An interesting point, and well written, that touches upon the fact that people are so conditioned to glorify work that they cannot imagine anything else.

The same applies to consumerism, I believe the natural evolution of AI will be a reduction of the human population of the "useless class" as the WEF describes it, but a common reaction I get is "but then who will the elites sell their products to". People simply cannot imagine a world without consumerism, they mistake the means for the goals. A mouse looking for the cheese in the maze can't imagine there's unlimited amounts of cheese, if only it left the maze.

Personally I've resigned myself to wait for AI to come in and shatter all our fragile, outdated beliefs about work, money and the pursuits of happiness. I've devoted myself to spiritual enlightenment, by rejecting drugs and video games, and by mastering my physical desires, rather than let them master me.

That way if AI or God or aliens shows up and looks into my mind as I am sure it will, it'll find a person who has grown beyond what his base instincts and society has shaped him to be. The last thing I'd want to say is "look at how many shiny pebbles I've collected" to a being that cares not two cents about such things.

It's also something that confuses me about religion, why would God care about how much money you have? If work is so important, then why were Jesus and Buddha so poor and unemployed?