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investments into addressing mass unemployment and wealth inequality (both of which are well-documented to cause political instability) I don't really expect to

investments into addressing mass unemployment and wealth inequality (both of which are well-documented to cause political instability) I don't really expect to see this solved in the USA before it's solved in poorer countries. In the USA there's a tension between pleasing the millions of surplus workers and pleasing the top billionaires that'll be minted when robots can replace millions of workers. It's cheaper for the billionaires to buy legislatures than to endure higher taxes or weakened IP rights. By way of contrast, there are no local power brokers whose fortunes are built on intellectual property in Bolivia or Bangladesh. It'll be 99% upside for populist politicians to just ignore American IP concerns and freely "pirate" machines-that-do-work and machines-that-make-those-machines. The long term solution to machines-do-all-the-useful-work isn't to tax the profits and redistribute them to unemployed people for spending anyway. That's just an elaborate historical-theme-park imitation of a 20th century economy. "Machines make all clothing, then we tax those machines and redistribute money to the people so they can buy the clothing." The better solution is widespread copying of the maker-machines and the dramatic price deflation that follows on everything they can make.

visarga 9y ago
The day we will invent a self-replicating factory that only uses cheap local raw materials, the current economic system will end. We could say the whole of the economy is a self replicating system, but we need to shrink that to a small size and make it not dependent on rare or contested materials. Humans, genes, and the ecosystem are self replicators as well. Self replication might be a different kind of singularity that we reach even before AGI. Basically, in order to make a self replicating factory we need advanced 3d-printing, robotics and a large library of schematics. Then, a "physical compiler" could assemble the desired object by orchestrating the various tools and the movement of parts inside the assembly line. If this automated factory can create its own parts, then we have a self replicator. If you make it all open source and ship seed factories around the world, soon everyone will have their own stack to rely on.
- Jach 9y ago
  I would rather have successful AGI before universal replicators that are available to many merely human intelligences. Super especially hope for that if these replicators operate at the nano scale, which I think you're implying with the suggestion everything can be made from common raw material like dirt. But I'm not too optimistic. Governments couldn't even stop proliferation of 3D printed guns, how will they cope with other things in the future that have an economic incentive too? Don't forget that even if certain materials no longer become rare or contested, location and raw energy will still be. Without a supreme AGI, or an upheaval of our most basic knowledge of physics, expect wars to be fought over rotating black hole real estate.

visarga 9y ago

The day we will invent a self-replicating factory that only uses cheap local raw materials, the current economic system will end. We could say the whole of the economy is a self replicating system, but we need to shrink that to a small size and make it not dependent on rare or contested materials. Humans, genes, and the ecosystem are self replicators as well. Self replication might be a different kind of singularity that we reach even before AGI. Basically, in order to make a self replicating factory we need advanced 3d-printing, robotics and a large library of schematics. Then, a "physical compiler" could assemble the desired object by orchestrating the various tools and the movement of parts inside the assembly line. If this automated factory can create its own parts, then we have a self replicator. If you make it all open source and ship seed factories around the world, soon everyone will have their own stack to rely on.

Jach 9y ago
I would rather have successful AGI before universal replicators that are available to many merely human intelligences. Super especially hope for that if these replicators operate at the nano scale, which I think you're implying with the suggestion everything can be made from common raw material like dirt. But I'm not too optimistic. Governments couldn't even stop proliferation of 3D printed guns, how will they cope with other things in the future that have an economic incentive too? Don't forget that even if certain materials no longer become rare or contested, location and raw energy will still be. Without a supreme AGI, or an upheaval of our most basic knowledge of physics, expect wars to be fought over rotating black hole real estate.