ihateshadylandlords t1_j74ukn2 wrote on February 4, 2023 at 2:04 AM

Reply to comment by ttylyl in Future of The Lower and Middle Class Post-Singularity, and Why You Should Worry. by ttylyl

What good is owning the means of production if you have no customers? Companies exist to maximize shareholder value. Owning a bunch of inventory that no one can buy doesn’t do anything for shareholders.

Also even if a company gets too powerful, they’ll just nationalize it or break it up like they did with Standard Oil.

ttylyl OP t1_j74w3hf wrote on February 4, 2023 at 2:17 AM

The issue I’m seeing is that the populations would be in two and a half classes: unemployed low skill people, employed high skill people(things needed after AI, so like notaries, maybe doctors, entertainers, people to work on/monitor AI) and AI owning people(large investors in openai, connected people, etc.)

Eventually they will realize that using their ai/robot labor power to feed house and fund the unemployed lower skill people doesn’t help their goals, so they will spend less over time. This will happen faster with competition, the more you spend on the non-ai owning class, the further you get behind the people who don’t.

If this continues the unemployed former working class will be functionally pushed from society, they won’t be able to use their work as a method of negotiation, like labor unions etc. our lives will be at the whim of people who already clearly don’t care if we’re poor. What happens when they don’t need us at all?

ihateshadylandlords t1_j74x1gi wrote on February 4, 2023 at 2:24 AM

The issue is companies having the AI, but no one wanting to buy the products and services from said AI. People need income to buy the products and services generated by these AI companies. They can decide they don’t need the people, but then who will need their services at that point?