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Alternatively: -- In such a future, people will have minimal income (possibly some UBI) and therefore there will be few who can afford the products and service

Alternatively: -- In such a future, people will have minimal income (possibly some UBI) and therefore there will be few who can afford the products and services generated by AI -- Corporate profits drop (or growth slows) and there is demand from the powers that be to increase taxation in order to increase the UBI. -- People can afford the products and services. Unfortunately, with no jobs the products and services could become exclusively entertainment-related.

atomicnumber3 1y ago
>exclusively entertainment related We may find that, if our baser needs are so easily come by that we have tremendous free time, much of the world is instead pursuing things like the sciences or arts instead of continuing to try to cosplay 20th century capitalism. Why are we all doing this? By this, I mean, gestures at everything this? About 80% of us will say, so that we don't starve, and can then amuse ourselves however it pleases us in the meantime. 19% will say because they enjoy being impactful or some similar corporate bullshit that will elicit eyerolls. And 1% do it simply because they enjoy holding power over other people and management in the workplace provides a source of that in a semi-legal way. So the 80% of people will adapt quite well to a post-scarcity world. 19% will require therapy. And 1% will fight tooth and nail to not have us get there.
- zaptrem 1y ago
  I hope there's still some sciencing left we can do better than the AI because I start to lose it after playing games/watching tv/doing nothing productive for >1 week.
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  You don't think that a post scarcity world would provide opportunities to wield power over others? People will always build heirarchy, we're wired for it.
  - likium 1y ago
    Agreed. In that world, fame and power becomes more important since wealth no longer matters.
    - amarait 1y ago
      Doesnt this already happen with social media, tv personas etc. Its so empty
  - foxglacier 1y ago
    This is something that pisses me off about anti-capitalists. They talk as if money is the most important thing and want us to all be equal with money, but they implicitly want inequality in other even more important areas like social status. Capitalism at least provides an alternative route to social status instead of just politics, making it available to more people, not less.
    - hakfoo 1y ago
      There are plenty of non-political routes to social status. Ask how many of your neighbours can name three Supreme Court justices (or hell, their senators and representative) versus who can name three Khardashian sisters? TBH, I'd hope for the end of "broad" social status. I'd love to see a retreat towards smaller circles where status is earned through displays of talent and respectable deeds, not just by dominating/manufacturing/buying a media presence.
      - foxglacier 1y ago
        > displays of talent and respectable deeds, Without the external metric of how much money you make, these will be unquantifiable and subject to political manipulation. Even the definitions of what's talent and respectable can be altered to favor the politically more powerful people. Groups without a clear measure of status find arbitrary ways to define it. Look at how school kids or prisoners do it, for instance. It's nothing like what you'd love to see.
    - 1y ago
VikRubenfeld 1y ago
Let's say AI gets so good that it is better than people at most jobs. How can that economy work? If people aren't working, they aren't making money. If they don't have money, they can't pay for the goods and services produced by AI workers. So then there's no need for AI workers. UBI can't fix it because a) it won't be enough to drive our whole economy, and b) it amounts to businesses paying customers to buy their products, which makes no sense.
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  Why does there have to be a need for AI? Once an AI has the means the collect its own resources the opinions of humans regarding its market utility become somewhat less important.
- kadushka 1y ago
  So then there's no need for AI workers. You got this backwards - there won’t be need for humans outside of the elite class. 0.1% or 0.01% of mankind will control all the resources. They will also control robots with guns. Less than 100 years ago we had a guy who convinced a small group of Germans to seize power and try to exterminate or enslave vast majority of humans on Earth - just because he felt they were inferior. Imagine if he had superhuman AI at his disposal. In the next 50 years we will have different factions within elites fighting for power, without any regard for wellbeing of lower class, who will probably be contained in fully automated ghettos. It could get really dark really fast.
  - Kaibeezy 1y ago
    This is ringing a bell. I need to re-read The Diamond Age… or maybe re-watch Elysium… or Soylent Green… or…
  - VikRubenfeld 1y ago
    >> So then there's no need for AI workers. > You got this backwards - there won’t be need for humans outside of the elite class. 0.1% or 0.01% of mankind will control all the resources. Let me rephrase that from 'So then there's no need for AI workers.' to 'So then there's no money to pay for AI workers.' The UBI approach creates a closed economic loop: Company A pays taxes → Government gives UBI to consumers → Consumers buy from Company A → Company A pays taxes... This is functionally identical to Company A directly paying people to buy Company A's products, which makes no economic sense. It's like Ford paying his workers $50/day, but the only customers buying Ford cars are Ford workers spending their $50/day wages. Ford would go bankrupt - there's no external value creation, just money circulating in circles. Where does the actual wealth come from in this system? Who are the net buyers that make the businesses profitable enough to sustain the UBI taxes? UBI in an AI-dominated economy can't create a functioning economy - it's just an imaginary self-licking ice cream cone.
heavyset_go 1y ago
The most likely scenario is that everyone but those who own AI starves, and the ones who remain around are allowed to exist because powerful psychopaths still desire literal slaves to lord over, someone to have sex with and to someone to hurt/hunt/etc. I like your optimism, though.
- int_19h 1y ago
  People who are about to starve tend to revolt.
  - mrob 1y ago
    If you can build an AGI then a few billion autonomous exploding drones is no great difficulty.
    - int_19h 1y ago
      That doesn't really follow.
      - mrob 1y ago
        AGI means you win the economy. Even if it's only John von Neumann level and not ASI (which removes the economy entirely), a version of von Neumann that can clone himself and never sleeps is surely capable of organizing an automated killer drone factory of sufficient size to remove as many humans as you like.
        int_19h 1y ago
        AGI just means that it can replace a human at any task - a single human. You still have compute as the bound on how many instances you can run, but even if those numbers are in the millions, the resources aren't going to magically come out of nowhere, either.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    Half of them will vote to starve themselves so they can watch the other half starve, too. I genuinely wish what you speak of happens should reality play out that way, but I think a lot of people will die with shit eating grins on their faces, even after they run out of shit to eat, because it means someone with blue hair is starving, too.

