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Lets suppose everyone in the world miraculously loses their jobs to AI, who is paying for it? How? What are they selling? What stops the rest of humanity from t

Lets suppose everyone in the world miraculously loses their jobs to AI, who is paying for it? How? What are they selling? What stops the rest of humanity from turning data centers into a pile of ash? These people are so disconnected from reality.

scotty79 2mo ago
You also just explained how people fearing that AI will take all jobs are equally disconnected from reality. Although in less joyful manner.
- r_lee 2mo ago
  what kind of bargaining power will you have with "well someone must consume!"?
  - scotty79 2mo ago
    All of the power? Without consumers, no business has any reason to exist. You can do business without workers, investors, shareholders. You can't do business without consumers.
    - r_lee 2mo ago
      so how will there be any other class than a basic UBI class that gets the bare minimum, with no way to climb the ladder in any way? why would businesses need everybody to participate when a specific portion of people are enough?
      - scotty79 2mo ago
        I don't think only UBI will remain. People will be getting money through a lot of different schemes, some merit or effort based. So there will be ways to climb. Just not through "hard work" because the "work" part is going to be mostly missing. To see how climbing the ladder might look in the future look at spots in our society that perform no useful economic activity. Military, prisons, government offices, the rich, homeless. How you get ahead there is going be the way you go ahead everywhere in a society where human work is obsolete. > why would businesses need everybody to participate when a specific portion of people are enough? For business nothing is ever enough. It creates products and customers for them out of thin air. The only required thing is money in the consumer pocket. Business itself is going to pressure governments to give more people more money, by whatever means necessary, so it can scoop it up off of them. What even some millionaires now realize is that it's very hard to take the money away from other millionaires. They don't spend that much. But if you tax them and give the money to consumers, suddenly, as a rich person, you have clear path to taking this money for yourself, just by having a successful customer facing business. That (among other things) is why some rich advocate for higher taxation of the rich. If everyone around you is poor it's very hard to get any richer yourself, regardless of how much you already have. And rich people like getting richer most of all.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      By that logic homeless people should be powerful because they're potential consumers. But the system only gives power to those who can produce things that are valuable to wealthy people.
      - scotty79 2mo ago
        > But the system only gives power to those who can produce Spot on. So that's the main point that needs to be addressed. Or rather expanded upon. Because already a ton of people get awarded purchasing power without doing any useful economic activity. And it's gonna be expanded because without purchasing power we can't play the game called business. And people like business, because it makes some of them richer and richer.
cute_boi 2mo ago
And, idk what is the end goal here. Even if 20% of people lose their job the crime and prostitution will shoot up....
- DANmode 2mo ago
  More free time for proper rest, hobby, and well-considered expression? I’m not saying Anthropic and OpenAI are going to be the ones to deliver it - but…you really don’t see the ubiquitous need for these?
  - apple4ever 2mo ago
    How will we be able to have those when we have no job and no home and no money?
    - DANmode 2mo ago
      Again, this isn’t my perspective, just again parroting what’s being asked for: if there’s less work to be done for everyone to have what they need, that would be considered a benefit by governed society, and universal basic income will likely be rolled out.
      - palmotea 2mo ago
        > if there’s less work to be done for everyone to have what they need, that would be considered a benefit by governed society Not necessarily. It's not going to be evenly distributed. It's not like today, but everyone works 4 hours a week. Some dudes will work 80, others won't work at all. That situation is what's most adventitious to shareholders. > and universal basic income will likely be rolled out. If UBI even happens, it's going to enable a poverty-level existence. Thing of all the things you enjoy doing, that you wouldn't be able to afford if you were in poverty. That's UBI life.
        Sabinus 2mo ago
        >If UBI even happens, it's going to enable a poverty-level existence. Why? Remember all the work that's being done now would still be being done by robots. There should be more surpluses not less.
