AI democratization => urban or rural exodus ?

Submitted by IntroVertu t3_11yfwx6 in singularity

In the 18th century, the advent of mechanization and the increase in agricultural yields reduced the need for labor in the countryside. Peasants were then forced to leave for the cities to find work. People therefore left their villages in droves to look for work in the factories that were developing rapidly in the cities.

Later, a large part of the workers are in turn replaced by machines (which automate and massify even more the production of goods and thus of wealth). The primary and secondary sectors being now assured by machines, the citizens turn to the tertiary sector. Their job? Managing the complexity of a world that has become ultra-sophisticated. To manage this complexity, cities play an important role because they gather brains in one place and greatly facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration.

But now, with the democratization of AI, many service sector jobs (consultant, translator, writer, financial analyst, radiologist...) will be replaced by these same AI. Maybe even all jobs except those requiring specific human interaction. Thus, accumulating people in cities seems suddenly less useful since it is now the AI that will "manage the complexity of the world". Why should we stay in ultra-polluted and overcrowded cities when most of the interactions we had before will become useless (from an economic point of view) ?

In your opinion, will the democratization of AI further accentuate the rural exodus or will it, on the contrary, make people return to the small cities and/or countryside?

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Surur t1_jd7m5vr wrote

Yes, if there is AGI and UBI, people will move from the cities, as they do not have to work for their money, and they would want to live where its cheapest.

We could have millions of people living in 3D printed houses on previous farmland, as farms are replaced with precision fermentation.

Energy would be via solar, data via satellite, water via extraction from the air and garbage via drone.

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ExposingMyActions t1_jd831v3 wrote

Sounds utopian

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Surur t1_jd84wf1 wrote

Well, either that or we are all dead.

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ExposingMyActions t1_jd87awn wrote

I do believe some of us will die in the process, yup.

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Surur t1_jd8cgzw wrote

Well, you know everyone is going to die.

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ExposingMyActions t1_jd8irh1 wrote

Well I agree with that.

Or maybe I used to? The way tech is ramping up, and labor is decreasing, and the fact that the machines need to learn from something of diversified value..

Either babies will forced to be born or people will be forced not to die. Or both. Or yeah, we all die as scheduled.

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AverageLatino t1_jd8n0m7 wrote

That's my motto too, in 10 years we will all be living like royalty or we're going to be dead.

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Smellz_Of_Elderberry t1_jd89l9f wrote

Eh.. not entirely true. People will still want to live somewhat in the city. Lots of people would hate living where I do "in a corn field" where you have to drive for 40 minutes to go to the closest resteraunt.

Also, MAYBE farmland is replaced by precision fermentation.. But you forget the point of agi is to allow people to do what they want.. Farmers will still exist because there will always be a demand by the masses for food grown by real people.

Cities need to spread out a bit, so people aren't stacked on top of one another.. But I think most city folks want to be close to their favorite restsraunt, and to not have to worry about their dog getting eaten by a rogue black bear or mountain lion.

Certain things won't change in the countryside, because people won't allow them to be changed. I'm not gonna be okay with you using agi to kill all mountain lions in the area, they are an important part of the environment, event if they are sometimes terrifying.

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Surur t1_jd8csqp wrote

There will not be the need for masses of rolling hills of grains for example. If people want to hobby farm I am sure they could, but the whole world will become manicured by drones.

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Smellz_Of_Elderberry t1_jd8eemw wrote

Might want to look out for environmentalalist extremists pushing for all rural towns to be "returned to nature" and everyone to be forced into new cities.

Read a book where that happened, and it stuck with me.

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Surur t1_jd8eqvn wrote

That is what many environmentalists want to do right now.

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isthiswhereiputmy t1_jd9upp0 wrote

I personally wouldn’t. There’s a big difference between not having to work to survive and money being no object.

If I had millions to build my dream home I might leave the city but I otherwise prefer urban life despite having been raised in a rural area.

