[ahurmazda]

When I hear folks glazing some kinda impending jobless utopia , I think of the intervening years. I shudder. As they say, "An empty stomach knows no morality."

[ares623]

This pisses me off so much.

So many engineers are so excited to work on and with these systems, opening 20 prs per day to make their employers happy going “yes boss!”

They think their $300k total compensation will give them a seat at the table for what they’re cheering on to come.

I say that anyone who needed to go the grocery this week will not be spared by the economic downturn this tech promises.

Unless you have your own fully stocked private bunker with security detail, you will be affected.

[dsign]

Big fan of your argument and don't disagree.

If AI makes a virus to get rid of humanity, well we are screwed. But if all we have to fear from AI is unprecedented economic disruption, I will point out that some parts of the world may survive relatively unscathed. Let's talk Samoa, for example. There, people will continue fishing and living their day-to-day. If industrialized economies collapse, Samoans may find it very hard to import certain products, even vital ones, and that can cause some issues, but not necessarily civil unrest and instability.

In fact, if all we have to fear from AI is unprecedented economic disruption, humans can have a huge revolt, and then a post-revolts world may be fine by turning back the clock, with some help from anti-progress think-tanks. I explore that argument in more detail in this book: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1742992

[sarchertech]

> Unless you have your own fully stocked private bunker with security detail, you will be affected.

If society collapses, there’s nothing to stop your security detail from killing you and taking the bunker for themselves.

I’d expect warlords to rise up from the ranks of military and police forces in a post collapse feudal society. Tech billionaires wouldn’t last long.

[bongodongobob]

The same argument could be made for actual engineers working on steam engines, nuclear power, or semiconductors.

Make of that what you will.

[owebmaster]

> I say that anyone who needed to go the grocery this week will not be spared by the economic downturn this tech promises.

And we are getting to a point that is us or them. Big tech is investing so much money on this that if they do not succeed, they will go broke.

[voidhorse]

Yes. The complete irony in all software engineers enthusiasm for this tech is that, if the boards wishes come true, they are literally helping them eliminate their own jobs. It's like the industrial revolution but worse, because at least the craftsmen weren't also the ones building the factories that would automate them out of work.

Marcuse had a term for this "false consciousness"-when the structure of capitalism ends up making people work against their own interests without realizing it, and that is happening big time in software right now. We will still need programmers for hard, novel problems, but all these lazy programmers using AI to write their crud apps don't seem to realize the writing is on the wall.

[flask_manager]

Here's the thing, I tend to believe that sufficiently intelligent and original people will always have something to offer others; its irrelevant if you imagine the others as the current consumer public, our corporate overlords, or the ai owners of the future.

There may be people who have nothing to offer others, once technology advances, but I dont think that anyone in current top % role would find themselves there.

[Davidzheng]

There is no jobless utopia. Even if everyone is paid and well-off with high living standards. That is no world in which humans can thrive where everyone is retired and doing their own interests.

[bravesoul2]

Jobless means you dont need a job. But you'd make a job for yourself. Companies will offer interesting missions instead of money. And by mission I mean real missions like space travel.

[ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7]

A jobless utopia doesn't even come close to passing a smell test economically, historically, or anthropologically.

As evidence of another possibility, in the US, we are as rich as any polis has ever been, yet we barely have systems that support people who are disabled through no fault of their own. We let people die all the time because they cannot afford to continue to live.

You think anyone in power is going to let you suck their tit just because you live in the same geographic area? They don't even pay equal taxes in the US today.

Try living in another world for a bit: go to jail, go to a half way house, live on the streets. Hard mode: do it in a country that isn't developed.

Ask anyone who has done any of those things if they believe in a "jobless utopia"?

Euphoric social capitalists living in a very successful system shouldn't be relied upon for scrying the future for others.

[silver_silver]

Realistically, a white collar job market collapse will not directly lead to starvation. The world is not 1930s America ethically. Governments will intervene, not necessarily to the point of fairness, but they will restructure the economy enough to provide a baseline. The question will be how to solve the biblical level of luxury wealth inequality without civil unrest causing us all to starve.

[tim333]

Assuming AI works well, I can't see any "empty stomach" stuff. It should produce abundance. People will probably have political arguments about how to divide it but it should be doable.