[al_borland]

It’s still a bad plan. Who is going to buy their stuff, with what money, when all jobs are replaced by robots and AI?

Capitalism is driving this hype around cost cutting with AI, but capitalism requires people have capital to buy various goods and services. Where is that going to come from when unemployment hits 100%? Who are the customers?

Why would anyone be excited about this future before solving for this problem?

[heavyset_go]

The economy as we know it doesn't matter to technofeudalists, it's just the fastest way to get what they want for the time being.

The last 50-80 years have been an aberration in terms of distribution of wealth, income and power. What AI owners want is a return to a world of lords and peasants, and with that comes with a shift of economy that serves the needs of consumers to an economy that suits the needs of those with incredible wealth.

Institutional investors will leave the middle and lower classes behind in favor of making a ton of money serving the needs of the incredibly rich, their families and their friends, and that will be the new formal economy. Everyone else will be served by informal economies that don't see institutional investment.

See also: Citigroup's plutonomy paper[1].

[1] https://delong.typepad.com/plutonomy-1.pdf

[enknee1]

The larger issue is that money is fundamentally a record of human effort (unless we're talking corporate value and then it's something a bit more).

With the automation of labor and cognitive effort, MONEY won't matter. They don't need customers. They only need the automation required to produce. Which will be broadly and cheaply available, all the way to the end because people will be competing for disappearing jobs.

There is no precedence for this kind of change; think Internet, computers, and the assembly line all packed together into a 5 year window, globally. And consider that there's no apparent end to the level of development and impact. Using historical metrics (like customer base or resource availability) is not going to help understand what's coming.

[queenkjuul]

Well because the investors are excited at the prospect of living lives of lavish robot-serviced luxury, even if that means all the rest of us need to die