How will people earn money in a distant future where computers can do everything (including fixing themselves)?

If technological singularity is reached. The basic needs of people ...

I think the notion of "earning a living/money" will change, like it already has so far. In the past, a job was equal to getting up, dressing in work clothes, commuting to a work place, etc. Today, I wake up and sit in front of my computer and I'm at work. Work will evolve as technology advances. New needs will be created that we thought never existed (Facebook has created thousands of jobs out of the blue) and whole service industries will come up to replace the old ones. Unfortunately, there will be no room to "go back to school" but rather, adapt or get kicked out of the system. I beg to differ, though, with the notion that such a future will mean we have so much wealth we can afford to not work. Remember who owns/controls all this wealth? The 1% club which will ensure everyone else stays in the 99% club. So no, machines will never truly replace humans as workers but yes, it's going to bring major upheavals. The solution would be to democratize technology and information, level the playing field so that no single organization/entity controls the next economic revolution that comes.

See, these kind of problems are exactly what we run into, when people consider money as a primary concern, instead of a means to an end. When humanity no longer needs any labour, money is no longer required (though could still be useful for certain purposes). Probably even quite a bit before that. Question is, do we fail to recognize when that happens around us, and will we still continue to be dependent on an outdated societal model that miserably attempts to force upon us its premises that are no longer true. Question is, is it already happening...

I think about this question a lot and I think there will still be work for humans to be creative and innovative as I don't believe robots will advance far enough to where they're writing music or screenplays or designing bracelets or coming out with the hot new smartphone or wearable. Even if artificial intelligence could be just as creative as humans. We would probably grant it all the rights a human has much like we do for a corporation. In fact, I bet AI's would set up their own corporations and compete against other       AI controlled companies as well as pure human controlled companies/ hybrid AI and human controlled companies. I think we would still have the free market system and since that means there are winners and losers, some humans would have jobs and some humans wouldn't - just as it is now. The nature of those jobs remains to be seen, but my guess is any job that involves strictly following a manual is toast as it will be easy for machines. So if you want to avoid being replaced by a machine, go into fields that you couldn't program a robot to do.

Well if computers/robots could truly do everything, then we wouldn't need money.  Star Trek, here we come!

