I also continue to see people assume that AI will increase inequality, because AI is capital and They Took Our Jobs. I continue to think this is very non-obvious.
It’s quite reasonable in the long term on the model that AGI will become ubiquitous while respecting property rights (not saying I agree with this model).
For some time, I agree that AGI output would be offset by the humans being valuable in human-comparative advantage jobs. So even though all the former office workers have to get jobs as janitors in the AGI server farms (or whatever) at least they get lots of AGI-assisted services to have a high effective living standard.
But in the long term, the limiting factor is natural resources which get bid up by the AGI firms. So it becomes cheaper in the long run to build and maintain a robot to do the AGI server farm janitorial duties than to supply food for a human to eat, and human survival using labour as the source of income becomes non-viable.
It’s quite reasonable in the long term on the model that AGI will become ubiquitous while respecting property rights (not saying I agree with this model).
For some time, I agree that AGI output would be offset by the humans being valuable in human-comparative advantage jobs. So even though all the former office workers have to get jobs as janitors in the AGI server farms (or whatever) at least they get lots of AGI-assisted services to have a high effective living standard.
But in the long term, the limiting factor is natural resources which get bid up by the AGI firms. So it becomes cheaper in the long run to build and maintain a robot to do the AGI server farm janitorial duties than to supply food for a human to eat, and human survival using labour as the source of income becomes non-viable.
See also Robin Hanson’s If Uploads Come First.