Will AI destroy capitalism?

[Jarhyn]

What will people without the abilities to get a strong education when everything from yard work to Uber driver, to hair dresser is taken over by robots?

Same thing they do now. Struggle.

But at least in principle their necessities should be cheaper in real terms.

Well, at first they will. The thing is, humans won't tolerate the robots being the only robots on the block. We'll become robots ourselves before long, and then the "not-originally-human" robots will have some competition..

I'll be that competition.

 

[JohnG]

I've heard it argued (and it makes sense) that AI can help make business more predatory.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EVERY technology has resulted in vast numbers of jobs disappearing, and in great fear that this will make human workers a needless and redundant expense.

And yet, we have six or seven billion more humans today than we had a century ago, and a larger fraction of them are in paid employment than ever before.

It's almost as though technology doesn't eliminate jobs, but instead just replaces old jobs with new ones.

Except it is disruptive to those trained in the old skills. We do not have an adequate system to retrain them to new skills--but that's a failing of our system, not a wrong in deploying the new technology.

Always has been though. People will adapt.

The basic issue is how fast things change and how much training is needed for the new job.

 

[JohnG]

EVERY technology has resulted in vast numbers of jobs disappearing, and in great fear that this will make human workers a needless and redundant expense.

And yet, we have six or seven billion more humans today than we had a century ago, and a larger fraction of them are in paid employment than ever before.

It's almost as though technology doesn't eliminate jobs, but instead just replaces old jobs with new ones.

Except it is disruptive to those trained in the old skills. We do not have an adequate system to retrain them to new skills--but that's a failing of our system, not a wrong in deploying the new technology.

Always has been though. People will adapt.

This is certainly true, but I don't think it's ever a good thing to throw a big swath of people under the bus. You could probably draw a straight line from the decline of manufacturing post NAFTA and the attempted fascist coup on Jan 6, for one small example.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EVERY technology has resulted in vast numbers of jobs disappearing, and in great fear that this will make human workers a needless and redundant expense.

And yet, we have six or seven billion more humans today than we had a century ago, and a larger fraction of them are in paid employment than ever before.

It's almost as though technology doesn't eliminate jobs, but instead just replaces old jobs with new ones.

Except it is disruptive to those trained in the old skills. We do not have an adequate system to retrain them to new skills--but that's a failing of our system, not a wrong in deploying the new technology.

Always has been though. People will adapt.

This is certainly true, but I don't think it's ever a good thing to throw a big swath of people under the bus. You could probably draw a straight line from the decline of manufacturing post NAFTA and the attempted fascist coup on Jan 6, for one small example.

I don't think NAFTA is to blame here. Most job loss is to machines.

 

[Gospel]

I've heard it argued (and it makes sense) that AI can help make business more predatory.

Wherever profit potential exists, there will always be individuals incentivized to turn others into consumers. I'd like to also mention that in the absence of monetary incentives, the alternative could be a system of direct servitude in exchange for services rendered.

 

[ZiprHead]

EVERY technology has resulted in vast numbers of jobs disappearing, and in great fear that this will make human workers a needless and redundant expense.

And yet, we have six or seven billion more humans today than we had a century ago, and a larger fraction of them are in paid employment than ever before.

It's almost as though technology doesn't eliminate jobs, but instead just replaces old jobs with new ones.

Except it is disruptive to those trained in the old skills. We do not have an adequate system to retrain them to new skills--but that's a failing of our system, not a wrong in deploying the new technology.

Always has been though. People will adapt.

This is certainly true, but I don't think it's ever a good thing to throw a big swath of people under the bus. You could probably draw a straight line from the decline of manufacturing post NAFTA and the attempted fascist coup on Jan 6, for one small example.

I don't think NAFTA is to blame here. Most job loss is to machines.

I'd like to see a citation for this post NAFTA claim.

 

[bilby]

Apparently, AI destroys sales.

Not quite capitalism itself; but it's a start.

https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/...uct-descriptions-reduces-purchase-intentions/

 

[barbos]

Apparently, AI destroys sales.

Not quite capitalism itself; but it's a start.

https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/...uct-descriptions-reduces-purchase-intentions/

No shit, they have been trying to tech people to be be afraid of the word "artificial" for few decades now.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Apparently, AI destroys sales.

