The issue isn't the examples you used, mhaze.

//Show me where I talked about anything other than physical goods.//

The issue is the conclusion you drew from them.

Earlier you wrote:

"there will come a time this century … that there won't be any workers or just people who work for pleasure."

That claim goes far beyond the abundance of manufactured goods.

Whether work becomes optional depends on the availability of the things people actually spend most of their income on in modern economies.

In most developed economies today, the majority of economic activity is not the production of physical goods but services - health care, education, transport, maintenance, care work, administration and infrastructure.

If those remain scarce, then labour remains necessary and the conclusion about a post-work society does not follow.

So the issue isn't whether technological progress can make physical goods cheaper. History clearly shows that it can.

The issue is whether that observation logically supports the much larger claim that work becomes optional and money irrelevant.

//So we see AC and JD seeking to sooth each others butt-hurt.//

What butthurt? You've never made a point that withstood criticism. You're always on the backfoot... until you skedaddle.

"So the issue isn't whether technological progress can make physical goods cheaper. History clearly shows that it can."

If pennies keep dropping at this rate, JD might eventually come to understand the issue.

I've been talking about superabundance which is about actual physical goods. In some strange way JD now seems to get that although we won't see him admitting it.

As to services...the revolution coming down the pipe there is probably even more profound than the inevitability of superabundance in actual goods. Large numbers of service jobs are going to disappear in the next decade or three. From waiters to accountants, they'll become a curiosity rather than the norm. General Practice will be gone although specialists might remain. Nurses too. There are few areas of life that won't be profoundly altered by AI and the new robotics that are set to hit.

But we will have some things unchanged. Such as people who'll stick their head in the sand and declare that, since they don't want it to be true, it isn't true.

That was your clarification in the previous reply, mhaze.

//I've been talking about superabundance which is about actual physical goods.//

But in this comment you go on to argue that large numbers of service professions - waiters, accountants, GPs, nurses and others - will largely disappear because of AI.

That is a much broader claim than the one you were defending earlier.

Predicting technological disruption is one thing. History certainly contains many examples of jobs being transformed or replaced by new technologies.

But repeatedly asserting that particular outcomes are inevitable does not demonstrate that they are.

The point raised earlier remains the same: technological progress can expand productive capacity, but it does not automatically establish that society is heading toward a world where work becomes optional and money irrelevant.

That conclusion still requires an argument rather than a prediction.

JD,

Musk and a bunch of experts have made predictions about the near future based upon a close study and understanding of the past and continuing long-term trends. Just asserting that since their predictions aren't proven (how do you prove a prediction?? !!), they aren't true is a fool's errand.

Predictions based on time-price have been remarkably accurate over the years. (If Global Warming's advocated had been even 10% as accurate in their predictions they'd be a lot more persuasive.)

I get that you don't want it to be true and since its a prediction about the future, it may fail. But the past suggests otherwise. And the prudent society would take note and begin to prepare.

mhaze,

Earlier in the discussion you wrote:

"Superabundance is coming and there are people alive today who will witness it."
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10755#374940

In your latest comment you write:

"...since its a prediction about the future, it may fail."
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10755#374988

Those are two very different propositions.

Predicting technological change based on long-term trends is perfectly reasonable. History clearly shows that innovation can increase productivity and reduce the labour required to produce many goods.

But once we move from observing past trends to predicting the future structure of society, we are dealing with forecasts rather than demonstrated outcomes.

That was the point raised earlier.

Superabundance may occur. AI may transform large parts of the service economy. Or those predictions may turn out to be overly optimistic.

Either way, predictions about the future - however confident - remain predictions rather than inevitabilities.

//I get that you don't want it to be true.//

That's a strange assumption. Nothing I've written suggests that technological progress or increasing abundance would be undesirable, so how can you "get" that?

The point being made is about the strength of the claim, not anyone's preferences about the outcome.