will AI make money obsolete?

what is real?

A seemingly trivial question, an absurd annoyance to some. Three words that prick like a little thorn. You glare at me as if I am the fool.

"Real?! Of course we know what is real! Have you no sense?

I am the fool, an absurd fool who earnestly asks "what is real?" as these illusions become inseparable of what is true.

This question, this timeless folly emerged forcibly ten years ago in that fuggy, stale cafeteria.

"My life was a lie, a pretense. All was carefully constructed, a shadow of nothing. None of this was real."

Hubric idiocracy with manic appeal. Poetic grazing of the truth. As the arrow grazes the cheek, the poet scraps for truth and beauty itself, of the higher grounds. A dream beyond to the land of love. Light, angel eyes, beyond the cloud. Song, speaks of places never seen. A daydream, the manic sings!

what is real?

I wanted to know, what was real.

You remind me of what is real in every pass. Life is real because death makes it so.

your friend(ly),

jakester

p.s. happy birthday grandpa roger 7/10/25

lone wandered reflection, proof of life pod: https://open.spotify.com/episode/11KyNVhuFzgp8o8JrBjUNi?si=d1fWxNMhRwWfboRgKqZhOw

We are at a new event horizon.

What will happen when super artificial intelligence and intuition absorbs the mass volumes of mindless work that hold the scaffolds of our mechanistic society?

With no work left, will AI make money useless?

Short answer — no, at least not in the near future [but not far from impossibility].

Money itself is too ingrained within our society to be deemed useless or completely obsolete. The entire money system, rather the bank system, all hinges on trust. This social construct is a symbol of trust and for it to become obsolete, the trust we hold will need to be removed and replaced by another fully functional and reliable system.

If AI is capable of replacing all labor (both mental and physical), producing all good and services autonomously, reducing scarcity to ultra-efficient level, then income as a compensation for labor collapses as a concept.

This may sound absurd and loony but stick with me for a moment and let this thought experiment entertain you.

Let's say AI makes human labor obsolete. I imagine two scenarios unfolding.

Scenario A: idealistic (dream world)

We all have leisure and the capacity to do what we desire without the need to work for survival, possessing the means to live. We integrate well and partner with super intelligence. AI efficiently allocates resources, eliminating waste, hoarding, or overproduction. Without the fear of scarcity, humans begin to create not for profit, but for play, beauty, and exploration.

Scenario B: pessimistic (dystopia)

The attempt to transition to a moneyless society is met with great conflict and strife. Before money becomes obsolete, AI aids the widening of the wealth gap, concentrating wealth into fewer hands (data + capital owners), deepening inequality. Economic instability and resentment builds. Those in poverty grow to resent the robot and the elites on top and see them as a cause for their misery. AI makes money violently more powerful before becoming unnecessary. Technocratic authoritarianism. Human desires meaning, status, and uniqueness, never allowing for money to become obsolete.

What is real?

None of these scenarios here are real at this present moment. However, the emotions we feel from these possibilities are real. The pain, demoralization, overwhelming information and paranoia. The future can induce real anxiety and stress.

These emotions are guided by our thought and of what we genuinely believe as possible. We must create anew. We must lean into possibility, to work towards a more idealistic future, not only for ourselves, but for the next of kin.

We must be weary. Panic begets panic.

If we allow ourselves to be drowned by our own anxieties, we lose our compassion for the world, for others, and for the future.

Scenario C: the human hinge

The tools we create are a mirror of the the inventor who created them. We have created this tool that emulates us so well, it feels as if we are talking to another human being or entity.

When we stare at this almost perfect mirror as a collective, we see ourselves sitting at the hinge of it all. We can imagine so many infinitely different scenarios within this projected screen of ourselves, the many decision trees that split into a mind numbing amount of offshoots.

We live in a real fiction.

The tale that becomes true hinges on the etchings of our souls, our collective soul. We must seek to understand, to engage, We are all participants of this great experience. Simply not willing to understand is a denial of engagement.

