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I wonder what happens if your consumer base has all had their incomes replaced by AI? Who buys your product your now making with it? Does AI just lead to the

I wonder what happens if your consumer base has all had their incomes replaced by AI? Who buys your product your now making with it? Does AI just lead to the end of capitalism as we know it?

tyingq 3y ago
I think people tend to underestimate how awful the shaky interim period might be. Before everyone signs on to some sane way to address this sort of thing.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Does AI just lead to the end of capitalism as we know it? This reminds me of Marinetti predicting electricity will usher in a post-scarcity world [1]. (Like, students will be hooked up to outlets to learn faster, electricity in the ground will make crops grow faster, flying cities will make land scarcity a thing of the past, et cetera.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti
- hnbad 3y ago
  In retrospect, most of these "technological post-scarcity utopianism" predictions fell flat because they did not account for enclosure. For example, automation may increase worker productivity but that doesn't benefit the worker but the owner: the worker may actually be worse off because the owner will now likely fire workers due to the reduced labor need and the resulting reduction of available jobs suppresses wages. On the other hand, some jobs where workers would outperform automation will be underpriced to the point that it's not worth paying someone a livable wage for the quality advantage over an automated process at a fraction of the cost so those jobs go away too. Or for food production we may be producing an abundance but as the total need is limited, instead of reducing prices because of the increased supply, we end up instead importing out of season produce from the other side of the world, min-maxing convenience food for appeal/addictiveness and destroying unsold goods to avoid lowering the market price. Or for drugs we literally value the sanctity of patents over the lives of people in underdeveloped countries who couldn't afford the medicine in their lifetimes (cf. the refusal to suspend/discount COVID vaccine patents for poorer countries to allow them to produce generics to vaccinate their populations).
  - ximeng 3y ago
    This has the added benefit for the wealthy that people can’t afford children and don’t live as long so there is less competition for resources.
barelyauser 3y ago
The mistake you make (and a lot of people also do) is to assume the purpose of the system is to somehow cater to your (the consumer) needs. The purpose of the system is to fulfill the needs of the elite (those who benefit from the system). Average people having a car is a thing because then people will be more productive. But make no mistake, if the rich don't get what they want FIRST then your whole economy goes into recession and what not.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  You’re conflating the rich and elite, which the nuance on which entire systems of government are built.
  - barelyauser 3y ago
    Can one achieve elite status without wealth?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Can one achieve elite status without wealth? Absolutely. AOC became an elite before she became wealthy. Same for J. K. Rowling and most academics at the top of their fields.
      - reaperman 3y ago
        Essentially no academics are part of the upper (ruling) class, except the ones that were born into it (e.g. Jeffrey Laurie or Élisabeth Badinter), or those who moved into academia after retiring from their primary career (e.g. Hillary Clinton becoming a professor of practice at Columbia)[0] 0: https://president.columbia.edu/news/hillary-rodham-clinton-join-columbia-community#:~:text=I%20write%20to%20announce%20that,Columbia%20World%20Projects%20(CWP) https://president.columbia.edu/news/hillary-rodham-clinton-j....
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
reaperman 3y ago
From a pure game-theory perspective, consumers are important for their potential labor. As long as there is something productive that they can specialize in that might give your group an advantage over other groups --- it is useful to produce and distribute all the things which keep them productive. Maybe 100% of your population will be trained as scientists and mathematicians just on the off-chance they can discover something that AI cannot and give you an edge over other similarly-advanced groups. If the AI's can truly replace humans to the point where there is nothing useful for your humans to be doing, then it would cease to matter whether or not the rulers produce and distribute the things the consumers need/want. You'd need good enough AI security to handle any unrest which ensues, and protect any natural resources that might be important to you. If you no longer can utilize any of the labor of your consumers, then the only products you need to make are: 1) The things you personally want, and 2) The things needed to maintain sovereignty against any other similarly advanced groups. Category #1 would be a very small volume, but Category #2 might be industrially more than the entire world's current production of everything, just for your fiefdom. It would be unstable until someone conquered the entire globe, and would likely only need to provide for about 500-5000 people in their "court" to provide for the rulers own selfish social needs.

