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lenerdenator • yesterday at 7:44 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

That then begs the question of whether there's any promised land at all after all knowledge work is replaced.

If you've made tens of millions of people unemployed over the timeline of a few years, then you no longer have nearly the market to sell goods and services - including your AI - to.

Assuming these guys answer that with "let's make UBI" - which is a huge assumption given the way SV fetishizes those who "create value" and looks down upon those who don't - you now basically have tech feudalism. The remaining upper crust "generously" pays the rest of the population enough to not starve until they die.

You'll basically have an entire society in stasis, with no hope of improving their lot, being given the bare minimum to keep humans alive, if that. Well, no hope of peacefully improving their lot.

It won't be a promised land at that point.


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scott_weber • yesterday at 9:09 PM

From my read this line of thought was alluded to by GP's ironic "promised land". A promised land for whom? Not for the vast majority of humankind.

Comparisons to feudalism kind of sell the direness of the AGI vision short: in feudalism, the lord still depended on the peasants. The lord would be inconvenienced if he had them all killed. Not so with AGI! He won't even notice their gone.

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