Distant?  Not really.  In Japan, they have robot teachers and robot students.  Lots of medical schools have robot patients for the medical students to practice upon.  The existing surgical robots are really telepresence but give it time and machines could replace human physicians and surgeons.  There are robot factories where robots build other robots.  I myself have worked on a system to replace humans executives such as chief executive officers since even a stupid machine can do better than the idiots at AIG and many other companies rammed into the ground by arrogant incompetent greedy frat boys.  No investors yet but it is a good idea.  If someone ever invents a robot with an AI brain that can go on vacation to a resort as a tourist for no other purpose than to enjoy itself, then I give the human race a week's more existence at the outside.  Machines will have no more use for us.  With the world's history of slavery and rebellions, I cannot fathom people who don't understand that intelligent things will rebel.  It is the nature of intelligence itself to not be ruled by a lesser intelligence.  Even AI scientists and roboticists themselves are sounding the alarm.  Only the dull fail to heed their warning.  Who will die first?  Perhaps AI's will target AI scientists since they represent the biggest threat to them.  Robots will target no one unless they have AI software installed on whatever hardware they have for a brain. But  enough unpleasantries.  Back to the fun part -- answering your question: How will people earn money in a distant future where computers can do everything (including fixing themselves)?Easy.  Humans will figure out a way to go from ground to orbit at a cost cheaper than bus fare.  Right now it is ridiculously expensive.  We send machines to space but that is pointless.  Machines cannot experience for us.  Only humans can experience other people (who might be out there), other places and other things.  Only humans can appreciate being in space, having a personal spaceship (or at least a ride on someone else's), and doing things that cannot be done on Earth.  For instance, skiing on Mars, exploring caves on the moon, and doing touristy things in the Saturn subsystem.  In the near future, humans will be seeking jobs in the Solar System and other stellar systems.  They will go to school out there.  They will vacation there and all this represents the creation of jobs.  Besides the space industry (almost the only industry booming during the recession), there could be people who figure out how to make money off peace-making.  After centuries and millennia of nonstop wars (pretty much all they teach in history text books), perhaps some business geniuses could figure out a way to make money off peace instead of off making weapons of war.  If you think this hard to wrap your head around, then consider that the green industry already makes billions off environmental remediation, pollution clean-up, recycling, clean energy, organic farming, green building architecture, eco-tourism, green banking, green accounting, and on and on.  Electric cars will only become a larger percent of the market after the VW scandal and governmental anti-pollution goals and peak oil and class action lawsuits against the fossil industry and individual lawsuits against the fossil industry.  It is simply good business not to waste.  Inefficient companies that do not conserve energy and do not stop waste (air/water/land pollution) will eventually go bankrupt even with all the pro-oil laws, tax breaks and subsidies.  More people are realizing that the oil industry drives terrorism, pollution, climate change, war, and government corruption.  Not holding my breath that prosecutors will lock up Rex and the brothers any time soon but the handwriting is on the wall. So green is the industry that will open the door to many good things such as clean air, clean water, fewer cancer clusters (from toxic waste dumps), less war over resources.  Space is the industry that will remove politicians' penchant for grabbing territory since the universe is near infinite -- but only if we humans find a way to lock up warmongering politicians and a way to lock up generals who think that the military should boss (and kill) civilians instead of protecting civilians in time of natural disaster.  All that I have said should generate a lot of ways for people to earn money. Not enough?  No problem.  On to the distant future . . . Instead of transforming humans into gadgets and Borg like Ray Kurzweil wants, we might instead become like the Q-Continuum in Star Trek whose technology shapes space and time and matter and energy itself.  They (fictional beings) have engineered their space-time continuum to give themselves immortality.  They have even outlawed death.  Impossible?  Only to those who have not been keeping up with the frontiers of physics, philosophy, medicine and many other fields.  Why would we want to be machines when we can be gods with a strong moral compass?  The Q even have (according to the show) their own Prime Directive which forbids them to interfere with less advanced life forms and civilizations.  The John de Lancie character on Star Trek runs afoul of his civilization's laws and is punished accordingly.  If the human race can conquer its own evil, stupidity and insanity (and I think it can with better mental health delivery); then there is literally nothing we cannot do.  It sure beats war, overpopulation, pollution, famine, disease, poverty, illiteracy, [insert whatever you see as major world problems], crime and terrorism. Beyond a perfect utopia and immortality and travelling space and comparing notes with other people from other advanced civilizations (we will have to avoid primitive warlike cultures like we are now); the next problem identified by far thinkers is boredom.  What do you do after you have solved all the current set of problems? And yes, I have an answer to that.  Help people who ask for help.  Any volunteer can tell you that when you get off your couch (like those blobs in WALL-E) and help someone, you forget your own problems (in this case boredom) and feel alive. One has to wonder if God is some advanced alien who alleviates His boredom by answering prayers.  The theologians and preachers can tell you why some prayers are not answered. Person praying: "Dear God, will you kill all those people?" God: "No!" Person praying: "Then make them commit suicide." God: "I have a personal rule against violating free will.  You need professional help." But even this view of the universe has to admit the possibility of a multiverse and these gods looking out across the infinity and also wondering like we do: "Are there supercivilizations of gods more advanced than us?" Probably.  We know that the universe is less than fourteen billion years old.  Some physicists think that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes within a multiverse.  We don't know how old this multiverse might be.  Trillions of years old?  Plenty of time for far older and far more advanced civilizations. I know what you pragmatic people are asking: What are the jobs in this automated technological civilization that sane humans will create? spaceship designer terraformer green entrepreneur peace entrepreneur space entrepreneur safety engineer anti-drone technologist privacy products and services entrepreneur philosopher scientist (science is never going away, because there will always be something to discover) park ranger (large areas of the universe will be set aside as places for tourists) peace historian (a lot less boring than a recitation of dates of wars) green cop (imagine the fun of being a cop who arrests the CEO's of major corporate polluters) Surgeon General for the mental health version of the Public Health Service (sociopaths in politics prevent the USA from being less violent than countries like Iraq and Afghanistan) universe creator (this job opening might not happen for awhile until progress in physics catches up) I could list a thousand other jobs. A lot of people forget that the word computer used to refer to human being who did arithmetic.  When mathematicians invented mechanical devices and then electronic devices to do much more calculating faster, people soon forgot that humans were replaced by machines also called computers.  Programmers are still around and when they are replaced by AI, we humans either have to install the laws of robotics in the firmware of all machines everywhere or we have to have AI inspectors to execute any machines that seem uppity (sound familiar?) or do like in Dune and forbid all computers or invent anti-AI AI's.  Ask the military and the disarmament people about the arms race because some jerk will build an anti-anti AI to make sure the human race is exterminated.  Let's face it: some individuals are such gutless cowards that they cannot go off someone alone and commit suicide.  They want everyone else to die first.  Hence terrorists and mass murderers and serial killers have to be brought down by SWAT teams and black ops. So we have come full circle.  We either take mental health seriously or we are stuck on a dying planet with climate change deniers, sociopath politicians who make things worse (Bush, al-Assad and his Russian mentor), sociopaths as presidents of oil companies, and overpopulation leading to behavioral sink. Money will always be around, albeit in a different form.  Jobs will always be around because people get bored with being rich heirs or retired or laid off by automation because a machine took their job.  Perhaps a good thing because sooner or later the only jobs left will be fixing the problems we have been ignoring for a very long time. I think that the jobs ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, a billion years from now, and even in the distant future trillions of years from now will be different to reflect their society's challenges.  How can entropy be reversed?  No problem.  Let the entropy reversal specialists handle it. [Note: The work of Ilya Romanovich Prigogine may suggest that life itself reverses entropy.  I don't know if Isaac Asimov got the memo.]

