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Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

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Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#171

Post by jameslk »

whatever1 wrote: post #101
jameslk wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few will accumulate all of the wealth of world. Where do these few acquire all their wealth? What happens when these remaining few need to compete?

In the only way that matters. They will corner finite resources and land. Now if we are lucky and the owners are humans with a good heart (and not AI), maybe there is some room for some people (aka provide authentic experiences)

> They will corner finite resources and land.

They need a lot of money to do that. Where do they get it all from? Not the jobless masses I presume?

Investors don’t usually like to invest in companies that aren’t going to eventually earn any revenue either

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#172

Post by BobbyTables2 »

whatever1 wrote: post #60

Why do we believe that AI (if indeed we achieve human level AI) will have different outcome than the means of production or capital? It’s a winner takes all situation. Very few will accumulate all of the wealth of world. This time it will be more efficient than the Industrial Revolution, because not only you can produce the weapons for the meatbags to protect your wealth, you can even get rid of the meatbags and just…

Ironically, if 1 person had 99.99% of all the wealth in the world, I’m not entirely sure it would have as much meaning as one might assume.

The one with the wealth would be effectively be unable to obtain greater wealth, power, or influence.

Other this individual being able to command arbitrary amounts of goods and services, the rest would compete for the remaining scraps as we do today.

Ironically, if they want technological innovation and all the fancy toys that result, then it would be in their interest to give the rest something to aim for. Serfdom isn’t going to cut it!

Holding on to all the wealth so that nobody else can get it would be highly detrimental to a capitalistic society.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#173

Post by qsera »

whatever1 wrote: post #125
rogerrogerr wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’m one of the six people who ends up with all the money and controlling all the robots, why do I want your 3 bed 2 bath house in Tennessee? Trying to take it from you will only make you riot. It’s not exactly a bright outlook, but I do think we in the west are likely to be not-worse, on average, than we are now. Of course, your average HN denizen is much better off than average. I think there’s room for our stand…

You will need electricity, water you will be producing waste etc. in your Tennessee house. Why would someone who owns all of the power and resources share with you? Really I don’t see any playable alternative other than near complete annihilation of human race. It’s very similar to a nuclear apocalypse. Very few get to survive.

>Why would someone who owns all of the power and resources share with you?

Ideally governments will see to it. This also assumes that governments have a much larger army of robots than any private individual. Just like how governments makes it illegal to own firearms, it will be illegal to own certain class of robots with combat capability..

Thus governments (the people really/ideally) will see to it that everyone will be comfortable with minimum amount of work utilizing the robots.

One can dream!

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#174

Post by fakedang »

casey2 wrote: post #166
ares623 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? If the people aren't needed then why dedicate robots and land to feed them, for free? > I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less. Taxes from what?

For all the other economic activities that robots don't run? 40% of Humans work in the food supply chain, the more automation, the more jobs. That's how it's always worked. All those people who were previously working are now spending their time looking for work, and they will find it. As for LLMs, language is a tool for communication, not thought. That's why APL's "notation as a tool of thought" failed. And it's why…

> 40% of Humans work in the food supply chain, the more automation, the more jobs. That's how it's always worked.

X for doubt. When automation entered agriculture, we started producing way more for way less. Agriculture stopped becoming a significant part for most developed economies in terms of both GDP contribution and employment.

> All those people who were previously working are now spending their time looking for work, and they will find it.

X. The people who lose jobs rarely find something anew - they'll simply become part of an expanding labour pool, further depressing wages. All while some numpty politician would be telling them they need to stop farming and start learning how to code (never mind there's absolutely no point in doing that either).

> As for LLMs, language is a tool for communication, not thought. That's why APL's "notation as a tool of thought" failed. And it's why LLMs will fail to replace human thought.

