Thank you. I am not an economist, but I think that it is unlikely for the entire economy to operate on the model of an AI lab whereby every year you keep just pumping all gains back into AI. Both investors and the general public have a limited patience, and they will want to see some benefits. While our democracy is not perfect, public opinion has much more impact today than the opinions of factory workers in England in the 1700′s, and so I do hope that we won’t see the pattern where things became worse before they were better. But I agree that it is not sure thing by any means.
However, if AI does indeed still grow in capability and economic growth is significantly above the 2% per capita it has been stuck on for the last ~120 years it would be a very big deal and would open up new options for increasing the social safety net. Many of the dillemas—e.g. how do we reduce the deficit without slashing benefits, etc. - will just disappear with that level of growth. So at least economically, it would be possible for the U.S. to have Scandinavian levels of social services. (Whether the U.S. political system will deliver that is another matter, but at least from the last few years it seems that even the Republican party is not shy about big spending.)
This actually goes to the bottom line, is that I think how AI ends up playing out will end up depending not so much on the economic but on the political factors, which is part of what I wrote about in “Machines of Faithful Obedience”. If AI enables authoritarian government then we could have a scenario with very few winners and a vast majority of losers. But if we keep (and hopefully strenghten) our democracy then I am much more optimistic about how the benefits from AI will be spread.
I don’t think there is something fundamental about AI that makes it obvious in which way it will shift the balance of power between governments and individuals. Sometimes the same technology could have either impact. For example the printing press had the impact of reducing state power in Europe and increasing it in China. So I think it’s still up in the air how it will play out. Actually this is one of the reasons I am happy that so far AI’s development has been in the private sector, and aimed at making money and marketing to consumers, than in developed in government, and focused on military applications, as it well could have been in another timeline.
This feels like a natural stopping point where we’ve surfaced a bunch of background disagreements. Short version is: I am much more pessimistic about the behavior of governments, citizens, and corporations than you appear to be, and I expect further advances in AI to make this situation worse, rather than better, for concentration of power reasons.
Thank you. I am not an economist, but I think that it is unlikely for the entire economy to operate on the model of an AI lab whereby every year you keep just pumping all gains back into AI.
Both investors and the general public have a limited patience, and they will want to see some benefits. While our democracy is not perfect, public opinion has much more impact today than the opinions of factory workers in England in the 1700′s, and so I do hope that we won’t see the pattern where things became worse before they were better. But I agree that it is not sure thing by any means.
However, if AI does indeed still grow in capability and economic growth is significantly above the 2% per capita it has been stuck on for the last ~120 years it would be a very big deal and would open up new options for increasing the social safety net. Many of the dillemas—e.g. how do we reduce the deficit without slashing benefits, etc. - will just disappear with that level of growth. So at least economically, it would be possible for the U.S. to have Scandinavian levels of social services. (Whether the U.S. political system will deliver that is another matter, but at least from the last few years it seems that even the Republican party is not shy about big spending.)
This actually goes to the bottom line, is that I think how AI ends up playing out will end up depending not so much on the economic but on the political factors, which is part of what I wrote about in “Machines of Faithful Obedience”. If AI enables authoritarian government then we could have a scenario with very few winners and a vast majority of losers. But if we keep (and hopefully strenghten) our democracy then I am much more optimistic about how the benefits from AI will be spread.
I don’t think there is something fundamental about AI that makes it obvious in which way it will shift the balance of power between governments and individuals. Sometimes the same technology could have either impact. For example the printing press had the impact of reducing state power in Europe and increasing it in China. So I think it’s still up in the air how it will play out. Actually this is one of the reasons I am happy that so far AI’s development has been in the private sector, and aimed at making money and marketing to consumers, than in developed in government, and focused on military applications, as it well could have been in another timeline.
This feels like a natural stopping point where we’ve surfaced a bunch of background disagreements. Short version is: I am much more pessimistic about the behavior of governments, citizens, and corporations than you appear to be, and I expect further advances in AI to make this situation worse, rather than better, for concentration of power reasons.
Thanks again!