Post Labor Economics: How will the economy work after AGI? Recent thoughts and conversations

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[@ianglenn2821]

A guy wearing a Star Trek captain's uniform, giving a serious and insightful talk on economic issues, never explaining the uniform. I like it.

[@technobabble77]

Never underestimate the power of greed or what a person will do to hold onto power.

[@ianglenn2821]

Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the USA, stock ticker KR, is set to report record profits for their fiscal year, again. Nobody lowers prices when costs go down.

[@GreenKC]

Millions of people are about to be obsolete. I doubt Universal based income is going to be a thing as our governments view it as communist utopia. So I see a lot of people starving soon or returning to farming life.

[@killy374]

Will the small time hustlers hold onto their greedy power ?

[@GreenKC]

@@ianglenn2821So true.. there needs to be some type of inflation law and enforcement to make sure food vendors arent overcharging the people.

[@jarvispslothman2473]

@@GreenKCI know right? Government control of prices has such a long history of working exactly as intended...

[@philipmuller90]

MIT published a list of jobs most likely to be replaced by AI recently. It included many adjunct professor, lecturer, and similar roles that one might do earlier in their career. As long as we need experts to do some complex jobs that AI can't do, those people may likely need to go through phases in their early careers in which they're competing alongside AI. One of the arguments for AI is that it can make jobs easier/ faster/ more productive, but learning has been shown to happen through struggle. If we allow AI to take over every easier cognitive task for economic reasons, couldn't it undermine the building of expertise everywhere?

[@_VISION.]

Not if everyone is using AI to improve their learning process, furthermore you still have people who value the process of learning a particular skill because it's intellectually stimulating.

[@CybertruckCity]

@@_VISION. I think until we have some implants we likely will quicken our knowledge but also rely more on AI as some type of external knowledge base, so nothing much different than current phones.

[@_VISION.]

@@CybertruckCity What's your point? I'm not sure of the relevance to my comment.

[@HeavyMetalorRockfan9]

@@_VISION.problem is the time horizon for people to get paid keeps getting pushed back - and in reality people coming into the labour market now are in an untenable position, since the AI is going to continue to improve alongside them. Basically there's a very limited signal to young people about what skills will be in-demand in the future, as the jagged edges of AI capabilities continue expand rapidly in all directions with limited ability to predict where they might extend to next. I think what is clear is that cognition-only jobs are the first on the chopping block at a low level, and in the long run we won't need cognition anyways since the AI will be better than experts in the medium term - investing 20 years into becoming an expert then seems like a silly idea. The best course of action now for young people is to engage in something that requires an aspect of physical labour - but the irony is earlier advances in robotics have drastically reduced the needed physical labour force. The real issue we face is the fact that we're overly productive and that because of this, all but the very best at something are not required to work. Already our society was comprised of roughly 60% bullshit jobs, but I suspect there will have to be a further 20-30% shift

[@DOMINNIMOD198]

Of course it will reduce expertise, it will cut the wings of the ones that could be the great figures of our time, Ai replaces people thats the thing

[@Cogitovision]

It really comes down to who owns the means of production. Figure that out, and you have answered the question. If we own our own robots who do our work, we reap the benefits. If giant corporations own the robots who do all the work, the economy, as such, no longer exists.

[@thevikingsock8527]

Yeah its gonna be a big dystopia. Billionaires are big Corps are already increasing the wealthgap, now imagine we lose our last bit of power (our work force) .. their greed knows no limits

[@LyricsQuest]

China, by and large, owns "The means to production" and did the American economy still largely exist? Yes. Fact of the matter is, wealth in this country is derived from many resources that are exist, and are extracted from, our very own country. The farms produce food and Americans are dang good at it, producing food surpluses that exports world-wide with no peer. America also produces a lot of oil and natural gas, which goes into the fuels that power private cars and industrial vehicles, and fertilizers that power those same farms. The American stock market also attracts capital from all around the world, enriching American stock holders. And one can't forget all the American brands that exist worldwide, both products and commercial operations, sending foreign monies back to America. These resources are then divvied up according to the "service industry"; many service jobs don't produce valuable products of their own, but their wages enable them to acquire resources from their (largely) retail distribution.

[@kyneticist]

I'd take a moment to point out on a related note that Microsoft's new Copilot suite will likely pretty enthusiastically, be trained by hundreds-of-millions of people on how to do their jobs. I'm sure that other people can make a better guess as to how long it might take for the Copilot to become the Pilot.

[@arkology_city]

6 months?

[@brandonzhang5808]

thank goodness tbh

[@cybervigilante]

Copilot - the gift that keeps on taking 🤪

[@512Squared]

No chance - AGI will simply not be allowed to steer the ship, meaning that even if it can create, it won't be the driver of creation. I can't see it being anything more than a tool, though what the people using the tools can do grows and expands, because that's the magic ingredient, novelty.

[@BigMTBrain]

@@512Squared You underestimate the power of profit. Look at what's happened already: Microsoft, via Open AI and ChatGPT, have become dominant because they have pushed their AI to be dominant in production. The same will flow into "steering" of all kinds - the more the AI/AGI is allowed to automate decisions, the more profitable the company behind it. And somehow, you're thinking human creativity and direction of creativity will always be the pinnacle. AI art, and soon music, will show that not to be the case. The next steps in AI are for the AIs to be imbued with imagination and degrees of autonomy - more human like - that is the only way the technology progresses to AGI, and the big players are certainly not going to stop working to achieve that... because they know, whoever reaches AGI first has a forever advantage. In other words, whoever reaches the near vertical of the exponential curve first, their AGI and its then exponentially evolving progeny will ensure their dominance forever. EDIT: Sounds like fantasy. Yes, I know. But in mid-2022, NO ONE anticipated ChatGPT. Such was considered pure fantasy, not achievable for at least another decade or so. Logistics and governance, and I'm talking all the way up to government state level, will be proven better orchestrated by AI. Yes, humans will still be in the loop, but will largely serve as a rubber stamp. Why? Because countries compete with other countries - whoever dominates wins, and in the AI era, allowing AI to push the buttons will be the only way to dominate and win. You can't pit human decision makers against an AGI and expect to win. All countries, therefore, will seek AGI leadership.

[@godmisfortunatechild]

Of all places discussing ai I'm glad people in the comments are really getting to the heart of the matter. What will the everyday people do to survive once they're superfluous in the economy? How can we rest assured that the benefits of AI will be for everyone and not the VC's, investors and elite. By all indications it seems we're headed to a creating of a permanent economic underclass

[@MrClockw3rk]

The problem isn’t going to be access. It’s going to be the cognitive capacity limits of the people with access to the resource, just as it currently is with the internet.

[@goosewithagibus]

I don't think the underclass will stand for it. All revolutions seem to start with one thing: food. If people start getting hungry, things will start shifting fast.

[@PeterResponsible]

@@goosewithagibus yes except that you cannot overthrow a government if it's protected by AI. The only doable revolution would be from within the elite if some of them took pity for the underclass.

[@goosewithagibus]

@@PeterResponsible those are so pretty big assumptions to be so confident about

[@user-zw5qm9zf6g]

@@PeterResponsible They have family and friends . Some of them are underclass and will be underclass so we'll be fine.

[@witwisniewski2280]

You're an optimist. Humans could make their lives utopia already, with what we already have accomplished, but we don't. We are not even close to solving the reason why there are wars, and AGI will become part of the war machine before it makes everyday life better. We also have an epidemic of mental illness, that (almost) by definition means that we harm ourselves and society. We have rampant narcissism, both the narcissists and their admirers. Most rich people do not seek wealth to be wealthy, but rather to be wealthier than others. They are motivated by schadenfreude. To look down on other people, many must be oppressed to live on the "wrong side of the tracks", and will use AGI to find diabolical ways to oppress people.

[@amyfox3877]

Indeed. People in the 1900s figured that this would have happened in the their century. And speaking of war machines, the IDF is already leaning on its AI system as part of targeting Gaza. We don't know how it works, or *if* it works.

[@samrunsads]

This comment is so full of truth. Schadenfreude = Sadomasochism. The elite are very very very high in the dark triad personality traits... which should really be the dark quadratic, sadism is the 4th piece. I love technology, it has the power to make life for all of humanity absolutely amazing, and yet, the tiny percent of people in power and those who serve them are always motivated by their evil desires. Good hearted people need to grow some teeth, they usually assume others aren't malicious because they themselves are not. We are not ignorant to what the truth of the dark side of humanity is. What to do about it? Not sure... Best guess is to double down on becoming as self sufficient and sovereign as possible. The Roman Harlot is falling.

[@everettvitols5690]

1. How exactly could humans make our lives utopia already? Really I am curious. Also, how do you define utopia? 2. How is AGI unlike any other technology that can be used to oppress people? And why have we not seen increases in oppression due to other technologies? Seems to me that the broad trend has been that societies are more free than ever, and it seems that it really has more to do the society valuing democracy and freedom than anything else. 3. Why is it that rich people are so nice if they are so evil? Tend to be lower in violence, charitable, care more about the environment? Do you consider yourself a rich person? Because you are one by function of you having the time to watch this video and type up that comment on your computer or phone.