A cursory browse through an X or reddit thread would show you otherwise. LLMs already replace human thought.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#175

Post by pastel8739 »

whatever1 wrote: post #125
rogerrogerr wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’m one of the six people who ends up with all the money and controlling all the robots, why do I want your 3 bed 2 bath house in Tennessee? Trying to take it from you will only make you riot. It’s not exactly a bright outlook, but I do think we in the west are likely to be not-worse, on average, than we are now. Of course, your average HN denizen is much better off than average. I think there’s room for our stand…

You will need electricity, water you will be producing waste etc. in your Tennessee house. Why would someone who owns all of the power and resources share with you? Really I don’t see any playable alternative other than near complete annihilation of human race. It’s very similar to a nuclear apocalypse. Very few get to survive.

Realistically though, if there are some humans left, they are going to want to live in a society. Humans are fundamentally social and I think the people in charge would eventually realize this. But then again rich people are not normal, so maybe not

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#176

Post by qsera »

ares623 wrote: post #161
qsera wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unless one of us happens to be a food producer we will both starve. We need our trade graph to be connected to resources we need.. How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? >Who owns the robots though.. I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less.

> How will you starve when the robots will produce food for everyone, for free? Isn't that the idea? If the people aren't needed then why dedicate robots and land to feed them, for free? > I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less. Taxes from what?

>If the people aren't needed then why dedicate robots and land to feed them, for free?

As I said in another comment, I think the governments should see to it that people are comfortable. It will also make it illegal to privately own combat robots. Someone could try to build a massive combat robot army in some secret lair, but governments will watch out for that.

>Taxes from what..

Maintaining robots, may be. When that too becomes automated, then no more taxes, I guess.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#177

Post by BobbyTables2 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #116
mc32 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone who is able should earn their keep. From ants to lions, to survive and live, even if in meager spurts they must put in some work.

Well yes, that how it has always been. But if robots do the labor we don’t have to abide by that nonsense anymore. It’s a paradigm shift. I realize we’re probably not going to see it in our lifetimes but that will be the norm in the future. Also that extremely ingrained mindset of earning your keep is exactly what keeps most of the world working hard while the elite jetset and live a life of pleasure.

More than a mindset, it also takes quite a bit of money to live in a permanent vacation 24/7, even modestly.

Aside from the income, employment also has a way of occupying one’s time. Without that, one would often spend additional funds on various forms of entertainment (books, movies, crafts, travel, etc.)…

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#178

Post by [deleted] »

bayarearefugee wrote: post #73
sdevonoes wrote: post #19

Isn’t it clear that the “enemy” of 99% of the people in the world (and in HN) are the ultra rich? Therefore we shouldn’t use Claude/Gemini/OpenAI? It’s not about stopping progress, rather stopping the ultra rich getting richer and more powerful over our lives. Whether we can use claude to automate a fucking script or service is meaningless compared to that. The dream of elon musk et al is to keep accumulating power a…

> But here we are giving them more power. Sure, but those of us who need to earn income are in a prisoner's dilemma with billions of actors and realistically we'll never coordinate that boycott. On the other hand, the OP article ignores the fact that while the economy might not need us, if/when enough people's actual material life conditions degrade beyond a certain point, there will be an old fashioned bloody revolu…

[deleted]

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#180

Post by tsunamifury »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #167
baron816 wrote: post #142

It’s an economic fallacy that a group of people would get “locked out” of the economy. If you and I are able to work, but can’t get jobs because robots do all the jobs, then we’re not just going to sit on our hands and starve. You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. But that’s not how things will turn out. The reason we have an economy and money and trade is that we need to incentivize…

>AI should be able to figure out how much to produce, how to limit waste, who should get what, etc. in a very fair and efficient manner. AI could also be able to figure out how much to produce and how to limit waste in a way that leaves you to starve. And there won't be anything you can do about it. And this solution would, it turns out, suit the people who still have influence in how the system works just fine . >ou…

It’s amazing seeing so many people reconstruct socialism and technocratic communism of the 60s from base principles and completely be ignorant of everything we learned about it.
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