Yet there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society. –John Maynard Keynes
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work […] For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. –Exodus 20:8-11
Though it pains me to say it, I do not think the current AI revolution will go well. It’s not that I fear the Doom of humanity at the hands of rogue AI. I do not. What I fear, rather, is that the revolution will limp its way to apparent success under a regime where homo economicus continues to dominate policy and institutions. Under this ideology humans are economic agents acting in ways specified by game theory and economic growth the largest goal of society. Under the reign of homo economicus work has become a virtue unto itself, the purpose of life, rather than serving to support the pursuit of joy and happiness. The pursuit of happiness is but an empty phrase in an old ceremonial document.

That is the kind of world Kim Stanley Robinson depicted in his novel, New York 2140, which, as the title indicates, depicts the world as it might exist in 2140. That world has undergone climate change, and the seas have risen 50 feet – a figure Robinson acknowledges as extreme. Much of New York City, where the story is set, is now under water. Institutionally, it is very much like the current world of nation states, mega-corporations, and everything else, albeit looser and frayed around the edges. The rich are, if anything, even richer, but the poor don’t seem to be any worse off. The economic floor may in fact have been raised, as you would expect in world dominated by a belief in economic growth.
Technology is advanced in various ways, though not as flamboyantly as you might expect given current breathless hype about AI. Remember, the novel came out in 2017, well before ChatGPT (more or less) changed (how we thought about) everything. Still, Robinson did have an airship that was piloted by an autonomous AI that conversed with Amelia, its owner. He also had villages in the sky, skyscrapers much taller than currently exist in Manhattan, and skybridges connecting the upper stories of buildings whose lower floors were under water, where they are protected by self-healing materials.
So let us imagine that something like that world has come to pass in 2140. It’s not a utopia. But it’s livable. There’s room to move and grow.
As you may recall Robinson’s overall plot is modeled on the financial crisis of 2008. Some large banks become over-leveraged, and their impending failure threatens the entire banking system. In 2008 the banks were bailed out by the government. It went the other way after 2140. The banks were nationalized in 2143 and new taxes were passed. Consequently (pp. 602-603):
Universal health care, free public education through college, a living wage, guaranteed full employment, a year of mandatory national service, all these were not only made law, but funded. […] And as all this political enthusiasm and success caused a sharp rise in consumer confidence indexes, now a major influence on all market behavior, ironically enough, bull markets appeared all over the planet. This was intensely reassuring to a certain crowd, and given everything else that was happening, it was a group definitely in need of reassurance.
We are now almost at the end of New York 2140. Robinson’s left up to us to imagine how things worked out. That’s what I am doing here. Read more »