Are you an "automation denier"?

[Silent3]

60. With a time line a bit longer than the OP suggests, the way I think about automation...

...is something that becomes sort of like an artificial ecosystem. Once robots can build, maintain, and repair all of the other robots and other forms of automation, the whole economy can turn into a mostly self-sustaining system that takes raw materials and energy as inputs and produces goods and services as outputs.

If we solve the problem of sustainable, renewable energy, don't destroy the natural ecosystem, and don't otherwise kill ourselves off through recklessness and warfare, I think an automated economy is almost inevitable.

Once so much is automated, the idea of "cost of production" almost disappears, and with it prices and money and the value of labor become hard to define. There will be things that remain inherently rare or limited in supply, like beach-front property and front-row seats, or hand-crafted goods that are valued mainly because a human did the work. Perhaps money and some types of labor will still have significance due to such commodities, but not everyone can become an artist or a performer or whatever else is left for people to do, so guaranteed basic income and/or guaranteed access by other means to a decent standard of living will become a necessity if we don't want a dystopian world where even today's lopsided distribution will seem egalitarian by comparison.