[@Jontheinternet]

We already treat workers like crap. Imagine now that they aren't needed how they will be treated

[@cobaltblue1975]

To me the most interesting part about all of this is how many people are sleeping through this. It’s how I imagine the transition from horse and carriage to the automobile went down. You had people who just weren’t aware of the new tech. Then you had those who were aware of it but thought it was a novelty. And then there were all the people working in all the professions surrounding horse care and carriage building who could have never imagined that their career would become a niche profession in less than a decade. Fast forward to now and most people don’t realize the gravity of what is coming and how much it’s going to fundamentally change things.

[@raymond_luxury_yacht]

Everyone is just playing as the shop goes down. Most of the people I work with are too stuck on their current tasks to step back and see the tsunami. It will be a bigger shock for them. I'm already living the post ai revolution. It's so weird how people don't want to see it or prepare.

[@spacetimepotato]

I agree, but it’s on a much larger and far more accelerated scale than the horse and carriage to automobiles example, or even the transition from the industrial age to the information age. Even those of us following everything now may not be able to avert our own demise because we simply can’t act or react quickly enough.

[@wolfsblade88]

Ai is the tractor of the 21st century. For the us, it led to the great depression as the farm and hourse industry collapsed. All the free labor turned to making the war material of WW2.

[@Nytecrawler2010]

That is so true. Everybody I know is sleepwalking into it. Almost to a person, they think AI is just a fancy search engine and roll their eyes at me when I tell them that what's coming will be on the level of the discovery of fire. They just don't get it. They're unable to think outside the current paradigm.

[@AB-wf8ek]

I was talking to my healthcare broker today and asked her if she was following AI news or not. She said no, but she was cheerful with the idea that it will be nice to have robots to do our laundry. The reality is her job is more likely to be replaced before then. Personally I don't like that idea, because the reality is she's way more caring about my position and personal welfare than any AI will be in the foreseeable future. But of course the healthcare industry would love to replace her with a bot, because it would optimize for their costs, not my benefits.

[@debaterforhim]

You are very optimistic. I think you trust the government and businesses far too much to think prices will fall...

[@Abard3480]

Agreed, kind of like now. Inflation has been lowering but food prices have not, as a current day example. Corporations will just see as higher profit margin by eliminating labor costs.

[@konigstiger3252]

@@Abard3480 price coming down is deflation aka. Negative inflation... we don't have that so why would cost come down

[@spiritlevelstudios]

He's clueless about Bill Gates. The naivety is refreshing though.

[@nl9696]

@@Abard3480 we havent hit deflation yet.... low inflation still means prices rise... we wont get deflation unless theres an economic recession putting people out of work

[@foreign_agent]

Agreed, utilities is a sector that easily passes inflation to consumer, and that alone means costs/prices will keep riding as long as dollar remains reserve currency. Also, no matter how far AI/AGI advances, plumbers, cops, and junk removers need not worry about job security for another century or so. The revenge of the blue collar. Not that hedge fund managers would ever consider a career change to value adding labor.🖕😂

[@tjakal]

Such a strange time to be alive, ever since I was a young teen and started to assemble enough information to piece together who we are and where we're heading I've had this increasingly sharp vision in my mind how this is exactly the sort of trajectory we're on. Still I didn't expect it unfolding at this rate til maybe the very tail end of my lifetime. Now that it becomes increasingly evident we'll live to see it come about it feels as tho I was just placed here as an observer to experience what it's like struggling towards an out-of-reach ceiling that isn't even the floor for the thing that makes us obsolete. If 'Descartes Demon' has me I suspect it's trying to teach me humility.

[@brianmi40]

It's nearly impossible for humans to grasp that what our grandparent told us was DEAD WRONG: "change is the only thing that is CONSTANT in life." Change IS NOT CONSTANT AT ALL. It's exponential, and sometimes logarithmic. Every 10 years sees MULTIPLES of the prior 10 years worth of progress. That is why we are SO BAD at predicting the future, progress also appears in unexpected jumps and leaps, like ChatGPT appearing out of nowhere...

[@Qwajman97]

@@brianmi40 I don’t think they meant constant as in a constant scale of change… I think they meant that change will always occur.

[@brianmi40]

@@Qwajman97 for those that did, that would be a Deepity.

[@curiositysparksinspiredlea2085]

Well it is understandable they said that - our grandparents didn't ever see exponential change, it was incremental. I have spoken with people over 80. Many are stunned at the changes: some embrace it, many cringe and retreat , and pretend it doesn't exist. I can totally understand that. Look at the anxiety level in younger people, and they've lived with dramatic changes all their lives. @@brianmi40

[@TFclife]

You're a poet.

[@jamesdavidson8660]

Something that always sticks out to me when tech leaders discuss "improvements in education" is: what will we need to learn? If AI supplants all cognitive work, why do we need to learn math and science? What job would it lead to? Hopefully education becomes more about spiritual / emotional fulfillment (if it's even possible to feel fulfilled without being useful)

[@spiritlevelstudios]

Yes. Lasting fulfilment is never found in anything that changes.

[@_VISION.]

You learn subjects to improve level of consciousness and psychological development, not to make more money.

[@krox477]

You still need people that make these machines more smarter

[@miguelhinojosa5594]

Funnily enough, most cognitive work and science advances through the ages, served no particular practical use. Why do you need to develop a new math, like Newton and Leibniz did? They didn't earned money in their time for doing that. Today, their math fundamentals are mandatory to understand most technology, including AI.

[@pashashtefanesku2386]

You need all that math to check/test/improve the AI? Or you want to end in a silliest doomsday? We shouldn't believe AI 100%, I mean you just can't, it's a machinery, a network, built by a human, and every fucking human makes mistakes. When AI will fail, and it will, it won't give a fuck, because it's just an AI. It will be humans who will suffer, if AI fucks up. And you have to know math in order to guide that AI genius, give it directions.

[@marktellez3701]

I love it when you cover these topics. As an engineer I deal with the tech all day, but the part I am most interested in are in all the ways we simply aren't prepared for what is about to hit us as a species. Industrial revolution squared instead of multiplied.

[@noahway13]

You are spot on. You hit the nail on the head. My brother-in-law, his brother is a robot engineer and is currently at Ruger arms setting up a plan for them to bring in robots to make the weapons. And he still uses that line about the robots will only take the boring and mundane and dangerous jobs... AT A GUN FACTORY???!! That is one of the nicer manufacturing jobs you can get... it's inside, air conditioned and heat, etc. It really is one of my pet peeves to hear some moron say that automation will only take the boring, the mundane, the dangerous jobs. That is *90%* of jobs!!!. It seems there is less and less incentive of re-shoring jobs. It only means that American robots will be making the items and not Chinese robots. And then the owners will take the money they saved and go hide it in offshore accounts. Jeez, I didn't mean to ramble, but I feel strongly about this. Please send some links of similar channels, or if this guy does a live stream, whatever... Thanks for your time.

[@xgtwb6473]

Good luck 😂

[@AB-wf8ek]

​@@noahway13Yea, he says lower costs will free up capital. Free up capital for who? The only thing the rich will pay for in the end is service. Instead of teaching coal miners to code, we'll be teaching coders how to serve food.

[@alatan2064]

@@AB-wf8ek Whelp, once the majority of people become obsolete, the rich might not bother with income, they will bother with securing their control over the AI, the robots, the resources and their human servants, including the military. Not much different that what they already do. The question is what will the majority of the obsolete do. Will they be allowed to live as a taken care of underclass in relative abundance or will they be disposed of as a resource consuming, environment polluting pest? The answer scares me.

[@SacredCASHcow]

​@@alatan2064 how will these corporations make money if everyone is jobless

[@chrismantonuk]

This is all very optimistic. I have a feeling the reality will be a lot more painful and take a lot longer to work itself out.

[@spiritlevelstudios]

"It's a fire in a madhouse." - Terence McKenna

[@Ilamarea]

@@Kenny-tl7ir Egos? You mean stomachs? This is guaranteed extinction of humanity.

[@HeavyMetalorRockfan9]

100%, I suspect the next 20 years to be very painful, and then maybe afterwards we can start to build out a better system

[@misterogers9423]

I agree. He is wearing a Star Trek uniform, which historically was a pretty idealistic and optimistic view of the future. However, negativity is spreading, and even the newer Star Trek has strayed deeply into the negative and dystopic vision. So, yes I agree with you, but I think people are overall way more negative than they were a few decades ago.

[@kolaas2006]

First lets hope the ocean's temperature stops rising like crazy. Dead ocean is end of humanity.

[@Rhgeyer278]

We are a 6 figure income couple and had very little saved and not much cash lying around the preverbal". '...don't have $500 for an emergency" that was us. The big thing was debt all kinds of it, cars mortgage (although our home isn't a high price one), student loans for our kids, and of course credit cards. One day we just got sick of being broke and went total scorched earth and became frugal overnight. Paid it all off, it took almost 5 years but now we have no debt and this year our savings rate is 50% on basically the same income that had us perpetually broke. So for us it is mainly staying out of debt and watching our spending, at first it was a real effort to save in our HISA and 401Ks but now it's actually fun watching our money grow. No car or vacation or neighborhood is worth being broke or financially unstable.

[@RandalHebert]

Congratulations on taking the steps necessary to get yourself out of the financial bind you were in.

[@Bradleyschaeffer376]

Facing your medicine can be difficult. However, with commitment, you'll ultimately reach a highly satisfying place. It's all about the actions you're willing to take.

