Peopleless economy? Terrifyingly enough, not technically impossible
Reductio Ad Economicum is a thing
Something that sounds too good to be true, probably is too good to be true
Now that AI actively threatens to replace mostly all white collar workers, and even lots of blue-collar in the near future, lots of people seem to calm themselves with a seemingly correct thought: if we are all getting replaced, who will be consuming? Consumption will halt, and The Economy will fall apart. Therefore, we will not be replaced.
This conclusion seems sound, just like the question that led to it. At the end of the day, the economy is based on what the masses consume, and without consumption, there cannot be any economy. Or that is the implicit assumption...
Logical delusions
(Feel free to skip this section if you are not interested in philosophy)
It is a well attested fact that human logic is far from flawless. We are all victims of our biases, emotions, and equally importantly, our implicit assumptions. Just like in mathematics, where all our theorems stem from sets of axioms, so do our beliefs stem from assumptions. But unlike in mathematics, where the axioms are concrete, explicit, and shaped by natural observations, the human logic's axioms are more abstract, implicit, and shaped by our knowledge and our cultural background.
Indeed, a large proportion of our beliefs comes from "axioms" expressed in words we cannot even define. What is Justice, for instance? We take it for granted that Justice is a thing and exists. It is a thing, but it is not something that can be described in words or shapes, like a straight line. Any logical assumptions involving justice, are unfortunately dubious.
Not only Justice is an abstract concept, though. Even many concepts regarded as technical and factual are as well. Money is an example. Really, what is money? A piece of paper? Some metal? Some number on a computer? Could you put your finger on what money really is, especially in the modern world? Living in the mostly cashless Sweden, I realized that I had a tough time giving a proper reply to my three year old when he asked what money is.
If even money (a parameter measured in numbers and used for generating alleged "hard facts") is something we can't even accurately describe, we can only begin to imagine how much more abstract of a concept The Economy is.
Indeed, The Economy is not only an abstract concept, but a very twisted and perverse one as well. It once used to refer to the well-being of the masses (at least in the minds of the many and the pretentions of the media), but the ruling class has thrown away this pretention, and it now openly refers to the profits of a handful few. Millions of people struggle with the rent/mortgage and consume less and less to make the ends meet, even in the once thriving West. But as long as Wall Street does well, The Economy is somehow thriving even with less consumption.
Defining The Economy is beyond the scope of this writing; but I expect the reader to accept, and indeed internalize, that any belief or conclusion that involves The Economy is flawed by its nature. The Economy is a concept that is even more abstract than Justice, because at least Justice does not refer to two contradictory things at once. Such conclusions are "buggy", as we say in software. They may "compile", but do not really work.
A logical fallacy so normalized that it doesn't (didn't) have a name: ad economicum.
"If we are all getting replaced, who will be consuming? Consumption will halt, and The Economy will fall apart. Therefore, we will not be replaced."
We can identify at least two implicit assumptions here: that The Economy, whatever it is, requires human consumption, and that it falling apart will somehow be bad for the resource-hoarders even after they have hoarded mostly everything *and* have robot-slaves to serve them. It also assumes that that only humans can consume, but let's set this aside.
I am fully aware that it may come as a shock to many of you, but here is the thing: none of these implicit assumptions stands much scrutiny.
Once the owning class owns mostly everything *and* has intelligent machines that serve them, The Economy crashing will not have real consequences for them. It barely has real consequences for them already -as they have consistently ended up richer after the dot com bubble, the 2008 recession, and the covid recession.
The other assumption does not seem to pass the crash test of reality either.
The weird monster we call "The Economy" can keep on rolling without (many) humans in the loop. This is not a hypothesis or a thought experiment; corporations and banks do billions of virtual transactions every day with companies that have no product, no service, and not a single employee. The transactions and loans they move back and forth in off-shore accounts do not directly correspond to physical money, or gold, or any actual resource.
These transactions increase or decrease the value of shares/stocks/bonds/whatever-made-up-technicality-is-used-in-The-Economy. At the end of the day, some of the corporation owners and shareholders sell some of those entities to buyers that are not necessarily actual persons, but often legal entities like companies with no product and employees. They are converted to 'actual' money neverheless (i.e. the ones that buy you goods at the supermarket), and buy products and services, that have traditionally been produced or conceived by humans.
Those humans are then paid for their services, work, or ideas, and can keep on buying food and housing from the owning class to survive. But guess what: once the machines get the role of producing and conceiving things, those humans are no longer economically necessary.
In other economic models, or with ruling classes that genuinely care about human lives, or their compatriots, or society, whatever, this would mean that the humans would get to retire and enjoy their spare time, as well as the goods that their work and knowledge collectively created and trained the machines with. In this economic model, none of these will be happening. At least not without serious government intervention.
Unfortunately, nothing indicates that such government intervention will be taking place -and especially in the West. Even the European Union has thrown away the pretentions of being humanitarian, and implements neoliberal policies. With the rise of the far-right we are witnessing, it seems more likely that the immense unemployment caused by AI and the social problems caused by it will be "treated" by mass-hiring policemen and soldiers to keep the poors in line.
Our world is so perverse, that it should not be impossible for you to imagine that after AI taking over, The Economy relies entirely on virtual transactions between companies with no product or service, that the 'consumption' only refers to powering the AI machines, and everyone else is homeless or dead. We already have more empty houses than homeless people, more food than we eat, and more medicine than we use, yet people die starving or untreated anyway.
The implicit assumptions that lead to the conclusion that we are *needed* for The Economy to keep running, are erroneous. So are most conclusions about The Economy, even when they come from experts: ask ten economists the same question, and you will get ten different answers or predictions.
Ad Economicum is a thing. We could indeed define it the logical fallacy where someone makes (or dismisses) a claim, because The Economy would ensure (or prevent) that it would happen -without thinking a second time what The Economy is, how adaptive it really is, or whom it benefits the most.
Politicians, analysts, and voters alike, all make a lot of predictions for the future or assumptions about the world "because The Economy". All these Ad Economicum arguments, are at least somewhat flawed. This is, of course, true of any claim or belief that involves abstract concepts; but few abstract concepts are as influential in society and politics as The Economy -hence why this type of argumentation / logical fallacy deserves a name.
Beware of the future
No one in 2016 could accurately predict what the world would look like in 2026. I have internalized the fact that we live in chaotic times so much, that I barely make any plans for longer than the next 1-2 years.
We grew up looking forward to see the future, and now we wish it all halts. We are out of breath, yet still sprinting. Sprinting through a dark forest with wild animals, in a misty night. There is some probability that we will eventually get out of it safe and enjoy the dawn, but the probability of us stumbling and being devoured is higher.
We are still sprinting though, because "we" (who is "we"?) needed more growth (what is growth? Is it always good? Cancerous tumors "grow" too), because The Economy.
The Economy killed the future we once imagined, and now we hope that The Economy will spare our lives, because The Economy.
Perhaps it will. Who knows. Lots of pessimistic scenarios were eventually proven wrong. Others were proven right, though. We cannot predict. We can only keep on working, keep on grinding, keep on sprinting.
Because The Economy.