Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible • Hacker News Board

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#271

Post by numpad0 » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

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…

> You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved.

And that's communist. I don't understand why nobody seem to see the irony or the miscategorization. This isn't to be critical of this comment, but my righteousness obsessed mind says that people pushing for the dual-layer system where few controls classical economy without humans and rest using their own systems needs to be relabeled from capitalist to proto-Soviet style totalitarian anarcho-Communist.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#272

Post by 8note » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #100

sosomoxie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if wealth will be evenly distributed, otherwise you're just enriching someone else.

Would you accept "fairly" distributed instead of "evenly"? I think it's fair to say that some jobs do actually deserve to be compensated more highly? Jobs that require special skills and training, or require taking on more responsibility? I don't think the problem is that some work earns different amounts of money. To me it seems that the problem is how much wealth is concentrating in such few hands, because the peop…

the jobs that actually need to be paid highly and the ones that do have little relation to each other

all those "heroes" and "essential workers" like people running the till at grocery stores should be getting paid a ton

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#273

Post by jameslk » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 5:35 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #263

jameslk wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can’t magically skip steps. It’s like South Park’s underwear gnomes. We’re missing steps in between and hand waving them away

The first comment said "They need a lot of money to do that. Where do they get it all from? Not the jobless masses I presume?" I was explaining that money is irrelevant and so are the jobless masses. Someone owns the factories, and that person is the one who is relevant here. They of course need to be convinced, by money or other means, but the jobless masses are only relevant to the extent that they own and control…

> You are correct that there are additional steps here, but wealth is growing increasingly concentrated, and the burden of proof is on the person claiming that trend won't continue.

Whoa there internet friend! I don't think I said anything about wealth concentration not being a trend. I'm just talking about AI. I'm still waiting for someone to explain coherent, undeniable watertight reasons that we're on a one-way track that goes from AI companies to infinite money glitch or robot death factories. I've already made my arguments against why I don't think it will happen before[0][1]

Maybe the argument is some already-rich fella with magic robot factories will have everything they will ever need, so they brush away all of humanity like an unsightly bit of dandruff on their shoulder with their kill bot drone army.

I guess if you squint at it long enough, that kinda sounds plausible. In the same way someone could press a giant red nuke button and have us all wiped out like a Terminator movie. But it's making a lot of fantastic assumptions without a lot of concreteness. That is, many people seem to be claiming "this is the AI endgame" rather than seeing other possibilities that aren't so ridiculously cynical or nihilistic with leaky abstractions

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48330434

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47966936

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#274

Post by bigbadfeline » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 5:46 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #183

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…

I think it is a supreme delusion that robots and turrets can defend you against any large mass of angry or hungry humans. Until you can field an robot army that supremely outnumbers humans, im betting on the larger group of clever little shit humans. And if shit gets bad enough small grenade or bomb type EMPs do work, provided you aren't relying on electronics yourself and aren't worried about pissing off everyone in…

> I think it is a supreme delusion that robots and turrets can defend you against any large mass of angry or hungry humans.

It's a supreme delusion that it can't. Military tech isn't in the 19th century anymore.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#275

Post by TalkingCodeMonk » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 5:52 AM UTC

smallmancontrov wrote: post #36

andrewmutz wrote: post #11

If you want to understand the likely capabilities of AI technology in the future, listen to software engineers like this guy. If you want to understand the impact of AI technology on the economy, don't listen to software engineers, listen to economists.

Just remember that the US purged left-leaning economists during the cold war and the field re-grew under intense think-tank incentives towards the economic right, so if you think labor/capital dynamics might be important to the AI revolution you really ought to balance your "random" sampling of US economists with some Piketty (Atkinson, Stiglitz, Zucman -- but in an era where reading even one book is considered a her…

Also remember that the Koch Bros (plus numerous other billionaires) have spent billions [0] poisoning economics academia by funding their narcissistic version of pseudo-libertarianism across think tanks, lobbyists, and colleges... They're so "Libertarian" they believe corporate dictatorship is freedom and poisoning their communities is the communities problem.

I remember first going to a party at an Economics students house 20 years ago, and thinking they all seemed like they were in a cult. Wasn't until fairly recently I figured out it was from propaganda.

