The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by bluefirebrand » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

TGower wrote: post #62

0x4e wrote: post #20

This is when I ask sincerely: how does AI truly benefit the average Joe? Sure it can help you do things “faster” and it can give you “private/cheaper” advice. But, AI feels increasingly like a thing that will make the powerful a lot more powerful with their data centres and automation shenanigans. All the hype feels like it’s being injected into everyone’s brain like a virus. Oh look at this shiny new tool! But, how…

> How does AI truly benefit the average joe? Automated production of goods and services means more goods and services to go around. From cheaper prices on all of the things people already buy to unlocking new classes of products like actually useful robotic helpers. Increased pace of development and reduced cost will make many niche products economically viable, essentially the maker movement on steroids.

Cheaper prices don't matter at all when no one has any income due to all of the jobs being automated

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

#72

Post by jen20 » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #48

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…

> The data centers will be guarded by automatons and drones. Which is why Iran bombing a few Western-run data-centers located in the Emirates was cheered by many of the normal people actually living in the West. I’m pretty sure that if somehow Iran were to take out OpenAI’s servers for good that images with the Ayatollah will unironically start to spring up in the same West.

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

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

#73

Post by CalRobert » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

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…

The parallel economy could even kinda sorta work except that we made frontier living largely illegal in many places (though I understand you probably could get some cheap land in e.g. Idaho and try to live off it) and the existence of said parallel society represents a clear challenge to capital owners who say trading your labour for their profit is the most sensible way to live.

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

#74

Post by bluefirebrand » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

rokkamokka wrote: post #64

r0fl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not benefit average Joe now I agree But let’s say we get to ASI. The ai is self owned, ever expanding. It takes over all service jobs, then all labour jobs, the robots create the robots. It lobbies the government, becomes the government Rebuilds all housing with no waste in the process Makes most things available to everyone at no costs, UBI, perfect healthcare, and food, etc Average Joe’s life will be pretty aw…

Pretty big assumption of empathy there

Especially given that the people who currently control money and power display no evidence that they have empathy

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

#75

Post by zarzavat » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #52

Commenting strictly on the metaphor in the title: Did you mean to say ladder? Bridges don't get pulled up. Edit to say: Yes I did think of drawbridges. And Batman is a scientist. But drawbridges are simply "opened" or "raised," and the implication always is that it's temporary and they will soon be "closed" or "lowered." Though they can be sabotaged in the open position. All right fine, OP please change your title to…

Drawbridges do

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

#76

Post by intended » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

botswana99 wrote: post #63

ixlixl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI automating (almost) all white collar work will concentrate all those salaries into the hands of a very small group of people. BTW the number of plumbers who become multimillionaires is vanishingly small, while the number of SWE who have in the last 15 years is enormous by comparison.

Neither statement is true, unfortunately. The reports that you read in the media don't reflect the state of the world. In the US, most plumbers and SWE make between 100-200K. The way to wealth is to start one's own business. Hence, hard work and character.

People will charge less when there are more people fighting for the same plumbing roles no?

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

#77

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #39

botswana99 wrote: post #29

The dude has obviously never met a multimillionaire owner of an auto body shop, a house demolition business, or a plumber. Did they do well in high school calc class? No. Are they richer than the author? Yes Blowing up the cognitive hierarchy is a gift that AI gives us. Let's move into an age where hard work and character matter more than your SAT score at 17.

Why do you think a high SAT score doesn't need "hard work and character"?

> Why do you think a high SAT score doesn't need "hard work and character"?

Well, it absolutely doesn't need both, because I got one without, at least, the first of those (beyond the extent that "getting up early on a Saturday" and "sitting calmly while bored out of my mind after finishing each portion of the test waiting for time to expire" is "hard work".) I like to think I had the second, but it didn't seem particularly relevant to the test in any way.

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

#78

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

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…

The idealized future in my option has something like 1/1000th of the current population

It’s thermodynamically impossible for 8-10Billon animals that have no satiation reflex and limited coordination capacity to live on a resource limited rock

Absolute Best case future is what I wrote in 2025 which is basically humans living in care facilities managed by machines:

https://kemendo.com/We%20All%20Slept%20Well.pdf

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

#79

Post by botswana99 » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #39

botswana99 wrote: post #29

The dude has obviously never met a multimillionaire owner of an auto body shop, a house demolition business, or a plumber. Did they do well in high school calc class? No. Are they richer than the author? Yes Blowing up the cognitive hierarchy is a gift that AI gives us. Let's move into an age where hard work and character matter more than your SAT score at 17.

Why do you think a high SAT score doesn't need "hard work and character"?

The SAT, like general intelligence, is half hard work and half inherited ability, from what I've read. Characteristics that you have no control over, like height, intelligence, race, or sex, should not determine your wealth. It should really be about hard work and character; that's fair. At least in the U.S., there are too many industries like law, venture capital, or VC-invested startup founders, where the pedigree of your school is what matters to your success.

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

#80

Post by alansaber » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

No way to approach this other than gross simplification, but we have seen generally that as technology improves, standard of living goes up. Autonomous machines breaking that trend, maybe, the only argument I find persuasive is that it makes the centralisation of power easier.