How AI, Robotics, and Clean Energy Will End Labor and Money – A Future Where Everything Is Free

[henry quirk]

So what are people going to do all day in this new world?

In '50 I'll be 87, so I'll be in the old folks home playin' pinocle, kvetchin' about how my kid never visits, and ass-grabbin' sweet, young, nurses.

[BigMike]

So what are people going to do all day in this new world?

In '50 I'll be 87, so I'll be in the old folks home playin' pinocle, kvetchin' about how my kid never visits, and ass-grabbin' sweet, young, nurses.

By 2050, those sweet, young nurses you're ass-grabbin'? Yeah… they’ll be robots. Probably equipped with proximity sensors and a firm slap setting set to “grandpa mode.”

[henry quirk]

By 2050, those sweet, young nurses you're ass-grabbin'? Yeah… they’ll be robots. Probably equipped with proximity sensors and a firm slap setting set to “grandpa mode.”

Buzzkill.

[henry quirk]

Since I can't enjoy my golden years properly (thanks for nuthin', Mike), I guess it's time to pull a Heemeyer.

[Skepdick]

A system where every good and service can be produced without human input, without pollution, and without the constraint of labor costs. The natural consequence of this is profound: money becomes meaningless.

You are going to need communism for that to work...

Why would you pay for something if:
1. The machines that make it don’t require a wage?

Because you don't own the machines; or that which they produce.

2. The energy that powers them is free?

Is that which harnesses and distributes the energy also free?

3. The materials are recycled or synthesized infinitely?

Who pays for the synthesis?

In such a world, scarcity disappears—not because we've found a moral solution, but because we've found a technological one.

You are forever dependent on the running/operating cost of the infrastructure supporting our collective lifestyle.

Who operates, maintains and upgrades it? Is it a self-sufficient system? A 100% efficient system?

Free loaders have no idea how anything works.

[BigMike]

A system where every good and service can be produced without human input, without pollution, and without the constraint of labor costs. The natural consequence of this is profound: money becomes meaningless.

You are going to need communism for that to work...

Why would you pay for something if:
1. The machines that make it don’t require a wage?

Because you don't own the machines; or that which they produce.

2. The energy that powers them is free?

Is that which harnesses and distributes the energy also free?

3. The materials are recycled or synthesized infinitely?

Who pays for the synthesis?

Free loaders have no idea how anything works.

Great questions, Skepdick—and no, I’m not suggesting that this future arrives by magic, or that we can hand-wave away ownership and infrastructure with fairy dust. You're absolutely right to ask: Who owns the machines? Who controls the distribution? Who maintains the systems?

But here’s the pivot: in a world where labor and energy costs vanish, ownership of production becomes politically and ethically unsustainable. Because if machines don’t need wages, and energy is free, and materials are infinitely reusable, then the only remaining justification for prices and profit is gatekeeping—saying “you can’t have this unless I say so.”

And that’s where your communism comment isn’t off-base—but I wouldn’t call it communism in the old Marxist sense. It’s post-economics. A system where production and distribution are so cheap, fast, and automatic that access becomes a social design problem, not an economic one.

You asked, “Who pays for synthesis?”
In this model, no one does—because once the synthesis process itself is fully automated and energy-cost-free, it's not about payment. It's about policy. Do we allow that system to serve everyone, or just the few who claim to “own” it?

So no, freeloaders aren’t the problem. The problem is the hoarders trying to profit off of abundance.

And yes—none of this happens unless we build public systems, pass laws, and challenge the private monopolies that would love to keep charging rent on the sun. But that’s exactly why we’re having this conversation now.

[henry quirk]

WIP (first-drafty & raw)...


Colossus rules (don't need no ruler!)

Soma is free (don't wanna be numb!)

Our cubicles are ordered (don't stick me in a coffin!)

The Neural Link is on (don't wanna be dumb!)


We're all micro-chipped (cut mine out with a razor!)

We all have a Number (I shredded mine last night!)