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Artanthos t1_jd9qphg wrote

Alternatively, UBI could be in the form of goods, not money.

People could be moved into massive dormitories, eat in cafeterias, and be issued basic clothing.

Population would then be centered within these dormitories and be very high density while being much more cost efficient for the government.

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Surur t1_jd9wkjt wrote

That would not be UBI, though, would it?

UBI is universal basic income, which people would get irrespective of their needs. If you don't need your version, why would you need a dormitory bed and government cheese?

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Artanthos t1_jdauvvo wrote

I highly doubt the government is just going to start handing out cash.

It's not how welfare is handled today, and today's welfare programs will be the model any future benefits are based off of. With the realization that there will be a very strong incentive to find cost savings as the scale and scope increases.

Today's welfare systems uses food stamps (EBT), WIC, subsidized housing (I've seen as low as $25/month, all utilities included), and even clothing vouchers for kids going to school.

The natural progression for cost saving is not giving cash instead of necessities, it's using economies of scale. The military provides models for cheaply housing and feeding large numbers of people, and I believe that is the direction government will move to save money.

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Surur t1_jdbs42k wrote

Sure, but there is quite a bit of momentum behind the UBI movement, so if mass unemployment via AI comes, it seems likely it is UBI we will get.

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Artanthos t1_jdco00z wrote

No.

The people who would be expected to pay for it are the same people you expect to enact it.

Try looking at it from the perspective of the people you expect to pay for it, then ask yourself what they are likely to do.

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Surur t1_jdcpmee wrote

So I'm reasonably high earning, and a pretty big chunk of my money already goes on taxes. If you earn around the median wage you actually net negative when it comes to taxes paid vs benefits received. The well-off already pay the majority of taxes.

So say we get AGI in 2024, and companies start laying off people en masse in 2025, and unemployment is steadily increasing.

The people who make the decision on how to manage this are the politicians, and they rely on votes. So the first they will do (in Europe) is probably to put a moratorium on people being laid off because they have been replaced by AI.

Meanwhile unemployment will continue to increase, just a bit more slowly.

As the situation develops and companies complain that they are not being allowed to be as productive as they could be due to regulation (actually a common situation for any safety regulation for example) there will come a need for resolution.

Since 2024 everyone would have been discussion UBI, and the groundswell for this will increase. There will be marches for UBI in the street, and talking heads will raise it constantly on the TV.

So eventually the government agrees to implement a UBI tax on companies based on their revenue and pay a living wage stipend to everyone. Because everyone gets money there would be broad support from the populace.

Companies are allowed to freeze hiring and slowly empty out their offices, but maintain their revenue, and then we have UBI.

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Artanthos t1_jdcumm1 wrote

Your arguments apply equally to health care, social security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.

A lot of these programs are already underfunded to the point that they are expected to collapse in the next decade.

These are programs that are aimed squarely at helping the lower and middle classes.

And all is takes is the mention of raising taxes to change election outcomes.

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Surur t1_jdd09e8 wrote

> Your arguments apply equally to health care, social security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc

Well, I live in a high-tax, high-benefit country.

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flamegrandma666 t1_jd7hryv wrote

Good question and it points to something i just do not understand. Why or why all the corporations all of a sudden insist on working from the office whereas we have the tech and data (from covid times) pointing to the fact that its better and cheaper for everyone to work remote as much as possible?

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grimorg80 t1_jd9cj64 wrote

Control as a reaction from fear. They completely lack self-awareness or self-restraint (for the workaholics)

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darklinux1977 t1_jd7gwyo wrote

very good question ! In fact, this will be one of the last bequests of the sovereign state: the quality of the Telecom infrastructure and its resilience. For the AI and these dependencies to work, you need, among other things, cheap data, even free data, so efficient and amortized structures, only a strong sovereign state can make the ISPs bend. If a sovereign state has solved this problem, the very concept of megalopolis is dead

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CommunismDoesntWork t1_jd7iuwz wrote

