Humans still play chess and horses are still around as a species.

(Disclaimer: this is me trying to be optimistic in a very grim and depressing situation)

I try to be optimistic as well. But obviously horses are almost exclusively a hobby today. The work horse is gone. I think the problem is political to a part, if we manage to spread the wealth AI can create we are fine. If we let it concentrate power even more it looks very grim.

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skissane 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

B2C businesses need consumers. If AIs take all the jobs, then most of the population-minus the small minority who are independently wealthy and can live off their investments-go broke, and can’t afford to buy anything any more. Then all the B2C businesses go broke. Then all the B2B businesses lose all their B2C business customers and go broke. Then the stock market crashes and the independently wealthy lose all their investments and go broke. Then nobody can afford to pay the AI power bills any more, so the AIs get turned off.

And that’s why across-the-board AI-induced job losses aren’t going to happen-nobody wants the economic house of cards to collapse. Corporate leaders aren’t stupid enough to blow everything up because they don’t want to be blown up in the process. And if they actually are stupid enough, politicians will intervene with human protectionism measures like regulations mandating humans in the loop of major business processes.

The horse comparison ultimately doesn’t work because horses don’t vote.

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9rx 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> B2C businesses need consumers

Businesses need consumers when those consumers are necessary to provide something in return (e.g. labor). If I want beef and only have grass, my grass business needs people with cattle wanting my grass so that we can trade grass for beef, certainly. But if technology can provide me beef (and anything else I desire) without involving any other people, I don't need a business anymore. Businesses is just a tool to facilitate trade. No need for trade, no need for business.

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3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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myth_drannon 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can the process be similar to a sudden collapse of USSR's economic system? The leaders weren't stupid and tried to keep it afloat but with underlying systemic issues everything just cratered.

Can the process be modelled using game theory where the actors are greedy corporate leaders and hungry populace?

	▲	twoodfin 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The USSR’s political system collapsed fairly suddenly. Its economic system had been rotten for decades.

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baq 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is the optimistic take, too. There are plenty of countries which don’t care about votes, indeed there are dictators that don’t care about their subjects, they only care about outcomes for themselves. The economic argument only works in capitalism and rule of law - and that’s assuming money is worth anything anymore.

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skissane 3 days ago | parent [-]

The Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with social stability. Do you think they’ll allow AI to take all the jobs, destroying China’s domestic economy in the process? Or will they enact human protectionism regulations? What Would Xi Jinping Do?

	▲	tstrimple 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Look at what China does to protect its citizens against social media. You see China enacting many of the social media protections that many HN enthusiasts demand, yet Sinophobia makes them reframe it as a negative. "Children shouldn't have access to social media, except when China does it then it's bad!"
	▲	ben_w 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Do you think they’ll allow AI to take all the jobs, destroying China’s domestic economy in the process? If AI can take all the jobs (IMO at least a decade away for the robotics, and that's a minimum not a best-guess), the economy hasn't been destroyed, it's just doing whatever mega-projects the owners (presumably in this case the Chinese government) want it to do. That can be all the social stability stuff they want. Which may be anything from "none at all" to whatever the Chinese equivalent is of the American traditional family in a big detached house with a white picket fence, everyone going to the local church every Sunday, people supporting whichever sports teams they prefer, etc. I don't know Chinese culture at all (well, not beyond OSP and their e.g. retelling of Journey to the West), so I don't know what their equivalents to any of those things would be.

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jacquesm 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The independently wealthy still need the economies of scale provided by a normal society.

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ErroneousBosh 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I am somewhat confident that horses are going to replace cars and tractors pretty soon, possibly within my lifetime and quite likely with my son's.

He's going to learn how to drive (and repair) a tractor but he's also going to learn how to ride a horse.