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Surely this is the worst argument against AI? Shouldn't we burn the backhoes and go back to digging ditches by hand to ensure employment opportunities for our children?
This is a reasonable argument, but there's a big different between having robots that can do something things for us (like digging ditches) while humans can still do other things better, versus having everything being done better by machines. In the current world, you get growth by investing in both humans and machines. In the latter world, you get the most growth by putting all your resources into machines and the factories that make them.
What growth is there without consumers (i.e. people)?
You just need at least 1 consumer, right? Maybe the future is just one person who owns the entire Earth or perhaps even the universe, the sole producer and customer that dictates what is and isn't by his control of all the AI-powered robots. Well, I imagine even if someone had amassed the power to accomplish this, they would find such an existence rather lonely.
This, I think, points to the one job that AI and robots can't ever replace humans in, which is providing a relationship with a human who was born the old fashioned (i.e. current) way and grew up in a human society similar to the human customer did. I've said it before, but it could be that the world's oldest profession could also become the world's final profession.
But also, if we're positing ASI, it's quite possible that the AI could develop technology to manipulate the brain circuitry of the one remaining human to genuinely believe that he is living in a community of real humans like himself. I believe this kind of thing is often referred to as a "Lotus-Eater Machine," after some part of the Odyssey. If this gets accomplished, then perhaps all of humanity going down to just one person might be in our future.
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