Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
This assumes that the competition survived.
With their robots (slaves. Robot literally means slave), the human workforce would be worthless and powerless. Lacking alternative for purchase of consumer products, the majority unemployed would be reduced to being a desperate peasant; without any choice of where to shop.
Resources would be moving to the top of the pyramid at an unbelievable rate. The bottom would be way down there in the mud.
North America would basically look like North Korea.
The trick is to avoid wealth concentration at the top as AI is rolled out, and somewhat equal distribution world wide. I assume the nordic countries will have this figured and they will all work less hours or not at all with some on a basic income structure that is livable. If you're good at something then you could work at that and earn whatever you can on top of your basic income.
I think the issue will be corporate greed influencing government policy to not distribute the benefits of AI and automation in a livable way for everyone. AI and automation should make providing the basics of life a fraction of the current costs, that shouldn't be a major drag on the economy. Give some incentives not to have kids and global population will shrink naturally to a more sustainable level.
If most governments throw 1/2 to 3/4 of its citizens under the AI bus, or a couple nations jump way ahead without sharing, then probably we'll have WW3 and we'll all be dead.
Given that we have more people than we have I'm decades who believe that feeding the corporations and taking a load off of them will result in their benevolence, I can hardly see this tragedy being avoidable.
I hate to sound like a pinko, but anyone suggesting that AI should benefit all and not be used by corporations to further gut us is going to be called a pinko.
AI development is going to take serious coin, and capitalism states that the greatest contributor should be the greatest beneficiary.
ASSUMING the AI rollout comes in the form of job elimination, then the masses will stand about as much of a chance as Blockbuster or Radio Shack. It won't really matter what anyone learns. The job application lines will look like food lines in Soviet Russia.
It'll be like a stray dog in a suit showing up to work a nuclear reactor.
Now let's assume that the tech is spread everywhere, evenly. What does it matter when the unemployment rate is the majority?
We don't have to look into the fiction books to know what that looks like. Education will be replaced with animal survival, and we'll have roving gangs, death squads, and funded genocide.
Once the value of the individual human life is lost, the concept of America is dead on the floor.
If there is WW3, I'll give you three guesses what the soldiers representing the government and corporations will look like. Pic was already posted here.