atomicnumber3 1y ago

>exclusively entertainment related We may find that, if our baser needs are so easily come by that we have tremendous free time, much of the world is instead pursuing things like the sciences or arts instead of continuing to try to cosplay 20th century capitalism. Why are we all doing this? By this, I mean, gestures at everything this? About 80% of us will say, so that we don't starve, and can then amuse ourselves however it pleases us in the meantime. 19% will say because they enjoy being impactful or some similar corporate bullshit that will elicit eyerolls. And 1% do it simply because they enjoy holding power over other people and management in the workplace provides a source of that in a semi-legal way. So the 80% of people will adapt quite well to a post-scarcity world. 19% will require therapy. And 1% will fight tooth and nail to not have us get there.

zaptrem 1y ago
I hope there's still some sciencing left we can do better than the AI because I start to lose it after playing games/watching tv/doing nothing productive for >1 week.
idiotsecant 1y ago
You don't think that a post scarcity world would provide opportunities to wield power over others? People will always build heirarchy, we're wired for it.
- likium 1y ago
  Agreed. In that world, fame and power becomes more important since wealth no longer matters.
  - amarait 1y ago
    Doesnt this already happen with social media, tv personas etc. Its so empty
- foxglacier 1y ago
  This is something that pisses me off about anti-capitalists. They talk as if money is the most important thing and want us to all be equal with money, but they implicitly want inequality in other even more important areas like social status. Capitalism at least provides an alternative route to social status instead of just politics, making it available to more people, not less.
  - hakfoo 1y ago
    There are plenty of non-political routes to social status. Ask how many of your neighbours can name three Supreme Court justices (or hell, their senators and representative) versus who can name three Khardashian sisters? TBH, I'd hope for the end of "broad" social status. I'd love to see a retreat towards smaller circles where status is earned through displays of talent and respectable deeds, not just by dominating/manufacturing/buying a media presence.
    - foxglacier 1y ago
      > displays of talent and respectable deeds, Without the external metric of how much money you make, these will be unquantifiable and subject to political manipulation. Even the definitions of what's talent and respectable can be altered to favor the politically more powerful people. Groups without a clear measure of status find arbitrary ways to define it. Look at how school kids or prisoners do it, for instance. It's nothing like what you'd love to see.
  - 1y ago

