Ask Lemmy

Joe doesn’t have any more money to spend on video games
Companies have no more profit, because people don’t have income, so people can’t spend on their AI produced products

Funny thing, a Scottish fellow named Adam Smith figured that an economy where people don't have money to spend ends up stagnated and/or fucked over. Somewhat ironically, that is the piece that is most often overlooked by today's liberal economists (the kinds that are in favor or less regulation and taxes)

Most rich assholes like the idea of lording over a bunch of dirty peasants, of feeling superior to the unwashed masses, having them offer themselves into slavery out of "free will"

hint: they won’t. a flooded labor pool means the corps can pay as little as possible for the labor they do need humans for. it’s the whole point of capitalism. for a neat story about it, read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair.

I believe the French got there once and they managed to solve the issue

I really wouldn't want to get to that point and I honestly don't really understand why the rich class just continues this course because I do believe it's playing with fire at this point

The economy will shift to serve a smaller number of people.

The people who lose their income will fall into poverty, existing on charity, begging, or scrounging, or they will die. (They will nearly all die sooner than they would have if they had maintained their income)

The CEOS and shareholders might understand this, but none of them can solve it alone, and trying to do so puts them at a disadvantage vrs their competitors.

The productive capacity will go toward ever more elaborate and esoteric projects, like Bezos wedding, or sending Musk to Mars, or building the biggest superyact, again.

And the majority will suffer.

Ideal : Universal Basic Income where everybody receives a set amount to live on, and if you can find a job on top of that then good for you.

Probable : 2 tier society where the poors are left to fend for themselves in increasingly feral ghettos

Almost certain : WW3. Kill off lots and lots and lots of poors. You see how many people were killed at an industrial scale in WW2. That'll be nothing.

They actually want to depopulate the Earth, as we are a serious threat to them, both to the ecosystem that they need to survive, their own survival, and all the resources they want to drain dry. It will be just a few million or less elites, trading robot labor with each other.

I don't think the ai and data centres are for us.

The billionaires who want to survive this upcoming apocalypse need ai to be functional in order to survive in their bunkers.

Everyone else till then is basically free labour, training material and collateral.

It'll just be a corprate circle jerk of companies paying each other for "products and services". People will work for food an be shelter, provided by the company you work for. I believe the kids are calling it "techno-feudalism".

No one knows. Not a single person kn Earth

In the end, the owners have access to the resources, can get labor or whatever for cheap, and can live in control and luxury even without selling much or anything, while trading amongst themselves.

They don't have a need or use to produce for the parents anymore. It only makes sense for as long as they have gain.

Owners may incite conflict and war to gain more control. The peasants will join for a lack of better knowledge, access, or alternatives.

We're back in the middle ages.

People rise up and destroy or regulate the destructive forces, and establish a more sustainable system - maybe.

K shaped economy. They don't care if we can afford anything. Its Versailles. The peasants starve while the aristocrats move the "economy".

Why would the owners need to keep the system running if they have all the resources and tools?

One need not worry about the game not being able to continue if one already won.

You've hit the nail on the head.

Companies pushing for AI are playing a short game, not a long game. They have not considered the consequences of this course after a short term return (which may not materialize anyway).

The whole AI debacle is a great example of why it's bad to have engineering developments without the philosophical conversations. We need the A in STEAM to tell the E's when they're opening Pandora's Box.

People will accept lower wages to compete with AI... Up to a point... My prediction is that it's going to make the wage gap deep enough that people will have to revolt. What frightens me is what comes after, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Especially given the fact that people don't vote because of "both sides fallacies".

I really want to be wrong but it seems a handful of humanity believes we're all doomed and none of this planet or society matters. Their greed and brazen disregard for the consequences of their actions is a result from the psychosis of greed and/or sociopathy, or they know something the rest of us don't and are trying to get theirs before the end. Like the movie Don't Look Up or Knowing.

Oh no, don't think further or you might arrive at leftist / social conclusions 🤔.

(take with a grain of salt depending on location and understanding)

That's the thing. These companies are not thinking that far ahead and they don't care about the consequences even if it hurts them too.

The only thing matters to these people is making number go up. They want more money. They want it right now. They don't care what consequences it has for them or the world later so long as they get more money now.

There will never be a universal income. Countries will let their people starve before they give them money for nothing.

That is the question. But you're missing one crucial element. How are the very companies employing the AI going to make money when there's no consumer to purchase their products?

The bourgeois will happily let the masses starve and die when unemployment soars. They don't give a fuck about us as long as their profits rise. (The great depression began in 1929 and it was almost a decade before the implementation of the new deal to provide economic relief to the masses.) They won't be bothered to give a fuck until the line stops going up. They will happily murder us if we dare strike for better working conditions

AI isn't increasing productivity, it's being used as a way to mask headcount reductions for the sake of short term profits, even though ROI is poor.

Furthermore, implementation of AI is increasing the intensity of the workload for people that survive headcount reductions.

Business is a big club, and you ain't in it.

Kill the poor, use all the products. They are intentionally collapsing the system. They have correctly realized that they can go back to feudal times without armies of peasants as the main military and economic engine.

This is not specific to AI. This has been slowly happening over decades, wealth is accumulating in smaller and smaller sets of people. Capitalism is cancer on humanity.

Those big bosses just want to take everything and give nothing, whatever that means. It doesn't matter if it kills them in the end too.

This is unsustainable, and it will get much worse before it can get better (if ever).

That's the entire elephant in the room of the future economy. Just don't think about it, put your head down, don't question things, and consume more short form social media slop.