7 ms·

> I think in the future, those who succeed will be equivalent to wayfinders. In the future, those who succeed will be the owners of capital.

lwhi 5mo ago
Well, yes .. but they're going to need people to do their evil bidding /s
oompydoompy74 5mo ago
Past, Present, and Future. If you control the means of production you win. Knowledge, skill, and experience are largely irrelevant to the conversation. I’ve held this opinion for quite some time and would be interested to hear alternative perspectives.
- lelanthran 5mo ago
  > Past, Present, and Future. If you control the means of production you win. Yeah, but we were talking about only success, not winning. In the past and the present, you could succeed purely on a combination of skill, talent and labour. This approach looks like it will not work much longer.
  - lwhi 5mo ago
    I can see where you're coming from. We exchange our knowledge, time, and skill for money. If this exchange is no longer viable — because similar value can be accessed via LLM agents — we'll have no way of making money. I do think some (non-billionaire) people will survive the transition, but the question then becomes: what happens to everyone else?
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
- Ferret7446 5mo ago
  That's clearly wrong, because capital doesn't just appear out of thin air. You are ignoring that there's clearly rare skills involved that enable a few to become very successful. Your strawman only applies to the second generation that inherits wealth, and case in point inherited wealth tends to disappear in a couple of generations further proving that skill is required to build and maintain wealth.
jerkstate 5mo ago
How do you know those aren’t the same thing?
- Fargren 5mo ago
  Because you can inherit capital. You can also inherit talent, but "the descendants of those worthy are worthy" is a belief humanity spilled a lot of blood to get away from.
archagon 5mo ago
Means of production, yadda yadda… I feel a great sense of deja vu.
fasterik 5mo ago
I don't think history bears this out. If you look at the most successful entrepreneurs of the computer age, none of them started out as owners of capital. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs: yes, they had some level of privilege and opportunity, but they didn't start out as billionaires. Their success came from their ideas.
- Matl 5mo ago
  In the case of Gates at least, it definitely came in part from having access to the right people.
  - Calavar 5mo ago
    Gates famously came from a rich family, but Bezos did too - he used hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments from his immediate family members to get Amazon off the ground. Maybe 1 to 2% of Americans would be able draw that much from their family members if they were to launch a startup. If we define "bootstrapped" wealth as starting from an economic background within one standard deviation of the national average, then he doesn't count.
- marcosdumay 5mo ago
  The fact that you had to separate them into an age should tell you something. Something happened in the 80s, and it wasn't "the dawn of a new technology". It happened specifically in the US, and was done by their government.
  - zdragnar 5mo ago
    Does it surprise you that wealth takes time to accumulate? None of those people had a get rich quick scheme that made them billionaires in their 20's.
    - marcosdumay 5mo ago
      Those were mostly the same billionaires 20 years ago.
contingencies 5mo ago
> In the future, those who succeed will be the owners of capital. No. In the future, those who succeed will be the children of the owners of capital. See The Economist, February 2025: https://archive.is/PCoWl https://archive.is/PCoWl
skybrian 5mo ago
How does that work? Funding is useful, but we aren't seeing fully-automated startups, and often, founders don't need all that much funding.
- awesomeMilou 5mo ago
  By completely eliminating the need for a human workforce, therefore rendering a majority of humanity obsolete, therefore lots of social inequality, therefore lots of starvation, poverty and death. When billionaires say "think about the trillions of people that will benefit from AI" and some notion of living in a post scarcity world, they are talking about _their_ descendants, not yours.
  - skybrian 5mo ago
    This is dystopian speculation. You don't have to believe every science fiction scenario someone famous talks about.
    - dag100 5mo ago
      It's hardly speculative when it is effectively what happened just after the Industrial Revolution, but with more power ceded to capital. In many ways, it's already happening.
      - skybrian 5mo ago
        No, that was not "effectively what happened" in the Industrial Revolution. That was an enormous change, but it didn't "completely eliminate the need for a human workforce." That's just hype.
        dag100 5mo ago
        Fine, it is not effectively what happened then. It is worse. At least workers are required to run factories (even though working conditions were ridiculously horrible back then). With AI, in maybe 20 years, 95% of all white-collar workers will be economically irrelevant. You won't need accountants, or programmers, or designers. And we can't all become lawyers and surgeons, or tradesmen. The Industrial Revolution indeed did not completely eliminate the need for a human workforce. The AI Revolution will.
_doctor_love 5mo ago
Same as it ever was… Same as it ever was…

lwhi 5mo ago

Well, yes .. but they're going to need people to do their evil bidding /s

oompydoompy74 5mo ago

Past, Present, and Future. If you control the means of production you win. Knowledge, skill, and experience are largely irrelevant to the conversation. I’ve held this opinion for quite some time and would be interested to hear alternative perspectives.