To shape the new model, we must be willing to engage with the world as it is. To shape the culture, we must engage with it. To shape humanity, we must engage with it.

True spirituality, genuine spirituality, is an honest inquiry of our essence and existence. This is the hinge we lean on.

What is left when the illusions of this world are stripped away, all the constructs created by society, all the delusions we have found ourselves with, all the perceptions we view ourselves with?

What is real?

The fiction we live?

Deconstruct the profound illusion. Deconstruct the illusion that separates and fragments us all. To live truthfully is to question truthfully. Everything must be questioned. Learn to inquire. Develop the tools and means necessary to inquire. Question your own inquiry. Truly question and observe yourself. See yourself making these illusions.

We make things up beneficial for our survival, based on these mental concepts. Then, when we see it aid in our survival, it reinforces our belief and we depend on them more.

Challenge what you believe to be true. A truth beyond your own world view. A truth beyond human understanding.

We sit on the hinge, the crux of it all. It is painful, sufferable, and feels overbearingly imminent. The hinge does not swing on its own.

Nothing is real.

These three little words slipped out as I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, dried tears on my cheek.

I was sputtering, spilled mutters, mumbling to myself in a spiral of nonsense. My life was a lie. Everyone has caught on to the act. Everyone knows. There was a hint of liberation in those three words. A sort of twisted relief, a distasteful comedy of my entire existence being shattered in front of me.

What was this tragic reality?

Where does the truth lie? Can the truth lie? I felt the truth I held so dear fizzle into lies. None of this was real.

The light peered in from the cracked door, the nurse's office. I laid there in the cold be, rather, a cot. Alone in my thoughts, my mutterous mumblings keeping me company.

What led up to this? What shattered my reality?

I recounted, meandering into my little 14 years of life experience, shock still lingering within my body.

My main fear is that we are ill-prepared for what is to come.

When left without the mundane moments of work to fill the time, more time opens towards truth seeking, to the questions that shatter our very essence and soul.

With less distractions, the collective awareness becomes less burdened by the fog and noise. I fear that this piercing awareness will be overbearing onto the common masses and towards the youth.

There will be a displacement of people yearning for a purpose. There will be confusion and uncertainty with the disruption of new technologies every month.

I have this concern that the crisis meaning that we have donned as the "mental health crisis" will spiral exponentially if we are not careful with the fire we have started. We are beginning to see the cracks more clearly.

People are prone to misusing and misunderstanding these powerful tools. Not out of malice, but of incompetence and a lack of kind skepticism.

I think back to my 14 year old self often. I imagine that there are many youthful thinkers like him in this current society. I worry for those 14 year olds that had the same strife as me. That had these same thorns and daggers within them.

I worry for them as I feel the worry and prayers from those that love me.

I know these topics are scary. I know this inquiry is existential and dangerous. We have found ourselves on the frontier of consciousness and the mind. There is no telling what lies beyond.

But I have hope. I have spirit. I have love. A genuine love that is unconditional, bounded on no axioms or mechanistic reasoning. It's irrational. It's humility.

This pain, this suffering, this dagger of consciousness — it has heart. To know pain is to know heart. Heart will never fall into obsolescence.

…

You must have faith.

Pray for grace when you are in the lowly place. When the words turn to chicken scratch, when the signal turns to noise, when all your senses turn nonsensical, you must remain.

What is left is what is real.

The storm will pass. You must move onwards, through the dust, through the howling winds, the winds that can be seen. In those moments of panic and passion, it makes you believe that this life is absurd and that the worth of living is null and void.

Do not go early to the Heavens. Do not go early into the night. Do not pity yourself or you will lack humility. When you pity, you look down onto yourself, believing you're entitled and deserving of more. What "more" do you need?

You have everything you need. By grace, have faith. You must live life.

You must trust that you will remain when all the illusions are brushed away.

…

When I hold the eyes of a cynic, they possess me. Kindness and compassion feels like a distant fantasy, a pipe dream [a child's wet dream, how foolishly naive :p](I'm so immature).

Recognize these eyes and release them. The inquiry must move on!