>> Yes. It removes political power. As a thought experiment, what happens when sanitation workers go on strike? What would happen if all trash collection was automated?
>> What happens when a group of people goes from the driver's of the economy to a cost center?
> Perhaps the real answer is people’s buying power. If people can’t withhold their work, they could withhold their spending, ie boycott misbehaving entities.
But if they don't have work, they won't have buying power to withhold. Post AI-displacement, the economy will reorient around serving the people who still have buying power (the oligarchs and their hangers-on).
Expect demand for food to plummet and demand for dick-waving pyramids and rocket cars to skyrocket.
I came to this conclusion too and felt rather defeated, existential crisis, etc. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if we had a country of 250 million unemployed angry folks (many of them armed), I'm not so sure it'd be the wealthy in control.
> But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if we had a country of 250 million unemployed angry folks (many of them armed), I'm not so sure it'd be the wealthy in control.
It depends on how hard they'll fight, but technology just doesn't seem like it's a force for good anymore. I could imagine that, in the face of a revolt against automation, some fraction of the oligarchs will just establish a Ukraine-war like AI-drone kill-zone to protect their assets. If they do that, they'd probably win.
But it probably wouldn't get to that point, because, given the online nature of culture, AI-powered surveillance and AI-powered social interference could very likely thwart any revolt before it starts.
>> What happens when a group of people goes from the driver's of the economy to a cost center?
> Perhaps the real answer is people’s buying power. If people can’t withhold their work, they could withhold their spending, ie boycott misbehaving entities.
But if they don't have work, they won't have buying power to withhold. Post AI-displacement, the economy will reorient around serving the people who still have buying power (the oligarchs and their hangers-on).
Expect demand for food to plummet and demand for dick-waving pyramids and rocket cars to skyrocket.