alt Hacker NewsNot many people see that the end result is that when ordinary people stop earning money, and stop buying products, all the money will be used purely for B2B transactions.
Money will still exist, but people will not see hardly any of it. To break out of being just a person and start a business you will still need money, but be unable to get any.
Thus, the endgame is revealed. You don't need to form a dictatorship, you don't need to have a war, you just need to remove all real choice from people, and then you have complete control over what they are able to do by simply making it cost too much. There will be a firewall between ordinary people, and the people who own businesses where all the money sits.
We see the start of it already, when just two individuals have a combined wealth on the order of a trillion dollars. That inequality is not going down, only upwards.
Sure, you may get universal basic income, have a nice house, car (food, clothing etc of course) but there will be a massive air gap between what you could obtain in a lifetime and the minimum you would need to move from that situation into the world where the real money is.
Corporate saving rose by nearly 5 percentage points of global GDP between 1980 and 2013, and since the 2000s the corporate sector flipped from net borrower to net lender in many advanced economies — the "corporate saving glut." Much of it just piled up as cash reserves. Currently, 10–15% of GDP per year flows into corporate retained earnings never to leave. Think about the long term ramifications of that for you and your purchasing power.
AI didn't make this situation, it is just speeding it up.
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We know what it looks like. We call it post industrial society. The rust belt, decrepit mill and mining towns, shrinking cities, etc.
Your analysis assumes our current politics where money roughly equates with power. That won't hold if people feel controlled.
AI of course also has the potential to concentrate power, but people aren't just going to ask the accountants who should be in charge.
The practical difference between a select few owning everything and governments owning everything ends up being practically minor. The key is disperse true ownership (which is NOT just collective ownership via the standard shares; your share in Meta gives you as much control of that as your vote does the government).
> That inequality is not going down, only upwards.
This was talked about 15+ years ago when I was a young student. I saw the writing on the wall and made it a priority to live below my means and aggressively invest.
Unfortunately, many of my friends think I am crazy for not "enjoying life" more... We shall see what happens I guess.
> We see the start of it already, when just two individuals have a combined wealth on the order of a trillion dollars. That inequality is not going down, only upwards.
Isn't there an inconsistency here? You've set up this narrative of businesses as being the only entities with money (wealth?) but then singled out two individuals.
Also, how do calls for equality of wealth address the inequality in contribution of value and efficiency to society and the economy at large?
> Sure, you may get universal basic income…
This is the only point I disagree with. Given human history, it’s much more likely that you wind up in a slum, dying of dysentery. Or the third generation trapped in a trailer park cooking meth to get by. Or, maybe, if you’re lucky, being a cleaner, chauffeur, or cook for one of the wealthy.