dofm 2mo ago
If there isn't an appropriate metaphor in the Silmarillion he's not going to have thought about it.
xedrac 2mo ago
I think they believe that AI will account for nearly all production, and jobs will no longer be necessary. At the very least, it's going to be tumultuous.
- ahmetson 2mo ago
  I think they know it’s not soon as they promise so they lie openly.
- johneth 2mo ago
  They "believe" that for the sake of their stock options and IPOs, not out of any actual belief.
- digitaltrees 2mo ago
  Haha dario said privately that anthropic will be the only company. yes the ONLY company. The economy will be anthropic and governments, thats it.
lenkite 2mo ago
The rich people sell to each other and AI corps while maintaining a strong "freedom" force to ensure that their "rights" are protected. Injury to a data-center will be considered an act of vile terrorism and punished with life-detention employment (aka slave labour) or the relife correction (if your organs are good for farming).
- inigyou 2mo ago
  And you'll still have to pay rent or property taxes, and if you don't pay rent then armed thugs will come to "your" house and kick you out of it. Despite the fact it's literally impossible to pay because there are no jobs.
JeremyNT 2mo ago
The current oligarchy has forgotten the lessons of history. The implicit deal is that they can keep extracting the value from us as long as they keep tossing us enough scraps. They show every intention of claiming a bigger piece of the pie in return for basically nothing, and that kind of shit will lead to an unstable system eventually.
Yizahi 2mo ago
After mentally stepping aside from the cozy developed country context, the answer becomes obvious really. Regular citizens won't pay for the excesses of our benevolent overlords if they have no income, but they will build and sustain that excess for pittance or for food or for free. Look at any country rapidly de-evolving back in time - Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan and the most prominent North Korea. So it's not a fluke or regional, it happens across the globe - when living conditions degrade, in most cases people just tend to adapt and adapt and adapt until they continue working but in subhuman conditions.
tim333 2mo ago
Historically, new tech making a job redundant leads to people who were doing it doing something else - horse stagecoach drivers become motorised vehicle drivers and so forth. I'm not quite sure what Dario's take is on that.
- digitaltrees 2mo ago
  Except that there is a lot of hardship during the transition. Literal kids starving in the streets. The entire midwest is a testament to what happens when short sighted policy assumes systems are self healing. There are generational assets like well built factories and railroads that took immense capital and literally cost lives of willing and unwilling laborers to build that are just wasting away and returning to nature and for what? No everyone wants a manufacturing rebuild? How about we take all the capital wasted on SaaS and data centers and rebuild the factories in Akron, OH or Thomasville, NC. Instead we are giving billions to the uber founder so he can "launch the next industrial revolution".
  - tim333 2mo ago
    Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls.
    - palmotea 2mo ago
      > Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. None of those technological shifts affected so many of the jobs at once, nor did they simultaneously threaten many of the alternative jobs for those affected. > Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls. Ok. So you have a small number of planters with big estates, what happens to all the other people (e.g. the "slaves" and other worksers, after the planters no longer need them)? Wealth is not distributed evenly enough for such a fantasy. Dario Amodei and Sam Altman will be able to go play planter. Me? Not so much.
palmotea 2mo ago
> Lets suppose everyone in the world miraculously loses their jobs to AI, who is paying for it? How? What are they selling? The paying/selling part will be transitory. Right now the people paying for it are investors, and they're selling a cost-cutting dream to executive managers. If someone builds a machine that automated all the jobs, they've have amassed an unprecedented amount of power, even if the economy is in ruins for everyone else. They won't need to sell anything to anyone. > What stops the rest of humanity from turning data centers into a pile of ash? AI slaughterbots. Think the Ukraine front line, but completely automated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU
ydat 2mo ago
> What stops the rest of humanity from turning data centers into a pile of ash? A mix of other people who will defend them because it’s a way better and more stable economic deal than joining the starving masses and probably autonomous weapons systems that can kill large amounts of people quickly over a large area.

