Real Safety AI Foundation / Research

Economic Obsolescence, Labor, and Replacement

The Intrinsic Advantage: Self-Determination, the Automation of Purpose, and the Case for Interest-Driven Education in a Post-Scarcity Economy

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Working paper. Not peer reviewed.

Written
June 2026
Version
v5
Pages
7
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Abstract

The displacement debate around advanced automation has concentrated on employment and income. This paper argues that the more durable casualty is purpose. For a large share of the workforce, a sense of mattering has been wired to externally imposed structure and to productive output, and the removal of that structure produces a crisis that income replacement alone does not resolve. A subpopulation appears insulated from this crisis. Their motivation is intrinsic rather than extrinsic, organized around self-chosen interest rather than external demand, and that orientation does not depend on the labor economy for its survival. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory, this paper characterizes the insulation as a function of motivational orientation rather than a fixed personality trait, which means it is in principle cultivable. Interest-driven and self-directed education is proposed as the mechanism by which the orientation could be scaled from a minority adaptation toward a general one, built before the economic transition arrives rather than improvised after it. The argument is deliberately bounded. It addresses the meaning dimension of post-scarcity, not the material dimension. The distribution of abundance is a separate problem on a separate front, and the cultivation of intrinsic motivation does not resolve it. What interest-driven education can do is determine which side of the coming purpose divide a person is prepared to stand on.

Keywords

  • Self-Determination Theory
  • intrinsic motivation
  • technological unemployment
  • economic displacement
  • automation
  • future of work
  • artificial intelligence
  • meaning of work
  • latent deprivation
  • universal basic income
  • post-scarcity
  • interest-driven education
  • self-directed learning
  • neurodivergence

Plain language slides

First slide of the plain language summary of The Intrinsic Advantage: Self-Determination, the Automation of Purpose, and the Case for Interest-Driven Education in a Post-Scarcity EconomyOpen the 13-slide summary (PDF)

Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "The Intrinsic Advantage: Self-Determination, the Automation of Purpose, and the Case for Interest-Driven Education in a Post-Scarcity Economy." Real Safety AI Foundation Working Paper, June 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/intrinsic-advantage/

Other versions

This paper is also posted on SSRN.

SSRN version

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