I wonder what happens if your consumer base has all had their incomes replaced by AI? Who buys your product your now making with it? Does AI just lead to the end of capitalism as we know it?

tyingq 3y ago

I think people tend to underestimate how awful the shaky interim period might be. Before everyone signs on to some sane way to address this sort of thing.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Does AI just lead to the end of capitalism as we know it? This reminds me of Marinetti predicting electricity will usher in a post-scarcity world [1]. (Like, students will be hooked up to outlets to learn faster, electricity in the ground will make crops grow faster, flying cities will make land scarcity a thing of the past, et cetera.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Tommaso_Marinetti

hnbad 3y ago
In retrospect, most of these "technological post-scarcity utopianism" predictions fell flat because they did not account for enclosure. For example, automation may increase worker productivity but that doesn't benefit the worker but the owner: the worker may actually be worse off because the owner will now likely fire workers due to the reduced labor need and the resulting reduction of available jobs suppresses wages. On the other hand, some jobs where workers would outperform automation will be underpriced to the point that it's not worth paying someone a livable wage for the quality advantage over an automated process at a fraction of the cost so those jobs go away too. Or for food production we may be producing an abundance but as the total need is limited, instead of reducing prices because of the increased supply, we end up instead importing out of season produce from the other side of the world, min-maxing convenience food for appeal/addictiveness and destroying unsold goods to avoid lowering the market price. Or for drugs we literally value the sanctity of patents over the lives of people in underdeveloped countries who couldn't afford the medicine in their lifetimes (cf. the refusal to suspend/discount COVID vaccine patents for poorer countries to allow them to produce generics to vaccinate their populations).
- ximeng 3y ago
  This has the added benefit for the wealthy that people can’t afford children and don’t live as long so there is less competition for resources.

barelyauser 3y ago

The mistake you make (and a lot of people also do) is to assume the purpose of the system is to somehow cater to your (the consumer) needs. The purpose of the system is to fulfill the needs of the elite (those who benefit from the system). Average people having a car is a thing because then people will be more productive. But make no mistake, if the rich don't get what they want FIRST then your whole economy goes into recession and what not.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
You’re conflating the rich and elite, which the nuance on which entire systems of government are built.
- barelyauser 3y ago
  Can one achieve elite status without wealth?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Can one achieve elite status without wealth? Absolutely. AOC became an elite before she became wealthy. Same for J. K. Rowling and most academics at the top of their fields.
    - reaperman 3y ago
      Essentially no academics are part of the upper (ruling) class, except the ones that were born into it (e.g. Jeffrey Laurie or Élisabeth Badinter), or those who moved into academia after retiring from their primary career (e.g. Hillary Clinton becoming a professor of practice at Columbia)[0] 0: https://president.columbia.edu/news/hillary-rodham-clinton-join-columbia-community#:~:text=I%20write%20to%20announce%20that,Columbia%20World%20Projects%20(CWP) https://president.columbia.edu/news/hillary-rodham-clinton-j....
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago

reaperman 3y ago

From a pure game-theory perspective, consumers are important for their potential labor. As long as there is something productive that they can specialize in that might give your group an advantage over other groups --- it is useful to produce and distribute all the things which keep them productive. Maybe 100% of your population will be trained as scientists and mathematicians just on the off-chance they can discover something that AI cannot and give you an edge over other similarly-advanced groups. If the AI's can truly replace humans to the point where there is nothing useful for your humans to be doing, then it would cease to matter whether or not the rulers produce and distribute the things the consumers need/want. You'd need good enough AI security to handle any unrest which ensues, and protect any natural resources that might be important to you. If you no longer can utilize any of the labor of your consumers, then the only products you need to make are: 1) The things you personally want, and 2) The things needed to maintain sovereignty against any other similarly advanced groups. Category #1 would be a very small volume, but Category #2 might be industrially more than the entire world's current production of everything, just for your fiefdom. It would be unstable until someone conquered the entire globe, and would likely only need to provide for about 500-5000 people in their "court" to provide for the rulers own selfish social needs.