Big fan of your argument and don't disagree.

If AI makes a virus to get rid of humanity, well we are screwed. But if all we have to fear from AI is unprecedented economic disruption, I will point out that some parts of the world may survive relatively unscathed. Let's talk Samoa, for example. There, people will continue fishing and living their day-to-day. If industrialized economies collapse, Samoans may find it very hard to import certain products, even vital ones, and that can cause some issues, but not necessarily civil unrest and instability.

In fact, if all we have to fear from AI is unprecedented economic disruption, humans can have a huge revolt, and then a post-revolts world may be fine by turning back the clock, with some help from anti-progress think-tanks. I explore that argument in more detail in this book: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1742992

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ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The issue is there isn't enough of those small environmental economies to support everyone that exists today without the technology, logistics and trades that are in place today.

You can farm and fish the entire undeveloped areas of NYC, but it won't be enough to feed or support the humans that live there.

You can say that for any metro area. Density will have to reduce immediately if there is economic collapse, and historically, when disaster strikes, that doesn't tend to happen immediately.

Also humans (especially large groups of them) need more than food: shelter, clothes, medicine, entertainment, education, religion, justice, law, etc.

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dsign 4 days ago | parent [-]

> The issue is there isn't enough of those small environmental economies to support everyone that exists today without the technology, logistics and trades that are in place today.

I agree. I expect some parts of the world will see some black days. Lots of infrastructure will be gone or unsuited to people. On top of that, the cultural damage could become very debilitating, with people not knowing how to do X, Y and Z without the AIs. At least for a time. Casualties may mount.

> Also humans (especially large groups of them) need more than food: shelter, clothes, medicine, entertainment, education, religion, justice, law, etc.

This is true, but parts of the world survive today with very little of any of that. And for some of those things that you mention: shelter, education, religion, justice, and even some form of law enforcement, all that is needed is humans willing to work together.

	▲	ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> all that is needed is humans willing to work together Maybe, but those things are also needed to enable humans to work together

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ares623 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Won’t 8 billion people will have incentive to move to Samoa in that case?

	▲	dsign 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Realistically, in an AI extreme economic disruption scenario, it's more or less USA the only one extremely affected, and that's 400 million people. Assuming it's AI and nothing else causes a big disruption before, and with the big caveat that nobody can't predict the future, I would say: - Mexico and down are more into informal economies, and they generally lag behind developed economies by decades. Same applies to Africa and big parts of Asia. As such, by the time things get really dire in USA and maybe in Europe and China, the south will be still in business-as-usual. - Europe has lots of parliaments and already has legislation that takes AI into account. Still, there's a chance those bodies will fail to moderate the impact of AI in the economy and violent corrections will be needed, but people in Europe have long traditions and long memories...They'll find a way. - China is governed by the communist party, and Russia have their king. It's hard to predict how will those align with AI, but that alignment more or less will be the deciding factor there, and not free capitalism.