The thing I am struggling with is that many of the failed rentier states you mention were poor or lacking institutional organization prior to the discovery of the resource that enriched them. It seems much easier to keep people poor than to strip them of their previous income without mass social unrest, just as it’s easier to not build a school than it is to tell a generation they can’t attend a previously existing school since they have no productive future. If these future AI systems yield such massive rents, there could be an incentive to provide the masses with relatively small welfare that prevents against a dystopian future and the unraveling of society, the latter of which which, I suspect, the AI labs would not enjoy.
I’m also more optimistic about humans’ role in such an economy, and worry that the rentier example is an oversimplification, with AI being a much more complex and unpredictable resource than oil. Regardless, these are just some quick thoughts and I agree that we need more robust policies and answers to a variety of possible outcomes, and the future you describe is plausible. I’m looking forward to your post on Norway.
The thing I am struggling with is that many of the failed rentier states you mention were poor or lacking institutional organization prior to the discovery of the resource that enriched them. It seems much easier to keep people poor than to strip them of their previous income without mass social unrest, just as it’s easier to not build a school than it is to tell a generation they can’t attend a previously existing school since they have no productive future. If these future AI systems yield such massive rents, there could be an incentive to provide the masses with relatively small welfare that prevents against a dystopian future and the unraveling of society, the latter of which which, I suspect, the AI labs would not enjoy.
I’m also more optimistic about humans’ role in such an economy, and worry that the rentier example is an oversimplification, with AI being a much more complex and unpredictable resource than oil. Regardless, these are just some quick thoughts and I agree that we need more robust policies and answers to a variety of possible outcomes, and the future you describe is plausible. I’m looking forward to your post on Norway.