What Shall People Do When They Have No Jobs?

That question is no longer theoretical.

Artificial intelligence is accelerating toward a world where human labor is no longer required for production at scale. The real issue is not that jobs may disappear — it’s that our entire society still assumes people must have jobs to deserve life.

⸻

Replace the System, Not the Jobs

Bernie Sanders calls for pause in AI development:

When Bernie Sanders asks, “What are they gonna do when people have no jobs?”, he is asking the right question — inside the wrong frame.

The problem is not that artificial intelligence may eliminate jobs.

The problem is that our survival is still tied to jobs at all.

Calling for a pause in AI development assumes that the system we have is fundamentally sound and merely needs time to adjust. 

It isn’t. 

AI is not breaking a healthy system — it is exposing a broken one.

Jobs Were Never the Point

Jobs are not a natural feature of human societies. They are a construct of the monetary system — a mechanism that ties access to food, shelter, healthcare, and dignity to wage labor.

For most of human history, people:

• gathered, built, farmed, cared, created

• shared resources directly

• contributed because it made sense, not because they were forced to make money to buy food. 

The modern job exists primarily to distribute money, not to meet human or planetary needs. When machines become better at performing that distribution-linked labor, the absurdity becomes impossible to ignore.

Pausing AI Misses the Moment

Pausing AI development to “save jobs” is like pausing electricity to save candle makers.

The real question is not:

How do we preserve jobs?

But:

Why should anyone need a job to deserve life?

AI does not remove meaning, purpose, or contribution from human life. It removes coercion. And that is what truly scares existing systems of power.

Replace the System — Don’t Redesign It

There is a crucial difference between redesigning and replacing.

Redesigning implies:

• the same assumptions

• the same scarcity logic

• the same survival pressure

Replacing means admitting that the foundation itself is obsolete and crumbling.

What needs replacing is not work, creativity, or effort — but the idea that humans must earn access to existence.

• Replace jobs with self-chosen activity

• Replace ownership with stewardship and money with direct access to resources

• Replace obligation with intrinsic motivation

• Replace fear with security

When survival is guaranteed, contribution does not disappear. It emerges naturally.

Beyond Contribution as Obligation

A future beyond jobs does not mean a future without participation.

It means a future without forced contribution.

No metrics.

No punishment.

No survival conditions.

People contribute because they want to — because curiosity, care, and creativity are native human traits when fear is removed.

Trees don’t produce oxygen to earn sunlight. They grow — and oxygen happens as a result.

The Real Choice

AI presents humanity with a clear choice:

• Use it to accelerate inequality inside a dying system

• Or use it to help replace that system altogether

Trying to save jobs is trying to save the wrong thing.

The task now is not to slow down technology —

It is to replace the system that no longer serves life.

⸻

What Shall People Do When They Have No Jobs?

That question sits at the heart of Waking Up – A Journey Towards a New Dawn for Humanity.

Follow Benjamin Michaels, a man from our world who wakes up a century into the future — in a society that has moved beyond jobs, money, and enforced survival.

There, he discovers what people actually do when:

• survival is guaranteed

• resources are optimized and shared

• fear is no longer the organizing principle

Waking Up is not a manifesto or a technical blueprint.

It is a human story about letting go of a system and mindset that no longer works — and daring to imagine what replaces it.