Not quite capitalism itself; but it's a start.

https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/...uct-descriptions-reduces-purchase-intentions/

Of course. People realize it's the latest hype.

 

[SLD]

Was talking this morning with a PhD candidate in AI work. He was more concerned with AI creating hyper capitalism, I.e., companies so powerful and rich that they could take over the government and basically turn us into serfs. Scary thought.

 

[bigfield]

I think we're on the Slope of Enlightenment on the Gartner Hype Cycle.

Peak of Inflated Expectations: ChatGPT will replace knowledge workers and artists. Everyone needs to become an expert at prompting AI if they hope to secure a job in the future.

Trough of Disillusionment: Generative AI spews garbage with utter confidence and cannot be trusted to work alone on anything critical. Highly-training professionals keep their jobs and "prompt engineer" never became a job.

Slope of Enlightenment (we are here): Generative AI can be very good at providing suggestions to trained human professionals, such as directing the user to items of interest (e.g. cancers on medical scans), and generating ideas for creative works.

Plateau of Productivity: Companies produce a wide variety of virtual assistants that supplement workers' knowledge and experience. End users adapt in their jobs by incorporating these tools into their practice.

 

[Gospel]

I believe that, at some point, capitalism will become an ancient system. AI won't destroy it, it will eventually destroy itself.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I believe that, at some point, capitalism will become an ancient system. AI won't destroy it, it will eventually destroy itself.

Why do you think that? It's survived some terrible calamities: banking crisis, covid, supply chain debacle, and it just keeps marching forward in the US.

 

[SLD]

I believe that, at some point, capitalism will become an ancient system. AI won't destroy it, it will eventually destroy itself.

My fear is that we re reduced to a new serfdom by the multubillionaires as they basically use their money to supplant government. We need to return to 90% marginal tax rates and especially for inheritance taxes.

 

[Gospel]

I believe that, at some point, capitalism will become an ancient system. AI won't destroy it, it will eventually destroy itself.

Why do you think that? It's survived some terrible calamities: banking crisis, covid, supply chain debacle, and it just keeps marching forward in the US.

Capitalism relies on scarcity and competition to function. In a scenario where resources become infinitely abundant (VIA space colonization), the very foundation of supply, demand, and profit would be disrupted, leading to the system's self-destruction.

 

[Elixir]

My fear is that we re reduced to a new serfdom by the multubillionaires as they basically use their money to supplant government.

What a coincidence.
Your fear is exactly the same as my observation.

 

[Gospel]

I believe that, at some point, capitalism will become an ancient system. AI won't destroy it, it will eventually destroy itself.

My fear is that we re reduced to a new serfdom by the multubillionaires as they basically use their money to supplant government. We need to return to 90% marginal tax rates and especially for inheritance taxes.

Well, there are always the usual checks and balances that prevent such a system from persisting in the long term and from stopping capitalism from re-emerging. One of these checks is a populace of fed-up, poor people with weapons.

 

[Gospel]

I've heard it argued (and it makes sense) that AI can help make business more predatory.

Predatory businesses will exploit any available resource or tactic to further their exploitative practices. This is similar to how some individuals, often males, will find ways to turn new discoveries into weapons of mass destruction. Even if humans stopped innovating, this tendency wouldn't change. We might as well continue progressing and hope we can leave this planet and go our separate ways before they manage to destroy it with all of us on it.

 

[bilby]

I believe that, at some point, capitalism will become an ancient system. AI won't destroy it, it will eventually destroy itself.

Why do you think that? It's survived some terrible calamities: banking crisis, covid, supply chain debacle, and it just keeps marching forward in the US.

The US, like capitalism, is a very recent phenomenon.

There's no particular reason to expect either to survive for a thousand years; The US is only 236 years old, and modern capitalism, as the dominant economic school, is of similar vintage.

Of course both have deeper historical roots, but then, I would not expect capitalism (or the USA) to vanish completely, but rather to form the foundation for whatever comes next.

The USA in her present role as a global economic and military superpower is only about 80 years old, and modern capitalism, founded in freely floating fiat currencies, is even younger - only around fifty years.

The hegemony of the USA may feel like the obvious and eternal way of the world; But then, that's what the citizens of the British Empire thought. And the Mughal Empire. And the Mongol Empire. And the Roman Empire.

And the ongoing dominance of capitalism as an economic system is no more assured than were the mercantilism or feudalism that came before it.