[@MichealTanner141]

Your financial journey is truly inspiring, and I'm currently striving to achieve the goals you've reached. Could you please share some tips to help others learn and navigate their own paths to financial success? Your insights would be invaluable.

[@Rhgeyer278]

Samuel Peter Descovich that's whom I work with

[@Rhgeyer278]

I believe everyone could benefit from having a personal financial advisor. They can assist you in reaching your customized financial objectives at any point, ensuring you remain profitable.

[@user-wu8sj3ee3d]

It seems like we’re heading toward a world of shareholders ruling the world as much as machines.

[@aguyinavan6087]

Ask yourself this question. "What happened to the number of children couples had when they were no longer seen as free labor for farm work?" Answer: It plummeted. If the population is not seen as an asset, it will be suspected as a liability.

[@zunar_j5_933]

💯

[@particle_wave7614]

well, it was really high before not because it was free labor (they are just adding to the number of mouths to feed) but because most people died before they had kids. Just for the population to not decline, people had to have like 6 kids minimally. After medicine improved, it was much less likely for people to die young. Yes, people are having less kids in the last hundred years or so, but you seem to not mention that the drop in birth rates has also been alongside an explosion in population because all those kids are surviving. Now couples only need to have 2-3 kids to have a stable population instead of 6+. And with more free time and lower cost of living, added with possible child-birth incentives like tax credits, the birth rate could potentially go up. What else are people going to do with infinite free time? Having kids is one of our basic biological needs. Remember, the size of the economy will be proportional to the human population. The more people there are, the more consumers there are.

[@aguyinavan6087]

@particle_wave7614 It's not a basic biological need. China's population is decreasing. Japan's has been decreasing for over a decade, The US is going into decline after the baby boomers. The youngest generation in the US is the smallest it has been by far. There are more unmarried women older than 30 than there are married. We are moving into the same state as Japan, highly automated, and a highly educated workforce. Women put off family formation until they have their advanced degrees, and then they are no longer high value in the eyes of men for reproduction purposes, because men are attracted to neotenous (youthful) traits. Women's eggs become less viable and healthy as they surpass 30 and men's testosterone and sex drive plummets, especially with the sedentary lifestyle. The babies we then produce in our old age have more mental problems, and our assets devalue as the population decreases, thus stopping migrations incentives and companies leave as they become the only source of taxation.

[@leonie563]

It's already happening where retailers are putting less stock on shelves (at Xmas!) And there's less bread and veges in abundance. It felt like covid lockdown when grocery shopping lately and staff confirmed less stock arriving on pallet ordering. Not supply chain: deliberate.

[@cassielee1114]

@@aguyinavan6087 Another effect of capitalism- women are expected to at least attempt a career. We used to be able to say “I just want to be a mum” without scorn.

[@tomaszzielinski4521]

I',m afraid people become useless and powerless before they see what hit them. Not only a majority of the industry will be controlled by a few companies that control the AI, but also media, entertainment and well as personalized AI assistants owned by these will keep the people unaware or not interested of ongoing shift. Point is, it doesn't matter what AI and the rest of industry could do in theory, it matters who owns it and benefits from it.

[@isiahfriedlander5559]

Thing is… even if so, we’ll have UBI, so living in a zoo or not, I don’t see how that would be too different from now

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Even that only goes so far if whole sections of society "nope" out.

[@yurijmikhassiak7342]

If you will be able to do whatever you want and live the life you want what is the problem? Even if you own that corporation how your life will be different from everybody else? You will have 2x bigger apartment and 2x bigger jet than other people but you will work 2x harder.

[@mestreweeaboo425]

@@isiahfriedlander5559 Yeah it will certainly not be a dosage of lead admnistered to the head of the useless by a private company or gov robots lol.

[@dongyang1285]

@@yurijmikhassiak7342 The question is on "will be able to...", about the limitations and who set those up.

[@satish8437]

Couple of questions here: 1) If people are going to get replaced by the “machines”, who’s going to pay the taxes to the government? How is the country going to function, without money circulating? 2) Who would be the consumer of this service, without money to spend? For instance say Amazon spends lot of money to automate its facility, logistics etc, but who is buying the goods for it to have a ROI on the spending ?(Partially answered in the video, but still confused)

[@virtualalias]

6:13 - The issue with more personalized is that we're already culturally fractured. Not sure what we do when our news, movies, music, books, etc are all tailored to our preferences such that we're supremely unchallenged in whatever viewpoints we have when we're thirteen.

[@max_rove]

great point!

[@pieterlouw369]

I honestly hope this future becomes reality there are so many terrible ai outcomes the David Shapiro verse seem like one of the good ones

[@FluteZen1]

That was that was a terrific educational video. I have difficulty finding people to discuss these topics with so I very much appreciated going through your brain and thoughts on that. Thank you.

[@tingtonggamer4901]

heres the real answer "We dont know"

[@asatorftw]

The biggest problem I am having is to decide what to learn in a future that might make all of it obsolete. I love learning about AI and how it works, but am I good enough to make any impact on the field before AI can write itself? I highly doubt it and it weights heavily on my heart.

[@philip4419]

Just try and learn what you are interested in, if all becomes obsolete at least youd have had a good time enjoying yourself

[@brianmi40]

As Joseph Campbell would have told you, "follow your bliss".

[@robertwyatt3912]

Just learn stuff that you enjoy.

[@VandreBorba]

I think about that too.... 🤔

[@gamooor1386]

Find something physical (I am electrical technician). AI still needs our physical movement way more than you think. Jobs behind computers will be the first to go.

[@Pcgamingfixes]

I cannot write a compliment adequate for your video. I love what you have put together and delivered. This is one of the most relevant conversations to have. The new contract is something that needs to be worked out. I feel there’s so many problems keeping us from being ready to successfully form a new contract. Please stay as focused as you are and also let us know what we can do to bring this topic to a broader audience. Thank you.

[@kshaur13]

Share the video

[@emteiks]

Imagine what is your negotiation position when your services (labour) is no longer needed.

[@melisavierra7812]

Maybe I missed it but, I didn’t hear anything about how a handful of corporations control the majority of the big companies. From my informal observations price is no longer controlled by production costs. We need a new economic system that respects the sovereignty of all

[@everettvitols5690]

A handful of corporations don't actually control the majority of companies and businesses! "Price is no longer controlled by production costs" oh did capitalists suddenly get greedy after not being greedy? Supply and demand controls prices, not some mysterious force that only suddenly appeared.

[@JracoMeter]

My biggest hope is that we keep asking questions. The more these models do, the more questions we'll have. It also makes me think, what are we going to discover along the way.

[@seaneustace9308]

👍🏼

[@shrunkensimon]

That we aren't asking the right questions. And when we do, it will have no answer. Or rather, it won't be allowed to give it to you.

[@McMurchie]

Here is a thought I wan't to share. You know how all major super markets have slashed the number of staff for self-service checkouts? The same will apply to pretty much all devwork. Instead of 10 devs on a project (i.e. 10 checkout staff), you have just one skilled four eyes checker (like that one staff member who oversee's the 10 auto checkout machines) - we will have rapid, mass produced code from LLMs, where a skilled full stack dev basically eyeballs the rarer runtime errors and performs a bit of manual QC. The result? Software engineering goes from the most lucrative, exciting industry to minimum wage - with a few niche high paid employees sprinkled inbetween. We always predict the future just slightly wrong, like it happens but with a twist- this is how i see it, AI won't automate us, it will devalue our existing roles.

[@goosewithagibus]

I think you're totally right.

[@Xyno001]

I think it will do more than just devalue out roles but also our human experience in its entirety.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

It won't devalue are roles because we are the only ones to give it value in the first place. Most people work so they can eat, shelter, and procreate(sometimes). When we strip that all out that then it is realm of pure desire travel, build something cool, eat good food. The problem will only exist for people with poor imagination.

[@KaLaka16]

​@@southcoastinventors6583Being useful is what gives many people meaning. Not everyone will thrive without being needed, although new tech may also totally change that. We'll see what happens. In any case, the shift won't be pretty for many, but what comes after could truly be great.

[@rdean150]

@@southcoastinventors6583 How can we pay for these wonderful travel experiences when we don't have jobs? I don't believe for a second that we will have UBI within the next decade, but these widespread industry disruptions and job losses are already starting.

[@timapple9580]

Humans: AI can't make trees grow faster. AI: Hold my beer.

[@DaveShap]

It'd be cool to be wrong, but I doubt it

[@markwhite168]

Never in history did we have a peaceful transition of ownership of major capital.

[@MichaelLaFrance1]

When unemployment goes above a certain level, you typically get more than economic collapse, you get full scale revolution. It's not unreasonable to predict that people will organize to outlaw and destroy GPUs to stop AI, rather than starve. Unless governments are prepared with an equitable solution, I think we risk having it all torn down before we can realize the more beneficial stages of AGI.

[@bloodust7356]

That's why we will need UBI

[@eintyp4389]

People will organize and Outlaw GPS to stop ai? More like they get offed trying by autonomouse weapons.

[@raymond_luxury_yacht]

Well, we will all be mandated to take safe and effective vaccines to alleviate our hunger. Think Holocaust v2

[@ticthak]

@user-dt7px5xp6z That doesn't mean that powderkeg can't be blown off in a direction desirable by the elite and powerful, taking out only targets THEY deem worth taking out. Otherwise, lack of coherent MEANINGFUL action is something certainly to be expected in the U. S.

