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by pixl97 1150 days ago
>If consumers spend more money, then businesses will respond by hiring more workers.

Unless they can expand by spending capital instead. Workers are an expensive long term liability. This is why in every industry that has been able to automate at a cost 'around' human labor or less has. You don't harvest wheat with 100 people with scythes, we invest huge amounts in to capital intensive combines that can do the work of a few hundred people. At the same time, some fragile fruits have not been well automated yet, and we use unskilled low paid labor to do work like that.

What you are not doing is answering the question of "What will happen if we can automate a significant fraction of white collar labor"? Blue collar work moved to the service/information industries for higher pay. If that market shrinks, there is not any other high paying skill based market for these people to move into that I know about.

It is highly possible we could see general wage suppression. Plenty of jobs, very rich companies enriched by the control of AI, not plenty of pay. Now just contemplate the economic problems that's going to cause.