When the AI singularity takes over, what will there be left for us to do? Since the first Industrial revolution machines have been taking the jobs of people and automation has been a part of human social evolution for the past 3 centuries, but all in all these machines have been replacing mechanical, high-risk and low-skill jobs such as a production line of an automobile factory.

But recently with the advent of computers and the improvement of AI, and the quest to find a Singularity (that is, a computer capable of thinking faster, better, more creative and cheaper then a human being, capable of self-improving), our future will lead to the replacement of not only low-skill workers, but high-skill as well. I'm talking about a future not too far when AI and machines will replace artists, designers, engineers, lawyers, CEO's, filmmakers, politicians, hell even programmers.
Some people get excited by this, but honestly, I get somewhat scared.

I'm not talking about the money issue here, although I'm not a fan of the idea, let's suppose the universal income has been implemented, and suppose it works fine. Also not talking about the "Terminator's world where machines will wage war against humans", let's suppose too they are completely friendly forever.

The issue here is the one of motivation for us humans. When the AI singularity takes over, what will there be left for us to do? Every day, all day long?

What are we going to do with our lives? Suppose I love to paint, how can I live my dream of becoming a painter if the computer makes better art then I will ever be able to do? How can I live knowing that no one will care about my paintings because they were made by a mere human? Or the real me for example (I, Danzmann), I love to code, learned my first programming language with 9 years old and been on it ever since then, it looks sad to me that in some years I may never touch on that again. And that goes for all the professions, everyone is passionate about something, and with the singularity, every single one of them would just have to cease to exist.

So, what are we going to do in this future? What am I going to do? Play golf all day, every single day for the rest of my life (A Hyperbole figure of speech, but you get my point)?

Also, what is going to be the motivation for my children? What am I going to tell them to go to school? When someone asks "what do you wanna be when you grow up?", and the inevitable answer is nothing.

If highly advanced AI takes control of all scientific research, then what is the reason for us to learn? What is the reason that us humans would need to dedicate decades of our lives to learn something if that knowledge is useless, because there are no more jobs and the scientific research is done solely by AI?
Given all your assumptions about AI turn out to be true, we would have some kind of utopia, where no one has to work, and there is plenty of everything. Fair enough. Your other assumptions is about human nature, and that is where I'd challenge your conclusion: Just because there are computers better than humans at some task, that does not automatically take all enjoyment from doing it.

I have three arguments in favor of my stance.


There already are computers better than humans at checkers, chess, backgammon, starcraft, mastermind, go,.. and many more. Yet these games still get played, even if no human can hope to ever be as good as a computer.
There will be domains where the evaluation of quality is so vague or personal, that the notion of being "better" is useless in any objective sense. I am thinking mainly about art. Playing into argument one, photo cameras are already better "painters" of reality than humans can ever hope to be, yet people still paint. And their paintings gets appreciated, even the photo-realistic kind.
I'd say that the whole mindset of "if someone is better than me at x it is not worth doing x" will have outlived its lifetime very shortly. Society didn't always spin that way I feel, it is largely due to the influence of the North American way of life to always strive to be #1 and everything below that being trash. Globalization already puts this way of thinking at risk, with many young people being disillusioned or even depressed because, flippantly put, "whatever you do, there is always an Asian kid who does it 10 times better". We don't have to wait for AI to outshine us, the rest of the world already does. As a consequence, we need to adapt our way of approaching that fact, stop seeing it as diminishing to our worth, and move on.


As a closing note, I also see it as a problem to the general population that within a short time we essentially have to change a very substantial part of our world view, AI being better than us, us not having to work anymore etc. All the economical revolutions in the past, the neolithic, the industrial, and most recently, the digital, had a longer transitional period where people could grow accustomed to the new world. And even with that transition it was hard enough for many people. Yet, most dealt with it, and later generations can hardly imagine a world where the new change doesn't exist yet, and I personally don't see why the next revolution should be any different.