I think this might happen early on. But if it keeps going, and the gap keeps widening, and then maybe the AI controllers get some kind of body or mental enhancement, then the material incentives obviously point in the direction of “ditch those other nobodies”, and then ideology arises to justify why ditching those other nobodies is just and right.
Consider this: when the Europeans started colonising the New World, it turned out that it would be extremely convenient to have free manual labour to bootstrap agriculture quickly. Around this time, coincidentally, the same white Christian Europeans who had been relatively anti-slavery (at least against enslaving other Christians) since Roman times, and fairly uninterested in the goings on of Africa, found within themselves a deep urge to go get random Africans, put them in chains, and forcefully convert them while keeping them enslaved as a way to give meaning to their otherwise pagan and inferior existences. Well, first they started with the natives, and then when they ran out of those, they looked at Africa instead. Similar impulses to altruistically civilize all the poor barbarians across the world arose just as soon as there were shipping fleets, arms, and manpower sufficient to make resource-extracting colonies quite profitable enterprises.
That seems an extremely weird coincidence if it wasn’t just a case of people rationalizing why they should do obviously evil things that were however obviously convenient too.
I think the specific shape is less important than the obvious general trend, regardless of what form it takes—forms tend to be incidental to circumstances, but incentives and responses to them are much more reliable.
That said, I would say the most “peaceful” version of it looks like people getting some kind of UBI allowance and stuff to buy with them, but the stuff keeps becoming less and less (as it gets redirected to “worthier” enterprises) and more expensive. As conditions worsen and people are generally depressed and have no belief in the future they simply have less children. Possibly forms of wireheading get promoted—this does not even need to be some kind of nefarious plan, the altruists among the AI Lords may genuinely believe it’s an operation of relief for those who feel purposeless among the masses, and it’s the best they can do at any given time. This of course however results in massive drops in birth rates and general engagement with the real world. The less people engage with the world, the cheaper their maintenance is, the more pressure builds up on those who refuse the wireheading—less demand means less offer and then the squeeze hurts those who still want to hang on to the now obsolete lifestyle. Add the obvious possibility of violent, impotent lashing out from the masses followed by entitled outrage at the ingratitude of it all which justifies bloody repression. The ones left outside of the circle get chipped away at until they whittle into almost nothing, and the ones inside keep passively reaping the benefits as all they do is always nominally just within their right to either disposing of their own property or defending against violent aggression. Note how most of this is really just an extrapolation on turbo-steroids of trends we can all already see having emerged in industrialised societies.
I think this might happen early on. But if it keeps going, and the gap keeps widening, and then maybe the AI controllers get some kind of body or mental enhancement, then the material incentives obviously point in the direction of “ditch those other nobodies”, and then ideology arises to justify why ditching those other nobodies is just and right.
Consider this: when the Europeans started colonising the New World, it turned out that it would be extremely convenient to have free manual labour to bootstrap agriculture quickly. Around this time, coincidentally, the same white Christian Europeans who had been relatively anti-slavery (at least against enslaving other Christians) since Roman times, and fairly uninterested in the goings on of Africa, found within themselves a deep urge to go get random Africans, put them in chains, and forcefully convert them while keeping them enslaved as a way to give meaning to their otherwise pagan and inferior existences. Well, first they started with the natives, and then when they ran out of those, they looked at Africa instead. Similar impulses to altruistically civilize all the poor barbarians across the world arose just as soon as there were shipping fleets, arms, and manpower sufficient to make resource-extracting colonies quite profitable enterprises.
That seems an extremely weird coincidence if it wasn’t just a case of people rationalizing why they should do obviously evil things that were however obviously convenient too.
Thanks for your response, can I ask the same question of you as I do here in this cousin comment?
I think the specific shape is less important than the obvious general trend, regardless of what form it takes—forms tend to be incidental to circumstances, but incentives and responses to them are much more reliable.
That said, I would say the most “peaceful” version of it looks like people getting some kind of UBI allowance and stuff to buy with them, but the stuff keeps becoming less and less (as it gets redirected to “worthier” enterprises) and more expensive. As conditions worsen and people are generally depressed and have no belief in the future they simply have less children. Possibly forms of wireheading get promoted—this does not even need to be some kind of nefarious plan, the altruists among the AI Lords may genuinely believe it’s an operation of relief for those who feel purposeless among the masses, and it’s the best they can do at any given time. This of course however results in massive drops in birth rates and general engagement with the real world. The less people engage with the world, the cheaper their maintenance is, the more pressure builds up on those who refuse the wireheading—less demand means less offer and then the squeeze hurts those who still want to hang on to the now obsolete lifestyle. Add the obvious possibility of violent, impotent lashing out from the masses followed by entitled outrage at the ingratitude of it all which justifies bloody repression. The ones left outside of the circle get chipped away at until they whittle into almost nothing, and the ones inside keep passively reaping the benefits as all they do is always nominally just within their right to either disposing of their own property or defending against violent aggression. Note how most of this is really just an extrapolation on turbo-steroids of trends we can all already see having emerged in industrialised societies.