Starlink solves this. Maybe not it's exact current version, but the idea of mega constellations. And of course, existing fiber isn't going anywhere

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darklinux1977 t1_jd7kog1 wrote

starlink is too expensive and subject to too much human uncertainty, when it comes to fiber: there are areas not covered

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ButterMyBiscuit t1_jd9zbzr wrote

Starlink is slooooooowwwwwwww to start handling global communications even before the rise of insane amounts of data that the AI revolution will create

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Last_Jury5098 t1_jd7xsuu wrote

Cities are more efficient. AI will probably increase the efficiency of cities to a larger extend then it will increase the efficiency of rural live. So the drive for urbanization should persist,grow larger if anything.

And there will always be people who prefer rural living. AI might result in more people turning away from cities but i think the increase in efficiency will be atractive enough for many people to prefer the cities.

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redpandabear77 t1_jd9tpd5 wrote

Oh yeah efficiency is the only thing people care about in their lives. They don't give a crap about getting mugged and beaten.

After you've experienced big city crime a few times you kind of yearn for something much safer.

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Ineedanameforthis35 t1_jddluv1 wrote

Goes both ways though, I used to live in a shithole rural town with meth heads down the road.

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Lawjarp2 t1_jd7wcis wrote

Both urban and rural exodus to a semi urban environment. You want to be closer to where things are happening but not live a shitty life. Far enough to live a peaceful daily life but close enough to visit places if needed.

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CertainMiddle2382 t1_jd7vhmf wrote

Very interesting question.

Very rarely has a large societal change reversed rural exodus.

Only example I can think of is the European higher middle ages when the break down of the Pax Romana and of the imperial transportation network forced people to flee into the countryside, and start Feudalism.

AI impact could only improve transportation means and I believe people will be more instead of less in need of social proximity.

History has shown us, and in opposition of what « survivalists » think, non extinction level crisis very often hit cities less…

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erysichthon- t1_jd89rkv wrote

neither urban nor rural. urbanization is finished.

there's nowhere to go but up

we do not continue living under 4,000 miles of atmospheric pressure -- the stage of domesticated primates has been completed

we move into high orbit and evolve into an immortal species

this technology allows for the amount of intelligence increase necessary for space migration

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Yuli-Ban t1_jd8mxo3 wrote

I do see a plateau of urbanization. Cities won't die, but there will be a massive flourishing of suburban and rural living.

I myself plan to move out into the sticks with done droids and VR once I get the chance.

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Spreadwarnotlove t1_jdhbn33 wrote

Same. I'd love to have a nice stretch of land on Mars where I live with my Android imouto and use drones to create a giant biome dome over a crater or ravine.Or better yet terraform a lava tube and work on genetically engineering different life forms.

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basilgello t1_jd7gxqh wrote

Interesting question. It is not only a lack of job moved people to urban areas. People want "easier" and "more happening" life, i.e work less but have more new pleasant moments per lifetime. Cities offer a lot of this to satisfy: museums, cafes, sport grounds. At the same time, people get used to anything and sometimes want calmer and less intensive life.

I am thinking now what happens when we finally master the affordable quantum teleportation: people would have zero reason to stay in big cities and instead would form a mesh living everywhere. Because roads would not be needed, people could live even high in the mountains and deep underwater or underland. At the same time, the more expensive something is, the less people will use it. Same applies to current intelligent data processing: burning fossil fuels is finite process, economic demand is finite as well but new shiny features will require new professions that were not possible on previous levels of technology.

If a true AI emerges, interesting how many resources will it take. The rise of the machines is a possible scenario but before the AI becomes AI (sentient and agentic) it is just a tool built by humans and to satisfy some human needs. Just like horses :)

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visarga t1_jd8831w wrote

Just because it is a plot device in StarTrek, and in physics scientists demonstrated they could "teleport" a particle, it doesn't mean it will be possible to teleport a human. What they teleport is not the particle but its quantum state. If in general, you want to read the quantum state of something you destroy it.