[@melissaperrow9753]

Exactly. This video appears very niave. History tells us we have been living in a small window of time where we were relatively wealthy and living in a democratic society. This is an aberration to how all other humans lived in poverty and under political regimes where the majority were peasants and the elite controlled everything. There will be no utopian UBI. If the majority no longer serve any useful purpose, then why would the elite allow the majority to continue at all? The most likely outcome is the elites take all of the wealth, and the majority live in poverty, leading to a cultural revolution to overthrow the regime and rid society of the technology that impoverished the people. It’s a very interesting scenario to think about. And that assumes the technology doesn’t take over and launch a judgement day against humans. What will make AGI want to serve humans once it becomes consciously aware? It seems like there are far more downside extreme risks than upsides. We can not have the majority of society without having a useful purpose or being unable to financially provide for themselves and their family.

[@Boinzy476]

People with power and money will most certainly not care about what happens to the people adversely affected by these changes. We've seen this over and over again.

[@DaveShap]

But there are more of us

[@Boinzy476]

@@DaveShap I wish we acted like it.

[@DougieBarclay]

@@alertbri we will be the robot army. #neuralink

[@Bvic3]

@@DaveShap There were more of us Europeans too. But the cosmopolitan ruling class decided to replace us anyway. You need to be really blind to believe numbers and votes matter. Opposing elite power is hate speech.

[@sprechendemulltonne5051]

I see many comments stating that. But I think that's a good thing. People learned what happened in the past when productivity was maximized. Maybe this time they wouldn't let history repeat itself and let the rich get away with maximizing only their own profit.

[@TigerShark_With_thigh_in_mouth]

Take this with a grain of salt, this is the first video I’ve seen from this man and I’m only 19 minutes into the pod cast. He remind of Peter ziehan, so intelligent, so knowledgeable, yet leaves out or down plays it’s role in, of one of the biggest factors of economics. Which mainly is the factor public perception, actions and reactions of the majority of society who is outside of the any finical circles or institutions. If moneys only value is only the perceived value, then isn’t 80-90% of the populations perceived value of money the biggest determining factor in the trajectory of all finical institutions? What happens if the 80-90% of the population lose all belief in it?

[@jeffh.8127]

Excellent point. I agree with you about Peter although Peter is far better at this. David seems to completely overlook Congressional action. It's like saying the economy would collapse if a pandemic occurred. Well, that didn't happen because of government measures. Mass joblessness won't happen, at least not without Congressional action to prevent layoffs. For example, they might regulate AI implementation which might start happening soon if AI companies don't prevent such events by their corporate customers.

[@glennhaya6319]

One prediction that seems completely off to me is energy pricing being a fraction of the cost in the next 10 years due to an overabundance of renewable energy. I am no expert but this doesn’t seem to be the case to me at all. What about all the electricity to feed larger more complex systems and robots? I think if anything electricity prices wil go up do to increased demand.

[@mikeburton1064]

My primary goal with LLMs is to help folks figure out how to develop self-sustaining communities to try to bypass the concentration of wealth that currently threatens to make post-AGI a capitalist hellscape.

[@exoticgamer2479]

The book the network state might help you out in this position 🙏🏾 good luck , the future of us optimists depends on it

[@avivolah9401]

Yea, exactly! And i dont understand how he is so sure post-agi will come naturally in a capitalist world when we have stuff like planned obsolescence for example that hint at what is the ideology of this capitalist system... We have to strive to anything that goes in the direction of system change towards something in the direction of RBE, otherwise we might be doomed to different variations of dystopian futures.

[@finnjon5049]

Capitalists will struggle in a post-AGI world. What justification is there for massive wealth if you are really just baby-sitting AI? And any non-profit should be able to outcompete a for profit if it's AI all the way down. But self-sustaining communities are how we are supposed to live anyway, so I support you.

[@kimwarburton8490]

You can potentially tap into jim/jem bendell's 'fans' who are doing the same re climate anxiety. He's one of the IPCC climate scientists who've taught the public about how conservative IPCC stuff is, cos consensus required, how their modelling doesnt take many of the bigger things into the equation, so situation gunna be worse n faster. adaption and something else he says is required, but basically, ur both talking about the same solution. He's the only public person i know urging this among the 'green folk', has a paper published which has links to his 'fans' there's also the 'prepper' crowds, both attract the crazies, but not always n the more people who do such, the better humanity's future imo. sorry for not doing a better job. i've dabbled in both worlds, It's late and i have chronic fatigue -memory issues n mental fatigue kicking in XD Some books to such people to consider; titles are something like 'caveman chemistry' 'how to rebuild civilisation' - a book that teaches u all the tech essentials, including how to build a printer n paper n ink to make copies of the book Regenerative soil practices r needed too -50-60 yrs left in our soils. Look both to the past and the future. I believe every community should have a library containing such books; medical sans medical people, water power, non-water toilets, earthships, how to make materials to make renewable energy systems, because if communities go off-grid/lose internet, they'll have no means to replace what they set their community up with. Also old some old school skills be needed, preserving food systems, tho my list i now notice is a bit prepper-biased XD financial education is KEY!!

[@v1kt0u5]

More like a mix of neo-feudalism + neo-facism 🧐

[@kultrol6440]

You mentioned using AI for learning, which is interesting. I’m studying Math and Physics in college. I prefer using GPT instead of watching long KZbin videos, as they take 20 minutes to cover something that could be explained in 5 minutes. I agree with the sentiment that education is moving towards a more personalised experience. Khan Academy is a great example.

[@matthew2531]

Absolutely. I'm a teacher and I am very transparent to students that I use content from AI. Sometimes I have to add illustrations or apply career specific examples to the problems

[@matthew2531]

Yes, teachers need to embrace search engines to make class time about solving problems not memorizing busy work. The first year of Calc is basically a hazing before learning math

[@drewott8162]

I like learning from ChatGPT as well, for now. But if there are no jobs in a future economy, what would be the purpose of an education system? Education would just become a leisure/hobby activity in this future.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Yet here you are so maybe you do like videos after all

[@kultrol6440]

@@drewott8162 I’ve been thinking the same as of late. If AGI is able to create new theorems, conjectures, and prove them all without the need for human intervention, then I think education (higher education) would be like mastering chess. The AI have already beat us at chess but there is something more meaningful in seeing a human play and win matches at a masters level than AI play against each other.

[@leonardoparedes9823]

I have been watching lots of your videos lately, great content! Thank you and your channel will undoubtedly grow a lot!

[@shujin6600]

finally someone who isn't talking bullshit about AI.

[@TiMmMAAaaa]

I feel like you’re approaching this from a benevolent idealism. I feel that money is not just about having wealth and comfort, but having power over others

[@Techtalk2030]

I just saw an hour long discussion with Sam altman in Cambridge University this morning. He seems to be indicating that something BIG is coming. Agi really does seem to be happening.

[@autohmae]

Yeah he got fired and... got re-hired ?

[@Techtalk2030]

@@autohmae yep

[@skier340]

I would challenge the idea at 25:00. For some people this may be true that if costs go down by 10x then you're 10x wealthier. But you also have situations like car loans, student debt, healthcare debt, mortgages that are not likely to suddenly disappear. What will happen to millions of people that suddenly can't afford to pay all these things that they were well positioned to before?

[@v4v777]

Car loans, student debt, healthcare debt, and mortgages... will be considered Horror Movies in future societies.

[@robbiep742]

We will literally have societal collapse. There's plenty of examples throughout history of when a political or economic system fails, and the results are never pretty. Think of post-Soviet Russia, Venezuela, or Argentina. Or consider what happened in the world through the 1800s - WW2. Conflict. Maybe we achieve a star trek society eventually, but the path to that destination will be brutal.

[@skier340]

@@robbiep742 That's exactly what I'm afraid of. There are a lot of pieces to this and I feel like some of the people leading the charge think that they've thought through everything but they really haven't. I don't think society is ready for what's coming and at the same time we also may need AGI to fix all our problems such as climate change. I personally think the best outcome could be something like government regulations saying you cant replace human workers with AI in certain (or all) sectors and only use AI to add extra value even if it's capable of replacing workers. Until we as a society can figure out how to avoid those sort of collapses you mentioned, I think we're going to need to do something like this or if government won't act, perhaps consumers boycott companies that replace workers with AI and force companies to maintain human workers if they want consumers to spend with them.

[@marcusmoonstein242]

Don't worry about deflation pushing up the real value of debts. The government will print and spend so much new money that inflation is more likely to become a problem than deflation.

[@SeventhSolar]

The government would obviously need to step in. I would hope we're not Soviet Russia over here, y'know? Student debt is already being dissolved to some degree, the idea of healthcare debt is kind of terrible when you think about it. It's mortgages and all those wealthy shareholders that will be the real problem.

[@bradholc]

The real discussions that need to happen in the mainstream

[@commarmi]

This man is a genius. Why is almost no one else talking about this? I have previously arrived at similar conclusions than him but he takes it to a whole new level. Srry bad English.

