A shockingly common (implicit) view: "It would be better if the world's problems were not solved so that people can find purpose in solving these problems." Or for knowledge work, "It would be better if knowledge were unknown so there is more for humans to discover."

These views seems absurd to me. Many people (including myself) find value in working to improve the world. But what's important to me is *actually fixing the things that are wrong because those things are bad.*

If AI can fix these problems, the right attitude is not, "This sucks because what are humans supposed to do now?" The right attitude is: "Now we can focus on finding other sources of meaning and value beyond alleviating suffering, what tremendous news this is for the world and what a great relief!"

For knowledge work, once again, discovery is fun and valuable and rewarding to the ego. But the reason we care about discovery is that we want to understand! And with AI, we will understand vastly more.

The idea that we don't want AI so there is more for humans to do or discover ignores that most of the value of these is instrumental. Sure, discovery is pleasurable for the person who does it, but for everyone else, it's good because now we can understand more.