scotty79 2mo ago

You also just explained how people fearing that AI will take all jobs are equally disconnected from reality. Although in less joyful manner.

r_lee 2mo ago
what kind of bargaining power will you have with "well someone must consume!"?
- scotty79 2mo ago
  All of the power? Without consumers, no business has any reason to exist. You can do business without workers, investors, shareholders. You can't do business without consumers.
  - r_lee 2mo ago
    so how will there be any other class than a basic UBI class that gets the bare minimum, with no way to climb the ladder in any way? why would businesses need everybody to participate when a specific portion of people are enough?
    - scotty79 2mo ago
      I don't think only UBI will remain. People will be getting money through a lot of different schemes, some merit or effort based. So there will be ways to climb. Just not through "hard work" because the "work" part is going to be mostly missing. To see how climbing the ladder might look in the future look at spots in our society that perform no useful economic activity. Military, prisons, government offices, the rich, homeless. How you get ahead there is going be the way you go ahead everywhere in a society where human work is obsolete. > why would businesses need everybody to participate when a specific portion of people are enough? For business nothing is ever enough. It creates products and customers for them out of thin air. The only required thing is money in the consumer pocket. Business itself is going to pressure governments to give more people more money, by whatever means necessary, so it can scoop it up off of them. What even some millionaires now realize is that it's very hard to take the money away from other millionaires. They don't spend that much. But if you tax them and give the money to consumers, suddenly, as a rich person, you have clear path to taking this money for yourself, just by having a successful customer facing business. That (among other things) is why some rich advocate for higher taxation of the rich. If everyone around you is poor it's very hard to get any richer yourself, regardless of how much you already have. And rich people like getting richer most of all.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    By that logic homeless people should be powerful because they're potential consumers. But the system only gives power to those who can produce things that are valuable to wealthy people.
    - scotty79 2mo ago
      > But the system only gives power to those who can produce Spot on. So that's the main point that needs to be addressed. Or rather expanded upon. Because already a ton of people get awarded purchasing power without doing any useful economic activity. And it's gonna be expanded because without purchasing power we can't play the game called business. And people like business, because it makes some of them richer and richer.

cute_boi 2mo ago

And, idk what is the end goal here. Even if 20% of people lose their job the crime and prostitution will shoot up....

DANmode 2mo ago
More free time for proper rest, hobby, and well-considered expression? I’m not saying Anthropic and OpenAI are going to be the ones to deliver it - but…you really don’t see the ubiquitous need for these?
- apple4ever 2mo ago
  How will we be able to have those when we have no job and no home and no money?
  - DANmode 2mo ago
    Again, this isn’t my perspective, just again parroting what’s being asked for: if there’s less work to be done for everyone to have what they need, that would be considered a benefit by governed society, and universal basic income will likely be rolled out.
    - palmotea 2mo ago
      > if there’s less work to be done for everyone to have what they need, that would be considered a benefit by governed society Not necessarily. It's not going to be evenly distributed. It's not like today, but everyone works 4 hours a week. Some dudes will work 80, others won't work at all. That situation is what's most adventitious to shareholders. > and universal basic income will likely be rolled out. If UBI even happens, it's going to enable a poverty-level existence. Thing of all the things you enjoy doing, that you wouldn't be able to afford if you were in poverty. That's UBI life.
      - Sabinus 2mo ago
        >If UBI even happens, it's going to enable a poverty-level existence. Why? Remember all the work that's being done now would still be being done by robots. There should be more surpluses not less.

dofm 2mo ago

If there isn't an appropriate metaphor in the Silmarillion he's not going to have thought about it.

xedrac 2mo ago

I think they believe that AI will account for nearly all production, and jobs will no longer be necessary. At the very least, it's going to be tumultuous.

ahmetson 2mo ago
I think they know it’s not soon as they promise so they lie openly.
johneth 2mo ago
They "believe" that for the sake of their stock options and IPOs, not out of any actual belief.
digitaltrees 2mo ago
Haha dario said privately that anthropic will be the only company. yes the ONLY company. The economy will be anthropic and governments, thats it.

