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Because the productivity growth in the last decades thanks to automation and many other factors has benefited workers? (Hint: It has not.) https://www.epi.org/

Because the productivity growth in the last decades thanks to automation and many other factors has benefited workers? (Hint: It has not.) https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ The questions of who will benefit from AI is a political questions. As power is currently firmly in the had of the capital class, AI will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Wages are not based on how much value you produce but how much it cost to reproduce your labor. How much it cost for you to stay alive and be able to work and feed your family. What kind of living standard that entails is a political matter and depends on how strong your unions are, how willing you are to fight for it and so on. Same with welfare. It is something which was fought for and if the power balance is such that they can get away with giving you less, they will do. In fact some rich pricks would gladly turn you into soylent green if they could get away with it.

dantheman 1y ago
Hint it has - the standard of living is far higher now; medical care is far better; and the number of people subsidized by those working has greatly increased (this may not be considered a benefit, but it's where the extra income is going).
- yusina 1y ago
  If your time axis is hundreds of years, yes. But the last decades don't fit that theory.
yusina 1y ago
> As power is currently firmly in the had of the capital class, AI will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I have hope in decentral technologies. Solar power is a rare example. If things gp right then in a few decades, your typical household will just not depend on anybody anymore in terms of energy needs. That's a significant shift. That is, if big corps don't manage to capture that somehow, though I can't currently see how. But it has happened before. The www and email used to be as decentralized as you could imagine. Nowadays rarely any email gets sent that doesn't come from or go to a gmail server, or definitely not outside one of the biggest 3 providers. Similarly with the www. Everything is so centralized now, it's a great success of big tech.

dantheman 1y ago

Hint it has - the standard of living is far higher now; medical care is far better; and the number of people subsidized by those working has greatly increased (this may not be considered a benefit, but it's where the extra income is going).

yusina 1y ago
If your time axis is hundreds of years, yes. But the last decades don't fit that theory.

yusina 1y ago

> As power is currently firmly in the had of the capital class, AI will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I have hope in decentral technologies. Solar power is a rare example. If things gp right then in a few decades, your typical household will just not depend on anybody anymore in terms of energy needs. That's a significant shift. That is, if big corps don't manage to capture that somehow, though I can't currently see how. But it has happened before. The www and email used to be as decentralized as you could imagine. Nowadays rarely any email gets sent that doesn't come from or go to a gmail server, or definitely not outside one of the biggest 3 providers. Similarly with the www. Everything is so centralized now, it's a great success of big tech.