If a large number of people lose their jobs and their purchasing power drops, wouldn’t that hurt big companies too? Businesses like Amazon, Walmart, and Apple rely on regular people being able to buy things. If most people don’t have jobs, doesn’t that create a bigger problem for the whole economy? Wouldn’t capitalism fundamentally falter?
I understand that AI will change jobs and not necessarily eliminate all of them, but the new jobs would still need to be accessible and pay enough to live, right? Just wondering if this kind of fear is overblown, or if it’s actually valid. Were there similar concerns back when the internet or automation first came along?
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Yes, the fear is overblown. People love thinking everything is a crisis.
Yes it is a valid concern. There is a reason all the billionaires are buying bunkers in missile silos, islands, and secret estates in New Zealand.
They are preparing for dark, feudal times.
I don’t know what you’re worried about. Elon makes the AI, Trump deports all the fruit-pickers. AI can’t pick fruit. Guess who will? The people who can’t get jobs because AI stole them. It’s a perfect plan, by Dr Evil standards.
I think it’s better to worry about the mass executions they will have to do because you know damn well the rich people ain’t losing a cent to some UBI.
If given the choice between supporting people or killing off hundreds of millions
I’m pretty confident the govt would kill off the people they see as leeches.
The people who have the power to replace everyone with AI aren’t primarily interested in you having money to spend. As long as some people can they can still maximise profits
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Given the amount of times it’s got what I’m typing right now wrong and has to be corrected, AI is not up for complex jobs. Its nearly always wrong about something or doesn’t understand the question. AI is great as a tool but it needs supervision from an actual brain.
Very valid. It’s a conversation for some reason people are reluctant to have. Often UBI is mentioned as an inevitability in response to this, but there has been very little movement on it – a few pilot projects here and there. Our current political climate is allergic to “free money”. The alternative is to slow down development of AI, but there is little sign of that happening currently.
Most companies can’t think six months into the future. Don’t count on rationality.
Historically, big tech shifts (like the Industrial Revolution or the rise of the internet) did cause job disruption, but they also created new industries and roles over time.
Bullets still work like they did in 1917.
That is where credit card companies step in and offer you cards, so you can buy things you don’t have money for.
This is horrible for financial situation of an average person, but (unfortunately) still good for the economy, maybe even better, because you (the average person) pay interest on the cards, increasing the profit of the credit card company.
Not really. I doubt AI will cause big job loss. People were predicting big job losses with every new invention (industrial revolution, cars, the internet,…). The results of all these were just that new, more comfortable jobs were created