[VikRubenfeld]

Is a future where AI replaces most human labor rendered impossible by the following consideration:

-- 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

-- Therefore the AI generates greatly reduced wealth

-- Therefore there’s greatly reduced wealth to pay for the AI

-- …rendering such a future impossible

[heavyset_go]

The problem with this calculus is that the AI exists to benefit their owners, the economy itself doesn't really matter, it's just the fastest path to getting what owners want for the time being.

[Udo]

Exactly. And as implied by the term techno-feudalism, the owners are okay with a greatly reduced economy, and in some cases a severe reduction in quality of life overall, as long as they end up ruling over what's left.

[petermcneeley]

This a late 20th century myopic view of the economy. In the ages and the places long before, most of human toil was enjoyed by a tiny elite.

Also "rendering such a future impossible". This is a retrocausal way of thinking. As though an a bad event in the future makes that future impossible.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> This a late 20th century myopic view of the economy. In the ages and the places long before, most of human toil was enjoyed by a tiny elite.

And overall wealth levels were much lower. It was the expansion of consumption to the masses that drove the enormous increase in wealth that those of us in "developed" countries now live with and enjoy.

[palmfacehn]

Your first premise has issues:

>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

Productivity increases make products cheaper. To the extent that your hypothetical AI manufacturer can produce widgets with less human labor, it only makes sense to do so where it would reduce overall costs. By reducing cost, the manufacturer can provide more value at a lower cost to the consumer.

Increased productivity means greater leisure time. Alternatively, that time can be applied to solving new problems and producing novel products. New opportunities are unlocked by the availability of labor, which allows for greater specialization, which in-turn unlocks greater productivity and the flywheel of human ingenuity continues to accelerate.

The item of UBI is another thorny issue. This may inflate the overall supply of currency and distribute it via political means. If the inflation of the money supply outpaces the productivity gains, then prices will not fall.

Instead of having the gains of productivity allocated by the market to consumers, those with political connections will be first to benefit as per Cantilion effects. Under the worst case scenario this might include distribution of UBI via social credit scores or other dystopian ratings. However, even under what advocates might call the ideal scenario, capital flows would still be dictated by large government sector or public private partnership projects. We see this today with central bank flows directly influencing Wall St. valuations.

[TheOtherHobbes]

> Increased productivity means greater leisure time.

Productivity has been increasing steadily for decades. Do you see any evidence that leisure time has tracked it?

IMO what will actually happen is feudal stasis after a huge die-off. There will be no market for new products and no ruling class interest in solving new problems.

If this sounds far-fetched, consider that this we can see this happening already. This is exactly the ideal world of the Trump administration and its backers. They have literally slashed funding for public health, R&D, and education.

And what's the response? Thiel, Zuckererg, Bezos, and Altman haven't said a word against the most catastrophic reversal of public science policy since Galileo and the Inquisition. Musk is pissed because he's been sidelined, but he was personally involved, through DOGE, in cutting funding to NASA and NOAA.

So what will AI be used for? Clearly the goal is to replace most of the working population. And then what?

One clue is that Musk cares so much about free speech and public debate he's trying to retrain Grok to be less liberal.

None of them - not one - seem even remotely interested in funding new physics, cancer research, abundant clean energy, or any other genuinely novel boundary-breaking application of AI, or science in general. They have the money, they're not doing it. Why?

The focus is entirely on building a nostalgic 1950s world with rockets, robots, apartheid, corporate sovereignty, and ideological management of information and belief.

And that includes AI as a tool for enforcing business-as-usual, not as a tool for anything dangerous, original, or unruly which threatens their political and economic status.

[Davidzheng]

no the AI doesn't actually need to interact with world economy it just needs to be capable of self-substence by providing energy and material usage. But when AI takes off completely it can vertically integrate with the supply of energy and material.

wealth is not a thing in itself, it's a representation of value and purchasing power. It will create its own economy when it is able to mine material and automate energy generation.

[greenavocado]

You aren't seeing the end goal clearly enough.

The end goal is to ensure the survival of a small group of technocrats that control all production on Earth due to the force multiplier effect of technological advancements. This necessitates the depopulation of Earth.

[zaptrem]

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.

[VikRubenfeld]

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.

[heavyset_go]

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.

[atomicnumber3]

>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.

[tsunamifury]

Wealth will be replaced by direct power. We do not need an economy.

Most don’t seem to comprehend why the economy is being destroyed by the ultra rich

[edg5000]

If I may speculate the opposite: With cost-effective energy and a plateau in AI development, the per-unit cost of an hour of AI compute will be very low, however, the moat remains massive. So a very large amount of people will only be able to function (work) with an AI subscription, concentrating power to those who own AI infra. It will be hard for anybody to break that moat.