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The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

danielhomola.com

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Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#211

Post by gwerbin »

cglan wrote: post #16

The future (if we keep using money to allocate resources) is something akin to feudalism but worse. If you are born at the bottom you will never rise to the top. It's bleak. Even worse, your labor will not be needed, nor will your intellectual abilities. There will be a few well off people with capital. The data centers will be guarded by automatons and drones. Everyone else will essentially live in a parallel econom…

I like to call this "capitalist feudalism", and it appears to be the overt agenda of big business and their allies/agents in governments around the world, notably but not exclusively in the USA.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#212

Post by guzfip »

pibaker wrote: post #137
poorman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to say this for all the people thinking like this. This attitude will get you nowhere in life. It historically never has and in the future it never will.

> When Nick is not at a computer, you can find him out racing sailboats and involved with various entrepreneurial ventures. Says the man who is going to be the feudal lord in GP's scenario…

Nah thats petty nobility that will get wiped out for taking the wrong side in the first dick measuring war lmao.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#213

Post by deaux »

bluescrn wrote: post #184
lukev wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right -- the best way to succeed within a system is to hustle as hard as you can, and definitely don't stop to question the system itself.

Better than those who just want to burn the system down with no real plan for what comes next, and unable to comprehend the inevitable bloodshed of the 'glorious revolution' that they crave.

Do you comprehend the scale of the inevitable bloodshed that maintaining the status quo is bound to lead to? You don't do so any better than those you're chastising.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#214

Post by thrance »

poorman wrote: post #110
cglan wrote: post #16

The future (if we keep using money to allocate resources) is something akin to feudalism but worse. If you are born at the bottom you will never rise to the top. It's bleak. Even worse, your labor will not be needed, nor will your intellectual abilities. There will be a few well off people with capital. The data centers will be guarded by automatons and drones. Everyone else will essentially live in a parallel econom…

I am going to say this for all the people thinking like this. This attitude will get you nowhere in life. It historically never has and in the future it never will.

> I am going to say this for all the people thinking like this. This attitude will get you nowhere in life. It historically never has and in the future it never will.

I'm picturing a 12th century French feudal lord saying these words to some of his serfs complaining from a lack of firewood.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#215

Post by jen20 »

paganel wrote: post #160
jen20 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources for "normal" people (i.e. not the terminally online) being happy that datacenters were bombed?

> i.e. not the terminally online) We're not in 2018 anymore, everyone is terminally online now, you must have missed the shift. I've seen mini-bus drivers watching social media videos (Tik-Tok, that is) while driving from all the way to Germany to here in Romania (from where I'm from), I noticed that because I was one of the passengers. Almost all of the remaining passengers (not middle-class, you can well imagine th…

That didn't really answer the question...

However, using your phone does not make you terminally online. That is more of a mental state, and while some Europeans may be in it, my experience is that most are not.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#216

Post by irishcoffee »

TGower wrote: post #164
bluefirebrand wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems likely the path will be gradual and prosperous enough that we can handle the transition in a way that provides for everyone What are you talking about man, we don't even provide for everyone right now even though we actually could

Right now it is difficult for the average person to put themselves in the shoes of a homeless person. There are a litany of ready made excuses not to do so: "Oh it's the drugs", "They aren't even going to the shelter", "They must have mental illness", a variety of ways to say "I could never end up like that, if it was me I'd do better and pull myself out". These excuses evaporate in the face of a real automation wave…

You really think altruism is what pops out the other end of "nobody has a fucking job" state of affairs?

Alrighty.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#217

Post by commandlinefan »

jmye wrote: post #117
bix6 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re already there. Your individual labor isn’t enough to make a living unless you subscribe to the altar of a feudal FAANG. This is preposterous. > Collectively, the wealthiest 1% held about $55 trillion in assets in the third quarter of 2025 — roughly equal to the wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans combined. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-wealth-gap-widest-in-three-d...

> We’re already there. Your individual labor isn’t enough to make a living unless you subscribe to the altar of a feudal FAANG. This is preposterous. You think you already can't "make a living" without working at a FAANG? Is this a serious post?

When I was 8 or so (early 80's), I read a news article that said something like "in the near future, robots will do all work and humans won't have to work at all". The news article made it sound like it would happen before I reached adulthood and even then I could see the problem there: "who decides who gets to live in the big house at the top of the hill and who decided who has to live where I live?"

Communism/socialism/wealth distribution/planned economies is one potential solution, but it's an awfully ham-fisted one and definitely not one to put into place until it's absolutely necessary. I kind of suspect that a lot of people, like OP, are kind of hoping that now is the time, but it definitely isn't, at least not yet.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#218

Post by BobbyJo »

HN's users are probably the most measured and considerate on the internet, and even here it is difficult to talk about things like this with any degree of nuance.

Maybe that is itself a sign of the widening wealth disparity. Even smart, normally tepid, people fall into extremes when wealth is discussed.

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#219

Post by pearlsontheroad »

keiferski wrote: post #153
lukev wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right -- the best way to succeed within a system is to hustle as hard as you can, and definitely don't stop to question the system itself.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I think this is actually good advice. It's great to be a free-thinker and question things, but I do think there is some (monetary) value in just not asking too many questions, but optimizing to be the best at whatever you're doing. Edit: to give an example, I probably would have done better in school had I spent less time questioning the education system and more time ju…

The trick is to compartmentalize

Re: The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI

#220

Post by caconym_ »

pastel8739 wrote: post #121
sdenton4 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are ai and robots other than excess labor, waiting to be allocated? Why does the wealth have to come from the meat bags?

Who is going to buy the stuff that the AI and robots produce, then? What will the point be of producing all this stuff?

In this scenario, where the AI and robots no longer rely on human labor for maintenance and growth, their productive capacity exclusively serves the owning elite (including defending them with violence if necessary) and the rest of us are an inconvenient growth occupying land and consuming resources.

This is a scenario where the AI/capital owners complex has already survived the collapse of the consumer economy.

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