If in the future there are likely to be AGI, what purpose would human beings find themselves having in such a world? AGI would likely be able to think faster, more intelligently, and with greater raw cognitive processing power than humans. So what are humans able to do better?
There’s a cliché notion that humans are somehow more creative than machines, that we’ll have some distinct traits that make us possess some unique creativity that makes us special. It is possible that relatively speaking, human variance is likely to be higher than AGI, which tend to all be trained on the same large datasets, and so this will lead to a small, but notable advantage to humans in terms of creativity. However, that by itself may not be sufficient to justify keeping us around.
Evolution specifically optimized for survival and reproduction, and in some sense energy efficiency was pivotal to this goal. As such, humans are likely among the most energy efficient entities. It could therefore be possible that an AGI might find us useful as cognitive processors in circumstances where such needs exist.
Combining these two elements perhaps gives us an explanation of our place in a future ecosystem. We could be useful as creative thought engines in a system that requires efficient use of limited energy. In practice, we might be placed in a simulation for our waking moments, and then the creativity is farmed through our dreams when we sleep. Since a variety of different experiences is important to creativity, there would be as many humans as possible all experiencing unique lives.
If the AGI has utilitarian goals to maximize happiness, creating a world filled with humans as its basic crop to farm utility with, could also make sense.