Society has always made sure that most people remain in the rat race.

During agrarian times, it was back-breaking work. During the industrial revolution, it was in sweat shops. Once office became computerised, it became office drudge work. Industrial revolution came with promises of leisure, but they did not materialise (see "In Praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell. [1])

Incomes of the majority, and the debt due to consumerist needs of the majority are kept in balance so that no one has leisure time to fulfil their true human potential, and you need to work 3 decades to subsist.

I somehow tend to think that the coming A. I. revolution, if it does come at all, will leave things as they are in a new form - the more things change, the more they remain the same.[2]

[1] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Alphonse_Karr

I find the conversation about leisure time throughout history to often be mis-characterized or missing valuable insights to support someone's perspective of "wanting more control of their time.

If were were to look at the working hours in a few European countries, it becomes clear that the weekly work hours has diminished from 65-70hrs in the 1870s, to 35-40hrs in 2000s [1]. This, coupled with technology solutions that helps decrease household shores, improves healthcare and decreases time to acquire consumer goods (The list goes on), it becomes clear that we live in unprecedented times in terms of leisure.

It is also interesting to see hunter-gatherer societies, which is estimated to have worked from 2.8 to 7.6 hours. Did the increase in leisure time lead to 'true human potential' for these societies? If not, what makes us believe that it will be different today? Is it possible that more leisure time will lead to more boredom, screen swipe, etc?

If we were to assume that [1] data will continue to move in the same direction, then we are likely to have further gains in 'leisure time' led by a new technological evolution.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours [2] Working Hours in Hunter-Gatherer and Other Premodern Societies - https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours#note-1

Or we could get free space and experiment on large scale of scarcity is eliminated or vastly reduced. AI won't provide it, of course, we need other technologies.

Yes, material prosperity will improve, no doubt. But I am doubtful about greater leisure.

Leisure is not the ultimate end. I'd personally prefer a society with some productive work instead, and for the disadvantaged, finding what they fit into.

I recommend reading "Accelerando" by Charles Stross which is very imaginative if not in-depth enough... Or potentially the "Culture" series. People there don't just laze forever.

The "not enough work for people" is mostly a myth from what I've seen. The reality is rote work will be automated but higher-level type jobs will increase. Also the idea of "basic income" will probably come indirectly - not from a state funded program - but simply from cost of goods dropping so low that buying the basics to live will be so cheap that you don't need much money to begin with.

> simply from cost of goods dropping so low that buying the basics to live will be so cheap that you don't need much money to begin with

Basic income gives you not just money, but time. If you receive basic income, you can work less. If people live in a culture where everyone must remain in full-time employment until age 65+ and the vacation time they are allotted is meagre (e.g. the North American situation), then it is cold comfort if the money they make allows them to buy basics for more cheaply.

Secondly, while the basics of food or clothing have become cheaper in developed countries (though often only if you are comfortable sacrificing some quality of the product), housing prices are soaring. While a basic income, too, would have a problematic interaction with housing prices, housing costs would remain an issue even in the alternative future you posit.

Sure, because rent will just get cheaper and cheaper, as we magically make more land and nice housing appear, then give it away.

Do you have actual numbers on this assertion? Preferably scaled to population?

I don't have the numbers. You would need to go to the history books to find it but you can see the trend in action to a certain extent for certain occupations. A prime example is farming. In aggregate, total employment in farming has declined significantly. The people that are left are doing higher level work, not tilling the field with a donkey and plow, they're driving a tractor or doing soil analysis etc. The field laborers moved to cities and now they do light manufacturing or similar jobs with maybe a few weeks of training.

There may be plenty of unrealistic prerequisites before the machine revolution can start distributing its economic surplus to everyone, and give people not enough work to do, but--

"...while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." --Marx, The German Ideology

Just replace 'society' with 'centralized AI'. To keep busy, maybe the reality if you don't need to create real value anymore is that life becomes a half-empty series of paint nights, cooking classes, and other such role-play.

> maybe the reality if you don't need to create real value anymore is that life becomes a half-empty series of paint nights, cooking classes, and other such role-play.

More likely is that life for many people becomes a lot more time spent staring at one’s phone. Even in places where people have a decent amount of leisure time, a lot of those old community events and social clubs are struggling now.

I wonder about looking backwards in history for examples of how people dealt with 'no enough work'.

For example, I believe that ballet got started in part so that Louis the XIV could require his aristocrats to observe the proper etiquette that he'd made up, so that he could better control them.

Point being - they had enough food, shelter, and luxuries supplied to them that they didn't need to work.

I don't think people are fearing not having to work, but inequality as a result. If you don't have redistribution your part is only as big as your work or your ownership. Since we are quoting, let's go with Stephen Hawking:

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3nyn5i/science_ama...

Of course everything old is new, so you could read for example Hannah Arendt. Our societies have mostly evolved out of how to distribute profits from automation. The reason automation is now the boogeyman is because we have changed paths by not thinking about that.