We get rations in the morning (mine are uncollected!)

We're head-counted at night (not me, that's right!)


All are safe (confined to their boxes!)

No one is sick (and no one is free!)

A One World Order (for machines, not men!)

The Community is happy (Not me! Not me!)

[BigMike]

WIP (first-drafty & raw)...


Colossus rules (don't need no ruler!)

Soma is free (don't wanna be numb!)

Our cubicles are ordered (don't stick me in a coffin!)

The Neural Link is on (don't wanna be dumb!)


We're all micro-chipped (cut mine out with a razor!)

We all have a Number (I shredded mine last night!)

We get rations in the morning (mine are uncollected!)

We're head-counted at night (not me, that's right!)


All are safe (confined to their boxes!)

No one is sick (and no one is free!)

A One World Order (for machines, not men!)

The Community is happy (Not me! Not me!)

Hey Henry, I’m not sure if that was aimed at me specifically or just your poetic riff on the future—but either way, it's a punchy little dystopia, and I respect the energy.

That said, if we are heading toward a world of mass automation—and I think we both see that writing on the wall—what would you propose as a way to meet that challenge? How do we keep freedom, dignity, and meaning intact when machines start doing most of the things people used to get paid for?

Genuinely curious how you'd tackle it, since you're clearly not lining up for the ration box.

[henry quirk]

what would you propose as a way to meet that challenge?

We just might have to go (Butlerian) Jihadist on the machine minds (and the meat machines who build them), Mike.

How do we keep freedom, dignity, and meaning intact when machines start doing most of the things people used to get paid for?

We can't. That's the point.

[BigMike]

what would you propose as a way to meet that challenge?

We just might have to go (Butlerian) Jihadist on the machine minds (and the meat machines who build them), Mike.

How do we keep freedom, dignity, and meaning intact when machines start doing most of the things people used to get paid for?

We can't. That's the point.

Alright, Henry—let’s cut through it then:
The coming automation wave isn’t a "maybe." It’s not a "sci-fi possibility." It’s happening. Right now. In real time.

And if the best response you’ve got is some Butlerian Jihad fantasy about smashing machines—or resigning yourself to "we can’t"—then you’re basically saying you’d rather risk ending up living under a bridge, picking through garbage for scraps, than engage in finding real solutions.

Because that is the alternative: no planning, no adaptation, no action = mass displacement, mass poverty, mass collapse.

You can either start fighting for a future that protects freedom, dignity, and meaning in an automated world—or you can sit around writing poems about how screwed we all are while the ground disappears under your feet.

Your call. But pretending we can stop technological momentum by grumbling at it?
That’s just another way of choosing to lose.

[Alexis Jacobi]

So what are people going to do all day in this new world?

Banding together to sabotage, hinder and destroy the automated, robotic civilization.

If it isn’t obvious, the technological change presaged by MadMike will require autocratic systems to enforce this system on an uncooperative population.

Mike seems not to recognize that his vision has two poles. One utopian, the other dystopian. And the dystopian has also been predicted by the popular imagination.

It will not be possible in the now underdeveloped world that such systems are installed. And the “resistance” will therefore naturally arise in the polarity between mechanized North and ‘primitive’ South.

What a mess AI will be in when it advanced to the point where humans are not needed — except that maintained as “drones” and in an enthralled state (through the stimulus sent into the chips installed in their brains.

Then, instead of bickering, irascible humans, AI will have to invent conflict in a strange simulacra of the human reality it brought to an end. Or self-destruct out of unconquerable boredom.

Mike, do you know the general date you “went round the bend in the river”?

[commonsense]

But here's the question I’d like to pose to the forum:
If everything becomes free because there’s no longer any cost structure behind production, how do we rethink human purpose, governance, and ethics in a post-labor, post-money world?

Is the elimination of work a liberation or a loss?
Can human dignity survive without the struggle for survival?
And do our current systems of government, law, and morality survive this shift—or do they collapse and get replaced?