[@SumBrennus]

David, your estimate of UBI is far too generous. I am living on $905/mo. I tend to think that UBI will be set about the same threshold as government disability pensions. IF significant deflation occurs as a result of the removal of labor then I think politicians will claw back benefits to be more in line with basic survival because they won't want 'people to get rich without working'. And by working I mean 'owning significant capital and realizing returns for shareholders.' The rich will want to still maintain their social position even without grounds to do so.

[@robinwang6399]

I feel its entirely possible to have prices kept high artificially, like planed obsolescence or prices of diamonds.

[@Devin888]

I agree. Grocery stores have thrown bleach on produce to control supply. Abundance is not enough to make things cheap. Capitalist will create artificial scarcity to maintain advantageous supply and demand dynamics .

[@lostzephyr2191]

There's not a lot of reason for them to allow prices to crater down to 1/10th or 1/100th of what they are now. They'll just pocket all the excess productivity instead of lowering prices, and they'll sell their services to other wealthy people, locking 95% of the population out of the economy. They'll probably kill us with a disease or something like that.

[@avivolah9401]

@David Shapiro

[@marianhunt8899]

The Oligarchs will ensure this sadly, as they have throught history. Sad.

[@sameagletheregal8526]

Smart phones keep going up in price too.

[@fortune-cookie-monster]

It feels like we are watching science-fiction become science-reality - how absolutely fascinating! This is going to be bigger than the Industrial Revolution and even the Agricultural Revolution!

[@shawkontzu642]

Remember that it takes 20~30 years or even more to train a kid to become an engineer or scientist or a doctor. It takes a couple of minutes to reproduce the intelligence on a humanoid robot, a robot that has the most breadth and depth of knowledge, from domain-specific to general knowledge, makes very less mistakes, and keeps to self-improve thanks to reinforcement learning. Losing jobs might not be most troublesome to humanity:)

[@patronspatron7681]

1. Mega corps will swallow entire software based industry sectors. 2. SAAS startups will disappear. 3. The cost of tangible physical assets will skyrocket as opportunities to deploy capital shrink

[@eintyp4389]

Agreed. And when noone can buy land or a home they will radicalise and vote to disown or cap assets like we shouldh have ages ago.

[@petal9547]

I can no imagine a scenario where the change in the social contract doesn't lead to violence. Nobody signed the first contract to begin with, it happend after a long history of violence.

[@Niblss]

To anyone reading this, don't let anyone convince you that UBI is either fair or will leave you in any good position. UBI is by definition a welfare subsidy, and yes completely like the ones we have now, just for everyone because very few will be employed. It's a subsistance-level poverty handout at best. The only solution is publically owned companies and publically owned productive lands as privately owned companies (specially for necessary goods) will cease to make sense when "human ingenuity" (don't let them trick you into thinking only YOU are replaceable) is ruled out of the equation. Do not go gentle into that good night

[@andreys7729]

There was a time when elites had access to free abundant labor: slave-owning ancient Rome. The elites had to throw some food and entertainment to the unemployed property-less underclass to keep it from pillaging the villas of the rich. They don't have to appease the poor nowadays. You cannot do any harm with your clubs and stones to them.

[@elijahbok]

I just wanted to say thank you for an incredibly concise and intelligent elaboration on this topic. I have been thinking about it for some time and you have done an excellent job at concretising many of the concerns and opportunities. Thank you.

[@mbilinkis]

So true

[@jeffh.8127]

I offer you a different future. KZbin is a great example. A few decades ago when I grew up there were mainly 3 channels on t.v. (2 extra if you count PBS and UHF), and while very boring everyone watched the same t.v. shows and everyone watched the same movies we could all talk about the same experience each day (which I miss). Well, fast forward today and I don't even watch t.v. shows. I just watch KZbin and movies. It would just be unthinkable if all of us watched 3 KZbin channels or 3 programs on HBO, etc. on a Tuesday night. Similarly, as AI creates new content, we're going to go from a few thousand companies in the world to hundreds of thousands of companies. We're going to go from a few hundred movies make each year, to a few hundred thousand movies with actors that we might recognize (i.e., AI might generate millions of movies, but not with any Hollywood stars). The future is much, much busier for human labor than it has ever been in the past. We will look today like the drone workers of the past who created an immense amount of paper who just filed that paper each day. In their place are people creating a dozen companies throughout their lives. Today's education should immediately pivot to teaching enterpreneurship because a huge wave of creative and high cognitive work is coming.

[@jeffh.8127]

What happened to my comment? Was it deleted? Why?

[@rfphill]

I am in IT, cloud development now but programming, in general, for better than 25 years. I will unfortunately have to work until I am 65 at least and that is in another 8 years. I used to think there will always be a place for me in this industry as it always just seems to have huge need for developers, architects, and analysts. Trends come and go, QA people are needed, not needed, and needed again. But this seems like it could really reduce demand for those guys like me who are still adding value but are probably too expensive...

[@DavidAKZ]

You are lucky you got this far.

[@MrSmith-ni8bt]

Programming I could understand but what about the guys that install and maintain hardware and networking infrastructure? I wonder what positions in IT will have staying power, even in an AI-centric economy..

[@DavidAKZ]

@@MrSmith-ni8bt In the telecoms space routers and switches as with data centers probably, the hardware has all gone plain vanilla. You plug it in , the lights go solid and it works. Maybe you have to load a config file, but after that it's all custom software.

[@MrSmith-ni8bt]

@@DavidAKZ The reason I ask, is I'm currently debating a career change into an IT role with network engineering as a potential career path or more of a a hands on role as a cabling technician (low-voltage electrician essentially). Hands-on physical expertise seems less likely to get phased out by AGI, at least in the short to mid term. Where software development and SaaS seem next to fall with the mass implementation of AI.

[@DavidAKZ]

​@MrSmith-ni8bt you pose an interesting question. Why not go high voltage engineering? I have worked in the high voltage industry on the telecommunications side. I can tell you the design architecture on the high voltage side (transformers, cables, control) is literally out of the 19th Century! No exaduration. The reason for this is because only government would take on the risk and expense of building an electrical grid across the country and so for the longest time there was zero competition that demands change. Do you notice that among all this chaos, change there has to be a stable voltage and current at its base?

[@XCHDragox115]

I’m a teacher and I’m excited for what’s to come for education. Here’s my take for what’s coming in the education reforms. Personalized learning will be possible and a teacher’s job workload in tedious task like attendance, marking, and curriculum development can be automated. However, I need to stress education, especially in younger students requires the human touch. We have witnessed what happens with our children during the pandemic and purely tech driven learning with no human interaction/ student teacher relationship. Whenever people mention education, they tend to solely focus on intellectual development while neglecting social-emotional learning. How they should relate to peers and others in society is something in person school can provide. This can be in the form of group work, recess, etc. Until we can create a physical android that can mimic human interaction, teachers, healthcare workers, and maybe even some parts of a lawyer is still necessary

[@cassielee1114]

As a former child I have to say group work never did anything positive for me or anyone I know. We mask our way through it but we hate it and one person carries the whole thing, every time.

[@XCHDragox115]

@@cassielee1114 depends how you present it. A few reason people might hate it includes bad group dynamics, generally not knowing how/what to do, and the worse part is being a strong student but having a few slackers drag you down. All these can be remedy by the teacher in how it is presented. As well, group work should never be marked - it is a good assessment tool to know where students are at and how it can inform future lessons, but I don't use it for marks. On a second note, where group work is important is eventually you will have to relate and work with people. Group work actually doesn't teach you 100% the thing you are working together on, but it teaches social skills - conflict resolution, how to work with people you don't like, how to compromise, how to work out problems in a group setting - people skills that just sitting at a desk with paper and pen wouldn't provide for you.

[@jeffh.8127]

I agree. Human contact is extremely important for learning and being able to have AI learning is just a tool used by educators. It's not an end of teachers by any stretch.

[@Gintch]

One simple solution to all this: AGI as Tools not Replacements. Making existing jobs easier. Law makers, governments and unions should adopt this.

[@jeffh.8127]

Congress needs to be having meetings with AI leaders to tell them that large job losses are on them and they must prevent job losses if they want Congress to not regulate the prevention of large job losses.

[@seniorp9444]

Cognitive and creative AI seems to be racing ahead of robotics right now. There may be a period when white collar jobs are heavily impacted but due to lack of robot capabilities and availability, blue collar jobs are relatively safe. Eventually robotics catches up years later but can’t scale nearly as fast as the AI.

[@DrBernon]

I think the same. I can't see a robot doing anything in construction, outside some gimmicky demonstrations. Or doing electrical jobs or car mechanics or anything like that. Even if possible, making such robots will still be way too expensive for many many decades.

[@seniorp9444]

@@DrBernon I do believe it’s possible long term but you are right, robot electricians are not coming anytime soon. Most blue collar work is safe for a while. Warehouse and driving jobs might be in jeopardy.

[@Nytecrawler2010]

AI is still the wildcard here. Everything gets accelerated by it, including robotics. It may seem like blue collar jobs are safe for now, but that's only because we're not yet seeing AI's impact in the development and deployment of robotics.

[@DrBernon]

@@Nytecrawler2010 Yes, but no matter how fast AI gets, the moment it has to interact with the real world, it will get stopped by the physical nature of things. Let's say an AI designs a robot to do something. The design can be fast, but the mining and processing of the materials it needs to build the final robot can only go so fast. Maybe once the robot is made, it is already obsolete by a new AI design, but that does not mean that robot will get trashed to make the new one, because the cost of making the new one makes it not worth it if you already have the old generation. Specially when you consider the nature of high volume manufacturing by Assembly line. Making a new assembly line takes time, and things like 3d printing are slow, with no way to speed them up, and limited in what they can do.