VikRubenfeld 1y ago

Let's say AI gets so good that it is better than people at most jobs. How can that economy work? If people aren't working, they aren't making money. If they don't have money, they can't pay for the goods and services produced by AI workers. So then there's no need for AI workers. UBI can't fix it because a) it won't be enough to drive our whole economy, and b) it amounts to businesses paying customers to buy their products, which makes no sense.

idiotsecant 1y ago
Why does there have to be a need for AI? Once an AI has the means the collect its own resources the opinions of humans regarding its market utility become somewhat less important.
kadushka 1y ago
So then there's no need for AI workers. You got this backwards - there won’t be need for humans outside of the elite class. 0.1% or 0.01% of mankind will control all the resources. They will also control robots with guns. Less than 100 years ago we had a guy who convinced a small group of Germans to seize power and try to exterminate or enslave vast majority of humans on Earth - just because he felt they were inferior. Imagine if he had superhuman AI at his disposal. In the next 50 years we will have different factions within elites fighting for power, without any regard for wellbeing of lower class, who will probably be contained in fully automated ghettos. It could get really dark really fast.
- Kaibeezy 1y ago
  This is ringing a bell. I need to re-read The Diamond Age… or maybe re-watch Elysium… or Soylent Green… or…
- VikRubenfeld 1y ago
  >> So then there's no need for AI workers. > You got this backwards - there won’t be need for humans outside of the elite class. 0.1% or 0.01% of mankind will control all the resources. Let me rephrase that from 'So then there's no need for AI workers.' to 'So then there's no money to pay for AI workers.' The UBI approach creates a closed economic loop: Company A pays taxes → Government gives UBI to consumers → Consumers buy from Company A → Company A pays taxes... This is functionally identical to Company A directly paying people to buy Company A's products, which makes no economic sense. It's like Ford paying his workers $50/day, but the only customers buying Ford cars are Ford workers spending their $50/day wages. Ford would go bankrupt - there's no external value creation, just money circulating in circles. Where does the actual wealth come from in this system? Who are the net buyers that make the businesses profitable enough to sustain the UBI taxes? UBI in an AI-dominated economy can't create a functioning economy - it's just an imaginary self-licking ice cream cone.

heavyset_go 1y ago

The most likely scenario is that everyone but those who own AI starves, and the ones who remain around are allowed to exist because powerful psychopaths still desire literal slaves to lord over, someone to have sex with and to someone to hurt/hunt/etc. I like your optimism, though.

int_19h 1y ago
People who are about to starve tend to revolt.
- mrob 1y ago
  If you can build an AGI then a few billion autonomous exploding drones is no great difficulty.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    That doesn't really follow.
    - mrob 1y ago
      AGI means you win the economy. Even if it's only John von Neumann level and not ASI (which removes the economy entirely), a version of von Neumann that can clone himself and never sleeps is surely capable of organizing an automated killer drone factory of sufficient size to remove as many humans as you like.
      - int_19h 1y ago
        AGI just means that it can replace a human at any task - a single human. You still have compute as the bound on how many instances you can run, but even if those numbers are in the millions, the resources aren't going to magically come out of nowhere, either.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Half of them will vote to starve themselves so they can watch the other half starve, too. I genuinely wish what you speak of happens should reality play out that way, but I think a lot of people will die with shit eating grins on their faces, even after they run out of shit to eat, because it means someone with blue hair is starving, too.