(Now, you might think that an AI in charge of e.g. a company could make the big hierarchy work efficiently by just being capable enough to track everything themselves. But at that point, I wouldn’t expect to see an hierarchy at all; the AI can just do everything itself and not have multiple agents in the first place. Unlike humans, AIs will not be limited by their number of hands. If there is to be some arrangement involving multiple agents coordinating in the first place, then it shouldn’t be possible for one mind to just do everything itself.)
My model probably mostly resembles this situation. Some ~singular AI will maintain a monopoly on violence. Maybe it will use all the resources in the solar system, leaving no space for anyone else. Alternatively (for instance if alignment succeeds), it will leave one or more sources of resources that other agents can use. If the dominant AI fully protects these smaller agents from each other, then they’ll handle their basic preferences and mostly withdraw into their own world, ending the hierarchy. If the dominant AI has some preference for who to favor, or leaves some options for aggression/exploitation which don’t threaten the dominant AI, then someone is going to win this fight, making the hierarchy repeat fractally down.
Main complication to this model is inertia; if human property rights are preserved well enough, then most resources would start out owned by humans, and it would take some time for the economy to equillibrate to the above.
My model probably mostly resembles this situation. Some ~singular AI will maintain a monopoly on violence. Maybe it will use all the resources in the solar system, leaving no space for anyone else. Alternatively (for instance if alignment succeeds), it will leave one or more sources of resources that other agents can use. If the dominant AI fully protects these smaller agents from each other, then they’ll handle their basic preferences and mostly withdraw into their own world, ending the hierarchy. If the dominant AI has some preference for who to favor, or leaves some options for aggression/exploitation which don’t threaten the dominant AI, then someone is going to win this fight, making the hierarchy repeat fractally down.
Main complication to this model is inertia; if human property rights are preserved well enough, then most resources would start out owned by humans, and it would take some time for the economy to equillibrate to the above.