lelanthran 5mo ago
> Past, Present, and Future. If you control the means of production you win. Yeah, but we were talking about only success, not winning. In the past and the present, you could succeed purely on a combination of skill, talent and labour. This approach looks like it will not work much longer.
- lwhi 5mo ago
  I can see where you're coming from. We exchange our knowledge, time, and skill for money. If this exchange is no longer viable — because similar value can be accessed via LLM agents — we'll have no way of making money. I do think some (non-billionaire) people will survive the transition, but the question then becomes: what happens to everyone else?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
Ferret7446 5mo ago
That's clearly wrong, because capital doesn't just appear out of thin air. You are ignoring that there's clearly rare skills involved that enable a few to become very successful. Your strawman only applies to the second generation that inherits wealth, and case in point inherited wealth tends to disappear in a couple of generations further proving that skill is required to build and maintain wealth.

jerkstate 5mo ago

How do you know those aren’t the same thing?

Fargren 5mo ago
Because you can inherit capital. You can also inherit talent, but "the descendants of those worthy are worthy" is a belief humanity spilled a lot of blood to get away from.

archagon 5mo ago

Means of production, yadda yadda… I feel a great sense of deja vu.

fasterik 5mo ago

I don't think history bears this out. If you look at the most successful entrepreneurs of the computer age, none of them started out as owners of capital. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs: yes, they had some level of privilege and opportunity, but they didn't start out as billionaires. Their success came from their ideas.

Matl 5mo ago
In the case of Gates at least, it definitely came in part from having access to the right people.
- Calavar 5mo ago
  Gates famously came from a rich family, but Bezos did too - he used hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments from his immediate family members to get Amazon off the ground. Maybe 1 to 2% of Americans would be able draw that much from their family members if they were to launch a startup. If we define "bootstrapped" wealth as starting from an economic background within one standard deviation of the national average, then he doesn't count.
marcosdumay 5mo ago
The fact that you had to separate them into an age should tell you something. Something happened in the 80s, and it wasn't "the dawn of a new technology". It happened specifically in the US, and was done by their government.
- zdragnar 5mo ago
  Does it surprise you that wealth takes time to accumulate? None of those people had a get rich quick scheme that made them billionaires in their 20's.
  - marcosdumay 5mo ago
    Those were mostly the same billionaires 20 years ago.

contingencies 5mo ago

> In the future, those who succeed will be the owners of capital. No. In the future, those who succeed will be the children of the owners of capital. See The Economist, February 2025: https://archive.is/PCoWl https://archive.is/PCoWl

skybrian 5mo ago

How does that work? Funding is useful, but we aren't seeing fully-automated startups, and often, founders don't need all that much funding.

awesomeMilou 5mo ago
By completely eliminating the need for a human workforce, therefore rendering a majority of humanity obsolete, therefore lots of social inequality, therefore lots of starvation, poverty and death. When billionaires say "think about the trillions of people that will benefit from AI" and some notion of living in a post scarcity world, they are talking about _their_ descendants, not yours.
- skybrian 5mo ago
  This is dystopian speculation. You don't have to believe every science fiction scenario someone famous talks about.
  - dag100 5mo ago
    It's hardly speculative when it is effectively what happened just after the Industrial Revolution, but with more power ceded to capital. In many ways, it's already happening.
    - skybrian 5mo ago
      No, that was not "effectively what happened" in the Industrial Revolution. That was an enormous change, but it didn't "completely eliminate the need for a human workforce." That's just hype.
      - dag100 5mo ago
        Fine, it is not effectively what happened then. It is worse. At least workers are required to run factories (even though working conditions were ridiculously horrible back then). With AI, in maybe 20 years, 95% of all white-collar workers will be economically irrelevant. You won't need accountants, or programmers, or designers. And we can't all become lawyers and surgeons, or tradesmen. The Industrial Revolution indeed did not completely eliminate the need for a human workforce. The AI Revolution will.

_doctor_love 5mo ago

Same as it ever was… Same as it ever was…