Top economist warns that the AI math doesn’t make sense: 'Profits are currently being funded by investors rather than earned from customers'

The problem is two things are happening at once and they are being conflated. Financially a cannibalising house of cards is being built which is a common artifact of modern capitalism. But in the same process a means is being realistically sought, and openly expressed, to replace the human workforce. This second aspect is unique and when written plainly is far more stark than the more common financial greed fuelled idiocy half.

Nah, I’m sure all the most valuable companies and richest people are pouring more money in to developing AI to replace the human workforce out of the goodness of their hearts.

Once most humans are no longer needed in order for them to have all of their needs and wants met and they are directly in control of all production and everything else they definitely plan to share everything equally and turn Earth into a utopia for all of humanity. Sharing and caring is what the rich and powerful do best.

Ai got everyone twisted. Now you don’t want automation because you fear becoming obsolete. Why fear that? There’s billions of us. We can simply build the tech then throw the billionaires out.

And if billions are too weak to do that to a few thousand… well that’s called permission.

Why fear that?

People still gotta eat, and unless we can jump directly to a Star Trek post scarcity utopia, people need an income in order to get food.

UBI has been proven to work, but no government has the guts to implement it lest they anger their corporate owners donors.

UBI has been demonstrated to work in test environments that were not able to isolate all externalities. It might work at scale, but that isn’t testable currently; you’d have to have a massive social experiment.

There’s also the problem that UBI would be putting everyone’s entire means for subsistence up to the whims of the government, which I would think would horrify more people. I dont trust my government to fill the potholes, let alone make sure I’m surviving and thriving.

Your government and mine may be different.

I’d rather have my subsistence at the whims of the government than at the whims of a billionaire business owner.

That’s a false dichotomy. I would rather have my subsistence at the whims of the entirety of the country’s economic activity than any government, which is one election away from changing its mind about how much to pay me. Markets are constrained by their environment. If my employer cuts my pay, I can leave and go elsewhere.

The billionaires are responsible for the fact we’re even talking about needing alternative economic systems in the first place. They and the governments are the same people, or at least their representatives.

I would rather have my subsistence at the whims of the entirety of the country’s economic activity

Ok, how do we organize that in an equitable manner?

Isn’t that more-or-less what a government is supposed to be?