And again, while I agree, it’s a great idea in theory, getting a group of greedy sociopaths, to agree to give a large portion of what they consider to be “their money” to people they consider to be “lazy, unemployed people” is going to be a challenge that will rock the ages

I completely understand the difference between capital and labor.

The reality is, in our world today, an explorer, discovers a mine. That explorer receives a grant funded by taxes to develop that mine. A businessman purchases the mine from the government for a pittance (because they have a friend in the government who tip them off to a bargain). Businessman hires people at substandard wages to develop the mine into a profitable business and pockets the majority of the profit.

In the businessman’s mind, he owes nobody anything because he is the person who developed the mine, and therefore anything that comes out of it is his to exploit in any way he wants to. He has no obligation to support workers, in fact, he resents having to pay them for their labor

A new technology that comes along which can replace 10 laborers with one machine that is less likely to break down or refuse to work overtime.

The owner fires those 10 laborers who now are unemployed and have no income.

The owner, seeing the profitability of having machines, instead of people, do the work, purchases several more machines, run by a staff of engineers, which is much smaller than the large number of laborers employed earlier.

As a result of not having to pay wages, the business owner sees a dramatic increase in profits, reinforcing his belief that automation is the solution to profitability.

Eventually, the machines become automated enough that the engineers are not even needed.

More profit!

Now, the businessman has an automated business that produces a product which he can sell and not have to incur the cost of any employees.

Everyone who is employed previously at that business is either unemployed, or has found other employment elsewhere, but the total number of employed people will never recover to the level. It was when the mind was using 100% human labor

The government,lobbied by the businessman lobbies, asks him to contribute to a fund to pay for the out of work miners living expenses.

The businessman tells the politicians to go get stuffed because he owes the former employees of his company nothing (and he is absolutely correct about that because he has no contract with them stating he is responsible for their welfare.)

So now we have end state capitalism, which is we have a small number of business owners who rely upon automation to produce their products and a huge under class which relatively speaking is a modern day peasantry.

How do you fix this without a bloody Revolution?

Your comment is exactly what I’m talking about.

That one owner has no obligation whatsoever to share any profit in any way shape or form.

Unless there was a massive change in the way society views, corporations, and profit-based strategies, the only end result will be more money at the top, no money at the bottom, and a literal corporate feudalism.

I don’t disagree that there are better things out there than what we have, the problem is our corporate culture. These days is driven by profit motives and sociopaths.

He would be naïve to believe these individuals or corporations would do anything with AI other than enhance their bottom line.

I really hate to be a downer on that because I agree with you.

But what are the odds that the people who are already corrupt, in a corrupt government, owned by corporations, who themselves are corrupt, and only driven by profit motive would view AI as anything but something to enhance their quarterly profitability and would fight tooth and nail to take any of those profits and attempt to better society.

I would love to see it, but that would be a miracle on the scale of Moses, parting the Red Sea.

Go ahead and contact Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Tim Cook, Goldman Sachs, Robert, Mercer, etc., etc., and propose to them that they take a large portion of their business profits, and just simply give them to people who have no jobs.

Let me know how that works out for you.

They don’t care. They’ve never cared.

So more jobs lost. More people on welfare or unemployed while the ultra rich buy another private island to fly to in their fleet of private jets.

I don’t hate technology, but I’ll be goddamned if we should be rushing headlong into “OMG, AI is a miracle that will release us from all of our obligation to work” without contemplating the reality of tens of millions of people not having any employment or means to support themselves.

And to all of those who say “ B, but… Universal, basic income!“ I ask you where are the money for that is going to come from? Taxes? From the unemployed? The corporations that are getting rid of employees so they can use AI to take the cost of salaries out of their balance sheet? You really think those corporations are going to not fight tooth and nail not have to pay a cent to support universal basic income programs? They own the politicians.

It’s amazing how eagerly we are rushing into literally a “hunger games” dystopia.

Nobody thinks they are going to be the person living under a bridge because they don’t have a job as a programmer anymore.

Think it through people, don’t be blinded by the new shiny thing.