We too readily extrapolate our past into our future. Bostrom talks a lot about the vast wealth AI will bring, turning even the poor into trillionaires. But he doesn’t connect this with the natural world, which, however much it once seemed to, does not expand no matter how much money is made. Wealth only comes from two sources: nature and human creativity. Wealth will do little to squeeze more resources out of a limited planet. Even so you maybe bring home an asteroid of pure diamond. Wealth is not the same as life well-lived! Looks to me like without a rapid social maturation the wealthy will employ a few peasants at slave wages (yes, trillionaires perhaps, but in a world where a cup of clean water costs a million), snap up most of the resources, and the rest of humanity will be rendered for glue. The quality of our future will be a direct reflection of our moral maturity and sophistication.
We too readily extrapolate our past into our future. Bostrom talks a lot about the vast wealth AI will bring, turning even the poor into trillionaires. But he doesn’t connect this with the natural world, which, however much it once seemed to, does not expand no matter how much money is made. Wealth only comes from two sources: nature and human creativity. Wealth will do little to squeeze more resources out of a limited planet. Even so you maybe bring home an asteroid of pure diamond. Wealth is not the same as life well-lived! Looks to me like without a rapid social maturation the wealthy will employ a few peasants at slave wages (yes, trillionaires perhaps, but in a world where a cup of clean water costs a million), snap up most of the resources, and the rest of humanity will be rendered for glue. The quality of our future will be a direct reflection of our moral maturity and sophistication.