You have described a future in which the humanities would play a central role in all activities of humankind.

Composers and playwrights would become popularr icons. Elections for political office would become mere beauty contests. Art would truly be produced for art’s sake. The clergy would preach the ethics of universal aesthetics.

Scientists would fall from public esteem as the lessons of history and questions of philosophy would come to prominence. Business transactions would become a matter of trading a construct of art for commodities when needed. Pieces of art would replace pieces of eight for fungible currency.

[BigMike]

But here's the question I’d like to pose to the forum:
If everything becomes free because there’s no longer any cost structure behind production, how do we rethink human purpose, governance, and ethics in a post-labor, post-money world?

Is the elimination of work a liberation or a loss?
Can human dignity survive without the struggle for survival?
And do our current systems of government, law, and morality survive this shift—or do they collapse and get replaced?

You have described a future in which the humanities would play a central role in all activities of humankind.

Composers and playwrights would become popularr icons. Elections for political office would become mere beauty contests. Art would truly be produced for art’s sake. The clergy would preach the ethics of universal aesthetics.

Scientists would fall from public esteem as the lessons of history and questions of philosophy would come to prominence. Business transactions would become a matter of trading a construct of art for commodities when needed.

Exactly—and I think that’s a far more insightful take than most people are ready to admit. Because once survival is no longer tied to labor, the humanities don’t just become relevant—they become essential.

In a post-labor world, we’re no longer defined by what we produce—we’re defined by what we create, what we feel, what we mean. Art, music, literature, philosophy, even the deeply personal questions about identity, ethics, and connection—those become the foundation of culture, not the scaffolding.

It’s a total reversal: the humanities, long pushed to the margins by economics and engineering, step forward as the core of human purpose. And yeah, scientists may fall from their pedestal a bit—not because science stops being important, but because the spotlight moves from discovery to reflection.

So maybe the future isn’t cold and robotic after all. Maybe it’s more human than we’ve ever been—if we’re brave enough to build it that way.

[BigMike]

So what are people going to do all day in this new world?

Banding together to sabotage, hinder and destroy the automated, robotic civilization.

If it isn’t obvious, the technological change presaged by MadMike will require autocratic systems to enforce this system on an uncooperative population.

Mike seems not to recognize that his vision has two poles. One utopian, the other dystopian. And the dystopian has also been predicted by the popular imagination.

It will not be possible in the now underdeveloped world that such systems are installed. And the “resistance” will therefore naturally arise in the polarity between mechanized North and ‘primitive’ South.

What a mess AI will be in when it advanced to the point where humans are not needed — except that maintained as “drones” and in an enthralled state (through the stimulus sent into the chips installed in their brains.

Then, instead of bickering, irascible humans, AI will have to invent conflict in a strange simulacra of the human reality it brought to an end. Or self-destruct out of unconquerable boredom.

Mike, do you know the general date you “went round the bend in the river”?

Oh, please. Alexis, spare us the melodrama.

You talk about “banding together to sabotage” like it’s some noble resistance fantasy—but what you’re really proposing is burning down the future because you’re too scared to adapt. You’re dreaming of slingshots and sabotage while the world reshapes itself at light speed.

And no, I haven’t “gone round the bend.” I’m looking dead-on at reality while you hide behind your dystopian bedtime stories, hoping that fear and chaos will somehow preserve the old ways. Spoiler: they won’t.

The choice isn’t between utopia and dystopia. The choice is between growing up and building the system we need, or acting like frightened children and getting crushed by the one built without us.

So if your grand plan is to “hinder” automation instead of shaping it—good luck living in the ruins. Some of us are aiming a little higher.

[henry quirk]

Sorry, Yuval, but I don't buy it.

It's not happening (the AI bubble is about to burst).

you’re basically saying...

...what I've been sayin' all along: we're free wills, not meat machines. No one is gonna walk nicely into your Colossus-run tomorrow. No one who is sane wants it. It won't happen.