[@UnknownDino]

How doesn't anyone mention the fact that these people who lose their jobs don't just go to another planet or dissappear into a black hole. They will be forced to jump on to other professions. No one's job is safe, this is straight up superfast wealth redistribution from the Ai product consuming masses to Ai systems owners.

[@WeeklyTubeShow2]

Just like fractals, the impact of AGI would likely be recursive and self-similar across different levels. Changes could occur at the individual, community, national, and global levels, mirroring patterns of disruption but at a vastly more complex and interconnected scale.

[@overpope3510]

How to say everything while saying absolutely nothing with substance lol

[@WeeklyTubeShow2]

@@overpope3510 How to get your phone taken away for texting in remedial English class

[@AliEl]

As I come closer to releasing our AI financial advisor I can tell you that our relationship with money is on the verge of changing forever - the startups in this space are making strides that I don’t think the world is ready for just yet.

[@TheHennes36]

Well now you made me curious - why did you even comment this if you are likely not allowed to give any further detail ? ;)

[@AliEl]

@@TheHennes36 Hahaha well I didn't think people would be interested since most people I share my project with tend to not seem all that interested in the details. Fintech has that effect on people for some reason :/

[@spiritlevelstudios]

​@@TheHennes36wanted to toot his own robo horn.

[@nosferadu]

Just because AI can solve most of our problems doesn't mean we're going to let that happen. Companies are investing in AI because they want to make MORE money, not less. Rest assured that, whatever happens, life will not be 10x cheaper in the future. Also, our problem will most likely never be too much leisure. This was predicted at the start of the 20th century by several economists (not least Keynes himself) yet we're still working 40+ hour weeks. We always find a way to create more work, even when it's not needed.

[@GBakerish]

End credits: End credits are a complete list of every person involved in creating the film-including set decorators, technical advisors, and gaffers. This is where all cast and crew are acknowledged for their work and is usually organized by the production company. The end credits for a Disney or Pixar movie can last 5-10 minutes.

[@andeglenderson5240]

As a society we can still retain these skills and knowledge if we deem them of value. But we have to get rid of Disney's and the Pixar's to do that.

[@seaneustace9308]

Now, imagine all the work you do that went into a project puts everyone involved on end credits and end credits are paid royalties based on preordain smart contracts that automatically pay out on Blockchain-based(or not block chain based but open ledger, technology,) money or credits. Now all of a sudden the plumber and the janitor on the set get royalties for the work they put in just like the actors. These would be pennies, of course, but in the world that is deflationary that would help you pay for the material you need to put into your 3-D printer to make your clothes and other gear or help you buy seeds for your farm bot to make you food. It all seems like a perfect paradise, instead, we’re going to get the mark of the beast watch the other shoe will drop. Man has thrown away paradise before don’t put it past us to do it again, and again, and again, and again forever.

[@seaneustace9308]

I just want to play the slave, whispering in your ear, “You are not a God, but a simple man, you will die and your body will rot in the ground. Don’t be proud.” as you swiftly move forward on your chariot in triumph!

[@supremereader7614]

That was a particularly good example with the graphic design and movie production. What will we do with a 10,000 x price collapse? One thing we will still look for is people who come up with original thoughts. And it'll probably be worth supporting such people... you're one of the best on KZbin.

[@DaveShap]

Thanks!

[@cesarbrown2074]

The biggest problem I see that companies have traditionally have not been passing the savings back to the consumer. Exp the bag boy . Thier use to be a person helping you bag your groceries at the grocery store. That position was taken away with no savings. The cashier was replaced with self checkout. Two positions in Walmart a major employer and the price of good are still higher than ever. Hints Inflation. With all this tech shouldn't there be a reverse inflation happening.

[@danielbrockerttravel]

One thing I find weird about the zeitgeist is that many people are worried that social security is going away and there are politicians talking about raising the retirement age to shore it up. On the other hand, you have people talking about UBI to deal with AI. Why not start by not raising the Social Security age? Then as productivity ramps up, start lowering the retirement age? Also we can reduce the work week to 35 hours.

[@robg4632]

Can you please make a video that states upfront that it's entirely speculative, but then dives into a year-by-year sequential breakdown of what (might) debut and happen. A sequenced ten-year journey with hypothetical but likely specific examples would be fun to watch.

[@DaveShap]

No, because it will invariably be entirely wrong. Things are constantly surprising all of us.

[@douglassolomon5888]

@@DaveShap Already into early Singularity, eh? For a fictionalized history-as-fictional novel: Ghost the Shell - Stand Alone Complex, and its sequels: GitS - The Matrix - 1984

[@jephbennett]

@robg4632 I can attempt a short essay version of this, on the spot... (note: This will be mostly from the American perspective): The theme, at least in the next 50 years, will be "The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same" [spoiler: by stay the same I mean getting worse every decade]. Under our current system of global capitalism, what have we seen emergent tech do for society over the last 50 years? Sure, there have been incredible advances in medicine, energy, biotech, automation and computing, but let's look at who benefited more, by dividing humans into 3 subdivisions: 1. Humans Globally 2. Corporations, Govts, and The Wealthy 3. The Lower and Middle Class of America Group 1: Humans Globally: With the exception perhaps of cheap smart phones & the connections they allow, 60%-70% of our species has not greatly benefited from the advances of the last half century. The 2 billion humans that live in poverty across the globe (and another 3 billion that struggle near the poverty line) either cannot afford or don't have access to MRIs, solar roofs, stem cells, self-parking cars, and computers capable of running LLMs. They often struggle to afford enough food, clean water, housing, basic medicines, and energy for daily survival. On average, we lose 18 million people, across the globe, every year, due to poverty and it's knock-on effects. Group 2: While some governments have struggled to maintain, overall the wealthier states and their corporations and elite class have only gathered more and more wealth in the last 50 years. They then used that wealth to purchase power, thru lobbying, political campaigns, institutional capture, purchased "science data" and straight corruption. They then bought 98% of all media to convince everyone who is not rich to either blame each other or settle into a state of apathy and distraction. These oligarchs vacuum up profits from every natural resource, from wage slaves across the globe, thru selling over-priced necessities, by owning the largest prison labor population in human history, and by initiating or engineering endless conflicts and wars. Group 3: The middle class of the US was fairly strong 50 years ago. But the funneling of wealth from the workers to the owners has pushed middle class families downward into the struggling working class, who have in turn been pushed into poverty. Rising inflation, stagnant wages, we know this part, as most of you reading this will fall into this category (sooner or later). We have access to massive TVs, advanced laptops, gene therapies, and cars that change lanes for you...but fewer of us can afford these things every year (if at all). And the recent surge in homeless encampments, brazen robberies, suicides, overdoses, and mass shootings are all symptoms of this larger issue. Tech mostly benefits those that produce and control it. And every year, those owners get better at using that control to horde an ever-larger slice of the economic pie for themselves, while we struggle more for a smaller slice of survival. So. Now that we're all caught up, what does this mean for the coming AI "revolution"? Well, ask yourself this: If you were a collective of billionaires who control media, production, and govts, how would you ensure that AI doesn't challenge your monopoly of wealth and power in the future? Well, you would need a plan. Here's how mine would go: 1. As AI improves, purchase or develop systems, tech, and businesses that further increase my profits. Automate as many jobs as possible, as fast as possible. Buy out and bury any tech that might allow consumers to avoid becoming my customers. Use AI to predict water shortages, and have it locate fresh water resources to buy up. Rinse and repeat with all raw materials needed for survival or building the future. 2. Maintain control of power thru narrative. Use advanced AI deep fakes and social media troll farms to amplify my massive media complex and bought data, to convince the poors and ever-diminishing middle class that the blame lies with each other, or with one of our 2 political parties (both of which I own), or with an "other" (migrants, LGBT, minorities, other countries). {note, this is already begun} As AI brings advances in medicine, energy, and computing, I make sure these solutions are so expensive that few can afford them. 3. Use my control of govt to script new laws that require those who cannot pay their debts to be imprisoned if they ever commit an act of civil disobedience. Continuously offer loans to those sliding into poverty, at ever higher rates, to ensure those that cannot pay must live quietly under my rules or be locked up if they protest. Now require all prisoners to labor for the few goods and services that AI cannot provide, with those profits also going to me. 4. This increased wealth funnel and automation will cause millions of job losses, increasing crime, evictions, homelessness, and poverty in general. Eventually, despite narrative control, the struggling working class and their impoverished working class could revolt against my tech monopoly. I will be prepared with increased militarization of police forces to face these massive mobs, and new larger prisons to hold these "domestic terrorists". I then develop robotic AI police, soldiers, and prison guards to hedge against the possibility that my human thugs will join their countrymen in protest. In fact, I go ahead and replace all enforcement and security with AI bots, just "for safety". 5. Over time, as more and more jobs are replaced, and more Americans slide further down the financial scale, my consumer base and the profits they bring , even at max inflationary rates, will diminish, and eventually collapse completely. . How can I "increase profits" if the citizens don't have jobs or money to spend? This requires a rethink on what the point of all that money was to begin with. Extreme profits are only desired for the material luxuries and power that they bring. In order to maintain my power and control, I use the convergences of multiple calamities and crises (most of which I created) to declare our political puppets and govt institutions are dangerously inept, and that handing over complete control to a new all powerful council of uber-wealthy elites is the only path for survival. 6. Have this new council declare that since the citizens no longer have the funds to pay for survival, they will be "saved" by the elites, who will provide basic gruel, sanitized waste water, shelter (in the form of warehouses of stacked bunks), and a sliver of medical care, in exchange for constant daily labor and absolute obedience. In the end, 53% of the American public will exist in these labor camp cities. 46% will be in a similar prison setting, with less amenities and freedoms. The remaining 1% is the elite council and their underlings, who use the labor of the entire populace to live in a wealth so extreme that modern day billionaires cannot even fathom it. The key to this domination is not in the AI tech itself, but in the series of disasters required to terrify the public into giving up control out of desperation. Keep an eye out for engineered plagues, massive immigration waves, climate change disasters, and violent conflicts that skirt the edge of starting a 3rd world war. The key is to push all of this into the danger zone without completely destroying civilization. But hey, if that happens, we have a plan for that too. ;)

