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jazzageguy t1_j6wesgh wrote

"Technology before now only replaced physical power"

You typed those words into a computer. They've been around for 70 years. They don't replace physical power. They evolve about a million times faster than we do, yet they don't seem to be trying to eliminate or impoverish us.

"...guaranteed to lead to widespread unemployment and poverty..."

Just as mechanical looms were sure to impoverish everybody. And every other invention. They've said that about technology for centuries. Some artifact in our brains leads us to imagine imminent doom. Dial phones, farm machinery, every invention was going to be catastrophic. But wow, no doom! It turns out all that scary tech is great for our species. Unemployment? Jobs are both more numerous and more rewarding when technology takes care of the grunt work. The record is crystal clear on this. There's the occasional problematic invention (nuclear bombs and internal combustion engines spring to mind), but the bombs prevented a lot of wars and cars improve standards of living until we cook the planet.

AI will not replace our intellectual power but augment it. That's what tech does. It makes us richer, not poorer. Do you really imagine us in an existential evolutionary struggle for survival with the machines we build to sell each other cheeseburgers and make restaurant reservations? Competing for what sort of resource? It's a curious perspective. The grim future you imagine sounds like the alt-right nonsense about "replacement" by purportedly inferior ethnicities.

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