[_yb2s]

If only the ultra rich can afford and use these technologies, and they no longer employ or involve the poor- isn’t that the same as the rich simply not existing for most practical purposes? What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own, offering their own non-robotic and non-AI goods and services to one another like they already do now?

Essentially if AI and robotics are so expensive that only the ultra wealthy can afford them, then that also means that it is unable to compete with human labor, and therefore economically irrelevant- human labor will be cheaper, and as a result still in high demand.

Since none of that makes sense logically, it cannot play out like that. I agree human labor is about to be replaced with cheaper automation and displace a lot of workers, and I can’t predict what will happen, but don’t think the exact scenario you describe is possible.

[nextaccountic]

> What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own, offering their own non-robotic and non-AI goods and services to one another like they already do now?

Control of industrial output, raw materials, energetic resources, land ownership, things like that. The rich are rich precisely because they control the economic output of their country

[Nevermark]

> What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own

There can be a large class of poor, but it still be cheaper for a poor person to get their goods & services (as they can) from the corporations with the automation to provide them for a fraction of the cost, and of higher quality, than someone without capital can.

When poor people get money, they want whatever technology and services the middle class or above have. They want to move up.

They don’t want to buy handmade arts & crafts from each other.

The Industrial Revolution took resources. You can’t recreate that while poor.

They are not going to recreate farming either. They won’t have the land, water rights, etc

And hunting & gathering isn’t a fallback.

[int_19h]

> There can be a large class of poor, but it still be cheaper for a poor person to get their goods & services (as they can) from the corporations with the automation to provide them for a fraction of the cost, and of higher quality, than someone without capital can.

But why would the corporations (or rather, their owners) even bother to do that, once robots are producing everything? And what would the poor buy those robot-made goods and services with? For money to work as universal medium, it needs to circulate - but if everything that the rich consume is made by robots that the rich also own, and it's cheaper than a human's living wage, then all trade would happen in that circle, and money used for that would never leave that part of the economy. So people outside of it simply wouldn't have anything useful to buy goods with.

Or, to put it in another way - any wealth transfer from the haves to the have-nots in such an arrangement would be pure welfare. Which, given a socioeconomic system that does not encourage altruism, to put it mildly, would only be done to the extent that is necessary to prevent a torches and pitchforks situation. And even that would only be the case until making killer drone swarms is a cheaper way to prevent any would-be uprisings than bread and circuses - and I think that, thanks to the likes of Anduril, we're already well on the way there.

[Nevermark]

> And what would the poor buy those robot-made goods and services with?

Nothing or very little.

My point is that when labor is handled by automation, the poor won’t be able to create their own economy, even though they have nothing to offer and are excluded from the economy of the rich.

It sounds like we have the same understanding.

Even if a poor person (in this scenario) does get any money somehow, or anything of tradable value, it will go right back to the rich.

[haccount]

Exotic dancers and other human commodity products will still be in demand.

Until the Life-skin™ Sensubot™ lineup arrives

[insane_dreamer]

> What stops “the poor” from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own, offering their own non-robotic and non-AI goods and services to one another like they already do now?

Access to resources. Who will own the land that the poor will labor on to grow food, or raw materials from which to create goods that they will trade?

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> What stops "the poor" from continuing to have a thriving economy on their own

The rich.