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sixes_and_sevens comments on Open Thread, June 16-30, 2012 - Less Wrong
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As the scope for complex task automation becomes broader, almost all problems become trivial. Satisfying hard work, with challenging and problem-solving elements, becomes a rare commodity. People work to identify non-trivial problems (a tedious process), which are traded for extortionate prices. A lengthy list of problems you've solved becomes a status symbol, not because of your problem-solving skills, but because you can afford to buy them.
Another angle: Is it plausible that almost all problems become trivial, or will increased knowledge lead to finding more challenging problems?
The latter seems at least plausible, considering that the universe is much bigger than our brains, and this will presumably continue to be true.
Look at how much weirder the astronomical side of physics has gotten.
I don't think you've answered my question, but you've got an interesting idea there.
What do people buy which would be more satisfying than solving the problems they're found?
Also, this may be a matter of the difference between your and my temperaments, but is finding non-trivial problems that tedious?
As it's the result of about two minutes thought, I'm not very confident about how internally consistent this idea is.
If finding non-trivial problems is tedious work, I imagine people with a preference for tedious work (or who just don't care about satisfying problems) would probably rather buy art/prostitutes/spaceship rides, etc. This is the bit I find hardest to internally reconcile, as a society in which most work has become trivially easy is probably post-scarcity.
I personally don't find the search for non-trivial problems all that tedious, but if I could turn to a computer and ask "is [problem X] trivial to solve?", and it came back with "yes" 99.999% of the time, I might think differently.