Post-AGI voting society

As we approach the era of artificial general intelligence (AGI), it is useful to imagine a world in which human labour, as we know it, is no longer required—because robots and AI systems do the work. That scenario is no longer pure science fiction. Recent advances in generative AI (GenAI) support an educated guess that such a setting could become real within roughly fifteen years.

We should expect a painful transition: few large winners, many losers, and a real risk of violence before the mess settles. Eventually, humanity may find a recipe for a new economy—one in which humans are not required for routine work, creativity-as-production, or invention in the old industrial sense. Ideally, most people would live with something like the material security of Western retirees today.

Human society still seems to need a measure of fair inequality to keep life interesting. I picture that post-labour society organised around three kinds of vote: consumption, investment, and political choice.

An unavoidable foundation is universal basic income (UBI). A monthly payment for everyone is the basic pillar of the voting society. The idea is not new. In ancient Rome, free grain and corn doles gave staples to those in need as a normal part of public life.

The first pillar is consumer choice. People vote for products they like by spending part of their UBI. In doing so they select among the goods AI designs and produces, and that mass feedback refines AI systems. Billions of people will meet daily needs through purchase: some will favour ecological goods, some new flavours, some packaging over content. All of that signal trains design and production AI, improves fit with real preferences, and can cut waste as generations and tastes change.

The second pillar is investment. AI may generate endless brilliant ideas, but energy, resources, and time remain scarce. People will still have to choose which ventures deserve scarce capacity. They can use a disposable share of monthly UBI to invest in those endeavours—one of the few paths to extra income through dividends or equity growth. Other paths may include artisan work, speculation in antiquities, real estate, and trade in rare items.

The third pillar is the political vote: long- and short-term decisions that govern both society and AI at every level.

Together, these three votes introduce healthy, bounded inequality—enough to make life interesting and worth living. Safeguards will still be required so inequality stays within limits and does not harden into a rigid layered society. And because people will have vast free time, a universal pillar of spiritual and physical personal development becomes essential to avoid decadence, excess, and decay. That is a full topic of its own—worth its own posts later.