Discussion Title: Will humans have a purpose in a fully-automated world?

1. Humans will have a place and roles in a fully-automated world.
1.1. Pro: Just living, can be by itself a purpose.
1.1.1. Pro: Animals have that purpose.
1.1.2. Pro: Life is something rare and beautiful in our universe. Being part of it is a way to preserve it.
1.1.3. Con: Life can not always be how people want it to be.
1.1.3.1. Con: With complete automation, life may become exactly how people want it to be.
1.1.4. Pro: At all times in all places, life has not involved strenuous upkeep. Humans, a distinct breed always responsible for inventing the purpose of his own existence.
1.2. Pro: If humans do not live in the world that is fully automated, then they could have a purpose to the automated world by providing it with what it doesn't have.
1.3. Pro: If robots automate our world from afar \(like get outsourced to another planet\), then humans can continue their existence/purposes as-is, but undisturbed by competing with automation and minus the need for hard labor anymore.
1.4. Pro: Be better versions of ourselves \(through [enhancements](https://www.kialo.com/transhumanism-is-the-next-step-in-human-evolution-13564/13564.0=13564.1/=13564.1)\)
1.4.1. Pro: Cybernetics could allow humans to merge with automatons
1.4.2. Pro: Genetic engineering could create designer babies that are more capable of succeeding \(in living a high quality-of-life\) in this world
1.4.3. Pro: Focus on leisurely development of oneself's skills
1.4.4. Con: [The "Curb Cut Effect" would effectively disappear in that case.](https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_curb_cut_effect) Enhancements are the easy way, brute-force-method out of complex design problems. Can't walk? Rather than adding curb-cuts that benefit everyone for wheel chairs, people would shrug and use enhancement as stop-gap.

Enhancements address symptoms, but don't require comprehension. Many problems would be better addressed by engaging challenges with limitations in mind. That makes the world better in the end.
1.5. Pro: Induldge in the luxury status that automation has brought us
1.5.1. Pro: Newfound freedom given by robots to humans will allow humans to pursue what they weren't able to before, thus allowing them to find purpose in what they weren't able to explore before.
1.5.1.1. Pro: Live in virtual worlds
1.5.1.1.1. Con: What is the role of humans in a virtual world ?
1.5.1.1.2. Pro: We are already spending a lot of time in virtual worlds.
1.5.1.1.3. Pro: Case to be made that a very significant portion of today's \(otherwise non-virtual\) daily lifestyle is already virtual \(e.g. computers, phones, tv, movies, books, etc\). This could be taken one step further by making everyday life take place in the digital space through [virtual reality](http://www.VirtualAbundance.com).
1.5.1.1.3.1. Pro: [Living in virtual reality](http://www.VirtualAbundance.com) could resolve the many vagaries of scarce resources \(i.e. stress, pollution, inequality, bias, conflict, war, etc.\) and enable people to pursue their true passions \(due to the limitless abundance with imagination as the only limits\)
1.5.1.2. Pro: Colonize other celestial objects in the universe
1.5.1.2.1. Con: This only moves the problem away: What is the role of humans in a fully-automated other planet ?
1.5.1.2.1.1. Con: [Star Trek.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
1.5.1.2.2. Con: Humans would not have the role of colonizing other planets, because robots would serve that purpose instead, with a better efficiency.
1.5.1.2.2.1. Pro: They have less requirements \(air, water, food, climate,...\) They only use power, which can be easily produced from renewable energies. So they would require a smaller space inside a rocket going to another planet, and they would not require terraformation.
1.5.1.2.2.1.1. Con: In the future, possibly humans could do the same or better \(maybe only embryos are transported instead of people, requiring no space\).
1.5.1.2.2.1.2. Con: In the future, maybe humans will not require all of these needs, possibly less needs than robots.
1.5.1.2.2.1.2.1. Pro: Michio Kaku says in the future, humans may be able to travel through space via [beams of light \(through encoding of quantum information\)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUUl3YPDcAE).
1.5.1.2.2.1.3. Pro: Robots could have their information stored on a chip that gets inserted into the robot when it gets to new lands
1.5.1.2.2.1.4. Pro: Robots could have their parts shipped separately over multiple trips whereas humans cannot
1.5.1.2.2.2. Pro: If colonizing celestial objects is a purpose by itself, then it is not necessary that specifically the humans do it.
1.5.1.2.3. Pro: Colonizing other planets is a dream of many people.
1.5.1.2.4. Pro: Life is a rare wonder of the universe, spreading it would benefit the universe.
1.5.2. Pro: Such as using our time for doing what is automated for the fun of it \(even though it would not contribute to anything\).
1.5.2.1. Con: Duplicating what a robot does might be nice for the individual, but redundant for society.
1.5.3. Pro: Individually tailor our own world by being prosumers \(producer-consumers\)
1.5.4. Pro: Socialize more
1.5.5. Pro: Take care of aging families that will have longer lifespans due to better technology and health.
1.6. Con: Humans might not have a role. They might become the "useless class"
1.6.1. Pro: The only role that humans in future is what they accomplished in the past \(a.k.a. setting up complete automation\)
1.6.1.1. Con: Humans have imagination and vision to change the future.  Change is necessary for sustainability.
1.6.1.2. Con: Humans will be the purpose for most machines created since we created them.  Machines that farm, produce food, transport are useless without consumers.
1.6.2. Pro: People will have less skills and thus be less capable of tasks once automation takes over
1.6.3. Con: Humans will be needed for control and limits.  So far, we haven't seen machines that know when to stop unless a limit is set.
1.7. Con: Robots may automate our lives to the point that we can't function anymore.
1.7.1. Pro: It would make everything easy and make life boring.
1.8. Con: Human existence without responsibilities can be detrimental to mental and physical health. Therefore, it is impossible to create a stable society with only leisure and pop corn. If we are to automate everything, humans will have to find meaningful work, possibly to no avail.
1.9. Pro: Focus on areas that have the potential for automation but are not yet automated \(provided the need arises for new robots to keep a fully automated world going\).
1.9.1. Pro: Work on automating anything new that comes up that is a unique want and is not automated yet.
1.9.2. Pro: Be productive by letting robots help with minute-to-minute tasks
1.9.2.1. Con: Robots would be productive, not us.
1.9.2.2. Pro: Production might be a heart rate that an AI will read and provide statistics on. Monitoring the blood pressure and knowing when it's too high or low quickly \(and acting on it\) is a great way to be more productive
1.9.2.2.1. Con: In the future, there may be no reason to produce a heart rate.
1.9.2.3. Con: Having robots can cause people not have jobs and let the robots do everything and When programming them could be difficult.And be able to do the same things as humans can.
1.9.2.4. Con: humans need to stay relevant in jobs robots can have malfunctions.
1.9.2.5. Con: Humans cannot be productive if robots do all the work for them.
1.10. Con: The activities that humans do for fun might inspire automation. This takes away from automation's autonomy while making what is fun not anymore because it becomes mechanized instead of spontaneous \(like the science of play\).
1.11. Con: "[We are here on earth to help others. What the others are here for, I've no idea.](https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/w_h_auden_161273)" As such, the role of humans stays the same.
1.12. Pro: Find a way to stay relevant amongst automation and robotics