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I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force

I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund. If AI grabs everything and few consumers are left then it is zero-sum. I'm looking forward to seeing how this might play out. Pessimistically, it seems very bubblish.

joules77 1y ago
AI's are all not going to get along with each other or think the same way or have the same agenda. Just like people. Very different things will emerge.
lossolo 1y ago
> I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund. I looked for any comments that expressed this sentiment, and as of writing this, I only found one. It's like people don't know or remember history. I mean, look at the French Revolution—look at every other revolution. I kept waiting for the article to mention political changes, but it was only about capital and what to invest in, as if capitalism is something that will survive superintelligence (I mean real superintelligence, not chatbots). What do these people think—that 99% of the population will just become beggars? Sooner or later, all capital will be overtaken by the state, because the main argument against it - inefficiency, will no longer apply. People will vote on AI-generated proposals for energy distribution, so basically where as society we want to allocate it. Budgets will no longer be about how much money we want to spend, but about how much energy we want to allocate. Private capital and private companies stop making sense when you have a superintelligence that is smarter than any human and can continuously improve itself. At that stage, it will always allocate resources more efficiently than any individual or corporation. Leaving that kind of power in the hands of the wealthiest 1% means only one thing: over time, 100% of land and resources would end up controlled by that 1%, the new kings, making the rest of the society their slaves forever.
- karim79 1y ago
  I very much appreciate this reply. You basically perfectly elaborated on what I lazily threw out there. With that being said, most of my friends are senior software devs and they think the same thing is bound to happen. We often joke about starting a falafel restaurant or such before it is too late. I think it will take way, way longer for AI to make good falafel than it will take to replace software engineers.
- klipklop 1y ago
  > Leaving that kind of power in the hands of the wealthiest 1% means only one thing: over time, 100% of land and resources would end up controlled by that 1%, the new kings, making the rest of the society their slaves forever. Isn’t this exactly what has happened all through out history? I don’t really see the future playing out any differently.
  - akra 1y ago
    I sadly think if the promise of AI happens this is the likely economic outcome. The last century or so was an anomaly from most of human history; a trend created by the "arms race" of needing educated workers. The prisoner's dilemma was if you trained your workers in more efficient tech you could out-compete and take all the profits from competitors which gave those educated workers the means to strike (i.e. leverage). Now it is the "arms race" of educated AI, rather than workers which could invalidate a lot of assumptions our current society takes for granted in its structure.
- danaris 1y ago
  > a superintelligence that is smarter than any human and can continuously improve itself. At that stage, it will always allocate resources more efficiently than any individual or corporation. This kind of magical thinking still baffles me. This is sci-fi. There is absolutely zero evidence that such a thing is actually possible to create. Even if we stipulated that LLMs are AGIs, or can become them if we just cram in a few billion more parameters, it's painfully clear that they are not superintelligent, they cannot improve themselves, and there is no credible pathway to them becoming anything of the sort—not to mention they're already guzzling absurd amounts of energy, and taking up massive amounts of hardware, just to do the bad job they do now.
zanfr 1y ago
I don't see UBI happening any time soon, although increasingly obvious it would be a good thing overall. because the oligarchs are on a powertrip and prefer to shed the workforce, have "unusuable" people fall by the wayside (through poor health, poor social status, economy); the oligarchs will be the consumers; they are sort of moving towards a world of them + robots only. you could say "then if robots do everything we all can live the same way" in theory yes, in practice, it is tricky because of the way the system is built.
AlecSchueler 1y ago
Or setup camps where a lot of people can disappear. The disabled, trans people, the old working class etc. Isn't that where we're at already?
wnc3141 1y ago
Your second point about zero-sum growth misses in that in a competitive system, investors and their proxies (management) are certainly not going to miss out on the wealth being created right now in this industry. Long term, economy-wide impacts are not relevant decision criteria. Sort of a tragedy of the commons sort of thing.

joules77 1y ago

AI's are all not going to get along with each other or think the same way or have the same agenda. Just like people. Very different things will emerge.

lossolo 1y ago

> I suppose, if a huge proportion of workers get replaced by AI software, leading to mass unemployment, there will be impetus for governments to step in and force corporations to contribute to some sort of UBI or social wealth fund. I looked for any comments that expressed this sentiment, and as of writing this, I only found one. It's like people don't know or remember history. I mean, look at the French Revolution—look at every other revolution. I kept waiting for the article to mention political changes, but it was only about capital and what to invest in, as if capitalism is something that will survive superintelligence (I mean real superintelligence, not chatbots). What do these people think—that 99% of the population will just become beggars? Sooner or later, all capital will be overtaken by the state, because the main argument against it - inefficiency, will no longer apply. People will vote on AI-generated proposals for energy distribution, so basically where as society we want to allocate it. Budgets will no longer be about how much money we want to spend, but about how much energy we want to allocate. Private capital and private companies stop making sense when you have a superintelligence that is smarter than any human and can continuously improve itself. At that stage, it will always allocate resources more efficiently than any individual or corporation. Leaving that kind of power in the hands of the wealthiest 1% means only one thing: over time, 100% of land and resources would end up controlled by that 1%, the new kings, making the rest of the society their slaves forever.

karim79 1y ago
I very much appreciate this reply. You basically perfectly elaborated on what I lazily threw out there. With that being said, most of my friends are senior software devs and they think the same thing is bound to happen. We often joke about starting a falafel restaurant or such before it is too late. I think it will take way, way longer for AI to make good falafel than it will take to replace software engineers.
klipklop 1y ago
> Leaving that kind of power in the hands of the wealthiest 1% means only one thing: over time, 100% of land and resources would end up controlled by that 1%, the new kings, making the rest of the society their slaves forever. Isn’t this exactly what has happened all through out history? I don’t really see the future playing out any differently.
- akra 1y ago
  I sadly think if the promise of AI happens this is the likely economic outcome. The last century or so was an anomaly from most of human history; a trend created by the "arms race" of needing educated workers. The prisoner's dilemma was if you trained your workers in more efficient tech you could out-compete and take all the profits from competitors which gave those educated workers the means to strike (i.e. leverage). Now it is the "arms race" of educated AI, rather than workers which could invalidate a lot of assumptions our current society takes for granted in its structure.
danaris 1y ago
> a superintelligence that is smarter than any human and can continuously improve itself. At that stage, it will always allocate resources more efficiently than any individual or corporation. This kind of magical thinking still baffles me. This is sci-fi. There is absolutely zero evidence that such a thing is actually possible to create. Even if we stipulated that LLMs are AGIs, or can become them if we just cram in a few billion more parameters, it's painfully clear that they are not superintelligent, they cannot improve themselves, and there is no credible pathway to them becoming anything of the sort—not to mention they're already guzzling absurd amounts of energy, and taking up massive amounts of hardware, just to do the bad job they do now.

zanfr 1y ago

I don't see UBI happening any time soon, although increasingly obvious it would be a good thing overall. because the oligarchs are on a powertrip and prefer to shed the workforce, have "unusuable" people fall by the wayside (through poor health, poor social status, economy); the oligarchs will be the consumers; they are sort of moving towards a world of them + robots only. you could say "then if robots do everything we all can live the same way" in theory yes, in practice, it is tricky because of the way the system is built.

AlecSchueler 1y ago

Or setup camps where a lot of people can disappear. The disabled, trans people, the old working class etc. Isn't that where we're at already?

wnc3141 1y ago

Your second point about zero-sum growth misses in that in a competitive system, investors and their proxies (management) are certainly not going to miss out on the wealth being created right now in this industry. Long term, economy-wide impacts are not relevant decision criteria. Sort of a tragedy of the commons sort of thing.