The concept of a 'solved world' extends beyond automating jobs. It suggests that AI could optimize everything from fitness (a pill is more efficient than the gym) to parenting and home decor, removing the purpose derived from any instrumental, goal-oriented effort and creating a crisis of meaning.

While AI promises an "age of abundance," Professor Russell has asked hundreds of experts—from AI researchers to economists and sci-fi writers—to describe what a fulfilling human life looks like with no work. No one can. This failure of imagination suggests the real challenge isn't economic but a profound crisis of purpose, meaning, and human identity.

Assuming AI's productivity gains create an economic safety net for displaced workers, the true challenge becomes existential. The most difficult problem to solve is how society helps individuals derive meaning and purpose when their traditional roles are automated.

When AI handles material needs, the traditional status game of wealth accumulation will lose its meaning. Humans will instead compete for status in non-productive domains like athletics, video games, or curating collections. These niche communities will become the new arenas for finding meaning and social hierarchy.

In a future with advanced AI, neurotechnology could trivially induce feelings of motivation and drive. However, it cannot solve the deeper human need for objective purpose—the knowledge that one's efforts are genuinely necessary and impactful.

When AI and robots can do everything better than humans, our sense of self-worth, which is often tied to our useful contributions, is threatened. This creates a profound existential challenge, even in a world of abundance.

In a post-work world, sports and games like chess offer a durable source of meaning because they are based on artificially constructed scarcity and rules. Even with superhuman AIs, humans will continue to value human-vs-human competition, making these activities one of the few AI-proof jobs and sources of purpose.

In a world with mass AI-driven unemployment, the economic challenge of providing for everyone's needs is simple due to massive wealth creation. The far more difficult problem is societal: how will humans find meaning and purpose when their jobs, a primary source of identity, are gone?

Even when technology can do anything, a sense of objective purpose can be created if what people desire is the genuine, personal effort of others. This social interdependency makes individual striving necessary and meaningful.