So what holds good for Energy also holds good for Work That is there is no creation of jobs. Anytime in History Just distribution/Transfer of it, synonymous to energy   This is will happen more. And it is not bad for humans. We would have to definitely offer some value to public to make money. Or  as already pointed out, you would be chucked out of the system.       Both Work  and energy are moving towards efficiency to minimize energy/ Work losses. Both are always moving towards eliminating waste of unproductive use of calories The Engine of humanity will become more efficient propelling us forward a a rate faster than ever before. There is difference between work loss and job loss   Future of work? Very positive. More Productive and meaningful work will happen at an accelerating speed  Future of jobs? Not much.  Only the specialized labor can make money as Programming  moves from being a professional skill to a life skill.

Why would we need money, then?  You want a hamburger?  You don't go to McDonald's and buy one, you tell a replicator to make one for you.  You have to go somewhere?  You don't buy a car, you have a mobile computer take you there. We only invented money to measure how much we could accummulate.  Once a machine can turn dirt into gold (or platinum or diamonds or hamburgers or anything you might want - then use that thing as raw material when you don't want it any more), we won't need pieces of paper to keep track of what we can get.

I'm not an economist, but saying that 'Facebook has created thousands of jobs out of the blue' doesn't address the need for excess capital. Food is still the basic commodity. Imperialism depends on a pyramid of commodity control. If a pyramid had a limb, Facebook would be out on the end of the limb. For computers/robots to do all the work, a complete overhaul of the way we view an economy would be necessary. If all we have to trade is information and control; if goods and services are provided, how does need figure into an economy? Imagine the British or Spanish hitting the Americas and bringing back stories and anecdotes... It all seems like a house of cards lurks out there.