Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#1

Post by lisplist » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 3:50 AM UTC

I know this is a question that has been asked and pondered a thousand times over, but it’s still something I can’t wrap my head around. If our ability to think becomes useless (in the economic sense at least), then how does an economy even function if the price of knowledge and mental labor basically becomes free?

If everyone switches to a physical job then the value of those jobs plummet as well, especially as robotics get better, we get better training via AI, etc.

UBI is proposed as a solution, but our resources are still scarce, so how would you even decide allocation if everyone has the same amount of cash?

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#2

Post by wyldfire » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 4:09 AM UTC

> the value of those jobs plummet as well, especially as robotics get better, we get better training via AI, etc.

There's presumably still R&D teams designing the robots. Service teams maintaining them.

I'm not suggesting it won't be significantly disruptive. But it won't wipe out all employment either.

Perhaps we can look at the industries disrupted by technological progress before. What happened to the audio and video arts when digital media hardware and software revolutionized over the previous ~2 decades or so? In my estimation there's many new jobs that never existed before to go with all the jobs that are no longer required. Who maintains the servers used for video production?

Jobs definitely come and go. Some of these came and went, some are the next to go, and some will be difficult to obsolete - stable hands, lamplighters, gas station attendants, car repair person, dog groomer, cell phone repairperson, personal shopper, teacher, nurse, physicist, politician, engineer, physician, tour guide, farmer, valet, groundskeeper, window washer, waiter, chef.

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 4:12 AM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #2

> the value of those jobs plummet as well, especially as robotics get better, we get better training via AI, etc. There's presumably still R&D teams designing the robots. Service teams maintaining them. I'm not suggesting it won't be significantly disruptive. But it won't wipe out all employment either. Perhaps we can look at the industries disrupted by technological progress before. What happened to the audio and vi…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#4

Post by dougmwne » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 4:18 AM UTC

I suppose it depends on your premise. Is your AGI like a GPT-20, something that takes human input and intention and completes the mental labor like having a team of 1000 expert humans? Or is it more like a superintelligence that has its own will and goals that are potentially beyond human capability to understand?

If you’re talking a superintelligence, then forget it. The human race will have been surpassed and if we are kept around it will be like pets.

If it’s human level AGI under firm human control, then the value of intellectual work will approach zero, but the value of humans will, direction and discernment will be multiplied many times over. At that point it would be time to head for the stars.

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#5

Post by atleastoptimal » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 4:21 AM UTC

Humans will have no economic value. The closest thing to economic activity is competing ASI sub-swarms caught in an evolutionary knowledge seeking battle to prove superior in the natural selection of memetic cognitive constructs. Any means to that propagation will be "currency".

The movement of economies is weighted towards what scarcities are consequential. Resources won't be a consequential scarcity for humans.

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#6

Post by troymc » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 4:29 AM UTC

An observation: Computers are already really good at chess, better than most people. You might say that we've passed the "chess singularity." But many people still buy chess boards, play chess against each other, travel to chess tournaments, and so on. There's still a vibrant global "chess economy."

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#7

Post by brucethemoose2 » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 4:29 AM UTC

https://orionsarm.com/

Though TBH I am more worried about the global economy breaking before we get actual AGI or even pseudo-AGI. Seems like machine learning is going to create a lot of low quality output controlled by a very small number of people well before it becomes generally intelligent. That will be miserable.

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#8

Post by jrflowers » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

This can be a very troubling question for some of the brightest minds in theory. The question itself both evoke the thought of R*k*’* Basili*k*

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#9

Post by mitthrowaway2 » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 5:25 AM UTC

> How would you even decide allocation if everyone has the same amount of cash?

By strength of preference. If I desperately want apples and you desperately want oranges, we'll bid different amounts despite our equal capacity, and thereby obtain different goods.

Re: Ask HN: What does a post AGI economy look like?

#10

Post by squigz » Thu, Nov 09, 2023, 8:04 AM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #4

I suppose it depends on your premise. Is your AGI like a GPT-20, something that takes human input and intention and completes the mental labor like having a team of 1000 expert humans? Or is it more like a superintelligence that has its own will and goals that are potentially beyond human capability to understand? If you’re talking a superintelligence, then forget it. The human race will have been surpassed and if we…

> If it’s human level AGI under firm human control

This just sounds like slavery with extra steps