[@someguycalledcerberus9805]

Here's my main question: what will happen to the world outside of the USA? Currently, as I understand, UBI would be financed by taxing extremely productive automated firms. Most of these are in the USA. _All_ of these are in rich, developed "western" countries. To make matters worse, the less developed a country is, the more it relies on jobs outsourced by rich countries - jobs that will be brought home once automation is cheaper than foreign labour. You think the USA is not ready to deal with this transformation on its own soil? Just think how ready are we as a species to deal with this on a global scale.

[@dongyang1285]

When get to the stage, what matters likely are raw materials and their direct physical control. Not a beautiful world.

[@AB-wf8ek]

As much as I like the idea, UBI is a complete pipe dream. There's no way anyone in a position of power is going to implement it. Just consider who the most likely candidates are for the next election. It's like needing to fix your roof for the coming storm, and your only 2 choices are between hiring a crackhead, or the conman that installed the busted roof to begin with.

[@derasor]

Phenomenal analysis. Hope this video reaches more people soon

[@DragonNuts]

As someone who just started leaning 3d animation and coding, this sucks :( finally found something I love and I feel so much more unmotivated that Ai could take it all away this decade

[@itrunamok8019]

As a carpenter, my wages have gone up about 80% in the past 5 years. We are in high demand and the intricacies of woodworking will not be automated in my lifetime; Atleast not fully. This goes for most trades. Learn a skill, work with your hands, and you wont be replaced. If you interface with a computer for >50% of your job, then >50% will be replaced by AI in the next 15-20 years.

[@robbiep742]

The unfortunate reality is that before there's some high QOL post-labor world, there will be societal collapse as the capitalists fight back as hard as possible to maintain the current order. We don't have to look far for countries that have high unemployment and abundant resources... not a single one is a nice place to live - they tend to be authoritarian, don't provide services, and the populace develops generational apathy.

[@shuheihisagi6689]

They can't control everyone. And its capitalism that will drive us to have AGI, they want cheap labor. The smart capitalist will learn how to stay on top in the new paradigm.

[@seriouskaraoke879]

Societal collapse. Aren't you a ray of sunshine.

[@ticthak]

@@seriouskaraoke879 No bigger buzzkill than the reality we generate.

[@MrClockw3rk]

Unless you secretly believe that the expected level of abundance isn’t very abundant, there’s no reason to think that a rich capitalist wouldn’t also want to do and create more with less inputs.

[@rodneyblackwell7477]

Projects I used to manage 40 years ago would have 7 staff now they have 70 staff to manage the same type of project. I remember people saying there would be less when computers came into the projects and offices but the paperwork has increased by 10x , but it's electronic paperwork. In the old days we did projects, now we have project execution plans and the amount of work these plans generate is unbelievable.

[@KyranFindlater]

yes I note the same unreasonably inefficient growth of companies. A team of 6 in my industry of industrial robotics can get the same project as a team of 30 done in the same time with less complications and errors. This is a business process/methods issue and lack of technical leadership I reckon.

[@KaLaka16]

This is how it used to be, but with AI, you can first replace the average knowledge worker and eventually the expert. Well maybe not replace, but more like greatly reduce the amount of.

[@AB-wf8ek]

I think it's a kind of corporate socialism actually. The late David Graeber spoke about bullshit jobs which outlined how a pretty big percentage of corporate jobs are completely useless, and seem to function more like class welfare.

[@anguswett]

Bureaucratic inflation, y’all should cut the fat

[@AB-wf8ek]

@@anguswett Or they should just give everyone who wants a job UBI

[@HaleTruman]

Finally someone who’s forward thinning. Thank the algorithm 🙏

[@DaveShap]

Praise be to the algorithm

[@00Canem00]

Hey, thanks for a radically different perspective than my own. I believe we will enter a material and energy-crisis within the timeframe you are talking about. Where will the material to access and distribute the energy come from? Why do you think there will be an abundance of (accessible) energy? Good work and I am looking forward to your next video 😀.

[@bigbadallybaby]

It is going to be fascinating, crazy, terrifying when it does become possible to create feature films in hours not months, Computer games, experiences, - suddenly thousands of quality films and games created by individuals across the world, could come about in weeks , breaking the current system. I can see a new world where there is so much individual quality entertainment there isn't enough time to experience even the very best of it ... what happens? what do people do when a video game can contain characters with all the depth of real people, that you can actually speak to? Stories that can go anywhere and use real details about you and your life.. Do people value collective experience over individuals ones? what happens to society, to real relationships? Of course Movies, games are only one of the areas that will change.....

[@raymond_luxury_yacht]

My idea is your phone records your day then at night you get to replay it but do all the things you wanted like explaining to you boss why they are a f*ckwit, having that love affair, making better choices. Kind of like the movie sliding doors. Fully immersive vr. So fun.

[@marktellez3701]

When we all become "unemployed" people will be able to pursue passion instead of market. That's my guess about what we all will do. When people get "rich" they rarely stop working.

[@vbridgesruiz-phd]

We'll first have to deal with the psychological trauma from decades of greedy markets we were witness to. But once we overcome that barrier, I completely agree!

[@Mike80528]

I am not sure people are considering this point - once AI becomes generalized and competes with people, people will literally be competing with oil for their jobs as "One barrel of oil has the same amount of energy of up to 25,000 hours of hard human labor, which is 12.5 years of work". The human brain is very efficient but it has limited throughput capacity. AI will use more power to work faster but that is still essentially impossible to compete against *and will prevent us from transition off of fossil fuels*. You just cannot get the energy density to run datacenters with renewables. If everyone else also needs to use them, there simply is not enough space available let alone the massive power storage needs off-generation time periods.

[@Robisquick]

This is the subject I’m most fascinated by!

[@jasonwolfe1305]

The last 60 seconds of this video are why I'm utterly terrified of AI displacing jobs. There is a huge fraction of the US population that will fight tooth and nail for the right of billionaires to remain billionaires while they themselves are starving to death under a bridge.

[@swardinc]

Not sure what that means? What does someone who made billions have to do with people starving to death? Are you making the case that because the money went to that person or group and that somehow too stuff away from the people who are starving to death? I ask this because you need to explain the system of thinking that lead to you beliving that everyone cannot become biliionaires for instance?

[@henrytep8884]

@@swardincso historically we never had a civilization where everyone had the purchasing power of a billionaire, but have historically have situations where the haves Vs have nots were in an opponent or even an adversarial agency arena dynamics. So the thought process of explaining why someone doesn’t believe everyone can be a billionaire is rooted in so many fundamentals truth. When we talk about everyone being a “billionaire” then I’m assuming you mean everyone having the access or purchasing power of a billionaire or the quality of life of a billionaire. There isn’t enough resources on the planet to sustain 8 billion people consuming 1 billion worth of material. So you’re dumb for thinking that was a proper line of questioning. Another is based off historical norms. Can you explain why you think your line of question should be worth consideration or how it even generates good discourse?? We live in a capital system where the means of production especially when it comes to AI, may disproportionately empower a small hands of people on the planet, regressing the norm of wealth distribution back to some very unequal time such as when the Industrial Revolution occurred. But I’m not going to claim to know the future, but I sure do think your logic train falls apart as soon as those wheels turned. Try again.

[@raymond_luxury_yacht]

Yup

[@jasonwolfe1305]

@@swardinc my post made a lot of assumptions about the reader's understanding of US economy, culture and lingo. In my defense, so did the part of David's video that I'm referencing. Basically, my fears aren't about the mechanics of the economic response to AI. We can handle that if we choose to. Rather, my concern is about the cultural outlook on labor, capital and money. If you want more insight into the mindset my post alludes to google "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" which David used in his video.

[@swardinc]

@@florenomorence1492 ok that makes more sense and i agree

[@sammckenzie6760]

Very interesting video I hope that there will be a large global refocus on restoring the environment, plenty of physical work to be done there

[@TheHabsification]

One thing we will have to really focus on is cognitive-enhancing drugs/Nootropics, basically PED's for the brain, or genetic enhancement for the brain and computer-brain intergration to increase learing speeds and skills training, once AI and automation really kicks in.

