> I'm very excited for a future where more and more tasks can be automated, enabling humans to get higher and higher living standards.
That's been the dream for a long time in some circles. With the enormous productivity gains and ability to leverage external energy sources (fossil fuels, solar, etc.) we could have built a society of wealth and leisure for all.
Maybe we will still. The hope is that if there is enough of a productivity gain in a short enough time period (like the introduction of AGI powered robots) that this could still happen.
The technology promises "wealth and leisure for all". The capital owners promise "it'll trickle down". Technical utopianists need to start tempering their optimism with the realities of human nature and design systems accordingly.
I think our only realistic hope is actually various non-profit foundations and such.
When you think about it, I can download (for zero cost), a high-quality operating system and attendant applications which would have cost hundreds of dollars 20 years ago, and would have cost a fortune 40 years ago. Ditto for educational materials, entertainment, etc.
In that sense, we are quite wealthy in comparison to previous generations. If charitable organizations can leverage the automation of the future to help people, we might then see all humans across the planet lifted out of poverty.
But yeah, I don't expect corporations to do this. And it seems unlikely that most governments will either.
Interesting perspective. I share your pessimism about corporations and governments.
But sadly I think government is the only institution with the necessary leverage (tax base, mandate, etc) to accomplish this. Non-profits are also fairly dubious in their motives, subject to corruption, and generally highly inefficient. I'm not sure they're going to be our saviors either.
I don't consider the present highly problematic, though it is imperfect.
The problem is the relatively imminent (next 50-100 years) reality of nearly complete human obsolescence. That's when you'll see societal degradation at previously unthinkable levels. And no that's not Luddite fallacy. The next epoch of technological innovation is going to be unlike any that came before.
A lot of people champion UBI, while forgetting that something like 3B+ people currently live on less than $2.50 a day. That's really all the evidence you need to know that the future is going to be pretty grim. Do we think it's more likely that plutocratic systems will award sustainable UBI packages to the mass unemployed via wealth transfer (which is anathema in said systems) or that market forces will discover the absolute minimum survivable income level and create new strata in first-world societies that hover just above pure barbarism?
Average income and wealth has massively increased over the last century, so we are slowly but surely getting to that utopia. But it happens at a pace that is too slow to be experientially perceptible.
I would add however that there does appear to be some barrier limiting the ability of ordinary people to accumulate financial capital, and I attribute that to friction/fixed-costs imposed by regulations.
New services, like Robinhood, and technology, like cryptocurrency, could address this, and allow wider participation in capital markets.
That's been the dream for a long time in some circles. With the enormous productivity gains and ability to leverage external energy sources (fossil fuels, solar, etc.) we could have built a society of wealth and leisure for all.
Maybe we will still. The hope is that if there is enough of a productivity gain in a short enough time period (like the introduction of AGI powered robots) that this could still happen.