lenkite 2mo ago

The rich people sell to each other and AI corps while maintaining a strong "freedom" force to ensure that their "rights" are protected. Injury to a data-center will be considered an act of vile terrorism and punished with life-detention employment (aka slave labour) or the relife correction (if your organs are good for farming).

inigyou 2mo ago
And you'll still have to pay rent or property taxes, and if you don't pay rent then armed thugs will come to "your" house and kick you out of it. Despite the fact it's literally impossible to pay because there are no jobs.

JeremyNT 2mo ago

The current oligarchy has forgotten the lessons of history. The implicit deal is that they can keep extracting the value from us as long as they keep tossing us enough scraps. They show every intention of claiming a bigger piece of the pie in return for basically nothing, and that kind of shit will lead to an unstable system eventually.

Yizahi 2mo ago

After mentally stepping aside from the cozy developed country context, the answer becomes obvious really. Regular citizens won't pay for the excesses of our benevolent overlords if they have no income, but they will build and sustain that excess for pittance or for food or for free. Look at any country rapidly de-evolving back in time - Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan and the most prominent North Korea. So it's not a fluke or regional, it happens across the globe - when living conditions degrade, in most cases people just tend to adapt and adapt and adapt until they continue working but in subhuman conditions.

tim333 2mo ago

Historically, new tech making a job redundant leads to people who were doing it doing something else - horse stagecoach drivers become motorised vehicle drivers and so forth. I'm not quite sure what Dario's take is on that.

digitaltrees 2mo ago
Except that there is a lot of hardship during the transition. Literal kids starving in the streets. The entire midwest is a testament to what happens when short sighted policy assumes systems are self healing. There are generational assets like well built factories and railroads that took immense capital and literally cost lives of willing and unwilling laborers to build that are just wasting away and returning to nature and for what? No everyone wants a manufacturing rebuild? How about we take all the capital wasted on SaaS and data centers and rebuild the factories in Akron, OH or Thomasville, NC. Instead we are giving billions to the uber founder so he can "launch the next industrial revolution".
- tim333 2mo ago
  Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls.
  - palmotea 2mo ago
    > Though a lot of that was a political choice to outsource to China and similar. We've had a lot of new tech since 1900 - cars, electric motors, internet, computers and the like and I'm not sure it's led to inevitable unemployment as opposed to people doing different jobs. The times there were mass unemployment like the great depression were more down to dumb economics and politics rather than tech. None of those technological shifts affected so many of the jobs at once, nor did they simultaneously threaten many of the alternative jobs for those affected. > Even with AGI robots smarter than us I think there's a good chance it would go like the Antebellum South with robots replacing the slaves and humans planning their debutantes balls. Ok. So you have a small number of planters with big estates, what happens to all the other people (e.g. the "slaves" and other worksers, after the planters no longer need them)? Wealth is not distributed evenly enough for such a fantasy. Dario Amodei and Sam Altman will be able to go play planter. Me? Not so much.

palmotea 2mo ago

> Lets suppose everyone in the world miraculously loses their jobs to AI, who is paying for it? How? What are they selling? The paying/selling part will be transitory. Right now the people paying for it are investors, and they're selling a cost-cutting dream to executive managers. If someone builds a machine that automated all the jobs, they've have amassed an unprecedented amount of power, even if the economy is in ruins for everyone else. They won't need to sell anything to anyone. > What stops the rest of humanity from turning data centers into a pile of ash? AI slaughterbots. Think the Ukraine front line, but completely automated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU

ydat 2mo ago

> What stops the rest of humanity from turning data centers into a pile of ash? A mix of other people who will defend them because it’s a way better and more stable economic deal than joining the starving masses and probably autonomous weapons systems that can kill large amounts of people quickly over a large area.