What is the latest on how the enteric nervous system plays into cognition and memory (being relevant here to your topic)? I have seen a lot of research on the role in behavior, especially disorders like anorexia and bulemia and gambling addiction, etc.. Given it is half the number of neurons as the brain, one thing that makes me hesitant about cryonics and digital personalities is the thought that what if people are only getting 2/3 or less of themselves because only the brain is being considered. But data on it is not my specialty.

I see three issues with your argument, two that don't change anything meaningful and one that does.

The two minor points:

You presume a world without preference for human made works. I posit this is a world that cannot exist under any circumstances where humans also exist. We are a species that pays a premium for art made by elephants and other animals. That shows off photos of our children and their accomplishments to people who we know don't care. We had pet rocks. The drive to value that which is valueless is, for whatever reason, deeply embedded in us. It is not going anywhere. More importantly, acknowledging this does not in any way weaken your point, it does complicate the math a little, but the outcomes are all the same. Denying this point, however, makes you appear to be fundamentally off base on human psychology and that does weaken your persuasiveness.

Second, you posit the AI would rent the machine at the exact cost of its output making zero profit. That needs an explanation to me. Presuming the AI has a goal other than "use all current funds to make potatoes but don't grow the amount produced over time" it will want some level of profit to achieve that goal. Even maximizing potato output wants to save up for more machines in the future and be prepared for inflation, market changes etc. If it really has no profit and loses the ability to rent the machine the first time the market swings, and thus goes bankrupt, it's not a very smart super intelligence. I assume it will predict swings and keep the bare minimum needed for its goals, so razor thin margins that look crazy to us could be generous to it. That's fine. But zero needs justification. 49,500 is functionally the same as 50,000 for your core argument, but resolves this.

The one that seems to matter though is "eke out a living on 5 potatoes a day". The Amish are doing better than that. So are the Menonites, the Inuit, the Sentilinese, etc. People can and will carve out enclaves where life works. Special economic zones where AI doesn't exist. Maybe that looks like North Korea, and maybe it looks like Pennsylvania, and maybe it looks like a patchwork of everything in between. Also, energy and logistics are a hard problem. We could not implement full robotics today, even if the tech were 100% ready, because most of the world doesn't have access to reliable electricity. Even in the developed world, we don't have spare capacity. You seem to need additional bullets that cover: robotics and energy production are solved such that no part of the economy is constrained by either; enclaves like the Amish are not included in this assessment, etc. Your scenario only addresses those humans who try to compete with AI and not those who walk away and go off the grid making their own economy. They already exist, why do you assume they will stop existing? Maybe this is two issues also.

Thanks for the confirmation on the navy. But you really, really need to check your data on transit costs. 

Thanks!

Thank you!

Don't have access on desktop. Is there a way to format via mobile?

On cargo ship construction, the Jones Act approximately quintuplets the price of ship construction at the exact same shipyard. Meaning, an American shipyard can construct a ship for a Mexican company can make the exact same ship for 1/5 the price as if it were allowed to transport cargo between two American ports. Military isn't cargo related so I am curious if the Jones Act in any way impacts the lack of construction for the military ships described in this post.

Is any of this a result of the Jones Act? Or does the military have exemption from the act?

Yes we need big ships, especially in cargo. The economics of scale are tremendously in favor of bigger ships. This gets at another American infrastructure weakness: our ports can't handle the bigger ships so we pay more per ton in shipping, loading and unloading because we ship on smaller boats.

Repeal the d*** Jones Act.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. 

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

[...]

In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. 

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

– Viktor Frankl "Man's Search for Meaning"

Pieces of these two passages have been used for decades, but rarely do I see the whole paragraphs with context. I believe the full context applies here. We can give up, or we can triumph, the difference "depends on decisions but not on circumstances". Some humans have it within them to persevere in any situation. Remember them, and always strive to be more like them.

I am long the human race (in the economic sense).