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129 points NotInOurNames | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.254s | source
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KaiserPro ◴[] No.44065122[source]
Its a shame that your standard futurologist always the most fancyful.

Talks of exponentials unabated by physics or social problems.

As soon as AI starts to "properly" affect the economy, it will cause huge unemployment. Most of the financial world is based on an economy with people spending cash.

If they are unemployed, there is no cash.

Financing works because banks "print" money, that is, they make up money and loan that money out, and then it gets paid back. Once its paid back, it becomes real. Thats how banks make money (simplified) If there aren’t people to loan to, then banks don't make profit, they can't fund AI expansion.

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1. boshalfoshal ◴[] No.44068505[source]
Imo it probably (unfortunately) doesn't matter if many people are unemployed from an economic perspective.

Human demand for things is basically unlimited, and capital will ostensibly be concentrated within the upper class who reaped all the benefits of ai automation. Monetary velocity within that upper strata of society will probably be only slightly lower than what we have now overall, the rich would just be paying for more things and more expensive things. If I had to guess there would still be plenty of economic activity, just amongst the people who actually have money to transact.