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js8today at 7:23 AM0 repliesview on HN

Interestingly OP's idea that "AI destroys value" seems to come at least partly from the labor theory value, which Marx accepted (as most classical economists).

Unfortunately, the labor theory of value is self-contradictory. If you invent a new machine that replaces human labor, it will clearly produce more value, yet human labour is reduced. So this follows that not all value can be attributed to human labor.

What this really breaks down is meritocracy. If you cannot unambiguously attribute "effort" of each individual (her labor) to produced "value", then such attribution cannot be used as a moral guidance anymore.

So this breaks the right-wing idea that the different incomes are somehow deserved. But this is not new, it's just more pronounced with AI, because the last bastion of meritocracy, human intelligence ("I make more because I'm smarter"), is now falling.

Addendum: Although accounts differ on this, Marx seemed to struggle with LTV, IIRC Steve Keen's Debunking Economics shows Marx contradicting himself on it.