When AI handles material needs, the traditional status game of wealth accumulation will lose its meaning. Humans will instead compete for status in non-productive domains like athletics, video games, or curating collections. These niche communities will become the new arenas for finding meaning and social hierarchy.
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As AI drives the marginal cost of digital content to zero, unique, in-person events become increasingly valuable. This is a strategic bet on the enduring human need for social connection and status, which cannot be digitally replicated. Value shifts from the digital to the physical.
![Ari Emanuel - The Anti-AI Bet - [Invest Like the Best, EP.448] thumbnail](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/c5910280-c4dd-11f0-94be-ab6a7a5865b0/image/1e5a2263eb62fcde200846919e24419a.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)
As AI drives the cost of content creation to zero, the world floods with 'average' material. In this environment, the most valuable and scarce skill becomes 'taste'—the ability to identify, curate, and champion high-quality, commercially viable work. This elevates the role of human curators over pure creators.
As AI commoditizes execution and intellectual labor, the only remaining scarce human skill will be judgment: the wisdom to know what to build, why, and for whom. This shifts economic value from effort and hard work to discernment and taste.
Superabundance from AI should free people from GDP-driven work to discover their unique gifts and contribute to society out of passion, not necessity. This fosters stronger families and communities, where human-made goods hold premium value.
As the traditional employer-employee social contract breaks and AI automates cognitive tasks, individuals can no longer rely on physical or mental effort for their value. This shift compels a deeper search for purpose and what makes us uniquely human: our soul and self-awareness.
As AI makes information universally accessible, traditional status markers like 'knowledge' will devalue. The new status will be derived from the ability to convene and lead large, in-person communities. Influence will be measured by one's capacity to facilitate real-world human connection and experiences, fighting digital isolation.
The next generation of social networks will be fundamentally different, built around the creation of functional software and AI models, not just media. The status game will shift from who has the best content to who can build the most useful or interesting tools for the community.
Capitalism values scarcity. AI's core disruption is not just automating tasks, but making human-like intellectual labor so abundant that its market value approaches zero. This breaks the fundamental economic loop of trading scarce labor for wages.
Giving people a basic stipend won't end economic competition. Instead, it will fuel a secondary economy where people compete for each other's stipends through new forms of gambling, entertainment, entrepreneurship, and status games.
