That is something I almost asked. Which would suggest to me that creation of an ASI is probably very difficult or maybe not possible as we currently understand it.

Of course it's not, but that doesn't mean it's somehow worthless. The Fermi-Paradox and the vast body of works - and potential solutions - surrounding it are one of the most sound logical hypothesis - or rather a series of logical conjectures - about how in vast universe full of opportunities for life, we have so far observed none. It have been the subject of a mountain of serious scholarly work for the past 70 years since it's postulation, and to this day scientists in the search for extraterrestrial life are still posing various answers to it.

>Cancellation" in that proposed world means that a person could potentially lose everything the moment they step out of line.

That is fucking terrifying and I never even thought of that!

Here in America it's exactly the same, basically a Bachelor's degree is the new Highschool diploma, to actually get a head you need a Master's now - or do compsci as your major - and it's still pretty bad, I have one and my pay is peanuts.

Depends on how quickly things transition into post scarcity, in fact that's probably the defining point on whether things go dystopian or utopian. If the PS transition happens rather quickly on the tails of mass automation and AGI - within a decade or two - or if mass automation simply opens the way for a newer "prestige" jobs such as planing and building Space Mines and Colonies with AGI then I think the class system may well - to a degree - dissolve and we end up a Star Trek like future, if the PS transition is late or delayed, say it doesn't happen for may decades - or doesn't happen at all - until after AGI and automation begins to obsolete the workforce, then advanced Neo-Feudalism will ensue and you will have a very Cyberpunk world not unlike blade runner or most SciFi Dystopia.

7 years to a post labor society... That's mind boggling, like it's incredibly hard to believe, then again the idea of AI has been fiction for twice as long as I've been alive, and yet in just the past few we have AI making art, poetry, stories and whatnot on par with humans, it may have been going on longer, but it certainly wasn't on my radar pre-pandemic.

You know, half of me thinks we're a bunch of sad little nerds hoping against hope, against what appears to be a rather dark, bleak and dismal future; hoping for an imagined salvation that probably never will come. The other half is bat-futz ecstatic that things are coming to a point where our wildest dreams and then some could very much come true, immortality, body customization, immersive virtual reality, global Geo-engineering, actual takeoff for intensive space colonization, the works, and things we can't even dream of. It's kind of hard to rectify these two voices sometimes. Maybe cautious hope?

Eh, the singularity is a niche enough topic - some even regard it as psuedo-scientific or at the very least too much wishful thinking - that we're safe for now. Maybe once AI really starts doing more for the regular person than making digital art - which I myself still find amazing since Woah this wasn't on my radar two years ago - then we might seen issues. IKD, it's nice to have a little haven where we can "pretend" and hope that technology will solve much of the looming disaster that seems to be all around us.

The cells themselves yes, but most of their atoms will be replaced as part of normal repair cycles.

As long as normal continuity of consciousnesses is preserved, it's just as similar as the replacement of the atoms of the body, which cycle every 5-10 years depending on a person's age. A normal person doesn't hold that they died every time an atom or even all the atoms in the brain or body as a whole is replaced either. Death at least in my opinion can be best described as the total and irreversible interruption of consciousness of a primary being. This for example precludes things like Star Trek teleporters or mind uploads being non-lethal or leading to individual immortality because in both instances they produce only a copy of the original being.

Yeah there's going be a big stink about this dichotomy in all creative forms or anything that can be claimed to "art" - hell we might end up with an actual cultural "war" or rather at least a major war of words and opinions that may end up making it's way into regulations and politics as people try to define and redefine the terms of art, artist and artistry.