[@notbrandon2888]

I’m near the point of ending my own life because on top of struggling with every other aspect of life. I can not decide on a career to pursue because of AI taking everything. I was pursuing a career to become a software engineer, but now that Devin is out and getting better everyday, it just adds another high paying career getting completely wiped out by AI. There just seems to be no point in going on and the rich will soon using us as fertilizer after they hold every bit of the money while millions are in the streets

[@blucantrell2]

Still learn. You maybe needed to hack the ai on future after it takes over the world. Who knows.

[@user-tu9ox4hj9g]

Software engineers are needed to debug and improve Ai as well. Constant maintenance will be needed for a while. Also, there are many game development companies and corparations that need human engineers to clean code and update their engine such as UE5. Don't give up, never surrender. Hope rises tomorrow, but how can you grasp hope if you gave up just at the finish line. Suicide is the cowards way out that not only ruins your life but the lives of all the people who love you.

[@clarkrhoades1640]

It was a great presentation of a possible future assuming AI does not go rogue Thanks!

[@richardchin1545]

Thanks David, you've articulated a lot of things I've been ruminating on. My biggest worry is the people in control of the levers of the new economy won't feel the need for a new social contract (or if they do, one dictated very much on their terms) - if they have the power, why should they? And what can those without the leverage of their labour and whose income is at the whim of those in power do about it?

[@warpeace8891]

I agree. There is such a gigantic difference between peoples. Some still don't wear clothes and live the same as they did 100,000 years ago (I am starting to get envious of them). Most people on Earth have very little access to the latest technologies outside of mobile phones. With well over 8 Billion people on Earth, less than a few million are actively involved in any of the decisions that affect us all.

[@lexastron]

I guess we need to deliberately push the system through this phase transition. People should be proactive. Push the open-source, automation, tools to build tools, etc. When it becomes global, the control and the levers will become useless. System is self-regulating collective intelligence, it just need appropriate attractors and incentives.

[@ISureDont]

Right now the world economic forum is planning to implement policies all over the world that would bind the lower classes into an almost feudalistic state. I haven’t seen it mentioned much but if you listen the date 2030 is a deadline for a whole slew of things. The internet is going to be restricted and censored. Our currency’s will be digitized and controlled by world banks. Land will continue to be snatched up by the richest amongst us. The poor will be pushed down even further. I’m optimistic but right now it’s not looking very good

[@missshroom5512]

We might have to come up with some kind of compensation package laws for the employees that make 8k a month and then get replaced with A I. Their college loans if any should be paid for starters. Wow I really feel for them and their families.

[@brianmi40]

why would you "feel" for them more than anyone else, other than possibly having gotten a degree, or advanced degree to be a higher wage earner, and have that turn out to be no longer necessary? Knowledge will still differentiate people post Singularity, it just won't affect income as directly.

[@dantohatan]

This is the only video I found that discusses the future of AI and its economic impacts in any meaningful detail.

[@hpongpong]

Our economy and "work" as we know it are all man-made/fictional framework we all collectively agree for society to function. So the question should be, what is the framework for society to function post AGI world? In a way if you are doing what you truly enjoy (aside from pure monetary motives), having AGI is truly enlightening because now you can do a lot more of what you like without being constrained by existing economic framework. Just as how quickly we collectively can get "nudged" into believing something ridiculous via social media. We can also nudge ourselves into believing something that works with us post AGI. Just my two cents. Love your vids. Keep it up!

[@anatoly.ivanov]

What do you mean by “now you can do a lot more of what you like”?

[@yonosenada1773]

I’m an SAP functional. Wonder how long we have until this happens. It seems like it’s really close. All those years studying and getting certs..

[@tucker5720]

The USA government has never stood on the side of its citizens when pitted against corporations. I don't know why they would in the future.

[@DaveShap]

Look up Teddy Roosevelt

[@lulzd9355]

Once you don't have to work and grind real life to survive, gaming and online worlds will gain even more attraction. Like in MMORPGs, the concept of labor transforms into engaging activities like farming mobs, gaining experience, crafting, and overall progressing an online character. These activities provide a sense of progression and achievement. Many of us, freed from the need to work for survival in this world, might find a fulfilling alternative in online worlds. There, we can continue the 'grind' in a fun and engaging way, striving for accomplishments in a virtual setting. Perhaps we're already living in an advanced simulation, created because our 'real' world has achieved AGI and resolved all its challenges.

[@mmmDaber]

there wont be times when we wont have to work to live a fullfiling life that adressed our basic needs....

[@alatan2064]

Or we will be disposed of as a useless tool that consumes and pollutes...

[@OZtwo]

A simple reminder here. When driving around your local city look around at the homeless. Year by year they seem to be more. Why? We know the answer and the issue ahead. Also you need to keep in mind that governments work off of taxes and when there is no money to pay for taxes then governments will more or less go out of business. Same with business themselves. One of the sad reasons we will see WW3 coming soon as economies crash. AI is great yet so much more will happen that no one is planning for.

[@AB-wf8ek]

Companies will use AI systems to try and upsell you on products & services, while simultaneously identify services that have lower margins in order to cut them. That's what companies want from the technology.

[@GrayScott]

5:38 That was my prediction. IF generative AI and text to video continues to advance at this rate we will have the ability to produce full films by next year. It won't be easy and the scale will be difficult but it will be possible. I can already make short films from text now. It only took a few months to advance that far using Midjourney, Runway and Topaz

[@Amos18289]

You were right, your prediction looks very possible in this year

[@dunar1005]

6:54 that’s not true, we had a lot of industries being completely disrupted overnight. They were even workers in the sewing industry who destroyed sewing machine producing companies in riots. Every lift operator got replaced overnight. As you said all the telecommunication workers were replaced after Canada invented the switch. All the chariot, transport companies went under because of the train. All the slave traders lost their jobs when it was outlawed. All beer breweries got closed in the prohibition. And so on. Sure, the scale is now potentially bigger from a single event . But it’s not sure if that surpasses the impact of the industrial revolution. And we have data on all of this

[@DanielRLuke]

Concerning movies, what would be cool is if AI enables people to cast themselves in whatever role they want, in movies that exist, and movies to come. I predict this will be a thing at some point.

[@jordana4910]

Bring on UBI! I believe it'll be the only way to avoid mass chaos.

[@snowflakemelter7171]

UBI will just create a permanent underclass. No thanks.

[@kennethoneill4176]

UB everything. Housing food education a small amount of money but eliminate the minimum wage.replace income tax with consumption taxes.

[@operatic9537]

Watching this I had a scary thought. If you're right about the deflation of goods across the board, this too is a scenario we're not ready for. Central banks' main purpose is to control inflation and keep it around 2%. They aren't equipped to deal with this. Also we aren't: most of us have debt, and the credit score, housing and education systems incentivize us taking it on as well so what happens if you have a mortgage or 6 figure student debt from a job that will no longer exist and the value of money plummets? If we don't wrestle control of the economy from the AI companies that will control everything at that point, we're well and truly fucked.

[@cindyl3297]

You have heard of CBDC and the like? There is a reason governments are priming and getting ready for a revolution in the monetary system itself

[@MrXtenzion]

AI is like crack-cocaine for the economical system. Maybe we need to add AI in the war on drugs, I wrote this as sarcasm but then realise that we probably do need to do something about AI but looking at banning of things like drugs and alcohol it's very inefficient. May the gods help us

[@orkun171]

Ai might increase the research speed.Most of research is done by trying every single combination possible until you get the results you are seeking

[@isaacnaughton5206]

I had a conversation about this with a colleague a few years ago. The closest analogue I could come up with was ancient Rome. In the contemporary scenario, the slaves are AI. The economy will be driven by social status and climbing and will be at risk of collapse due to the degradation of mortality and values.

[@amyfox3877]

I'm pretty sure that things like Malaria and Geoeconomics were larger factors - Rome also ran on an expansionistic model of conquering until it became too hard to expand. At the same time, they butted up against well-armed neighbours. I don't see an indication that morality and values were the driving factor.

[@Mekkablood]

The largest concern is property. Nobody seems to want to talk about it, but in a post scarcity society how do we allow people to horde land?

[@v4v777]

We dont allow anyone to horde land... people will need to learn to live sustainably.. or they perish....

[@AWAL602]

I think the international economic context is also worth considering. There are developing economies moving, or trying to move, into service economies which this will undercut. It's not a uniform picture of impact across the world. Countries that cannot afford a UBI, will tend to stay as physical goods producers, but likely with little hope of ever becoming anything else. This will cause massive inequalities globally, and i guarantee, result in increased international tension, which are almost certainly going to be exacerbated by climate-forced migration (the scale of which we have never seen). It's going to be an 'interesting' few decades

[@goosewithagibus]

Yeah, I think you're spot on. I'm 25, so I've become an adult just in time to see all of this happen for my entire adult life. Gonna be "fun".

[@AB-wf8ek]

There's going to be an explosion of marketing. You think spam, banner ads and sponsor breaks are bad now, just what until analytic tools go nuclear, and generating automated ads become even more universal.

[@electricblue313]

I appreciate all your cognitive labor that has gone into this video, and topic. These are big questions that need to be addressed and discussed.

[@vladusa]

The only thing I want is to escape longevity velocity. That's all I want. Because once I do that, I can learn and build anything. I'll have the time.