I hope this results in a rebalancing of the social and economic power of high-IQ versus average-IQ workers. We will need construction workers and tradespeople to build and maintain these AI data centers. Probably even with robots. But we won’t need as many engineers, lawyers, and other people whose job it is to consume and generate bits. If we tax the proceeds of AI generated productivity sufficiently, this could be…
I think it’s possible AI job disruption (or the threat thereof) could lead to a new labor movement capable of uniting people across the isle. It remains to be seen, but I think if the threat of a “permanent underclass” isn’t enough to get people to compromise and cooperate, nothing will.
People need to update their priors. The “permanent underclass” concern arose from a time when people thought AI was going to dominated by the first company to achieve it. But now we see that AI is becoming commoditized faster than almost any technology in recent history. IBM and Microsoft had a monopoly on personal computing for decades. AI is becoming a commodity before any of the AI companies have even turned a profit.
AI is going to be like electric motors. If you had a monopoly on electric motors you could control the world! But instead they’re commodity products mass manufactured around the world