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IntroVertu OP t1_jd7ofjr wrote

>Cities offer a lot of this to satisfy: museums, cafes, sport grounds.

It is true that human beings are by essence sociable animals and that the cultural and social activities that megacities offer are enormous assets. But the disadvantages are more and more importants : excessive real estate prices and cost of living, poor air quality, lack of green space...

Okay, humans are social creatures but isn't there a middle ground to be found between these big cities and the countryside ? And maybe AI (and many more new technologies) will allow us to find this middle ground.

(this is a very subjective : many people don't care about having to pay 10 euros for a beer and don't necessarily appreciate green spaces. It remains to be seen who represents the majority)

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harmlessdjango t1_jd87258 wrote

poor air quality is mostly caused by cars, not the congregation of humans. If your "quaint little town" has lots of cars spewing fumes and kicking up particles in it, the air quality won't be that much different

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Frumpagumpus t1_jd9e6cf wrote

if you electrify them and make them much smaller since self driving can prevent 99% of accidents wouldnt be as much of an issue

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basilgello t1_jd7teme wrote

> It remains to be seen who represents the majority

This. People are used to something, and highly adaptable. Adaptable because of intellect + all the genetic evolution nature made us for billions of years. Yet at the same time survival means minimizing the uncertainty or enthropy. That's why people are reactive to changes and can cope with worse living than it is possible.

We who want changes are small minority. And even among us changers there is .001% of people who can press the big red button for the utopic world. That's question of price and value, responsibility and power. And choice :)

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visarga t1_jd89ecr wrote

Makes sense, with AI it would be possible to tutor kids anywhere and administer remote medicine where doctors are not present. I would not want to raise kids in a place where they don't have access to education and medicine, or where there are no playmates.

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NoidoDev t1_jdag6bi wrote

  • Citizens with UBI, probably no job and no capital: Mainly urban areas, lifestyle might depend on former job
  • Citizen without jobs, before UBI: Urban, downgrading lifestyle, working for people who want human servants
  • People with no citizenship and without UBI: Countryside for farming by hand after end of fossil energy
  • Very rich people: Wherever they want, but also in the urban areas
  • Financially independent people (mostly men): Countryside (often with their robowaifus)
  • Innovators which can still find ways to make money: Countryside (often with their robowaifus)
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code988 t1_jdd2uu9 wrote

in my urban sociology course, we learned how the suburbs became a status symbol. In the past, rural workers and foreign migrants entered the city and the upper class moved farther away. I think that urbanization will increase, and those who currently have money will move to smaller cities and the countryside.

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No_Ninja3309_NoNoYes t1_jd904so wrote

It depends on many factors. My own observations point to rural exodus. Inertia being what it is, it seems that the trend will continue.

It could be that we have a third option: AI nomads. Assuming swarm intelligence and the IoT merge, there's no reason to stay rooted. Uber and Airbnb can facilitate a caravan existence. You only need minimal hardware to work after all.

And if UBI becomes ubiquitous, there's no reason to limit yourself to a single location as your tribe can be anywhere and nowhere at the same time...

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Frumpagumpus t1_jd9dv0b wrote

i'm just imagining luke skywalker hanging out with uncle ben and c3p0 and r2d2 and jawa sandcrawlers right now. except in oklahoma. in a molithic dome. idk if thats the future but it's fun to picture.

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YesterdayNo4719 t1_jdbwssq wrote

AI will lead to scientific breakthroughs in every field known to man … thus it is near impossible to predict what may happen as we have no idea what inventions will be around in the future.

Will AI increase population?

  • Will UBI be implemented? — If so then would UBI increase people having kids?

With billions of AGI humanoid workers… would building artifical islands be very cheap?

  • If so then TONS more land will generated…

With billions of AGI humanoid workers… will more cities be built?

How about a robot run city in the North Pole … maybe inside a dome or something … who knows… its a very large equation to predict not only how AI/automation will affect population behavior/migration but also how will the technologies that AI produce affect such migration/population growth.

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