«And if there's no inherent value to humanity, why should the machines be compelled to interact with you?»

Reading this part made me wish it was more compelling than I think it really is, because I think someone could argue that the value of human consumption isn't predicated on the value of human creation.

I used to find things like machine-run pizza places and coffee shops really cool (even though I've never been to one). I even wrote a small coffee automation program once, but recently, with the promise of automation getting more real by the day, I find myself genuinely worried for the fate of human-run pizza places! They're doing fine now, but what if the machine-run ones become 10x or 100x cheaper? Would anyone still occasionally pay for the expensive human-run ones?

While it's debatable how that will turn out, the value of human creation feels a lot more significant when it comes to art and literature, but I'm starting to realize that for many others there's no fundamental difference between consuming art and eating pizza.