US Per-capita real income tracked productivity growth until about 1975. After that, productivity continued to climb, but per-capita real income did not. This is why life sucks worse than it used to for everybody but the top 10%.
With AI coming along, productivity is about to get another boost. Maybe a big boost. But will most people benefit from it? Under capitalism as currently implemented, no.
That's the meaning of Sam Altman's “I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.”
Universal basic income is not the answer. That's welfare 2.0, leading to high-rises of useless people. Altman doesn't have the answer. Wang doesn't have the answer. They both see the problem coming but suggest no viable solutions.
I agree. The center of capitalism may have shifted to China, but they'll have to deal with (are already) dealing with the same problems and it'll probably happen even faster for them. Instability in the system is only overshadowed by the growing instability in peoples lives. I think most people feel this and the discourse has fundamentally shifted in the west, but these are tectonic and unpredictable forces.
A parting thought: from a geo-political perspective, I understand the purpose of essays like this but like I said I think its losing the forrest for the trees and at great risk.
Consider PRC has 90%+ home ownership rate and declining population, i.e. almost every person in PRC is functionally going to inherit a house, likely multiple, the floor for stability is going to be much higher. This is not west where high % of population is one paycheck away from eviction. Worst case scenario for PRC youth is to have roof over head. Worst case scenario for PRC elderly is they die 100s of times more materially affluent than any past Chinese. VS west deals with onerous social safety nets that's increasingly unsustainable, old gen will lose benefits while new gens finance and live worse off then old gens... because everything is financialized, something CCP very keen to guard against... because it regulates capitalism. IMO very different scale instability to govern for.
With AI coming along, productivity is about to get another boost. Maybe a big boost. But will most people benefit from it? Under capitalism as currently implemented, no. That's the meaning of Sam Altman's “I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.”
Universal basic income is not the answer. That's welfare 2.0, leading to high-rises of useless people. Altman doesn't have the answer. Wang doesn't have the answer. They both see the problem coming but suggest no viable solutions.
This is a problem.
[1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/