Imagine this scenario:

  • All companies start producing mostly using only AI and firing people, because people have no use anymore
  • Joe spend most of his income on digital video games products
  • Joe get fired because he got replaced by AI now, since AIs are taking over most jobs
  • Joe has no income anymore
  • Joe doesn’t have any more money to spend on video games
  • Companies have no more profit, because people don’t have income, so people can’t spend on their AI produced products

In this scenario both lose, the company adopting AI and the worker. Am I missing something? Is there any possibility besides Universal Basic Income to keep the system running and not collapsing?

  • flandish@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    hint: they won’t. a flooded labor pool means the corps can pay as little as possible for the labor they do need humans for. it’s the whole point of capitalism. for a neat story about it, read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    2 days ago

    Joe doesn’t have any more money to spend on video games
    Companies have no more profit, because people don’t have income, so people can’t spend on their AI produced products

    Funny thing, a Scottish fellow named Adam Smith figured that an economy where people don’t have money to spend ends up stagnated and/or fucked over. Somewhat ironically, that is the piece that is most often overlooked by today’s liberal economists (the kinds that are in favor or less regulation and taxes)

    Most rich assholes like the idea of lording over a bunch of dirty peasants, of feeling superior to the unwashed masses, having them offer themselves into slavery out of “free will”

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      thats why AI scheme is peddling to all different countries government, under the guise of verification, age, and CAMERA surveillance tech, they see them as the only source of income.

  • Triasha@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The economy will shift to serve a smaller number of people.

    The people who lose their income will fall into poverty, existing on charity, begging, or scrounging, or they will die. (They will nearly all die sooner than they would have if they had maintained their income)

    The CEOS and shareholders might understand this, but none of them can solve it alone, and trying to do so puts them at a disadvantage vrs their competitors.

    The productive capacity will go toward ever more elaborate and esoteric projects, like Bezos wedding, or sending Musk to Mars, or building the biggest superyact, again.

    And the majority will suffer.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    I believe the French got there once and they managed to solve the issue

    I really wouldn’t want to get to that point and I honestly don’t really understand why the rich class just continues this course because I do believe it’s playing with fire at this point

  • blackjam_alex@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    On top of that who’s gonna keep creating the real data necessary to keep training the AI models if no one can profit from their work anymore.

    It’s an ouroborous situation.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      as long as they keep peddling new AI startups, they can keep it going a little longer. if you live near a convention center, you know almost every event is AI (this or that)now

  • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It’ll just be a corprate circle jerk of companies paying each other for “products and services”. People will work for food an be shelter, provided by the company you work for. I believe the kids are calling it “techno-feudalism”.

  • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    K shaped economy. They don’t care if we can afford anything. Its Versailles. The peasants starve while the aristocrats move the “economy”.

  • ᓚᘏᗢ@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    I don’t think the ai and data centres are for us.

    The billionaires who want to survive this upcoming apocalypse need ai to be functional in order to survive in their bunkers.

    Everyone else till then is basically free labour, training material and collateral.

  • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Ideal : Universal Basic Income where everybody receives a set amount to live on, and if you can find a job on top of that then good for you.

    Probable : 2 tier society where the poors are left to fend for themselves in increasingly feral ghettos

    Almost certain : WW3. Kill off lots and lots and lots of poors. You see how many people were killed at an industrial scale in WW2. That’ll be nothing.

  • Kissaki@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    In the end, the owners have access to the resources, can get labor or whatever for cheap, and can live in control and luxury even without selling much or anything, while trading amongst themselves.

    They don’t have a need or use to produce for the parents anymore. It only makes sense for as long as they have gain.

    Owners may incite conflict and war to gain more control. The peasants will join for a lack of better knowledge, access, or alternatives.

    We’re back in the middle ages.


    People rise up and destroy or regulate the destructive forces, and establish a more sustainable system - maybe.

  • bigbangdangler@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    You’ve hit the nail on the head.

    Companies pushing for AI are playing a short game, not a long game. They have not considered the consequences of this course after a short term return (which may not materialize anyway).

    The whole AI debacle is a great example of why it’s bad to have engineering developments without the philosophical conversations. We need the A in STEAM to tell the E’s when they’re opening Pandora’s Box.

    • Abyssian@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Nah. Once Robotics catches up with AI and those who own everything can have whatever necessities and luxury goods they want produced without us, the bulk of humanity becomes redundant and unnecessary. They won’t need us to buy or build or do anything. We’ll just be cluttering up the scenery and competing for resources. It would be in their best interest for the majority of us to die off.

  • MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    Why would the owners need to keep the system running if they have all the resources and tools?

    One need not worry about the game not being able to continue if one already won.

    • 1D10@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      But they are not one, when all the resources and tools are owned by the big companies that is when they fight each other, and for that they need cheap expendable ground troops, so ask yourself “which company do I want to fight for?” The Gaggles of Google, how about Amazon’s 6/7 mechanized infantry, or the SpaceX Xforx.

      Oh it’s gonna all be memes and violence from then on, you will get paid in company money and live in company community’s, eventually the world will be devided into roughly country shaped chunks run exclusively by a single corporation or a consortium of smaller companies.

      Gonna be just like the utopian sci-fi, you know Neromancer, Blade Runner, Cyberpunk, and my favorite Downbelow Station.

      • MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        That’s not what I meant by “one”, but nvm.

        Also, if we ever reach that point, I’m not fighting for any of them. And not just for moral reasons - it will be more profitable to steal from them, and since the social contract will be broken anyway…

        But I’d rather fo my best now to make sure that doesn’t happen to begin with, and I thankfully live somewhere where my effort might actually might make some impact (the European Union).