Technology dictates societal structure and policy options, not the other way around. Concepts like a wealth tax are only possible because of the technological ability to track wealth at scale. This suggests society adapts to technological realities rather than consciously shaping them.
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Technological advancement creates a paradox: as machines automate more tasks, the economic value of uniquely human and social interaction increases. This structural shift helps explain why recent job growth is so concentrated in sectors like health, education, and hospitality.
The coming economic shift won't create a simple rich-poor divide. It will create a new four-tiered social structure based on two key traits: judgment and entrepreneurial ability. The majority who lack both will be left economically non-viable.
For some policy experts, the most realistic nightmare scenario is not a rogue superintelligence but a socio-economic collapse into techno-feudalism. In this future, AI concentrates power and wealth, creating a rentier state with a small ruling class and a large population with minimal economic agency or purpose.
Debates about AI and inequality often assume today's financial institutions will persist. However, in a fast takeoff scenario with superintelligence, concepts like property rights and stock certificates might become meaningless as new, unimaginable economic and political systems emerge.
Society rarely bans powerful new technologies, no matter how dangerous. Instead, like with fire, we develop systems to manage risk (e.g., fire departments, alarms). This provides a historical lens for current debates around transformative technologies like AI, suggesting adaptation over prohibition.
Faced with mass job loss from AI, governments are unlikely to seize assets from the wealthy. The politically easier path is to print massive amounts of money for social support, preserving the existing capital structure while devaluing the currency.
Political demands that new technology must benefit the specific workers it replaces are fundamentally flawed. This logic ignores progress. The goal shouldn't be to preserve obsolete jobs but to ensure technology benefits civilization as a whole by creating abundance while managing the difficult labor transition.
The debate over national debt is a distraction from the more pressing issue: AI will soon make many high-paying professional jobs obsolete. The urgent conversation should be about reforming society to share the resulting abundance, not fighting yesterday's financial battles.
Technological advancement, particularly in AI, moves faster than legal and social frameworks can adapt. This creates 'lawless spaces,' akin to the Wild West, where powerful new capabilities exist without clear rules or recourse for those negatively affected. This leaves individuals vulnerable to algorithmic decisions about jobs, loans, and more.
Since taxing profitless AI companies is impossible, a new system is needed. Instead of redistribution, money creation itself must be re-engineered. Capital could be generated and injected directly to individuals for simply existing and participating in the economy, fundamentally changing how money enters circulation.
