[ben_w]

Longevity discovered by AI, implies[0] AI which is so good that none of us can work for money anyway — it comes with an economic change too large to make a reasonable projection of what happens next, as it's more different from what we have today than either Communism (any of them) or Neoliberalism is from Ancient Greek city states using electrum.

[0] but we can't say for sure until we have it, thanks to all the other things we assumed would need human-like AI and didn't, like Chess, Go, writing code, etc.

[croes]

Maybe it's already discovered but they won't tell you.

Or it's an expensive procedure.

We already produce enough to feed everybody and still people starve to death. The problem isn't production but distribution and that isn't a technical problem but an economical and political one.

Money is power and the ones with power will do everything to prevent losing that power.

[ben_w]

> Maybe it's already discovered but they won't tell you.

It would have leaked. People will buy literal snake oil in the hope of life extension, so even just a hint of this would have everyone capable of industrial espionage on the trail.

> Or it's an expensive procedure.

Given all the dead rich people, I doubt it.

> We already produce enough to feed everybody and still people starve to death. The problem isn't production but distribution and that isn't a technical problem but an economical and political one.

Indeed, and I mentioned the food dichotomy in another comment.

But we also had the thing a few years ago where people were calling on Musk specifically to use his wealth to end world hunger. This resulted in "[…] tech entrepreneur Elon Musk challenged the United Nations last year to show him a $6 billion plan that would end world hunger, he got in return a proposal that would save 42 million people in 43 countries from starvation." - https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/how-much-money-...

And in case you blame him for not doing this, it goes on to say "Current estimates suggest that as of this year, we need donor governments to invest around $37 billion every year until 2030 to tackle both extreme and chronic hunger." which is more than his net worth at the time the article was written.

> Money is power and the ones with power will do everything to prevent losing that power.

For now.

AI, regardless of the impact on healthcare, is going to break that in much the same way that the industrial revolution broke the "land is power" apparent-tautology of feudalism.

[croes]

>Current estimates suggest that as of this year, we need donor governments to invest around $37 billion every year until 2030

6 x $37B = $222B

That's ca. a quarter of the US yearly military budget.

>the same way that the industrial revolution broke the "land is power" apparent-tautology of feudalism.

But we still have feudalism.

[ben_w]

> That's ca. a quarter of the US yearly military budget.

The USA != Musk personally, and he personally was getting flack for not personally fixing it, and he personally said (not a quote) "if you can give me a plan to do it that cheap, I will", only to be given a plan that wouldn't fix it and the actual cost of fixing it would exceed his theoretical net worth.

> But we still have feudalism.

As a response to the specific bit you quoted, that's just an argument-as-a-soldier, not an interesting point.

It's also an example of "tell me you don't know what ${X} means without saying you don't know what ${X} means" — given that Scotland got rid of the last vestiges between 2000-03 and Sark in 2008, the closest thing in the current world to that is North Korea, or specifically the 500 people who still have Common Rights in the New Forest and the use of an open field system in the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.

But none of that matters, as the industrial revolution still broke the connection between land and power; and human-level general AI will break the connection between anything currently resembling money and power.