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Artanthos t1_izchnpz wrote

I think we’ll have an economic collapse caused by automation destroying jobs.

Society will stratify into a very small number of insanely wealthy, a small working class, and a very large number of unemployed poor.

Post scarcity will be the very small number of insanely wealthy as the new social structure solidifies into a feudal society and the unemployed poor are discouraged from reproducing.

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apple_achia t1_izdh6a1 wrote

I often hear people argue against this by saying more goods than ever will be produced, how can the working class see a loss in wealth?

I think people fail to account for the immense lack of jobs this will cause, as well as the relative power gain the wealthy will experience by controlling even more of the manufacturing process than they already do. Any downward pressure on the price of goods would be totally offset for the working classes by the immense downward pressure also caused on wages, and the inflationary pressure that would happen on a good like housing or food- not because they are more scarce, but because the people in control of them can afford to take relatively more of your income

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ChurchOfTheHolyGays t1_izdjvem wrote

Discouraging reproduction is the nice side. Genocide is another option.

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Artanthos t1_izdtbbc wrote

People like to think they are good.

Even in a dystopia, the wealthy would want to be able to claim they took care of the poor, unfortunate, dispossessed.

The genocide option is more likely if climate change disrupts global food supplies before technology takes vertical farming to scale.

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HelloYesNaive t1_izewwry wrote

If there really is post-scarcity though, that means there is an unlimited amount to go around. I severely doubt an economic collapse like the Great Depression could occur. Production will be sky-high because the labor previously done by humans that work slowly, require breaks, have to be paid, etc, will be done by AI that can work nonstop and improve at unfathomable rates without all that much cost.

Edit: To be clear, I don't disagree that this could absolutely widen wealth disparity, at the very least for some short time before that reverses, but I think that effect would mostly hinge on land ownership (the real economic creator of inequality that no one seems to discuss -- those who "own" land (literally nature, part of the Earth) profit from those who don't without doing anything, widening inequality in a way that AI can do little to fix.

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cam589 t1_izcp6hh wrote

Or prevented outright. The robots will keep the poor in line too.

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