens that the point of an individual in society is to contribute labor. In a world with limited natural resources, we use this idea to measure an individual's worth in society and award them resources (via money) proportional to the amount and value of their work.

However, in the next N years, (100, 500, 1000, whatever you believe) computers will likely come to outperform humans in all disciplines (manual, intellectual, creative, administrative, and all others). Let us postulate, though, that this level of artificial intelligence arrives before we find a way to access virtual unlimited stores of natural resources.

In this theoretical world, what will be the value of an individual in society that we use to distribute these limited natural resources?

Note: My question is similar to this one, but it differs in a few key ways: Firstly, there is a section which specifically references "a few thousand engineers, scientists, and world leaders" still being necessary to run society. I am asking about a situation where there are between 0 and 50 of these people. If there are any humans holding these positions, it's only to make the populace less scared of a robot revolution. I am also asking about specifically the situation with respect to limited resources, whereas that question talks about a timeline of the transition.

posted almost 8 years ago

KFox‭

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