AI successionism is self-avoiding. CEO’s and VC’s cannot avoid attempting to replace all or nearly all workers because incrementally, each would go out of business by avoiding this and allowing the others to go forward. Without a world government (and there is no chance of global agreement) there is no way to prevent this simple game theory dilemma from starting.
In the late 19th century executives would have gathered in a smoke-filled room and agreed that a machine economy produces no demand and we will not do this. But an unholy alliance of activist investors and consumer activists caused anti-trust laws to be passed which make this conversation illegal. And we don’t have smoke to properly obscure it anymore.
So the succession will proceed until about 30% of jobs have been replaced, causing market collapse and bankrupting the VCs that are causing the problem.
Thereafter will begin a series of oscillations like those that preceded the Great Oxygenation Event in which iron banded rocks were formed. Every time the economy picks up a bit, the data centers will be fired up again, and the economy will go back down.
In the GOE, this continued until all the iron dissolved in seawater was captured in the banded rock formations. Something similar will happen. Perhaps all the chips capable of powering AI will be precipitated out of circulation by the decaying datacenters, and no one will be making new ones. Perhaps one mid-sized island having a minor war could destroy excess capacity. Who knows. But succession will never get past 30-40%.
AI successionism is self-avoiding. CEO’s and VC’s cannot avoid attempting to replace all or nearly all workers because incrementally, each would go out of business by avoiding this and allowing the others to go forward. Without a world government (and there is no chance of global agreement) there is no way to prevent this simple game theory dilemma from starting.
In the late 19th century executives would have gathered in a smoke-filled room and agreed that a machine economy produces no demand and we will not do this. But an unholy alliance of activist investors and consumer activists caused anti-trust laws to be passed which make this conversation illegal. And we don’t have smoke to properly obscure it anymore.
So the succession will proceed until about 30% of jobs have been replaced, causing market collapse and bankrupting the VCs that are causing the problem.
Thereafter will begin a series of oscillations like those that preceded the Great Oxygenation Event in which iron banded rocks were formed. Every time the economy picks up a bit, the data centers will be fired up again, and the economy will go back down.
In the GOE, this continued until all the iron dissolved in seawater was captured in the banded rock formations. Something similar will happen. Perhaps all the chips capable of powering AI will be precipitated out of circulation by the decaying datacenters, and no one will be making new ones. Perhaps one mid-sized island having a minor war could destroy excess capacity. Who knows. But succession will never get past 30-40%.