Will people find new work to do? And if they do, why wouldn’t AI follow them into their new industry and undercut them there, too? So perhaps it’s not “people will find new uses for their money”, as people won’t have any money to find a use for. Perhaps instead, businesses will find new users of money - the AIs who are now doing all the jobs. At least in principle, I don’t see why there couldn’t be an economy that’s just businesses and agents.
If you want the current scifi projection: AI will just exacerbate wealth inequality. The people who will pay for things will dwindle substantially, but because they have money disposable income, they'll pay more for it.
This is ridiculously easy to demo with a viagra pill. If we sell a million viagra pills to a million people with erectile dysfunction, we earn $1 million dollars, minus whatever production. If we sell one viagra pill, to one dysfunctional Elon Musk at $1 million dollars, minus whatever production.
Well, the Capitalism doesn't care. We're earning the money regardless of the price of the product.
So that's where America's headed. People ask why there's a weird K shaped economy, it's because prices for a lot of things are being bouyed by the upper middle class as bottom feeders of the oligarchy. AI will just keep filtering that herd.
Why does it work? Because the poverty-toil keeps the classes from joining. The race baiting keeps them from aligning. Etc. Etc.
Let's not ignore the economy where the agent is the buyer.
Video editing and website design being the example here. If the video is an ad, or the website is a sales site, if an agent is a buyer these change considerably. That is an entirely new economy, similar to how we did not understand the knowledge economy until it was fairly well developed in the mid 1900s (someone smarter than me might have better info here).
I have no doubt the economy will change, but we as humans operating in the world will still have needs that need to be met.
In addition, with a shrinking population in all developed nations, we may well still have a shortage of workers in 30 years, not an oversupply.
The science fiction theory is that in the end, work is mostly done by AI/Machines and so people can have access to food, products, whatever they need for almost free or at least there is no need to work anymore and everyone can enjoy a beautiful life.
But in reality, a few trillionaire like Musk will capture most of the value/income that they can from the society advancement dividends and a bigger and bigger percentage of the population will become poor, exploited, and depending on the charity of the happy few.
This explains why large scale unemployment is not preferable even for capitalists. But this is well known and the policies are usually made to prevent it.
Will people find new work to do? And if they do, why wouldn’t AI follow them into their new industry and undercut them there, too? So perhaps it’s not “people will find new uses for their money”, as people won’t have any money to find a use for. Perhaps instead, businesses will find new users of money - the AIs who are now doing all the jobs. At least in principle, I don’t see why there couldn’t be an economy that’s just businesses and agents.
If you want the current scifi projection: AI will just exacerbate wealth inequality. The people who will pay for things will dwindle substantially, but because they have money disposable income, they'll pay more for it.
This is ridiculously easy to demo with a viagra pill. If we sell a million viagra pills to a million people with erectile dysfunction, we earn $1 million dollars, minus whatever production. If we sell one viagra pill, to one dysfunctional Elon Musk at $1 million dollars, minus whatever production.
Well, the Capitalism doesn't care. We're earning the money regardless of the price of the product.
So that's where America's headed. People ask why there's a weird K shaped economy, it's because prices for a lot of things are being bouyed by the upper middle class as bottom feeders of the oligarchy. AI will just keep filtering that herd.
Why does it work? Because the poverty-toil keeps the classes from joining. The race baiting keeps them from aligning. Etc. Etc.
Let's not ignore the economy where the agent is the buyer.
Video editing and website design being the example here. If the video is an ad, or the website is a sales site, if an agent is a buyer these change considerably. That is an entirely new economy, similar to how we did not understand the knowledge economy until it was fairly well developed in the mid 1900s (someone smarter than me might have better info here).
I have no doubt the economy will change, but we as humans operating in the world will still have needs that need to be met.
In addition, with a shrinking population in all developed nations, we may well still have a shortage of workers in 30 years, not an oversupply.
The science fiction theory is that in the end, work is mostly done by AI/Machines and so people can have access to food, products, whatever they need for almost free or at least there is no need to work anymore and everyone can enjoy a beautiful life.
But in reality, a few trillionaire like Musk will capture most of the value/income that they can from the society advancement dividends and a bigger and bigger percentage of the population will become poor, exploited, and depending on the charity of the happy few.
This explains why large scale unemployment is not preferable even for capitalists. But this is well known and the policies are usually made to prevent it.