In theory, as things get cheaper to produce, business profits should rise and governments should be able to raise more taxes. So the government then has more means to provide goods and services for free to people who need them.
It's the snake eating it's tail. For business profits to rise, people need to to have disposable income. If you replace enough people with AI, the average disposable income comes down to a point that businesses can't be profitable.
We are already seeing a localized version of this with restaurants in large cities.
For business profits to rise, people need
to to have disposable income
Imagine an island with two people on it and there is one tree that grows apples. And every other day, one of the two people climbs the tree and picks apples so they both have something to eat. Then the next day, the other person owes to climb on the tree because they are in debt to the first person.
Now, let's say one day, one of them discovers, hey, we can just give the tree a kick and the apples fall down on their own!
With the perspective you are proposing, the other one would have to say: Oh my God, don't do it! We will be out of work and starve!
I have high hopes for a positive social impact of self-driving cars out there.
I expect Tokyo is probably even lower than the national average. Visiting just as a tourist it seems like Japan is quite good at creating, I don't want to say bullshit jobs, but perhaps not-that-necessary jobs? Jobs which mainly serve to give something to do to (usually) elderly. My understanding was that the idea is to make them feel to be a contributing part of the society(?)
I mean all the people controlling the pedestrians or acting like "human signs" and such.
Am I getting it wrong?
Singapore's unemployment statistic only counts people who are looking, not people who are retired or have given up [1]:
> A person is considered unemployed if he or she is:
> • not working;
> • actively seeking work; and
> • available for work
I don't know if the other countries follow the same methodology.
[1] https://stats.mom.gov.sg/iMAS_PdfLibrary/mrsd_qtlmr182_Techn...
The vast majority of old people working these jobs, e.g. construction site security, do so because they would likely starve without it.
I don't think taxi driving in Tokyo is one of them (because, as noted, the qualifications needed are pretty minimal), although eg bus drivers are in extremely short supply.