We can automate plenty in physiological needs, and in fact have already. There's plenty of food and housing for everyone to have them, but a bunch of people will immediately destroy them if provided with such. I don't think "Dispose of a full house every 3 months" will ever be practical, but we might be able to "solve" physiological needs.
Safety needs might be possible to solve. Totalitarian states with ubiquitous panopticons can leave you "safe" in a crime sense, and AI gaslighting and happy pills will make you "feel" safe.
Love and belonging we have "Plenty" of already - If you're looking for your people, you can find them. Plenty aren't willing to look.
But once you get up to Esteem, it all falls apart. Reputation and Respect are not scalable. There will always be a limited quantity of being "The Best" at anything, and many are not willing to be "The Best" within tight constraints; There's always competition. You can plausibly say that this category is inherently competitive. There's no respect without disrespect. There's no best if there's no second best, and second best is first loser. So long as humans interact with each other - So long as we're not each locked in our own private shards of reality - There will be competition, and there will be those that fall short.
Self Actualization is almost irrelevant at this point. It falls into exactly the same as the above. You can simulate a reality where someone is always the best at whatever they decide to so, but I think it will inherently feel hollow. Agent Smith said it best: https://youtu.be/9Qs3GlNZMhY?t=23
> There will always be a limited quantity of being "The Best" at anything
Still, to pick a simple example, we do have different sports at which different people are "The Best". One solution would be to multiple the categories, which I feel is already happening to some extent with all the computer games or niche artistical trends.
And I would claim that very few people are "The Best", it's mostly about not being "the worst" at everything you are involved in.
You would think, but you've never seen drama like single-speedrunner games. They know they're unfulfilled and kings of a molehill, and as soon as there's the slightest competition - a single other "run" from someone who bothers with a little practice - there's a blowup. Super-niche-ing is not the solution you think it is.
Safety needs might be possible to solve. Totalitarian states with ubiquitous panopticons can leave you "safe" in a crime sense, and AI gaslighting and happy pills will make you "feel" safe.
Love and belonging we have "Plenty" of already - If you're looking for your people, you can find them. Plenty aren't willing to look.
But once you get up to Esteem, it all falls apart. Reputation and Respect are not scalable. There will always be a limited quantity of being "The Best" at anything, and many are not willing to be "The Best" within tight constraints; There's always competition. You can plausibly say that this category is inherently competitive. There's no respect without disrespect. There's no best if there's no second best, and second best is first loser. So long as humans interact with each other - So long as we're not each locked in our own private shards of reality - There will be competition, and there will be those that fall short.
Self Actualization is almost irrelevant at this point. It falls into exactly the same as the above. You can simulate a reality where someone is always the best at whatever they decide to so, but I think it will inherently feel hollow. Agent Smith said it best: https://youtu.be/9Qs3GlNZMhY?t=23