[BurningFrog]

This will be very interesting.

So far in the Industrial Revolution, automating away jobs has been how we've getting richer and richer for centuries.

If AI automates away half of all jobs, and this holds we will - after an adjustment period - double GDP and collectively be twice as wealthy!

If that actually happens, it solves many currently "unsolvable" societal problems.

I'm pretty sure that it does, but the adjustment period might be longer than we'd wish.

[no_wizard]

I don’t know if it’s that simple. The 1800s to mid 1900s were rife with labor disputes and real blood was spilled before any gains were distributed down the chain, and even then labor gains only lasted a couple decades

I suspect for the already wealthy this will happen, but I think the average person will largely get handed an empty basket of promises and not much else

[cpursley]

Farming mechanization and the loom automated so much that 97% of society used to be agrarian and now it's the opposite (only 3% are farmers in developed societies), and we are much better off despite the growing pains they had. Though, it does make me nervous how fast AI automation is hitting.

[rwyinuse]

That's because most of the surplus agrarian workers found new jobs from factories and service sector in cities. Industrial society needed more people to work the factory lines, transport stuff, feed those city living workers and so on. I'm not sure this latest wave of automation will be similar, because it's not obvious what new occupations increasing AI use could create, at least not in large enough amounts.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If AI automates away half of all jobs

This is a big if!

[thmsths]

I agree to a degree. I don't see the current crop of AIs doing that. However, this might happen eventually (when is basically impossible to predict) and there is some benefit in pondering what to do if it happens, before it actually happens.

[BurningFrog]

Agreed. I picked that number for the simple math.

[bcrosby95]

The industrial revolution provided jobs before it took them away. The tractors that took jobs from farmhands had to be built in factories with millions of people.

I think AI is going to end up more like the late 20th century automation push. It's going to hollow out whole communities.

[mikojan]

Just like, collectively, me and bill gates are billionaires. Clearly this will fix societal issues