[0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#276

Post by mordae » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

> Money is an example. Really, what is money? A piece of paper? Some metal? Some number on a computer? Could you put your finger on what money really is, especially in the modern world?

Debt owed to central bank. Enforced by State via taxation and confiscation of property if you do not pay up. People seek it because they need to pay the said taxes and/or believe other people will seek it to pay theirs, including in a foreign territory. Loses value when central bank/State is unable to impose taxation and/or has not much useful work to extract from its subjects.

Recently western States have been captured by socialists, which prompted a reaction of the rich and powerful that eventually made the States unable to issue money and forced them to beg for the very thing they enable on the door fronts of the capitalists, making democracy a second-class economical citizen.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#277

Post by bigbadfeline » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 6:04 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #126

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…

Why is it a winner takes all situation? There’s really intense competition up and down the supply chain for AI. That competition is going to bring down costs for everything. It’s becoming cheaper and easier every day to start a company that will disrupt the established players and bring down prices. Everything will become commoditized. The winners in the end will be consumers, and the losers will be the big AI compan…

> Why is it a winner takes all situation?

Because there are a few winners who are happy to collectively monopolize the market - e.g RAM - nobody is increasing production, China is blocked from the market by sanctions and tariffs, the rest are more than happy to ask for a 1000% more than just a few years ago. Why would they do anything else - it's absolutely not in their interest for the prices to come down.

> There’s really intense competition up and down the supply chain for AI.

There isn't and won't be any "intense competition" - nobody can compete without hardware and it's now monopolized and affordable only to a token few.

> It’s becoming cheaper and easier every day to start a company that will disrupt the established players and bring down prices.

In the light of the current reality, this can only be classified as hallucinations. Actually, previously commoditized markets have become inaccessible and the trend is the exact opposite of what you're saying. It's bizarre to read naked assertions, which are not only without evidence but with all evidence pointing to the opposite.

> That competition is going to bring down costs for everything.

Back to reality, a new Teddy Roosevelt isn't going to magically reappear, not in either of the two parties. Imagine the world without him... we're almost there.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#278

Post by the_af » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 6:05 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #216

sosomoxie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer "evenly" but "fairly" would be better than what we have now. If AI and robots are going to make infinite progress and replace all labor, then I definitely would want "evenly".

What would keep people from circumventing a roboticized society and forming their own human-based society? Buy good and services produced by other people and avoid and or penalize members who cheat -ostracize them. There can be parallel systems. Pretty much only communist systems prevent non-communist systems from operating. In capitalist systems communist systems that form from time to time fail because members grow…

In an hypothetical future where society has completely broken down because of extreme concentration of wealth (and means of production and everything) I can see there not being any possibility for a human-based society. In such a doomsday scenario, regular people wouldn't be able to trade anything because they wouldn't be able to produce anything, because all the land will be taken over by the very few ultrarich. Nowhere to live, nowhere to grow food, etc. Essentially surplus population. No government to protect you either, since it will have been coopted by the ultrarich (essentially, them becoming the government). Enforcement could be done by robots, and robots do not revolt or go on strike, nor will they question orders. Maintenance can be done by other robots, harvesting, even health care for the ultrarich.

So how (in this admittedly doomsday scenario that I hope won't come to pass) will a human-based society be able function?

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#279

Post by mordae » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 6:08 AM UTC

qsera wrote: post #159

xyzzy123 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You and I can still trade with each other, no robots need be involved. 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. Production also tends to need exclusive access to resources (land, materials, etc) and you will be competing with machines for access to those. > The reason we have an economy and money and trade is that we need to in…

>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.

> I think may be the government. The population will have to pay taxes for their maintenance. But it will be vastly less.

Governments are no longer allowed to print money. Do you think they will be allowed to build unlimited supply of robots? You are funny.

All the robot factories will belong to rich and we will have to _beg_ to have some measly allocation _while_ we feed the police that prevents us from just taking them.

And politicians will mostly just say this is _inevitable_ for some reason or other.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#280

Post by adalacelove » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 6:08 AM UTC

Why have the powerful not completely killed the rest of the people?

A. Ethics/Morals B. Power balance C. People are a valuable resource

I think we are all a little concerned it is C.

It's a grim thought and I'm optimistic, but the stakes are very high. Reminds me of Solaria (Foundation and Earth, Asimov).