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Yes, because the development of AGI doesn't automatically mean the end of capitalism. Feudalism, mercantilism, and the final form, capitalism, weren't overthrown by new technologies, and while AGI is certainly a very special new technology, so was the internet. It doesn't matter how special AGI is if it's controlled by one company under the mechanisms of a capitalist liberal democracy - it's not like the laws don't matter anymore, or the contracts, debts, allegiances. What can AGI give us that would end scarcity, when our scarcity is artificial? New farming mechanisms that mean nobody go hungry? We already throw away most of our food. We don't lack food, our resource allocation mechanism (Capitalism) just requires some people to be hungry. What about new medicines? Magic new pills that cure cancer - why would these be given away for free when they can be sold, instead? Maybe AGI will recommend the perfect form of fair and equitable governance! Well, it almost certainly will be a recommendation that strips some power from people who don't want to give up any power at all, and it's not like they'll give it up without a fight. Not that they'll need to fight - billionaires exist today and have convinced people to fight for them, against people's own self interest, somehow (I still don't understand this). So, I'll modify Mark Fisher's quote - it's easier to imagine the creation of AGI than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. |
One of the observable features of capitalism is that there are no hungry people. Capitalism has completely solved the problem of hunger. People are hungry when they don't have capitalism.
>billionaires exist today and have convinced people to fight for them
People usually fighting for themselves. It's just that billionaires often are not enemies of society, but source of social well-being. Or even more often - a side effect of social well-being. People fighting for billionaires to protect social well-being, not to protect billionaires.
>it's easier to imagine the creation of AGI than it is to imagine the end of capitalism
There is no need to even imagine the end of capitalism - we see it all the time, most of the world can hardly be called capitalist. And the less capitalism there is, the worse.